The 12 Top Selling Female Artists Of All Time (4 of 4)

Taylor Swift

Best-Selling Album: Fearless

Sales: 200 million

No. 1 Singles Billboard: Look What You Made Me Do, Willow, We Are Never Getting Back Together, Blank Space, Cardigan, Shake It Off, Bad Blood

One of the leading pop stars of the current generation, Taylor Swift became a huge success in the year 2006 when she arrived on the big stage. She added a unique pop twist to all her songs, which made her quite unique and popular.

Albums Success

Taylor released her self-titled album that was on the number one spot on Billboard 200 for close to 157 weeks, making it one of the biggest album hits of the 2000s era. She followed it up with the success of Fearless, her second album, which was diamond certified and became the first of those magical eight albums that reached the top spot in the United States.

Taylor Swift album sales are close to 37 million copies in the United States. She is also the first artist to have the best-seller album of the year five times (1989 in 2014, Fearless in 2009, Reputation in 2017, Lover in 2019, and Evermore and Folklore in 2020). Her recent album, Folklore, broke the record for having the most first-day streams by a singer on Spotify.

Singles Success

Taylor Swift songs have made an entry on the Hot 100 a grand 128 times, which includes seven number one songs and 29 that made it to the top ten – the most by far by any woman artist!

Shake It Off! Is Taylor Swift’s biggest hit to date and is diamond certified, while all the songs on Folklore and Lover made an entry on the Hot 100 in the very same week, which broke the record for having the highest number of simultaneous entries by a woman singer on the Hot 100. Folklore stayed at the top position for 48 weeks, which made her the only woman to have achieved such a feat.

Other Ventures

Taylor Swift is on the list of Billboard’s Greatest Artists of All Time, and has been included in the Time’s top 100 most influential people on the planet for three years (2010, 2015, and 2019). She has won the Grammys 11 times, the Billboard Music Awards 23 times, and holds 28 Guinness World Records in her name!

Rihanna

Best-Selling Album: Good Girl Gone Bad

Sales: 250 million

No. 1 Singles Billboard: Only Girl, SOS, Take a Bow, Diamonds, Umbrella, Rude Boy, Disturbia, Work, We Found Love, What’s My Name, S&M

Rihanna made her debut way back in 2006 with Pon de Replay and since then, she has become a leading pop icon worldwide, delivering one hit after another. She has a total of nine hit albums to date, and that has cemented her place as the second best-selling woman singer ever, selling more than 250 million copies worldwide.

Albums Success

Rihanna’s nine albums are multi-platinum and platinum-certified by RIAA, with over 10 million copies sold in the United States alone! Her biggest hits include Anti and Unapologetic, both of which have received thrice platinum certification.

Singles Success

Rihanna has a collection of 75 songs to date, which includes 14 songs that have reached the top spot on Billboard Hot 100, while another 31 have made it to the top ten list. Rihanna is the only singer in the world to have reached the top spot with seven different albums!

Her single Umbrella was a top spot gainer in fifteen countries, and remained on the number one rank on Hot 100 for seven weeks, while her track Rude Boy achieved similar success and stayed at the top spot for five weeks back to back.

Rihanna also has had a number of worldwide number one spots, including one for We Found Love, which was a top-ranked song in twenty-nine nations and was the top of the ladder on Hot 100 for a grand total of 10 weeks!

Other Ventures

Rihanna has won the Grammys 9 times, the American Music Awards 13 times, the Billboard Music Awards 12 times, and the Guinness World Records for six feats. She has also turned her attention to acting lately and was seen in movies such as Valerian and the City of Thousand Planets, Battleship, and Ocean’s 8.

Rihanna also owns multiple businesses, which include LVMH, Fenty Beauty and Skincare, and Savage x Fenty.

Madonna

Best-Selling Album: The Immaculate Collection

Sales: 300 million

No. 1 Singles Billboard: Open Your Heart, Like a Virgin, Live To Tell, Who’s That Girl, Crazy For You, Papa Don’t Preach, Like a Prayer, This Used To Be My Playground, Music

It wouldn’t come as a surprise to many that the “Queen of Pop” holds the top spot for best-selling woman artist ever. Madonna made her way to the big stage in 1982 and since then, she has always found a way to reinvent herself and keep delivering mega-hits year after year.

She has to date sold close to 300 million records across the globe, which is miles ahead of others.

Albums Success

Madonna’s first album wasn’t a raging success and managed to reach the eighth spot on the Billboard 200. However, her next few albums were on course to change history. Like a Virgin got diamond certified, while her next True Blue was the number one in a staggering 28 nations.

Her fourth album, Like a Prayer, found similar success and reached the number one spot, which made her the only woman singer in the 80s to have the most top spot albums on the Billboard 200. Her second diamond-certified music album was The Immaculate Collection, and to date remains the best-seller compilation music album ever.

Madonna continued her rise as an icon and her tenth album Confessions on a Dance Floor went on to gain the top spot in forty nations!

Singles Success

Madonna has 12 songs that reached the top spot, with Like a Prayer making her the woman artist with most number-one singles in the 80s along with Whitney Houston.

Hung Up has been Madonna’s biggest hit to date, which claimed the top spot in 41 nations across the globe and earned her a Guinness World Record in 2007.

Madonna went past the great Elvis Presley as the singer with the most number of top 10 songs, after her track 4 Minutes went on to hit the top spot, making it the 37th song of her career to do so.

Other Ventures

Madonna is the undisputed queen and has rightfully earned the top spot in the list of best-selling women singers of all time – a title that Guinness World Records has confirmed. She is also the most successful woman artist to grace the Billboard Hot 100 and has the most number-one songs by a woman singer in countries like UK, Australia, Italy, Spain, and Canada.

So, this completes our list of best-selling female singers of all time. With more and more talented singers entering the fray, we wonder how long Madonna will wear the crown.