Nearly fifty years after his death, Elvis Presley still turns up in the record books more often than most living artists. Not as a memory. As the current holder.
Some of his numbers have stood since the 1950s. A few of them were broken open again in the 2000s, long after he was gone. Here is what the King of Rock and Roll still owns.
Guinness World Records lists Elvis as the best-selling solo artist in history. Graceland estimates that more than 1 billion records have been sold worldwide, with roughly 40 percent of that outside the United States.
What makes the number strange is the timeline. Elvis sold heavily on vinyl, then on cassette, then on CD, then on downloads, and he is still selling on streaming. Very few artists have survived even two of those shifts.
Elvis holds the record for the most number-one singles in UK history with 21. Those songs spent 80 weeks at the top, a record.
Why is Elvis the King? Records, Hits & Legacy
The gap between the first and the last is the wild part. “All Shook Up” hit number one in July 1957. His final chart topper was a reissue of “It’s Now or Never” in February 2005. That is almost 48 years.
Sony reissued his old number ones week by week, and fans bought them in such numbers that “Jailhouse Rock,” “One Night,” and “It’s Now or Never” all returned to number one. He even knocked himself off the top spot.
He also holds the record for the most number one albums by a solo artist in Britain, with 13.
Not only that, on January 14, 1973, Elvis played the Honolulu International Center for Aloha from Hawaii. It was the first full-length concert by any musician to be broadcast around the globe via satellite.
Elvis Presley – Aloha from Hawaii
You will often read that a billion people watched it live. That figure came from his manager’s publicity office, and researchers who dug into it found only about 21 countries actually carried the broadcast. Americans did not see it at all until April 4, because it clashed with the Super Bowl. When NBC finally aired it, it became the network’s highest-rated show of the year.
The RIAA has handed Elvis 299 gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards, more than any other artist. In 1992, the association gave his family 110 of them in a single ceremony.
His music never really stopped touring either. Elvis in Concert put him on giant screens while his real band played live underneath.
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