Who is the SECOND most acclaimed and successful artist ever?

Who is the SECOND most acclaimed and successful artist ever?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists
youtube.com/watch?v=83R53tX0ts8
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Dylan

*cracks knuckles*
*clears throat*
the

Michael Jackson probably

Michael Jackson

Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson

Lil Yachty

2 Live Crew

Picasso

F A C T

Pink Floyd. Really the only other band to see such massive success combined with critical appreciation, at least to that magnitude, and even then they lag behind The Beatles by a good bit. The Beatles really are just an anomaly.

>acclaimed
MJ did okay as far as critical acclaim goes but his success was mostly commercial.

Probably this.

This is a meaningless question, because acclaim just means that a large number of people value them. Google all-time record sales and there you go, second from the top is your answer. I assume "successful" in this context means who made the most bank, so again, it's not a question you need to ask individual music lovers, it's a question for industry tipsters and historians.

That's what acclaim is. You didn't say underground acclaim. He's one of the best selling artists in history, he's pretty acclaimed.

If you mean critical acclaim, you then have to define "critic", and distinguish a critic from a reviewer. Popular music is a genre where the distinction is harder to make than it would usually be, because such a lot of pop/rock criticism is written by people who have a sociological bent - for them, the popularity of a record is an important indication of its merit. These are the people who deal with the success of records they don't like by making out that they were bought by the wrong elements in society, which is hilarious and no better than bluenose record-burning rallies, but whatever. My point is, you have to decide which acclaim matters first, which entails making a canon of critics. Otherwise, this is, like I said above, a meaningless question.

Nobody, really. They're the number 1 and a lot of people contend for number 2.

If we go by a combination of acclaim and success, it's either Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin. Yes I know, dadrock, yada yada. But go look at the reviews and the records sold. It's enormous

That's the thing about the Beatles, is that they were simultaneously the best reviewed music and the best selling music. Never happened before and hasn't happened since. Highly unlikely it'll ever happen again, or at least in our lifetime. Right time, right place, right personnel.

>best reviewed music
Until 1968.

Second biggest seller is Elvis, which is why OP mentioned "acclaim", which is unquantifiable.

radiohead

Elvis is from the singles era. Modern music acclaim is fixated on the album format. It's not fair or unfair but it is what it is. Very little music before the "album era" is considered very much other than as influences to following acclaimed "album acts".

If we go purely by sales, which is how the average person feels about the music (which is their own personal review), then yes it is Elvis. And maybe that's just the best criteria to go with because it's the only objective one.

Radiohead record sales are minuscule compared to the top echelon, they're automatically disqualified. Almost every act from the mid-90s and onwards is disqualified.

>Until 1968.
But The White album and Abbey Road are both critically acclaimed

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists

>Modern music acclaim is fixated on the album format.

What extraordinary nonsense. First of all, again, define "acclaim". Define "critics". When you've done that, notice that the album format has been of secondary relevance for most of this century. Albums get reissued with a bunch of additional tracks six months later under a different title. Old albums get reissued with new tracklistings that sometimes don't even bother keeping the original listing intact before the added stuff comes in. Only a minority of listeners now think in terms of the album. "Modern" does not mean "1975".

But you're right, sales are the only thing charts refer to that's provable, so we may as well say it's Elvis. It seems about right.

Nirvana

Do you really believe this ?

Is it possible for an act in this era or in the future to become as big as The Beatles/Elvis/Michael were ?

A lot of pop stars will eventually surpass them. Rock bands probably not, genre isn't that big anymore.

Now they are, because they're by the Beatles, but people started to criticize their output heavily from Magical Mystery Tour onwards. They were compared unfavourably to people like Cream (chops, live experience) and Pink Floyd (experimentation, going the distance into what eventually became prog, and again, they gave you gigs). They had split the market themselves, but were still trying to play both sides of the street, both pop and hip; the circumstances they'd created meant that it was no longer possible.

The last two years of the Beatles' history is about them trying and failing to deal with the fact that, as Lennon acknowledged later, their sense of the language of the rock idiom basically ossified in 1963. Paul's idea to basically rip off The Band, which is what Get Back amounted to, was a way of getting around their lack of soloing instinct (George, Paul) and ability (Ringo, John).

