Timeline of the Best Selling Music Artists (1969-2019)

Data Is Beautiful (previously), a first year PhD student and self-described data geek who enjoys making visualizations as a hobby, created a fascinating animated timeline video that shows the best-selling music artists from the first quarter of 1969 through the third quarter of 2019. The data for this timeline was compiled through a number of different sources using “different medias such as album sales, radio broadcasting, digital copies sales and online streaming frequency.”

Timeline history of most popular music artists from 1969 to 2019 ranked by yearly certified record sales. Numbers are worldwide and adjusted to twelve months trailing average.