2012 Guiness World Records and Elvis

In the 2012 Guiness Book of World Records concerning most successful acts and record sellers
Guiness mentions The Beatles as the most successful group-with an "estimated" one Billion in worldwide sales and Elvis is listed as the most successful solo artist-with a mention of One Billion sales worldwide. Thats great news but I noticed that the Beatles total was qualified by the word "estimated" and Elvis's was not.
Not sure if that was intentional or an oversight on their part.....either way it puts him officially tied globally with the Beatles and MJ was not even mentioned in the couple paragraphs on this topic.

I thought for the last several years Guiness always had Elvis with a billion record sales. I don't remember if the Beatles were always with a billion record sales. I know they were always the number one group.

I had a copy of an old Guiness Book of World Records, aprrox 1972, which lists the Beatles with sales of approx 300,000,000 units. An early 80's Guiness book stated an approx worlwide sales of Beatles's units to be approx 500,000,000 and mentions Elvis' record sales to be a reported 1 billion with Gold Record sales approaching 80. I don't see any sourced material for Guiness' claims and RCA/BMG/Sony don't appear to have any definite figures either. Their math appears as fuzzy as the Treassure Secretary Timothy "turbo Tax" Geithner.

Well all I know is Guiness is a quoted source by literally every avenue of life in which some accomplishment is listed.
The 2012 Guiness does list Elvis's "certified album totals for the US" where he is listed as the top solo record seller.
As far as the criteria for their sourcing-it is the same as they use for every recording artist, Elvis, Beatles, MJ, Rolling Stones etc....so no one is getting any preferential treatment.
I do know that when Guiness says "units" it means all sales of records of all kinds not just album sales (the RIAA totals are for Album sales alone) Guiness includes all record sales of all media and all formats, such as 33s, 45s, 78s, reel to reel, 8-tracks, cassettes, cds, and now Internet downloads. Elvis was from the era of single sales were the goal, not albums-given this fact it is AMAZING-he is top solo seller in the US for albums.
I am confident that the billion mark for Elvis is rock solid. For those who are not I can not convince you.
The RIAA has been shown several times how many records Elvis has sold in the US alone which are uncertified-he has well over 400 album releases, reissues, etc....not including specialty things like Time Life releases.
For many years Guiness use to list Bing Crosby with over 300 million records sold worldwide-but they mentioned that Elvis had fill in the blank depending on year of Guiness publication major hits and it was presumed that Elvis had succeeded Bing as the top record seller.....
RCA/Sony has steadily and deliberately made progress toward total documentation of Elvis's record totals in every country-not just the US.
For any sales before the computer age, many want to downplay the figures, especially if they do not like the totals for a particular artist.
Well fuzzy math has long been a part of record companys MO-while Elvis was alive, fuzzy math could have kept true royaltees from being paid
Later when RCA contracted with several other record company pressing plants to produce Elvis product for the year after Elvis died fuzzy math might have also taken place.........

B

On the back cover of the latest 'Elvis In Concert' Tour Programme it lists Elvis' Worldwide Record Sales as 1.1 Billion. First time I have seen that figure quoted.

Brian :D

I think in todays world where it seems that numbers are the key to everything-success or failure is not viewed in an artistic sense-it is dollars and cents which unfortunately drive society.
So if that is the case I am always happy to see any acknowledgement of how well Elvis succeeded.....in terms that society seems to understand best.
A billion units that is given some legitimacy has to make even the biggest skeptics stop to think-how could he have done such a thing (or even come close) if he did not have extra ordinary talent and charisma.
So IMO although numbers and money is not acknowledgement of artistic success-it has to enhance the image of Elvis to people who brush him off.

Pretty weird that the company that should pay Elvis royalties for each and every unit sold, can't say how many units actually have been sold. So what's the base for their royalty payments? Elvis receives payment both as performing artist and often publishing rights.

Unbelievable record companies can get away with this obvious theft so easily. Million selling acts from the 40s up to the 70s (from Frank Sinatra to even the Beatles) have been robbed by their own record and publishing companies.

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Originally Posted by Albert

Pretty weird that the company that should pay Elvis royalties for each and every unit sold, can't say how many units actually have been sold. So what's the base for their royalty payments? Elvis receives payment both as performing artist and often publishing rights.

Unbelievable record companies can get away with this obvious theft so easily. Million selling acts from the 40s up to the 70s (from Frank Sinatra to even the Beatles) have been robbed by their own record and publishing companies.

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And don't forget the Stones. Or how about Leonard Cohen's manager?

Elvis had an unfair deal with Col.Parker and certainly both his record label and the hollywood deals mistreated Elvis, but the true is, it wasn't something that rare back then, but because the amount of money Elvis made, it was one of the most obvious.

Oh many artists were taken advantage of by record companies, promoters, managers-they would claim things to the artist and artists trusted them.
Then when a royaltee check came in the only people who really knew the true sales were the ones who sent the check-it was trusting the wolf with the key to the chicken coup.
Elvis had sales like no one had ever seen since recordings were sold-and RCA could always claim we just can not keep up with the record keeping and so every now and then a huge check would come to Elvis-and naturally he assumed all his sales were included.....but time has shown that record companies worked to keep sales from artists, before computer tracking made it nearly impossible.
Over time Parker was not nearly as diligent on Elvis's behalf on trying to keep track of sales.....at least according to the probate judge who handled Elvis's estate.