Top 20 artists of the decade

So I came across this list the other day of the top selling artists of the…naughts? The first decade of the 21st century? How can we be nine years into this decade and we have yet to come up with a name for it yet? Anyway, here are the best selling (apparently in terms of discs sold) artists.

#20: Celine Dion: 17.6 million
#19: Kid Rock: 17.6 million
#18: Johnny Cash: 17.9 million
#17: Dixie Chicks: 18.3 million
#16: *NSync: 18.4 million
#15: Alan Jackson: 18.5 million
#14: Metallica: 18.5 million
#13: Rascal Flatts: 18.8 million
#12: Josh Groban: 19.1 million
#11: Nickelback: 19.2 million
#10: Jay-Z: 19.4 million
#9: Creed: 20.4 million
#8: Linkin Park: 21.1 million
#7: Nelly: 21.2 million
#6: Kenny Chesney: 21.4 million
#5: Britney Spears: 22.9 million
#4: Toby Keith: 24.2 million
#3: Tim McGraw: 24.3 million
#2: The Beatles: 27.6 million
#1: Eminem: 31.1 million

Let’s see what we can learn from this list as it is rather fascinating. First off, we can see the impact of the rise of iTunes as I would be hard pressed to point to any of these twenty artists and mention any significant work in terms of sales in the past three to five years. The list is loaded more towards what was big at the first half of the decade.

We also have the back catalog wonders in Johnny Cash and The Beatles. Now both of them did have some pretty significant releases this decade but in reality all of those sales are coming from people returning to their music. In my mind, people going for back catalog will actually want the CDs and not an iTunes track. Add to that the Josh Groban and Celnie Dion sales, which mainly come from less technically savvy people and therefore move more physical product than virtual product.

You certainly cannot discount the country music field with seven of the top twenty. Though even I am amazed that people are still buying Alan Jackson records. I didn’t even know that he was still making music. I am happy to see the Dixie Chicks on the list as they are a group that deserves their success. As opposed to say, Nickelback or Creed for whom the world would be better served if they both met with a case of permanent laryngitis.

But it is the decade of Eminem and by a pretty significant margin. Again, most of this is from his work at the start of the decade when most people bought CDs as opposed to digital tracks and he undoubtedly was the biggest act at that time. I also can’t question his talent because he can bring it when he wants to. I do wonder at times that his humor tends to cross the line into Weird Al territory. Some of his videos and songs seem to be more of a parody than anything else and the whole Bruno bit from the MTV awards just shows once again that he is playing the role of Eminem. I’m not sure if that is a bad thing (Bono has been playing Bono for two decades now) but for someone whose entire persona is built upon him being real it casts an odd tinge to the entire piece.