I think Hassaan means that 208,602 was the total sales and that of those sales 47,001 were CD singles.

 

Without those CD singles Ben Haenow would have never made it to #1.

Ben Haenow sold a total of 874,000 copies without any streams included, so I do think he does work for the Head of the Official Charts Company Fiddling Sales Division! Careful there you shouldn't know that :cool:

Ben Haenow sold a total of 874,000 copies without any streams included, so I do think he does work for the Head of the Official Charts Company Fiddling Sales Division! Careful there you shouldn't know that :cool:

 

Incorrect.

 

OK, so I didn't read that article correctly... It definitely sold 610,286 up to this week though. I read that one correctly.

 

Shame we won't get to see how many an Adele single sells on CD.

But the theory was (inadvertently) tested circa 2000-2008, when physical singles remained pretty consistent in availability but sales dwindled.

 

But the shops were putting them in out of the way places and moving their singles sections practically every week (certainly any I was in on a regular basis). People were coming in and not being able to find the CD singles and going away empty handed. The shops then said nobody's buying CD singles any more so we're going to stop selling them.

Physical singles in 2013.

 

1. Japan 70M

2. Germany 6M

3. India 2M

4. UK 1,5M

 

That's a fair point if all those countries were similar in terms of population but they aren't so the comparison is pointless!

Incorrect.

 

OK, so I didn't read that article correctly... It definitely sold 610,286 up to this week though. I read that one correctly.

 

Shame we won't get to see how many an Adele single sells on CD.

 

The only person that "definitely" knows what a record sells is those that work for the Official Charts Company. All other information given out about sales, is speculation or record industry figures that might not be true-full.

 

You can ask the Official Charts Company what a record sells. But since the industry is a bit secretive on these facts, generally they don't issue the information. Unless they want to make a point, many times either very inaccurate or often open to interpretation, on these points. Especially if Alan Jones from Music Week is involved.

 

That's a fair point if all those countries were similar in terms of population but they aren't so the comparison is pointless!

Not really. The population of Japan is roughly twice the population of the UK. Yet physical singles sales are roughly 46 times higher than in the UK. Whatever the reason, physical sales of singles are a lot higher in Japan than they are in the UK.

 

Physical singles have some distinct advantages.

 

1) Once I have bought it, it doesn't matter what happens to the company that sold it. I still own the physical copy.

 

2) I can choose what happens to my physical singles when I die. I cannot legally pass on downloads to anyone.

 

3) They might be worth something one day. For example, the original release of Radiohead's Creep (I have a copy) is fairly valuable.

 

I used to buy physical singles for various reasons.

 

1) I wanted to own everything a particular act released

 

2) The b-sides were not included on any album. Nowadays, these extra tracks will be included in a deluxe edition of the album. That, surely, is a bigger rip-off.

 

3) Sometimes, I wasn't confident that the band would ever release an album. I have quite a lot of singles by bands that didn't release an album.

The only person that "definitely" knows what a record sells is those that work for the Official Charts Company. All other information given out about sales, is speculation or record industry figures that might not be true-full.

 

You can ask the Official Charts Company what a record sells. But since the industry is a bit secretive on these facts, generally they don't issue the information. Unless they want to make a point, many times either very inaccurate or often open to interpretation, on these points. Especially if Alan Jones from Music Week is involved.

 

Yes. For example, Spice Girls' 'official' sales are 80 million, with some estimates putting them as low as between 40-60 million. Meanwhile, the figures given out by their abel are DOUBLE that amount at 120 million. Meanwhile, Beatles and Elvis claim over 1 billion sales when they have 500 million.

 

Edit: 2) I can choose what happens to my physical singles when I die. I cannot legally pass on downloads to anyone.

 

That's true and absolutely ridiculous, I remember the court case about that. Shocking that they can't be legally passed on to others after buying them. People may as well just pay for a streaming service instead, especially with offline streaming (whatever that is) too for the gym/ runnin/ etc.

Edited October 24, 20159 yr by All Hallows Peen

Not really. The population of Japan is roughly twice the population of the UK. Yet physical singles sales are roughly 46 times higher than in the UK. Whatever the reason, physical sales of singles are a lot higher in Japan than they are in the UK.

 

But PRISM simply listed 4 countries and the number of physical copies sold in each. To be in any way meaningful they should have shown comparisons between the population sizes - on their own total copies sold is meaningless!

 

Physical singles have some distinct advantages.

 

3) They might be worth something one day. For example, the original release of Radiohead's Creep (I have a copy) is fairly valuable.

 

It's an interesting that if a "physical" record does become valuable and even though the recording of it is generally in copyright, nobody will actually peruse you for a share of the money that you will get from the sale of the said record even if the sale exceeds thousands of pounds!

 

Though in the future I would have thought 3D printers will make it very easy to copy these physical singles, pushing the value down. People will probably make physical singles of the download tracks on their computer!