...in terms of chart success for albums..... Zep was larger than Wonder throughout every country in the world that had album charts from Argentina to Mexico to Spain to Japan ... Take care

Japan as one example, Zep is well ahead of SW by a very wide margin in both the album and singles charts...

In Phillip Normans Elton Biography (1991) he says :-

'Between 1972 and 1977, a week seldom passed when he did not have an album or single. or both, in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic' ...

'He had 7 consecutive No 1 Albums in the US , 4 or which were simultaneoulsy No. 1 in the UK'...

A music trade paper computed that Elton accounted for 3% of all albums, tapes, singles and CD's around the world'


Great photo from Dodger Staudium in '75. Apparently, he took 60 valium and dived into his swimming pool the day before the show in a botched suicide attempt and then proceeded to give one of the greatest live shows ever performed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/elton-john--the-rocket-man-blasts-off-in-full-pomp-and-sequins-942590.html?action=Popup

... for trivia a comparison ... Take care

http://www.riaj.or.jp/

Led Zeppelin
Albums and Singles chart positions in Japan.

Albums
1969/12/25 Led Zeppelin II # 8 , 42 weeks
1970/11/20 Led Zeppelin III # 5 , 25 weeks
1971/01/25 Led Zeppelin III # 94 , 1 week
1971/04/05 Led Zeppelin II # 34 , 28 weeks
1971/11/08 Led Zeppelin IV # 2 , 30 weeks
1973/04/10 Houses of the Holy # 3 , 18 weeks
1975/02/20 Physical Graffiti # 13 , 18 weeks
1976/04/17 Presence # 2 , 15 weeks
1976/04/20 Presence # 36 , 5 weeks
1976/10/20 The Song Remains the Same # 6 , 28 weeks
1978/11/25 Led Zeppelin II[Re] # 94 , 1 week
1978/11/25 Led Zeppelin IV[Re] # 79 , 1 week
1978/11/25 The Song Remains the Same[Re] # 73 , 1 week
1978/11/25 Houses of the Holy[Re] # 91 , 1 week
1979/08/25 In Through the Out Door # 2 , 15 weeks
1979/08/25 In Through the Out Door # 60 , 6 weeks

Singles
1970/01/05 Whole Lotta Love # 50 , 15 weeks
1970/03/01 Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman) # 93, 1 week
1971/01/25 Immigrant Song # 13 , 11 weeks
1972/01/01 Black Dog # 24 , 17 weeks
1972/05/01 Rock and Roll # 34 , 14 weeks

Stevie Wonder
Albums and Singles chart positions in Japan.

Albums
1973/03/05 Talking Book # 44 , 15 weeks]
1974/05/05 Best Collection[Japan Only] # 50 , 31 weeks
1974/09/25 Fulfillingness' First Finale # 25 , 36 weeks
1974/11/05 Best[Japan Only] # 75 , 9 weeks
1975/06/05 New Best Collection[Japan Only] # 40 , 9 weeks
1976/10/10 Songs in the Key of Life # 40 , 16 weeks
1979/11/09 Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants # 31 , 11 weeks

Singles
1973/03/05 Superstition # 40 , 23 weeks
1974/09/25 You Haven't Done Nothin' # 42
1976/12/02 I Wish # 89

How about Elton John in Japan and other countries?

Hey Clash, I love your new icon:

Of course I mean that. Sorry.

Here it is for Japan and Zep and Elton John would be toe to toe around the world ... Take care
Elton John
Albums and Singles chart positions in Japan.

[Albums]
1971/01/25 Elton John # 40 , 28 weeks
1971/04/25 Tumbleweed Connection # 30 , 18 weeks
1971/06/05 Friends # 66 , 12 weeks
1971/06/05 17-11-70 # 52 , 8 weeks
1971/09/25 A Very special collection[Japan Only] # 7 , 29 weeks
1971/12/25 Madman Across The Water # 13 , 20 weeks
1972/07/10 Honky Chateau # 21 , 17 weeks
1973/03/05 Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player # 4 , 18 weeks
1973/10/21 Best20[Japan Only] # 50 , 17 weeks
1973/11/20 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road # 22 , 22 weeks
1974/07/10 Caribou # 20 , 14 weeks
1974/12/01 Greatest Hits # 67 , 12 weeks
1975/07/20 Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy # 20 , 13 weeks
1975/12/10 Rock Of The Westies # 47 , 7 weeks
1976/06/05 Here And There # 56 , 6 weeks
1976/12/20 Blue Moves # 53 , 8 weeks
1978/11/05 A Single Man # 74 , 6 weeks

