Bob Marley was a Jamaican reggae singer and songwriter. He started his music career in 1963 with his band group the Wailers and with them forged his distinctive songwriting and vocals that would later resonate with his fans worldwide. After the Wailers broke up in 1974, Marley went on to pursue a solo career with much success.
Still today, with over 75 million albums and singles, Marley is one of the world’s best-selling artists in the history of music. He helped to transform reggae to a social force that’s every bit as powerful as rock & roll at its prime.
$1.2 billion
Ranked the "fifth most powerful person in British culture" by The Daily Telegraph in 2008, lyricist Don Black has stated that "Andrew more or less single-handedly reinvented the musical." Several of Lloyd Webber’s musicals have run for more than a decade, both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed over a dozen musicals, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass, among others.
He is one of the few artists who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he is an inductee into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. He is one of fifteen people to have won an Emmy, Oscar, Grammy and Tony. The company he started, named the Really Useful Group, is one of the largest theatre operators in London. He is involved in numerous charitable activities, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Nordoff Robbins, Prostate Cancer UK and War Child. He also set up the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, which supports the arts, culture and heritage in the UK, in 1992.
$280 million
While she may not be a household name, Nana Mouskouri has one of the most impressive careers in the industry. During the entirety of her career, she has released 200 albums and singles in more than twelve different languages. Some of the languages include Greek, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, and many more.
She became famous throughout Europe for her song "The White Rose of Athens", which she recorded in German as "Weiße Rosen aus Athen" as a rendition of her Greek song "Σαν σφυρίξεις τρείς φορές" (San sfyríxeis tris forés, "When you whistle three times"). This soon became her first album to sell more than a million copies.
$300 Million
While his name doesn't may not ring a bell to most, nearly everyone knows his band. James Alan Hetfield is the co-founder, lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and main songwriter for the American heavy metal band Metallica, one the most popular metal bands of all time. In 2009, Hetfield was ranked at 8th place in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists, he ranked 24th place by Hit Parader's list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time, and the Rolling Stone placed Hetfield as the 87th greatest guitarist of all time. Not too shabby we might add.
Metallica’s most successful album so far is their 1991 self-titled project “Metallica” which is also known as the Black Album. That album alone has sold 31 million copies worldwide. Metallica has released 24 singles, 10 studio albums, 3 live albums, 4 extended plays which have sold more than 125 million copies globally. Metallica has won 9 Grammys, and in April, 2009, Hetfield and his band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
$135 Million
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. is best known by his stage name,Snoop Dogg. At a child he would sing and play piano at his church in Long Island, and later began writing rap lyrics as a teenager. After Snoop decided to focus on his music career, he caught the attention of the iconic record producer, Dr. Dre, in 1992, and even featured on Dre's solo debut single, "Deep Cover", and later his solo debut album, The Chronic, which would become a hip hop classic. A year later, in 1993 Snoop released his own debut album, Doggystyle, produced by Dr. De. A project that had high expectations after the public heard his features on Dre's work. Snoop did not disappoint, and the album topped both the Billboard 200 and Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. After selling almost a million copies in the first week, Doggystyle became quadruple platinum. And that was only the beginning.
Since 1992, Snoop Dogg has sold over 37 million albums worldwide and has collaborated with some of the best artists in the industry. In November 2018, Snoop Dogg was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Besides songwriting, Snoop Dogg has starred in films, hosted television shows, and also coaches a youth football league and high school football team.