Yes, but in idioms with no conceivable relationship to rock and roll - though arguably Michael didn't have much of that either, his use of rock guitar always sounds corny and second-hand, a demographic acknowledgment rather than something that comes out of his feel.

I think Lady Gaga will go down in that category.

Michael Jackson, Elvis, or Stevie Wonder

Do you remember how big Eminem was in 1999-2002?

Nowhere near as big.

youtube.com/watch?v=83R53tX0ts8

Gaga had her chance but fell way short. Rihanna surpassed her.

This is closer

He totally was. Literally everyone was talking about him, he caused a massive moral panic (parents wouldn't let their kids listen to them), and was on Time's shortlist for Person of the Year in 02.

Of course there might be some kind of racial or sociopolitical implications of this because he's white but he was definitely as big as Michael was at his peak.

Eminem fell off so hard though

The closest modern example I would say is Kanye West.

Kanye isn't a fraction of those guys commercial and cultural impact. He has the critical component but not the sales.

Led Zeppelin.

elvis presley prob

Eminem had a more specific audience though, his music mainly appealed to edgy teenagers because of his controversial lyrics. Stuff like MJ and The Beatles appealed to everyone.

Probably Kanye.

Yeah, so there a lot of people who do that now and will probably top MJ in sales. Katy Perry topped MJ in sales.

This. Nobody I knew listened to Eminem. I don't know any of his songs. Rap is too divisive so it can't be played at grocery stores and shit, it's not inescapable like The Beatles or MJ.

Not exactly true. Everyone from ages 8-30 liked Eminem. For the kids it was edgy and something they "weren't supposed to do" and for the young adults it was hilarious and totally different. It wasn't even uncommon for parents to like a song or two of his. The dad who fucking hates every rap song ever loves 97 Bonnie in Clyde, he laughs out loud at it.

Eminem was HUGE

Do you live in Detroit or something?

Not even close

And Michael didn’t? I’d go as far as to say he fell off harder.

well he raped some kiddies so

He was a chart fixture from the early 70's through to the early 90's.

Michael's career is wayyy longer and more celebrated.

His name and public image became synonymous with child molesting weirdo in the early 90s.

If Eminem died tomorrow the world wouldn't shit its pants like it did when MJ or Elvis died.

It almost certainly would.

Still, 20 years of consistent hits.

Led zeppelin

...

...

The general public mostly remembers The Beach Boys as those guys who sang about surfing and cars.

I hope you just accidentally posted this in the wrong thread. I mean I love sleep as much as the next guy but I wouldn't say they are very popular.

whoopie goldberg cried interviewing him

Oh yeah
This would be more relevant.
jk, i don't have any picture of normie artists

Definitely NOT Grimes

>inb4 buttmad grimes spewing bullshit that none came close to one beatle

Dylan is the right answer. In a hundred years from now the only rock artists they'll still be talking about will be The Beatles and Bob Dylan.

You couldn't be more wrong

Dylan's record sales aren't very high
Many people have probably never heard a Dylan song, especially globally

As long as people are talking about rock, they'll talk about the Stones.

Influence yes, record sales no.

That one blues rock cover band.

Pink Floyd

if you're just going by a single album you could say Aja because it probably had more 5-star, 10/10 ratings than any record.

adorable

>In a hundred years from now the only rock artists they'll still be talking about will be The Beatles and Bob Dylan
Dylan's only claim is his lyrics - and they're pretty awful tBh. They're good for music, but they're trying to be real poetry, and they're not even close to good poetry, let alone great.
The Beatles are brilliant musically, Dylan's strength wasn't his composition.

What about Zeppelin?

that

Kraftwerk, although it is arguable that they are more influential currently, than The Beatles.

They have the acclaim but dont have the sales.

Zeppelin were massive in their day, and critically respected now, but critics actually hated them in the 70s.

I understand you were probably too young for MJ's peak popularity but Eminem most certainly did not reach that. Also Eminem despite being hugely popular his window of critical acclaim was relatively small.

Agreed.

Jackson was the other massive phenomenon next to The Beatles. There were actually a lot of superstars in the 20th Century, but noone quite on the scale of either of those.

He has more total sales.