Holding songs back is the reason we get massive sales (like 100,000+) at #1 some weeks. How many non-charity/X Factor songs that haven't been held-back have sold over 100,000 in a week in recent times? I can only think of Meet Me Halfway, What's My Name? and Someone Like You. There's probably a couple of others too, but On the Floor, Grenade, Replay, Only Girl, Forget You, Written in the Stars, Heart Skips a Beat, What Makes You Beautiful, etc. all got their massive first-week sales because they were held back.

 

If we had everything available instantly, it would be much rarer to get #1s selling over 100,000 in a week, but most songs would sell more in the long-term.

Holding songs back is the reason we get massive sales (like 100,000+) at #1 some weeks. How many non-charity/X Factor songs that haven't been held-back have sold over 100,000 in a week in recent times? I can only think of Meet Me Halfway, What's My Name? and Someone Like You. There's probably a couple of others too, but On the Floor, Grenade, Replay, Only Girl, Forget You, Written in the Stars, Heart Skips a Beat, What Makes You Beautiful, etc. all got their massive first-week sales because they were held back.

 

If we had everything available instantly, it would be much rarer to get #1s selling over 100,000 in a week, but most songs would sell more in the long-term.

 

We Found Love also had a week over 100k without being held back. Depending on your definition of 'held back' so did Cannonball.

I think it depends on the song and the artist. It does seem crazy that songs like T.H.E or Wild Ones aren't available yet though, its clear they could be be #1 already or at least top 5 if they were available. I wonder if they will rush release them at this rate? Or may be they will just take down the fake versions in the coming days.

We Found Love also had a week over 100k without being held back. Depending on your definition of 'held back' so did Cannonball.

 

That was purely down to 'We Found Love' being released midweek and selling 87k. The following week it sold over 100k as it had a full weeks sales.

 

I think it depends on the song and the artist. It does seem crazy that songs like T.H.E or Wild Ones aren't available yet though, its clear they could be be #1 already or at least top 5 if they were available. I wonder if they will rush release them at this rate? Or may be they will just take down the fake versions in the coming days.

 

It's difficult to tell. The fake version of 'Black And Yellow' did relatively well but when the Wiz Khalifa version was finally released it could only get as far as #5. Likewise with 'Billionaire' in 2010. The "illegal" version got as high as #11 on iTunes yet when it was released properly, it could only get to #3 in the UK.

The illegal version of Billionaire was identical to the single version, and the cover version of Black and Yellow was almost identical to the original, so in those cases, more people would've been inclined to buy the fake versions, since they were the same as the originals, whilst some of the other cover versions sound really bad and tacky, so they might not sell much.

 

We Found Love was held back. It was the same situation as Price Tag, Hold It Against Me, Just the Way You Are, etc. They were held back, but they had their release dates pushed forward. We Found Love was held back for 2-3 weeks iirc.

I just listened to those fake version of 'Wild Ones', 'Twilight', 'Hot Right Now' and 'T.H.E.' on iTunes. The fake cover of 'T.H.E' is almost identical to the Will.I.Am. version and even the fake 'Wild Ones' sounds pretty similar to the Flo Rida version.

 

The fake versions of 'Twilight' and 'Hot Right Now' sound terrible - very cheap sounding and not worthy of the 79p iTunes are charging. It does make me wonder if these record companies will insist on releasing the tracks in a particular week. It could backfire badly on them if they leave it so long that by the time they are released, people are already bored of hearing the song.

Sometimes the cover versions are better than the originals - I believe there was a Britney Spears one from a year or so ago where the vocal was superior to the Britney version

I would love to see Nadia Ali sneak into the top 40 but it is probably too late in the week now. She has been around 30-50 on itunes all week. Can she do it next week? It would also have been nice to see Etta James have a posthumous top 40 with "At last" but again looks impossible.

 

I would like to see Lana Del Rey get to No1 next week.

 

As for Rizzle Kicks, I am not sure I agree that a 59p track should be allowed to compete equally against 99p tracks!

As for Rizzle Kicks, I am not sure I agree that a 59p track should be allowed to compete equally against 99p tracks!

 

But surely it's no different to the album chart, or indeed before downloads were the main format when the price and format of a physical single could determine the number one?

Did you hear Michael Jackson is alive?

Did you hear Michael Jackson is alive?

No, because he isn't? :mellow:

Did you hear Michael Jackson is alive?

 

:manson: :manson: :manson:

Edited January 21, 201214 yr by Griff