Top 10 bestselling music artists in the Heisei era (Oricon)

This ranking from Oricon lists the top 10 music artists in the Heisei era in terms of the number of CD singles and albums they have sold. As such, this does not include DVD sales which actually should bring in more money than CDs but tends to be lower in terms of number of copies sold because of its higher unit price.

Dates in brackets indicate when the CD single or album was released.

Are any of your favourite music artists in this list? 

1) B'z

Total: 82.624 million copies

Singles: 35.969 million copies

Albums: 46.655 million copies

Bestselling single: "Ai no mama ni wagamama  ni boku wa kimi dake wo kizutsukenai" (17 March 1993) - 2.021 million copies

Bestselling album: "B'z The Best "Pleasure" (20 May 1998) - 5.136 million copies

2) AKB48

Total: 60.053 million copies

Singles: 53.412 million copies

Albums: 6.641 million copies

Bestselling single: "Sayonara Crawl" (22 May 2013) - 1.956 million copies

Bestselling album: "1830m" (15 August 2012) - 1.043 million copies

3) Mr.Children

Total: 60.010 million copies

Singles: 28.957 million copies

Albums: 31.053 million copies

Bestselling single: "Tomorrow never knows" (10 November 1994) - 2.766 million copies

Bestselling album: "Atomic Heart" (1 September 1994) - 3.430 million copies

4) Hamasaki Ayumi

Total: 50.708 million copies

Singles: 21.493 million copies

Albums: 29.214 million copies

Bestselling single: "monochrome" (11 August 1999) - 1.631 million copies

Bestselling album: "A BEST" (28 March 2001) - 4.312 million copies

5) DREAMS COME TRUE

Total: 44.942 million copies

Singles: 15.117 million copies

Albums: 29.825 million copies

Bestselling single: "LOVE LOVE LOVE / Arashi ga kuru" (24 July 1995) - 2.489 million copies

Bestselling album: "The Swinging Star" (14 November 1992) - 3.227 million copies)

6) GLAY

Total: 38.808 million copies

Singles: 20.356 million copies

Albums: 18.452 million copies

Bestselling single: "Winter, again" (3 February 1999) - 1.643 million copies

Bestselling album: "REVIEW ~ BEST OF GLAY" (1 October 1997) - 4.876 million copies

7) Arashi

Total: 38.440 million copies

Singles: 27.114 million copies

Albums: 11.326 million copies

Bestselling single: "A.RA.SHI" (3 November 1999) - 973,000 copies

Bestselling album: "All the BEST! 1999-2009" (19 August 2009) - 1.980 million copies

8) ZARD

Total: 37.633 million copies

Singles: 17.733 million copies

Albums: 19.900 million copies

Bestselling single: "Makenaide" (27 January 1993) - 1.645 million copies

Bestselling album: "ZARD BEST The Single Collection ~ Kiseki ~" (28 May 1999) - 3.034 million copies

9) Southern All Stars

Total: 37.619 million copies

Singles: 19.896 million copies

Albums: 17.724 million copies

Bestselling single: "TSUNAMI" (26 January 2000) - 2.936 million copies

Bestselling album: "Umi no Yeah!!" (25 June 1998) - 3.592 million copies

10) Utada Hikaru

Total: 37.340 million copies

Singles: 15.525 million copies

Albums: 21.815 million copies

Bestselling single: "Automatic/time will tell" (9 December 1998) - 2.063 million copies

Bestselling album: "First Love" (10 March 1999) - 7.672 million copies

Source: Oricon