ARTS AND MEDIA
Best Selling Reggae Album
Legend (1984) by Bob Marley has had certified sales of 1.8 million in the UK, and has sold more than 10 million copies in the USA. The album's tracks include "No Woman No Cry" and "One Love". Marley was awarded the Jamaican Order Of Merit after his death in 1981 and is officially known as "The Honorable Bob Marley". In 1977 whilst being treated for a foot injury, Marley was diagnosed as having cancer, but refused to undergo any treatment. By the time he passed away in 1981, he had been awarded the UN Peace Medal on behalf of 500 million Africans in 1978 for his humanitarian achievements, drawn an audience bigger than the Pope's in Milan, fathered eleven children by seven different women, and sold tens of millions of records worldwide.
Best-Selling Female Latin Singer
Cuban-born singer Gloria Estefan is the most successful female Latin artist in the world. Her current total world sales stand at more than 35 million. In the USA she has amassed eight gold albums, four of which have passed the three million sales mark – Primitive Love (1985), Let It Loose (1987), Cuts Both Ways (1989) and Greatest Hits (1992). In the UK her Anything For You (aka Let It Loose) and Cuts Both Ways both sold more than one million copies. In 1990 Estefan was presented with a Golden Globe award for album sales outside the USA.
Best-Selling US Solo Country Album
The best-selling country album in the USA by a solo artist is Shania Twain's Come On Over, which had sold a record total of 18 million copies in the USA as of June 15, 2000. The hit album remained in the Top 30 of the Billboard 200 chart after 122 weeks of release. Worldwide sales have topped 26 million. Born Eileen Regina Edwards on August 28, 1965 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Shania Twain is one of the few country artists who have made the successful crossover into pop.
Most Charted Artist
Elvis Presley's records spent a cumulative total of 1,155 weeks on the UK singles chart since his first hit Heartbreak Hotel released on May 11, 1956.
Youngest Artist To Have A US No. 1 Album
Stevie Wonder was only 13 years old when his album Little Stevie Wonder - The Twelve Year Old Genius topped the US charts in 1963. He is also the solo artist to have won the most Grammy awards, having taken home 19 of the prestigious prizes throughout his career. He lost his sight soon after birth when given too much oxygen in an incubator. As a toddler he beat spoons on furniture and boxes until he was given a drum. Later he took up the harmonica and piano and sang in a local Gospel choir. At 10, he was spotted by Roland White, singer with Motown act The Miracles, and the label signed him up. He became part of the family of transatlantic tours. "Uptight (Everything’s Alright)" was his frist hit in 1964. In 1976 he signed a $13 million contract with Motown, at the time the largest ever in the music business. In the same year he released his album In The Key of Life, which stayed at No.1 in the US charts for 14 weeks.
Most Valuable Jazz Instrument
The most valuable jazz instrument is a saxophone once owned by Charlie Parker, which sold for £93,500 ($144,500) at Christie's in South Kensington, London, UK, on September 7, 1994. The Grafton acrylic saxophone was given to him in England in 1953.
Highest Salary Per Film (Actor)
Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid a salary of $30 million (£20.9 million) in 2001 for his role as the terminator in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (USA 2003). Actors can earn more if their payment is based on salary plus a percentage of earnings, but Swarzenegger bagged this record for his "basic" wage.
Heaviest Statue
She's not only the most famous lady in America, she's also the heaviest! Weighing in at a staggering 24,635 tonnes (54.31 million lb), Lady Liberty, aka the Statue of Liberty, is officially named "Liberty Lighting the World" and was a gift from France to the USA commemorating liberty and friendship. Construction of the statue began in France in 1875, and after being completed in July 1884, it arrived in New York a year later in 350 individual pieces packed into 214 crates.
Best Selling Non-Fiction Book
The world's best-selling and most widely distributed book is the Bible, with an estimated 2.5 billion copies sold since 1815. It has been translated into 2,233 languages and dialects. The Christian Bible as we know it today is in two parts, the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament, written between 50 and 150 AD. The latter and some of the additional books were originally written in Greek. The order of books, as well as its number, differs between the Jewish version and that of Protestants and Roman Catholics. No original copies or autographs have ever been found.
Heaviest Ever Newspaper
On average, the New York Times is read by 1,094,000 people on weekdays, and by 1,650,000 on Sundays. The owner of the paper, The New York Times Co, has no trouble getting its message out as it also owns the Boston Globe, 18 regional daily newspapers, eight television stations, two radio stations, and a number of magazines. The record-breaking edition of the newspaper, published on September 14, 1987, had a staggering 1,612 pages!
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