Not seen it anywhere but in case anyone is interested. Shape Of You is now on 3 million units and the first song, I think, to be certified 5 x platinum. Not sure if Band Aid and Elton Johns songs ever were certified beyond platinum.

Not seen it anywhere but in case anyone is interested. Shape Of You is now on 3 million units and the first song, I think, to be certified 5 x platinum. Not sure if Band Aid and Elton Johns songs ever were certified beyond platinum.

Band Aid is only certified Platinum but Elton John is 9x Platinum.

Band Aid is only certified Platinum but Elton John is 9x Platinum.

 

Ah ok good to know wasn't sure if it ever had been.

Edited October 18, 20177 yr by Supercell

The OCC has published its list of 170 UK million sellers (i.e. no streams included).

 

19 December 2017

The UK's biggest selling singles of all time

By Justin Myers

They're the very top of the pops – the UK's million-selling singles. It's still a relatively rare feat, with currently only 170 songs making it to seven figures. Not all of them managed to make it to Number 1 – 27 million-sellers never hit the top spot – but they've earned their place in British pop history.

 

Way out in front, with 4.93 million sales is Elton John's double-A Candle in the Wind 97/Something About the Way You Look Tonight, released after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Another charity record is in second, the original Band Aid with Do They Know It's Christmas? on 3.8 million, and the next five songs have all sold over two million copies.

 

The biggest selling cover version is Boney M's Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl in the Ring from 1978, shifting 2.03 million, although the originals never charted – the most popular cover version of a song that had already charted is Wet Wet Wet's redo of the Troggs' Love Is All Around, on 1.9 million. The top selling song released in the 21st century goes to Pharrell Williams' Happy, which is ninth with 1.9 million sales, while Cher's Believe is the bestselling song by a female artist, 16th in the rundown, with 1.83 million. Just behind Cher is the top selling song never to reach Number 1 – Wham!'s Last Christmas, which was blocked by Band Aid in 1984 and has sold 1.82 million, while Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax claims the bestselling debut single by a group (2.06m) and Will Young takes the prize for a solo artist with Evergreen (1.78m)

 

Some stars are just greedy and bag more than one million-seller: 20 artists have two or more entries in the list of the UK's all-time bestselling singles. Way out in front, with an astonishing six, are the Beatles, with their top-selling honour going to 1963 chart-topper She Loves You, on 1.92 million.

 

Rihanna is up next – she appears on four, with We Found Love (feat Calvin Harris) her biggest, shifting 1.41 million copies. Adele and Pharrell Williams have three million-sellers each – Someone Like You from 2011 is Adele's big one (1.64m) and Pharrell's is Happy.

 

* Sales for White Christmas have only been counted since the inception of the chart in 1952.

 

The only difference I can see is that no. 101 STARSHIPS by NICKI MINAJ has been relegated to no. 164 in this new list. No explanation is given.

 

 

Good to see they are still publishing this. Extraordinary sales for Pharrell!

The only difference I can see is that no. 101 STARSHIPS by NICKI MINAJ has been relegated to no. 164 in this new list. No explanation is given.

 

They screwed up the SES in the original list - it only crawled to 1 million in July 2016 so 164 is the correct position.

Just shows how fast streaming has exploded the most recent songs on that list are from 2014 it shows how rapidly downloads have collapsed too

Edited December 20, 20177 yr by 777666jason

Seems to be a typo, surely Pharell has the biggest selling single by a solo artist, he sold 1.9 million copies against Will 1.78.

 

Anyway I've always marvelled at how much that song managed to sell, its a shame downloads collapsed they way they have. Also it's surprising we never got a 2 million selling hit from the download era, given how sales overall were the highest ever. In the U.S and notably Australia they smashed records, with them having pretty much their entire top 20 best selling singles occurring during the download era, yet in UK we never got that mega selling hit apart from Happy.

Happy, Uptown Funk, Blurred Lines and Someone Like You were our biggest songs of the download era. Pretty big achievement that they all made the all-time top 30.

Uptown Funk was the song in my eyes which helped end the held back era!

Wonder if the OCC have any intention of updating this list