Music’s Top 10 Most Powerful Celebrity Couples 2012

Hey, guys, who do you think is the most powerful couple in music industry today? Well, Miss Provocateur’s first guess was Jay-Z & Beyoncé. Yup, Bey-Z are pretty close, but they come just number two on the list. The most powerful couple with the most album sales combined since Nielsen SoundScan started in 1991 – with a whopping 78.9 million – are Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks.

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony miss in the list due to going splitsville. But popping in at number 5 are newly engaged power-duo Avril Lavigne and Chad Kroeger.

To be honest, some of the choices confused me much. Mariah Carey’s hubby Nick Cannon doesn’t record albums, and while Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez have called it quits, I wouldn’t quite put them in the same relationship category as Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. Anyway, let’s take look at the 2012 act-taking couples!

Here is your complete list of the Top 10 Powerful Celebrity Music Couples:

10. Skrillex and Ellie Goulding

The dubstep king and his singer-songwriter sweetheart started dating earlier this year, just as Skrillex’s mainstream cred was being confirmed with Grammy nods and right before Goulding invaded U.S. radio stations with her slow-growing single Lights. Despite only being 24 and 25 years old, the happy couple has already moved 1.1 million stateside copies combined, a number which grew when Goulding releasd her second album, Halcyon, in October.

9. Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert

The country artists have only gotten more universally beloved since marrying last spring: Shelton has used his stint on The Voice and hits like Honey Bee to forge a bigger mainstream profile, while Lambert continued to be a critics’ darling with new solo disc Four The Record and the debut Pistol Annies album Hell on Heels. Together, their album sales total an impressive 9.6 million copies sold.

8. Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez

Yes, they have separated, but these teen pop titans have spent the past 18 months enjoying their power-couple status while releasing more grown-up music fare. When The Sun Goes Down, Gomez’s latest album with her band The Scene, was another success for the former Disney star, while Bieber’s Believe gave him his fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 upon its release in June 2012. The now-ex pair has already sold a combined 11.2 million albums before either of their 21st birthdays.

7. Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz

Alicia and her producer husband were married in Corsica in July 2010, but their respective careers had been impressively established long before that. Keys immediately became a star with debut disc Songs in A Minor in 2001, and has gone on to release three more best-selling albums; Swizz Beatz, meanwhile, has helmed hits for a large fraction of the hip-hop universe, from Jay-Z to DMX to T.I., while releasing solo material in between business ventures. Still, Keys has the bragging rights in the relationship, moving 17.3 million total albums to Swizz’s 370,000.

6. Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale

One of the longest-lasting couples in pop music, No Doubt leader Gwen Stefani and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale married in 2002 after meeting in 1995. Between the output of their rock groups and their solo material, the couple has amassed 32.7 million albums sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan – and that number ballooned with the release of No Doubt’s comeback album, Push and Shove in September 2012.

5. Chad Kroeger and Avril Lavigne

Avril Lavigne and Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger announced their engagement in August 2012. Both artists released albums last year – Lavigne issued her fourth full-length, Goodbye Lullaby, in March 2011, while Kroeger’s crew dropped Here and Now last fall – and brought their cumulative sales to 34.3 million copies sold. Not a bad nest egg for the new couple!

4. Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon

Since beginning his career on Nickelodeon, Nick Cannon has forged a successful musical career, highlighted by his 2003 self-titled solo debut. However, the 31-year-old’s sales cannot hold a candle to that of his 42-year-old wife, Mariah Carey, who has spent over two decades pushing the boundaries of mainstream R&B and looks to do so again with her upcoming studio effort. The happy couple has moved a combined 54 million copies – 53.77 million of which were courtesy of Carey.

3. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

The careers of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill have proven as durable as their nearly 16-year marriage: both country stars continue headlining blockbuster tours and adding to their list of hit singles and albums. Next up for the couple: a 40-show joint run in Las Vegas that kicks off in December, following McGraw’s Brothers of the Sun tour with Kenny Chesney, and possibly a new album from Hill to match her husband’s 2012 effort Emotional Traffic. So, Hill and McGraw have moved 60.9 million albums combined.

2. Jay-Z and Beyonce

Aside from massively successful collaborations like Crazy in Love, Deja Vu and 03 Bonnie and Clyde, the shining couple of the hip-hop world recently collaborated on a baby girl, Blue Ivy Carter, after marrying in 2008. Hov and Bey have released a whopping 15 studio albums combined as solo artists and 10 more collaborative albums (or, in Beyonce’s case, Destiny’s Child albums), bringing their total sales to 62.3 million copies sold (32.2 million for Jay, 30.1 million for Bey).

1. Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood

Tim & Faith, and Blake & Miranda, may have established themselves as country power couples, but neither pair can lay claim to the sales crown of Garth and Trisha, who were married in December 2005. Between the massive haul of Brooks’ nine studio albums and the output of his second wife, the pair has sold a whopping 78.9 million albums – imagine how many more they would have sold if Brooks hadn’t gone on a recording hiatus beginning in 2001!

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