Most successful musicians of all time

With awards season in full swing, and the GRAMMYs taking place on Monday evening, we started wondering about just who are the most successful musicians of all time in terms of diamond, gold and platinum discs. Our infographic below uses stats from The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to determine which artist is the most successful and what the value of their discs would equate to if they were made purely from gold and platinum.

After delving deep, we found that by these standards Elvis Presley is the most successful musician of all time, with his total number of gold and platinum discs equating to a value of $777,605. In total, the artists featured below have been awarded 511 Gold, 383 Platinum and 222 Multi-Platinum albums weighing approximately 120 grams each, which would equate to a staggering $5,300,598 if they were made purely from those materials. We also wondered if there was a correlation between the number of these discs and the number of GRAMMY awards the artist has won – with some very interesting results! Take a look at our infographic below to find out more.