Most of the music I listen to is country, and I recently purchased George Strait's "50 Number Ones" Album. I was struck by how his sound and style has remained so consistent over the last 25 years, and that he's continued to be so successful. I was wondering how his success compares to solo artists in other genres; rock, hiphop, pop, any kind.

George Strait has released over 30 albums, all of which have hit at least "Gold" status, with many being platinum or double platinum. He's released 75 singles. 51 of those singles have hit number one on the Billboard country chart. I'm curious about who some of the other artists that might have also had that kind of success. How do those numbers compare to big names like Madonna, or Michael Jackson, or even Elvis?

I don't think pop music would ever see anything like that, because it's mercurial by nature. Country, on the other hand, is conservative (small "c" - no politics involved) by its nature. It's about good-ol' down home kinda stuff. Consistency is prized.

George is waaaaaay ahead of the pop/rock folks! The Beatles and Elvis are tied for first place with 21 number ones each (counting B-sides that were listed at the number one spot with their A-sides). The Beatles scored their 21 in an extremely short period of time: 1964-1970. Elvis took a little longer: 1956-1969. All told, The Beatles have had 73 singles hit the charts, while Elvis has charted a whopping 153 times! Of the others you mentioned, Madonna has charted 50 singles from 1983-2004, 12 of them went to number one. Michael Jackson had his first solo single in 1971 and last charted in 2002, in that time he's had 46 chart singles, 13 of which hit the top spot. The Rolling Stones last charted in 1998 giving them a chart life of about 35 years, but I think the artist who has maintained a fairly high level of success over the longest period of time would be Elton John. He's been charting pretty consistantly since 1970 and between the years of 71 and 95 he had at least one song hit the top 40 each year and had his biggest hit in 1997 with "Candle In The Wind 1997/Something About The Way You Look Tonight" which spent 14 weeks at the number one spot.

Any of this help?

Very much. It's interesting for me to see the comparisons, even though the genres are different, and as Hank pointed out, the nature of "popularity" varies between them.

How about Ray Charles? I know he had singles at the top of different charts over the many years of his career.

Strait and Charles both retained the same general instruments all their careers, and the tech production of their recording remained fairly consistent. The timelessness of their sound(s) is strategic; they chose not to update instruments or production much IN ORDER to retain their consistent sound.

Not the case in rock or other pop. Madonna and Prince explore different instruments and genres de rigeur. The Stones used developing record production tech to develop their essentially blues sound. These artists update instruments and production strategically -- in order to sound contemporary, and thereby relevant to each new generation.

And just for completeness' sake: Ray Charles charted 76 times on the pop charts from 1957-1990. He had three number ones ("Georgia On My Mind", "Hit The Road, Jack" and "I Can't Stop Lovin' You") and 8 other top ten hits. It should be noted that his last three chart singles hit in 1975, 1987 and 1990 and he had a single make it to the top ten of the sales chart in 2002.

In the IMWAN spirit of thread drift, my all-time favorite Ray Charles song is his cover of "(It's Not That Easy Being) Green."

I couldn't even begin to pick a favorite Ray Charles song....

(...but his covers of Beatles songs were GREAT!!!!)

There's a lot of legal problems with using the original music on DVD releases of old TV shows. Copyright stuff, I guess, and it is indeed a shame. For example, "WKRP in Cincinnati" has had to change most of the music used on the show for reruns and VHS. That's probably why it still hasn't been released on DVD.

Same reason a lot of songs change for DVD release - they can afford to license it for a one-off broadcast or even syndicated airing, but it's a far bigger cut for an archival reproduction.

The DVDs of Roswell, for instance, have almost entirely new music, because so many of the bands that were scraping by when the show was made have since made it big.

Most new TV shows now pre-negotiate DVD royalties before putting a song in an episode.

This is cited as the main reason we won't see WKRP on DVD anytime soon.

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