Answer to August 2006 Newsletter Brain Teaser:

The other four artists to be awarded the Diamond Award by the World Music Awards for over 100 million albums sold worldwide during their careers are:

Mariah Carey
Celine Dion
Rod Stewart
Bon Jovi

One weakness of the way the World Music Awards calculates their totals is that they have very little data about album sales during the 1950's and 1960's, thus Elvis Presley and The Beatles are not included on their list because any sales totals are uncertifiable.

The Beatles are listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the highest selling band of all time, with over a billion records sold, which is claimed by their record company EMI. What is not clear is if that number includes records sold by the four after The Beatles parted ways in 1970.

The RIAA (Record Industry Association of America), who bestows gold and platinum awards to artists has credited Elvis with 150 gold records, which signifies sales of 500,000 units or more. Many of these releases actually went on to reach platinum or multi-platinum status (platinum is 1,000,000 or
more units sold, and double platinum is 2,000,000 and so on), and his record company, RCA claimed he has sold more than a billion albums and singles back in 1981. Considering that Elvis sold 800,000 singles and 200,000 albums in the U.K. alone in 2005, one has to believe that his sales have grown tremendously past a billion during the past 25 years.