It used to be such an achievement, even when songs were trickling over in the download era.

 

Now you can have a pretty average sized hit and still become a 'millionnaire'.

 

I hate the charts of today.

I don't think there is anything to be gained by constantly complaining about it though.

 

We could always stick rigidly to pure sales and end with a list that will gradually change but have no new songs appearing from 2015 onwards, or we can accept - move on - and adjust to to this compromise which always keeps the split between SES and pure sales. At least the mega hits of the past haven't been completely dwarfed, and nothing looks likely to topple Elton John's song that millions of people bought and probably never even listened to due to an outpouring of grief. No list will ever be perfect, so we can either accept this compromise or forever get nostalgic over the past and never move on.

I do think the occ should use the 1:150 ratio for total sales though, that would take away the 'millionaire' status of quite a few of these songs presumably.

Download data is backdated to November 2004. So basically songs downloaded in September/October 2004 aren't included.

Ahh thanks for letting me know! :heart:

 

Songs surprised not to see on the list

 

Say You'll Be There Spice Girls

This was on 992,000 as of July 2017, so hopefully not too long to go... a pity it couldn't have done it in time for this list.

Ahh thanks for letting me know! :heart:

 

You're welcome! ^_^

There is nothing wrong with having both a sales chart and a streaming chart, a sales million chart and a pathetically-overinflated-streaming chart. For virtually the whole top 10 to be streaming songs from the last 2 years just underlines how rubbish the ratios are. Songs are NOT more widely popular in 2017 than they were in 1967, 1977, 1987, 1997, or 2007. On those standards ed sheeran and drake and timberlake and pharell may be worth about half the streaming "sales" to give a more reflective balance. To get a more balanced chart just halve streaming "sales" and it looks less ridiculous.

Also, Where is the Love and Make You Feel My Love have both now hit 7 figures as well! That's THREE million-sellers the OCC have neglected to tell us about!

Edited September 23, 20177 yr by JCM20

Also, Where is the Love has now hit 7 figures as well! That's now three million-sellers the OCC have neglected to tell us about!

 

Yes, and “Sexy & I Know It” will be there soon too. It had just 920 copies to go as of last week.

Yes, and “Sexy & I Know It” will be there soon too. It had just 920 copies to go as of last week.

 

Maybe the OCC want to announce all four at once?

 

It's also worth nothing that Impossible has FINALLY overtaken Hallelujah on pure sales to become the biggest selling X Factor winner's single.

In recent years the OCC have generally waited until a "current" song reaches a million and then announced the older songs at the same time. As it is hard to see a "current" song selling a million unless there are exceptional circumstances, that strategy is now rather outdated.

So many mixed emotions with this list. Either way, I'm happy to see some decent sales information released by the OCC for the change! Rather than so and so's top 10 selling songs with limited figures nonsense.

 

John Legend the highest ranked entry to not reach number 1 in the charts. Pretty happy with that as that's the best song from the 21st century in the Top 15 and has the best potential to become a pure classic in decades to come from those 21st century songs.

 

Got to move away from the Million Sellers only tripe though! Since the huge shift to streaming really got underway in 2015 there wouldn't have been a single new entry to this list. With only Adele's Hello and maybe SOY looking likely to ever reach 1 million pure sales. Take a closer look at this list, you're telling me the tracks from Bob The Builder, Hear'say, Atomic Kitten, Matt Cardle and Teletubbies (just to name a few) have more of a place on this list than some of the Stream Orientated entires? Even songs I rate such as No Doubt - Don't Speak clearly weren't as big of a commercial success as SOY or Despacito.

 

Equally though, from the other side of the coin, seeing SOY overtake Bohemian Rhapsody is painful, and One Dance at 8 is the funniest/most depressed thing I'll see today so the list isn't perfect in any shape or form. But it cannot just be about sales anymore. Times have changed. If you want a list of Million Sellers only take a photo of the current list and stick it on the mantlepiece because you won't need to update it too often.

 

It reminds me of Frankel. A true freak of an animal who many will never see the likes of again, who has slowly but surely been granted the status of the greatest race horse of all time. Still many drag up horses from 50-60 years ago, looking for something which was better from a time when they weren't even alive. What's wrong with enjoying what we have in front of us right now? :D

Edited September 24, 20177 yr by KY420

I don't think there is anything to be gained by constantly complaining about it though.

 

We could always stick rigidly to pure sales and end with a list that will gradually change but have no new songs appearing from 2015 onwards, or we can accept - move on - and adjust to to this compromise which always keeps the split between SES and pure sales. At least the mega hits of the past haven't been completely dwarfed, and nothing looks likely to topple Elton John's song that millions of people bought and probably never even listened to due to an outpouring of grief. No list will ever be perfect, so we can either accept this compromise or forever get nostalgic over the past and never move on.

