Business News Labels & Publishers

One Direction most successful recording artists in 2013, so take that America

By | Published on Thursday 30 January 2014

One Direction

One Direction were the most successful recording artists in the world last year, which we probably knew already, but it’s been confirmed by guys at the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, who’ve spent most of the last month counting.

And that’s counting every last CD sale, every vinyl transaction, every download and every single stream, to work out which artists enjoyed the most record selling, downloading and streaming action in 2013. Which is an awful lot of counting. I’d imagine Team IFPI could now do with a day focused exclusively on words instead of numbers, an away-day poetry seminar perhaps. Maybe focused on One Direction’s literary gem ‘Best Poem Ever’.

So, here they are, the ten biggest recording artists in the world. And while the Americans might dominate overall, hey, take that America, none of your hip hop stars, pop innovators and singing ladies could top our boys. And screw you Barbados, Canada and France, cos your top stars couldn’t beat Team 1D either. And you know what, we set up One Direction as a joke. How does that make you feel?

So, compulsory patriotism over, here’s the top ten.

1. One Direction
2. Eminem
3. Justin Timberlake
4. Bruno Mars
5. Katy Perry
6. P!nk
7. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
8. Rihanna
9. Michael Bublé
10. Daft Punk

Pleased as punch with our national team’s victory, we got on the old dog and bone and asked the 1D boys how they felt about this achievement. And they responded thus…

Niall: “Incredible news!”
Zayne: “Wowser!”
Liam: “Yowser!”
Louis: “Who were The Wanted again?”
Harry: “Motherfucking cunt of God, this is darn swell news”.

And at least one of those quotes is real. See if you can guess which one.

READ MORE ABOUT: |