Initial and lasting popularity, influence.

Someone like Robert Johnson had little, if any, initial popularity, but his records are still selling and being talked about 75 years later, and he's had lots of influence, as opposed to someone like Ben Selvin, who had great initial popularity but little lasting popularity or influence. It's difficult to find the right mix, but I think the list is pretty decent now, as compared to what it loooked like before the revision.

If we're counting sales, why is Meat Loaf no where on here? Bat out of Hell is one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Also no George Michael?

It's an artist list, not an album list. Other than that one album, Loaf hasn't really done much of significance.

I show George Michael with three big albums over an 8 year period, but nothing much in the past 20 years. Does he have some sort of inlfuence that is significant, beyond having a lot of hit records in the 1980s?

In Satch's favor, he is probably the single most influential popular musician of the 20th century. No exaggeration. Sales hurt him but I think he beats the others above him in everything else

I'd say Elvis and the Beatles are much more influential than Armstrong, especially when it comes to influence beyond just the music.

Kanye West just made his debut on the list.

And that's why he's in the top ten despite not being even close to being among the top 100 artists in popularity.

So Bruce, are you in charge of this now?
Very interesting list, great stylistic variety.

Yes.

get into it bruce, keen to see your changes, at first glance at this list seems to be just thrown together without too much thought or fact, but is just a list, im not sure what gauges are being used to determine where an artist is placed.

even in lasting popularity? i just remember being a kid in elementary school and learning about Louis Armstrong as if he were the first person to ever play music or something. idk if that is cultural impact or lasting popularity or what it is. but it has to count for something that every kid learns about him and Elvis in history class.

plus without looking at any charts, i would make an educated guess that any Louis Armstrong comp that has been released in the last 2 decades has sold more than any of his peers. in fact, i'm not sure how many of his peers regularly receive compilation releases every year to begin with.

I don't think he's charted an album since "Hello Dolly" in 1964, which was #1 for 6 weeks. I wonder how many artists have had their last chart album hit #1 and then never make the album chart again.

I don't think nay of his albums in the last two decades has come close to selling as many as the Robert Johnson Complete Recordings, which went platinum.

The Millenium Collection: The Best Of Louis Armstrong hit number 192 in 2000; Ken Buns Jazz: The Definitive Louis Armstrong his number 142 the following year. Those were his only two albums to chart after Hello Dolly.

It might depend on who is considered a peer of Armstrong. Johnson might not be, since he came along 10 years later.

Bruce, Madonna is too low.