 

There's already 7 new songs in the top 10 alone after just a few years of streaming! Though to be fair Happy makes it on sales alone.

 

I don't think wanting the lists to be separate is being stuck in the past. I just don't think combining sales and streams as if they are the same thing - for the purpose of an all-time chart at least - means anything. Shape Of You being bigger than Bohemian Rhapsody, thanks to passive playlist plays? No doubt it's going to go down as a classic but it's not the third most popular song of all time.

No list is ever going to accurately give the most popular songs of all time though. I'd say that Elton John song is nowhere close to being the most POPULAR of all time, though it is obviously the biggest selling.

 

I know we're comparing apples with oranges here but it's the best idea we have of the biggest 'selling' songs of all time.

There's already 7 new songs in the top 10 alone after just a few years of streaming! Though to be fair Happy makes it on sales alone.

 

I don't think wanting the lists to be separate is being stuck in the past. I just don't think combining sales and streams as if they are the same thing - for the purpose of an all-time chart at least - means anything. Shape Of You being bigger than Bohemian Rhapsody, thanks to passive playlist plays? No doubt it's going to go down as a classic but it's not the third most popular song of all time.

 

I agree with this. I think it's a pretty rubbish argument-'we have to include streams because if we don't we won't get any more million sellers!!!!'-so what? We've had low sales periods before and some classic songs are just unlucky.

 

Keeping a million sellers list as well as the 'millionnaires' one is very important IMO. Songs that convinced over a million people to part with money for them is such an achievement and still deserves recognition.

No list is ever going to accurately give the most popular songs of all time though. I'd say that Elton John song is nowhere close to being the most POPULAR of all time, though it is obviously the biggest selling.

 

I know we're comparing apples with oranges here but it's the best idea we have of the biggest 'selling' songs of all time.

 

No, I accept that.

 

But it's not. That's the pure sales list.

 

I think if we want to do a list that can continue, they need to find a more intelligent way of doing it. Counting streams at 1:100 isn't it.

 

OCC are already talking about it as a "snapshot in time" at this "transition period" rather than a replacement list.

 

The traditional Million Sellers (i.e sales-only) list still exists, and there will be a streaming-only list too. However, a sales-only and streams-only list by their nature will only ever tell one side of the story, the simple fact is we're going to see fewer and fewer Million Sellers as streaming now accounts for nearly 90% of the singles market. This Millionaires list above is intended as an interesting snapshot in time, looking at the unique transition period we're currently in between the sales and streaming era. It's fascinating to see how things measure up side by side isn't it!

 

Well personally I think they should count streams at 1:150 for the total sales list (not 1:100 as it currently is) so I agree with something there.

I think it's a pretty rubbish argument-'we have to include streams because if we don't we won't get any more million sellers!!!!'-so what? We've had low sales periods before and some classic songs are just unlucky.

 

You've completely missed the point.

You've completely missed the point.

 

That's a pretty pointless post if you don't elaborate on what it is I've missed.

 

It seems people want to 'move with the times' and have the popularity of today's songs represented with streaming but I'd argue this popularity is overly inflated in this list because, no matter how hard they try, you cannot equate streams and sales like for like, especially not over a 75 year period. Streaming was necessary for the charts but a million sellers list should just be that.

 

I'm surprised most people have missed that this article appears to have come about purely to sell another sub par Now spin off album.

That's a pretty pointless post if you don't elaborate on what it is I've missed.

 

The rest of the content within my first post as this wasn't the main point I was looking to make. Please chill out with the 'pointless post' and 'ridiculous argument' comments. There are much more open and friendly ways of wording things.

 

I agree that it's extremely difficult to equate streams and sales like for like, however, I applaud anyone that tries. The point I was trying to make is that based on sales only records you have songs such as the Teletubbies release showing up as more commercially successful than SOY which isn't right or accurate in real terms. It's evident that the times have moved on and things have drastically changed and will continue to change. Many of us like to measure present vs past and whilst of course there will be separate records for both sales and streaming, I for one like to see combined analysis when released. The 100:1 does seem to be flawed with the continued success of streaming and I hope they find a way of rectifying this to ensure figures are as accurate as possible. Over to the OCC.

Edited September 24, 20177 yr by KY420

I also notice there's vast numbers of songs labelled with the wrong release year. For example, when I copied all the songs into Excel and then deleted all songs listed as released before 2010, Just Dance (incorrectly listed as released in 2010) was one of the biggest sellers of the decade yet to reach 1 million - even though it was released in (and almost all its sales occurred in) 2009.