[Singles]
1971/05/25 Friends # 67 , 6 weeks
1971/09/05 It's Me That You Need # 13 , 21 weeks
1972/01/25 Levon # 84 , 4 weeks
1972/12/01 Crocodile Rock # 34 , 23 weeks
1973/03/05 Daniel # 46 , 14 weeks
1973/08/02 Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting # 80 , 3 weeks
1973/11/05 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road # 56 , 16 weeks
1974/01/02 Step Into Christmas # 87 , 2 weeks
1975/04/02 Philadelphia Freedom # 92 , 2 weeks
1976/08/05 Don't Go Breaking My Heart # 77 , 8 weeks

.... had posted this earlier on this thread ... Take care

For some trivia from the 70`s, the year end positions for recorded material for the following artists..

Stevie Wonder

UK ALBUMS
1970-79:0-0-114-21-12-122-44-14-232-94
UK SINGLES
1970=79:17-115-140-37-38-148-242-23-0-264
US ALBUMS
1970-79: 75-98-49-9-4-220-78-15-156-267
US SINGLES
1970-79:17-32-101-4-5-120-199-8-226

Led Zeppelin

UK ALBUMS
1970-79:3-4-23-39-0-20-26-113-0-49
UK SINGLES
1970-79:0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
US ALBUMS
1970-79:11-65-52-5-17-9-20-110-0-16
US SINGLES
1970-79:75-173-100-107-214-212-0-0-0-327

Elton John

UK ALBUMS
1970 - 1979: 143-12-28-11-2-1-21-44-30-59
UK SINGLES
1970 - 1979: 0-92-16-10-13-20-3-92-51-100
US ALBUMS
1970 - 1979: 143-4-7-6-3-2-18-56-165-63
US SINGLES
1970 - 1979: 233-76-9-2-1-1-8-124-108-41

The Top 20 album Artists for the 70`s

US

1 Elton John
2 Chicago
3 John Denver
4 Led Zeppelin
5 Elvis Presley
6 The Rolling Stones
7 Neil Diamond
8 The Beatles
9 Stevie Wonder
10 Paul McCartney
11 Barbra Streisand
12 Grand Funk Railroad
13 The Eagles
14 Three Dog Night
15 Santana
16 Carole King
17 Doobie Brothers
18 Jethro Tull
19 Isaac Hayes
20 Fleetwood Mac

UK

1 Simon And Garfunkel
2 Pink Floyd
3 David Bowie
4 Rod Stewart
5 The Beatles
6 Elton John
7 The Carpenters
8 Abba
9 Paul McCartney
10 Led Zeppelin
11 Andy Williams
12 Mike Oldfield
13 Elvis Presley
14 The Rolling Stones
15 Neil Diamond
16 The Eagles
17 Electric Light Orchestra
18 Queen
19 Deep Purple
20 Cat Stevens

Globally Singles and Albums combined

1: Elton John
2: David Bowie
3: The Rolling Stones
4: Abba
5: Wings
6: Bee Gees
7: Led Zeppelin
8: Pink Floyd
9: Bob Dylan
10: Rod Stewart
11: Elvis Presley
12: Stevie Wonder
13: The Eagles
14: Queen
15: Santana
16: Deep Purple
17: Neil Young
18: Chicago
19: John Lennon
20: The Carpenters

Just from memory of living through the decade I would have said Elton was easily the top artist. Zep was huge with the suburban white kids I grew up with, but mainly just the boys. Elton was big with boys and girls and was even pretty big with blacks. I was working in a record store by 1974 and "Bennie" and a couple of other things were big with the black customers.

Stevie was not big at all in my all white high school (I graduated in 75). It was Zep, Elton, Tull, ELP, Yes, Alice Cooper, Cat Stevens, etc.....

I remember being shocked one day in about 1971 when some kid said the jackson 5 sucked and I told another kid who I expected to laugh at the first kid's stupidity....instead he said "he's right, they do suck." That was the first time I realized that the pot smoking derelicts did not like the same music that i did. I listened to top 40 radio and oldies. I did not even hear "Stairway To Heaven" until about late 1973. I knew that it was the most popular song in the school (I did a survey of the entire school as a class project) but I had never heard it.

