According to Billboard magazine (the music industry Bible), and books from Record Research, these are, in no particular order, some of the top selling artists of the decade. 

In case you're wondering, I have all of these artists plus many more in The CEO music library.

       

        

        

NEW IN THE 50's
Credit cards, colour television, pony tails, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Disneyland, frisbees, Scrabble, Barbie dolls, widescreen CinemaScope movies, hula hoops, jamming people into phone booths, Charlie Brown, shopping malls, Austin Mini, stereophonic recordings, the generation gap and the birth of rock 'n roll.

MOVIES & TELEVISION
All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, Harvey, An American In Paris, A Streetcar Named Desire, Singin' in the Rain, High Noon, The Greatest Show On Earth, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Rear Window, Rebel Without a Cause, Bridge on the River Kwai, Vertigo, Ben Hur, Some Like It Hot, Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar, You bet Your Life with Groucho Marx, The Jack Benny Show, I Love Lucy, The Jackie Gleason Show, Dragnet, The Tonight show, Captain Kangaroo, The Mickey Mouse Club, Gunsmoke, Leave it to Beaver, Have Gun Will Travel, The Twilght Zone.

IN THE NEWS
Korean War, Sputnik begins the Space Age,, Electricity Produced by nuclear reactor, World's first sex change operation, US tests Hydrogen bomb, Eva "Evita" Peron Dies, Edmund Hillary first to top of Mt. Everest, Structure of DNA revealed, Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Roger Bannister breaks 4 minute mile, 80 people die in crash at LeMans race, Rosa Parks Arrested, Alask and Hawaii become US states, St. Lawrence Seaway opens, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens & The Big Bopper die in airplane crash.