21. EMELI SANDE (4,303,000)

 

http://assets7.capitalfm.com/2011/50/emeli-sande-1-1323883881-view-0.jpg

 

14 HITS 2009-2013

 

BIGGEST HIT: BENEATH YOUR BEAUTIFUL

 

Initial hits with Naughty Boy, Chipmunk and Wiley set her up in the credibility stakes but her career really went into overdrive when her debut album “Our Version Of Events” went stratospheric and she was everywhere for a while. Ironically she’s only made No 1 twice and on both occasions it took duets to do it namely with Labrinth and Professor Green.

 

Discography

 

 

Personal highlight

 

 

Seeing Ellie Goulding and her cheese grating voice higher than the amazing Alicia Keys is pretty vomit inducing.

 

I'm yet to hear anything else as good as Heaven from Emeli Sande.

Ellie :heart:

 

She's probably at around 6 million now :D

Leona top 20!

Kylie will no doubt be top 10 😀

Kim Wilde - Huh thought she would have sold more than that as she was pretty huge in the 80's and really enjoyed some of her hits 'Kids In America', 'Cambodia', 'You Came' & 'You Keep Me Hangin' On' which was an awesome cover and definitely stands as one of the best covers ever.

 

Amy Winehouse - An amazing talent that was taken away from us far too soon, 'Back To Black' was an incredible album that will stand the test of time for many years to come, it would have been interesting to see what she would have done next, but sadly we'll never get to see that. 'Rehab', 'You Know I'm No Good', 'Back To Black', 'Tears Dry On Their Own', 'Valerie' & 'Love Is A Losing Game', such an amazing run of singles from one album,

 

Cheryl = She's okay, always found her a bit hit and miss, 'Fight For This Love' was an amazing debut single, but weren't keen on '3 Words' single or the album itself, apart from the lead single & 'Parachute', to be honest I didn't like Will.i.am's production on it and he's plastered all over that album and it's a bit much. Plus always found her more of a singles artist and never found her albums enjoyable, especially her 2nd album 'Messy Little Raindrops' which was awful. Apart from a few enjoyable singles 'Call My Name' & 'Crazy Stupid Love', I find her rather overrated.

Alicia Keys - Highly underrated over in the UK, she's such a great singer and her first 4 albums are fantastic, can't believe songs like 'You Don't Know My Name' & 'if I Ain't Got You' didn't make the top 10, but was glad that 'No One' became a big hit here and the album 'As I Am' is fantastic and deserved much bigger sales in the UK than it did. But glad that 'The Element Of Freedom' became a smash and had a decent run of top 10 hits which was totally deserved, 'Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart' remains my favourite song of hers and both versions of 'Empire (State Of Mind)' are fantastic. She should bring out a greatest hits album already and would love to hear songs like 'Fallin', 'A Woman's Worth', 'Teenage Love Affair', 'Like You'll Never See Me Again', 'Doesn't Mean Anything', as well as the songs I've mentioned all on one album.

 

Ellie Goulding = Another amazing singer and love her 2nd album 'Halcyon Days' is still fantastic and is what made me a fan of hers and she always continue to impress me with some brilliant songs like 'The Writer', 'Anything Could Happen', 'Burn', 'How Long Will I Love You', 'Goodness Gracious' & 'Love Me Like You Do'. She has such a unique voice and shows more versatively than a lot of female singers that are around at the moment. Shame her 3rd album 'Delirium' was as successful and we only got 3 singles, okay it wasn't as strong as her first 2 albums, but there was still some potential on there 'Lost And Found' should have been a single at least, as that would have been a much better choice than 'Army'.

 

Emeli Sande = She's got a great voice and everything, but honestly I never saw the huge fuss with her as didn't really connect with her, however did enjoy some of her songs 'Next To Me', 'Beneath You're Beautiful' & 'Clown' they were all decent. It does seem however that she's another artists whose struggling since the new chart rules with streaming and that as her 2nd album doesn't seem to doing all that great and none of the singles have been that successful,, her last song tanking at #78 isn't a good sign is it.

A reminder before we start the top 20 that I use the old Gallup figures and the "Higher" figures for the 1994-96 period which do not tally the official OCC estimates for sales of artists pre 1996. As a consequence the older acts may have figures lower than the OCC provide as it had become clear in doing this that the official lists must contain shipment figures and/or official certifications for this period and not panel sales. This will become clear now we are in the top 20.

20.JENNIFER LOPEZ (4,328,000)

 

http://img.usmagazine.com/article-leads-vertical-300/1251224611_jennifer_lopez_290x402.jpg

 

25 HITS 1999-2013

 

BIGGEST HIT: ON THE FLOOR

 

Certainly for a time the biggest female act in the world (around 2001-03 period), her first 17 singles all went top 20, she scored 4 US chart toppers and 2 UK No 1’s to boot. She also ran a commercially successful film career during the period and a high profile relationship with actor Ben Affleck led to the “original” portmanteau couple “Bennifer”. All of that whilst becoming the first woman to win FHM’s Sexiest Woman vote two years running.

