I recently stumbled upon this list of top selling artists of all time. While it was pretty much what I expected there were some notable surprises, most notably, Leonard Cohen is in the top 20! He’s ahead of Mettalica, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Barbra Streisand and Bruce Springsteen.

I then go to the Leonard Cohen page on Wikipedia, and see this quote:

“I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I’ve had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn’t want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work. Just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.”

which is as good a theory of working I’ve seen in quite some time.

Now readers, whose presence surprised you the most on the list of best selling artists? Comments are open.