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Posted by: gavindeejay Feb 13 2020, 08:17 AM

From OCC:- https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/goo-goo-dolls-love-ballad-iris-tops-one-million-uk-sales-in-time-for-valentine-s-day__28656/

Whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day or not, it’s difficult to avoid revisiting at least a handful of classic love songs when February 14 rolls around. Come on now, don’t deny it.

While love is always popular subject in pop, we’re talking about those big numbers of the ballad variety: Celine Dion’s Think Twice. Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing. Whitney’s I Will Always Love You.

Add to that list Goo Goo Dolls, whose slow burner hit Iris has reached the pinnacle of mega-hit status in the UK as it tops one million pure sales in the UK, with 1.003 million downloads and physical CD sales, according to Official Charts Company data. It’s a rare feat to achieve in 2020, when the preference is often to stream music.

Iris’s million-seller status is the latest feat in the song's particularly unique journey. While it was a big hit in the US, Iris missed the Top 40 on the Official UK Singles Chart when it was first released in 1998, debuting at Number 50 in July. A re-release the following year saw it enter the Top 40 for just one week, landing at Number 26.

Still, awareness of the song and its popularity steadily grew, and the introduction of downloads into the Official Chart in 2005 gave the song a new lease of life, spending six months in the lower half of the Top 100 between 2006-2007.

Iris saw its biggest resurgence in 2011, when it was a popular choice of audition song on The X Factor, notably by finalist Frankie Cocozza, whose rendition during the show’s Bootcamp stage sent it to Number 3 on the Official Singles Chart the following week.

Iris has so far managed 22 separate chart runs in the UK appearances in the Official Singles Chart – the last was in 2015 – totalling 92 weeks in the Top 100. Over the past year in the UK, it has been downloaded an average of 148 times a week and streamed around 410,000 times a week, while its music video gets 95,000 plays a week on average.

Band frontman John Rzeznik told OfficialCharts.com: "I’m so happy that this song has had such a long life in the UK. Thank you to everyone who gave us this amazing gift." See Goo Goo Dolls full Official Chart history, click on ‘Chart Facts’ to see the stats and week by week chart positions for Iris.

Iris - the title of which was inspired by a country singer named Iris DeMent – has, 22 years on, slowly-but-surely earned its place in the love ballads hall of fame. Its unreservedly romantic lyrics such as “you’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be” and “I just don’t want to miss you tonight” have made it an extremely popular choice for one particular occasion: never underestimate the power of a wedding song.

Posted by: Bjork Feb 13 2020, 09:01 AM

great song! crazy how long it took to make it a hit in the UK, and that it was ultimately thanks to XF
kinda miss the days when a performance on XF could send a song flying up the charts

Posted by: jszmiles Feb 13 2020, 09:41 AM

well deserved! It was kinda strange that it wasn't a hit back in 90s when it was a monster in US then.

Posted by: Bjork Feb 13 2020, 10:24 AM

but in the US it was a weird one cos it was not available as a physical single so at first it was not allowed to chart,
then Billboard changed the rules and it was allowed to chart
but the song had already peaked on airplay after being a monster airplay hit (#1 for 14 weeks)
nevertheless it charted at #9 but could have been an easy #1 if the rules had changed 3 months earlier

Posted by: jszmiles Feb 13 2020, 11:51 AM

^yeah I remember it was a sudden #9 new-entry (rare thing that time to enter directly top 10), shame they didn't combine radio and sales back then, it would be a hot100 #1 for at least 10 weeks

Shame another song from City Of Angels , Angel by Sarah McLachlan, that was a hit in US, didn't perform as good as Iris in Europe...

Posted by: Bjork Feb 13 2020, 12:22 PM

the City of Angels soundtrack was amazing, I still own the CD, it also features Alanis - Uninvited, one of her best songs ever
but just like Iris, Uninvited was never released as CD single so was not allowed to chart

on the other hand, Sarah McLachlan's Angel was released as CD-single and allowed to chart and went top 5

Posted by: Bré Feb 13 2020, 12:46 PM

Billboard has always combined radio and sales, the issue with 'Iris' was that it wasn't released as a physical single and Billboard at the time didn't allow songs to chart on airplay alone.

Posted by: jszmiles Feb 13 2020, 03:44 PM

true true, I forgot that it was an issue with physical release.

Posted by: Euphorique Feb 13 2020, 03:56 PM

We all know that “Torn” would’ve been top ten on the Hot 100 with airplay alone. Billboard LITERALLY said so themselves on the 30/5/1998 chart when “Torn” pulled in approximately 101M AI on the Hot 100 airplay that week, when Next’s “Too Close” was number one on the Hot 100 that week.

Theta Sandiford-Wuller, the Hot 100 article writer for that week, wrote that if “Torn” had sold only 78K units the previous week then the song would have debuted at #1 on the Hot 100 the following week because the airplay audience was so big and had yet to peak. She even stated that Billboard was trying to contact RCA Brass (Natalie Imbruglia’s record label) to ship and release physical copies of the song to stores should they want to capitalise on the songs massive crossover success. I guess the label wanted album sales.

I believe Billboard also stipulated that No Doubt’s “No Speak” would have only needed sales of +90K to hit number one on the Hot 100 in February 1997 during its 10th-13th weeks at number one on the airplay charts. I'm sure others like "Iris" would've been #1s. Also songs like "Men In Black", "As Long As You Love Me", "Head Over Feet", "Killing Me Softly", "Lovefool", "I'll Be There For You", "Closing Time", "When I Come Around", "I'll Never Break Your Heart", "Uninvited", etc, would've been big hits too.

Record companies would continue to deny physical releases in the late 90s and early 2000s, even when the Billboard rules started to allow airplay only hits. Its why huge hits like "Oops! I Did It Again", "There You'll Be", etc, almost anything by Jessica Simpson, had much lower peaks than what they would've had if the record companies released the songs for sale in all formats.

Posted by: JCM20 Feb 13 2020, 07:00 PM

Contrary to its performance other countries, "Iris" bombed in the UK back in the 90s, but found a new lease of life after being sung so many times on The X Factor, then again when Robbie Kennedy's BGT audition went viral in 2013. Like Mr Brightside, it sticks around and never goes away. Beautiful song.