Who is the best-selling female rock artist?
When talking about the all-time legends of rock history, do you start noticing a trend after a while? Sure, there are people that would be no-brainers to put among the greatest of all time, like Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, or Robert Plant, but looking through all of them, it becomes far too many men than is usually expected. It’s strange considering how much of the roots of rock and roll have been based on what women had been doing since before the genre began.
After all, Elvis Presley got some of his greatest songs from Big Mama Thornton, and if you listen to her voice from back in the day with her trademark Gibson guitar, it’s not exactly hard to see where people like Janis Joplin got their ideas from. But if we’re talking about rock and roll, it’s a far broader topic regarding the greatest frontwomen of all time.
While it’s easy to put someone like Lady Gaga in that category due to the number of rock and roll tunes under her belt, her style doesn’t truly cover the entire rock spectrum. Joan Jett and Stevie Nicks certainly qualify as some of the greatest female rock stars of their time, but they were either going to be tied to the males in their band in Nicks’s case or play to the punk crowd that didn’t usually see as much mainstream success.
Compared to the rest of the women in the industry, it seems like the culture would always be dominated by the chest-pounding rock and roll stars that worshipped at the altar of Robert Plant and David Lee Roth, but most women didn’t need to worry about a thing. There had already been numerous guitar gods and musical legends in rock and roll, but despite Presley being considered ‘The King’, there was always only one ‘Queen of Rock and Roll’.
So, who was the best-selling female rock artist?
Before acts like The Beatles even had an album to their name, Tina Turner was already showing the rest of the rock and rollers how to do it properly. She had the raspiest voice in the industry, she had the stamina that most performers half her age would kill for, and most importantly, she didn’t take shit off of anybody when she got onstage, usually dancing her ass off for any crowd that would have her.
While her legacy gets far too overshadowed by bandleader and world-class piece of shit Ike Turner, that shouldn’t stop people from looking at her musical talent. That was a footnote in her career, and after notching up classics like ‘Nutbush City Limits’ and ‘River Deep Mountain High’ on the charts, hearing her comeback with Private Dancer is still one of the greatest comeback stories of all time.
Even at the age of 44, Turner had as much dominance as she had back in her prime, and with the MTV generation kicking into high gear, she had as much power over her voice as anyone. And whereas most artists can hope to earn a few million dollars off their royalties, Turner is one of the best-selling rock and roll females to walk the Earth, selling upwards of 37.7million units during her lifetime.
While not everything she played was written by her, like the Lennons and McCartneys of the world, Turner still knew how to turn songs into her masterpieces. ‘Proud Mary’ by CCR will forever belong to her, and even later in her career, her takes on ‘Better Be Good To Me’ and ‘Steamy Windows’ made everyone feel like she lived every minute of those songs, despite the former being a new wave style song in its first version and the latter being one of Tony Joe White’s most famous country tunes.
Regardless of which genre she worked in, Turner’s grit was always what put her in the good graces of every other male in the game. Mick Jagger may have sold more units, and Robert Plant may have reached for greater high notes, but if it weren’t for Turner’s dance moves, musical muscle and unyielding perseverance, a lot of what we take for granted in rock and roll now might not have ever existed.