The second biggest song, and # 1 with the girls at that time was something that was humongous at that time but died soon after and I guess was never big after the mid 70s..."Colour My World" by Chicago.

so are we giving Wonder credit because he has a "wider" appeal, even if the numbers clearly indicate Zeppelin as the more popular act?

how does that work? i mean, even if Zep only caters to young white males, thats still a huge amount of people. what is that, somewhere around 9.5% of the population thats white male between 15-35. compared to around 12.5% of the population is black and thats with all ages and both genders. sometimes people on this site tend to underestimate "young, white males" as a demographic, as if it were a niche market. its nearly a 10th of the population. and you can pretty much throw out "young" at this point, 40 years after "young" fans were into Zep (those same fans now are 50-60 years old). but all that is speculation. the numbers clearly point to Zep being more popular. wide appeal or not.

giving credit for "wide appeal" is basically saying "its not about how many people listen to you" its about "how many different demographics can you get small amounts of fans from". its pointless. and basically means having 3 white fans and 3 black fans is more important than having 10 fans from one specific race.

How about this?

Yes, Zep sold more albums than any other 70s artist. But the popularity of music is a lot more than just record sales. Many people in the 70s never bought music, but listened to it on the radio and in jukeboxes. Since Zep was not big with adults yet in the early to mid-70s, and since they did not even have singles in most countries, they were certainly not getting anywhere naer the jukebox play that Elton and Stevie were. This was well before the days where there were albums on jukeboxes.

For radio, Zep's music only fit one format, AOR. You didn't even hear their few hit singles much on top 40 stations because PD's saw their music as not right for most of their listeners. Meanwhile Stevie and Elton each had several records that fit on many formats, adult contemporary, top 40, AOR, black, even oldies. In 1975, for instance, you would hear several 1970-1973 Elton John and Stevie songs as oldies in regular rotation on stations like CBS-FM. I don't recall them ever playing any Zep.

"You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" (which i never liked much) was huge with older folks, played all the time at weddings, etc...

Zep was only played in two basic places aside from AOR radio. Bedrooms and cars of teenagers, mainly male teenagers who were getting high at the time.

Most parents in 1975 could name several songs by Elton John and Stevie Wonder, but probably none by Zep.

I guarantee you that more people in the world knew the song "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" than knew any Led Zep song by 1975. Most kids who knew the Zep songs would also know that Stevie song, but very few adults over 25, blacks, Hispanics, etc... knew any of the Zep songs, at least then.

You can't just measure popularity solely on record sales. You also had Stevie and Elton appearing on TV shows and talk shows but Zep never did any of that stuff.

Zep only had 2 or 3 songs in the entire decade that the non-AOR listener might know, while all the AOR listeners would know plenty of Elton songs and at least a few Stevie songs.

I know it's hard to believe, but I was 15 years old in early 1973 and had never heard "Stairway To Heaven." I never listened to AOR radio, and no other stations played the song then.

Most played songs on the radio:

http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_played.html

This is just in the U.S. I guess, but it shows how artists like Led Zep who sell more total albums than most of these other artists don't get the same kind of total airplay on any of their songs...

Stevie and Elton had songs on the list but no Zep:

Hard to say that an artist is the biggest of an entire decade when they don't really have even one song that the majority of music listeners in the country know.

In May, 2004, The British performing rights group Phonographic Performance Ltd celebrated its 70th anniversary by listing the 70 songs that have played most in Great Britain on the radio, in clubs and on jukeboxes. No indication was given of how many times the songs were played. The Top Ten are:

1. Procol Harum - A Whiter Shade Of Pale
2. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
3. Wet Wet Wet - Love Is All Around
4. Everly Brothers - All I Have To Do Is Dream
5. Bryan Adams - (Everything I Do) I Do It For You
6. Abba - Dancing Queen
7. Elvis Presley - All Shook Up
8. Rod Stewart - Maggie May
9. The Beatles - Hello Goodbye
10. The Beatles - Get Back

both Stevie songs on that list were from the 60s. so your argument against Zep pretty much rules Stevie out too, as he doesn't have any 70s material that, to quote you "the majority of music listeners in the country know".

if anything, we are just demonstrating why Elton should be above both. but i still don't see why Stevie is above Zeppelin.

Those two songs may have been originslly from the 60s but were likely played more in the 70s than the 60s, given that they had ten years to work with in the 70s and less than two years in the 60s for "For Once In My Life" and only a few months for "My Cherie Amour" in the 60s. Both were big for him during live shows in the 70s and both of the songs were on albums that were on the charts in the 70s. Don't forget, Zep never had any kind of a greatest hits album in those days.

Elton's greatest hits (vol 1) was one of the biggest albums of the decade, probably bigger than any Zep album in the U.S.

I'd have Elton as the top rock artist of the 70s if it was my list.