 

Discography

 

 

Personal highlight

 

Pink, Celine Dion, Kylie and Madonna are safe top 10 placements on this list i would believe.

19. CHER (4,337,000)

 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/11/18/article-2509576-197E4FAE00000578-737_306x423.jpg

 

27 HITS 1987-2013

 

BIGGEST HIT: BELIEVE

 

Famous as an actress for most of the 80s Cher’s return to music in 1988 heralded another decade in the top flight ending with her biggest hit ever, the 1.6 million selling “Believe” which set off a mini fad for the vocoder as an instrument in its own right and set the template for dance makeovers for other 60s singers like Diana Ross, Tina Turner and Lulu.

 

Discography

 

 

Personal highlight

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do love me some J.Lo but I do question if she has had any songs that will stand the test of time ?

Which cant be said for the other females in this top 20 (I predict) .

Edited May 22, 20178 yr by vibe

To me the most surprising thing about Ellie Goulding is her inconsistency.

 

I've always imagined she has two fanbases, a fanbase that likes the more alternative stuff, and a fanbase that likes her ballads and slow work, because there's such a big contrast between the two types of tracks she releases. Pretty consistently, her tracks that do best are the most middle-of-the-road and pandering ones.

 

Same could be said for Emeli Sande. Heaven was a great track and everything she's done since has got increasingly beige. I remember when she did the Olympics all the comments from people who couldn't believe she was a modern artist and only in her 20s for the kind of songs she was doing.

 

JLo and Cher together is fitting; JLo being the only one of the ladies from her generation who's successfully reinvented herself as a 'cool grown woman'/'milf'/dancefloor queen like Cher did with Believe. I've always thought at some point Madonna should transition to that kind of image, although fair play to her for pushing boundaries even in this stage of her career.

Jennifer Lopez = She was great back in the day and couldn't do no wrong, although again I've always found her more of a singles artist than albums artist. These days though she's more hit and miss (mainly miss). But she has had some great songs 'If You Had My Love' & 'Waiting For Tonight' are both still awesome and class them as modern classics and others I like from her 'Let's Let Loud' (why wasn't this given a UK release as it would have sure smashed), 'I'm Real' (the normal pop version, not the awful Ja Rule remix), 'Ain't It Funny' (both versions are great), 'I'm Gonna Be Alright', 'Get Right', 'On The Floor', 'Papi', & 'Live It Up'.

 

Cher = One the greatest Diva's of alltime and she's a fantastic actress as well to boot, her music in the 80's and 90's was probably some of her best with classics like 'I Found Someone', 'If I Could Turn Back Time', 'Shoop Shoop Song', 'One By One', 'Save Up All Your Tears' & of course the dancefloor classic 'Believe'.

What sales do you have for Believe Gezza? Up to the end of 2013 the sales were 1.79 million so just wondering if you've included the download sales.

I probably just quoted the 90s figure- doh! Downloads are included

18. LEONA LEWIS (4,405,000)

 

 

17 HITS 2006-2013

 

BIGGEST HIT: BLEEDING LOVE

 

Her debut single became the fastest selling debut ever by a female soloist, then the album became the fastest selling debut by a woman as well, yes the X Factor found its most successful female winner all the way back in 2006. “Bleeding Love” hammered home the message as it topped charts on both sides of the Atlantic and by the end of 2013 she scored an 8th top 5 single- a record for a UK Female act.

 

Discography

 

 

Personal highlight

 

 

17. DIANA ROSS (4,424,000)

 

http://ilosm.cdnize.com/wp-content/uploads/7-13-diana.jpg

 

41 HITS 1980-2005

 

BIGGEST HIT: CHAIN REACTION

 

For an act that transcended chart fads for much of her career it seems odd that we’ve not seen Ms Ross in the charts for fast approaching 20 years now (I’m ignoring THAT Westlife duet obviously). I can’t say anything new about her career that hasn’t been said before, she’s the oldest lady on our survey, after Barbra Streisand, at 73 years old now.

 

Discography

 

 

Personal highlight

 

Leona Lewis's career is the definition of hit and miss. Looking back I wonder why Syco ended up squandering her - fair enough to not be invested in your acts, but Leona was a ready-made cash cow just needing to be pointed in the direction of decent, middle of the road pop songs. Just a little positoning and she could've made them millions more instead of only having the few hit singles.

 

As for Diana Ross, wow she has a lot more tracks than I could've recalled out of my head. Diana Ross chart hit songs would be a great Pointless category.

Leona what a voice but zero personality or star power. She's so hard to connect with , she was not a entertainer .