Who are MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER and why are they selling all these records?

[Talulah, really!]

This is the list of the top selling artists in the US according to the RIAA.

Obviously the Beatles are top 170 million but next, ahead of Elvis Presley, is Garth Brooks. There are further surprises. Acts you assume must have sold millions upon millions languish further down the list than people you've probably never heard of, like....

Mannheim Steamroller, 28 million putting them ahead of Sinatra, Jay Z, the Bee Gees and ZZ Top, in fact their 28 million is more than John Lennon 14million  and Paul Simon 13.5m combined.
Have you ever heard of them? (_{Mannheim Steamroller, I mean, obviously you've heard of the others, and yeah I googled them, Mannheim Steamroller I mean, I'd already heard of the Bee Gees})

Alabama, by God there's a bar band that got lucky, very lucky to the tune of 46 million. This is probably the biggest difference between US and UK audiences, this straight forward easy listening country style of popular music which sells by the truckload Stateside but makes relatively little impact culturally here.

Any surprises for you?

[Serge]

Nobody really that surprising, obviously a strong showing for country/ish artists who mostly mean diddly over here. I do remember reading years ago that Garth Brooks was alarmingly popular in the States; didn't he shoot himself in the foot with his Chris Gaines record? I did used to work with someone with remarkably bad taste in music who loved Garth Brooks and similar MOR country (but didn't like Glen Campbell's 'Wichita Lineman') and even she's never heard of the Chris Gaines record (and still wouldn't believe it was Brooks when I showed her a picture of the cover.)

On similar ground, I was surprised to read recently that AC-DC's 'Back In Black' has sold 49 million copies worldwide, and was poised to become the biggest selling record ever until Michael Jackson died and sales of 'Thriller' surged and popped him back up front.