The top music artists in Japan include Japanese artists with claims of 15 million or more record sales or with over 2 million subscribers.

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

is the largest physical music market in the world and the second largest overall behind the United States, and the biggest in Asia, according to

International Federation of the Phonographic Industry The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a non-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland and founded in Italy in 1 ...

. Sources that provide the sales an artist or record company claim via

press release A press release (also known as a media release) is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing new information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public releas ...

, rather than certified or reported by reliable third parties such as

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that ...

, are denoted by a "†".

Oricon Charts

provides accumulated physical sales of all entries on its singles and albums charts (started in 1968 and 1970, respectively). Note that Oricon does not count sales of the records that did not enter or fell off of the charts, unlike

Nielsen SoundScan Luminate Data, LLC (formerly MRC Data and P-MRC Data) is a provider of music and entertainment data. Established as a joint-venture in 2020, it brought together Nielsen Music, Alpha Data (formerly BuzzAngle Music) and Variety Business Intellige ...

. Therefore, it generally shows fewer numbers than reported sales via record labels, and may not reflect the real sales obtained by these artists. In addition, it excludes recording artists like Michiya Mihashi, Hibari Misora, Yujiro Ishihara, and Hachiro Kasuga who had garnered most of their commercial success before Oricon was established in the late 1960s. The reported numbers like Mihashi's 100 million and Misora's 68 million records, are highly doubtful and cannot be confirmed by Oricon and

RIAJ The is an industry trade group composed of Japanese corporations involved in the music industry. It was founded in 1942 as the Japan Phonogram Record Cultural Association, and adopted its current name in 1969. The RIAJ's activities include prom ...

. The best-selling artist according to Oricon are B'z (more than 86 million), who is also the best-selling artist by a number of albums sold (46.5 million). The best-selling artists by number of singles sold are

AKB48 AKB48 (pronounced ''A.K.B. Forty-Eight'') is a Japanese idol musical girl group named after the Akihabara area in Tokyo, where the group's theater is located. AKB48 has sold more records than any other female musical act in Japanese history. AK ...

(73 million), B'z (35.8 million) in second place, Mr. Children (28.45 million) in third place, and

Southern All Stars , also known by the abbreviations and SAS, are a Japanese rock band formed in Kanagawa in 1974. The band is composed of Keisuke Kuwata (lead vocals and guitars), Yuko Hara (vocals and keyboards), Kazuyuki Sekiguchi (bass), (drums) and (pe ...

(25.179 million) in fourth place. Ayumi Hamasaki holds the record for being the best-selling solo artist and being the only solo artist to sell more than 50 million in total. The list excludes sales of albums or singles recorded by artists in collaboration with others as part of a singular artist or group's total.

Artists by sales

50 million or more records

File:B'Z Best Buy Theater montage.jpg, B'z File:Ax10akb18.jpg,

File:Hamasaki Ayumi.jpg, Ayumi Hamasaki

30 million to 49 million records

Yumi-Matsutoya-1989.jpg, Yumi Matsutoya MTV VMAJ 2014 Glay (2).jpg,

Glay Glay (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese Rock music, rock band formed in Hakodate in 1988. The core four members, vocalist Teru (singer), Teru, guitarists Takuro (musician), Takuro and Hisashi (musician), Hisashi, and bassist Jiro (musician), ...

ARASHI mengguncang Jakarta! 1m 5s.jpg,

Arashi is a Japanese boy band consisting of five members formed under the Johnny & Associates talent agency. The members are Satoshi Ohno, Sho Sakurai, Masaki Aiba, Kazunari Ninomiya, and Jun Matsumoto. Arashi officially formed on September 15, 199 ...

Utada Hikaru.jpg,

Hikaru Utada , also known mononymously as Utada, is a Japanese and American singer, songwriter, and producer. She is considered to be one of the most influential and best-selling musical artists in Japan. She is best known by international audiences for w ...

SMAP 2008 Super Modern Artistic Performance Tour.jpg, SMAP

20 million to 29 million records

L'arc En Ciel @ MSG - 3-25-12 - 040.jpg, L'Arc-en-Ciel Kumi Koda Con 2005.jpg, Koda Kumi Nakamori Akina in 1985.jpg,

Akina Nakamori is a Japanese Singing, singer and Actor, actress. She is one of the most popular and List of best-selling music artists in Japan, best-selling music artists in Japan. Akina achieved national recognition after winning the 1981 season of the tal ...

Fukuyama_Masaharu_in_Taipei,_2013_cropped.jpg, Masaharu Fukuyama MTV VMAJ 2014 Exile (cropped).jpg,

Exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

10 million to 19 million records

Hiroshi Itsuki 20220621 - Appointed Peninsula Ambassador.jpg, Hiroshi Itsuki Mariya Takeuchi (cropped).jpg,

Mariya Takeuchi is a Japanese singer, songwriter, and record producer. With over 16 million records sold, Takeuchi is one of the List of best-selling music artists in Japan#10 million to 19 million records, best-selling music artists in Japan and is deemed th ...

Puffy AmiYumi 20090704 Japan Expo 58.jpg,

Puffy AmiYumi Puffy (sometimes stylized in all-caps), also known as Puffy AmiYumi in the US, are a Japanese pop rock duo formed in Tokyo in 1995, consisting of singers Ami Ōnuki and Yumi Yoshimura. In the United States, they adopted the name Puffy AmiYumi to ...

2019.01.26「第14回 KKBOX MUSIC AWARDS in Taiwan」乃木坂46 @台北小巨蛋 (46830410112).jpg, Nogizaka46

5 million to 9 million records

Ami-Suzuki-2008.jpg,

Ami Suzuki is a Japanese recording artist, DJ, and actress from Zama, Kanagawa, Japan. Following her late 90s fame as a popular teen idol, Suzuki went on to become known for her self-penned lyrics and music production. In 2000, Suzuki entered a legal bat ...

Ske48 teamk2.jpg,

SKE48 SKE48 (S.K.E. Forty-eight) is a Japanese idol group produced by Yasushi Akimoto. SKE48 is named after the Sakae, Nagoya, Sakae district in Nagoya of Aichi Prefecture, where the group is based. The group performs at SKE48 Theater on 2F of Sunshi ...

180320 동방신기 02.jpg,

TVXQ TVXQ (stylized as TVXQ!; , ), known as Tohoshinki in Japan, is a South Korean pop duo formed by SM Entertainment, composed of U-Know Yunho and Max Changmin. Originally a five-member boy band which also consisted of members Kim Jae-joong, Hero ...

180417 보아 02.png, BoA

Best-selling Western acts

The long-standing second world's biggest music market have seen

record sales Record sales or music sales are activities related to selling music recordings (albums, singles, or music videos) through physical record shops or digital music stores. Record sales reached their peak in 1999, when 600 million people spent an ...

dominated by their local music acts. A selected group of Western acts have achieved certified units of over 4 million since Japan's music certification system inception by

in 1989. Various of them debuted before that tracking system, selling millions of their catalogue along with thousand of copies for individual titles alone; ranging from

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...

according to

's chart book figures. By other estimates, Western acts like the 1970s band,

The Nolans The Nolans were an Anglo-Irish girl group formed in Blackpool in 1974, originally known as the Nolan Sisters. They changed their name to The Nolans in 1980. Between 1979 and 1982, they enjoyed a string of hit singles, including ''I'm in the M ...

have claimed sales of 12 million in the country during their height of career, while according to Jeff Rovin in ''Julio!'' (1985) many of

Julio Iglesias Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva (; born 23 September 1943) is a Spanish singer and songwriter. Iglesias is recognized as the most commercially successful Spanish singer in the world and one of the top List of best-selling music artists, reco ...

' albums sold over two million copies in the country. Note: *Dion's "international" debut is considered to be dated in 1990, with her first English-recording album. It is the decade when she also entered the Japanese charts.

Best-selling artist sales by year

Notes

References

External links

Yamachan Land
(Japanese) — Japanese chart archives of selected best-selling artists (last updated December 2007) {{DEFAULTSORT:Best-selling music artists in Japan Best-selling artists