Got every one physically since 1980 and loads earlier but have them all on some format or other🤪

Every Top 20 Single since 1952, every Top 20 Album since 1958, except those that have never been released physically - telling for a friend of course, who started collecting in August 1964 with The Beatles' Hard Day's Night single and Donovan's Universal Soldier album in September 1967.

WOW! Every top 20 single since 1952 must be a huge amount of singles to own :o

Yes, that's a wow! I ran out of space years ago but have ambitions to get all mine (paltry in comparison) organised in some sort of library!

Every Top 20 Single since 1952, every Top 20 Album since 1958, except those that have never been released physically - telling for a friend of course, who started collecting in August 1964 with The Beatles' Hard Day's Night single and Donovan's Universal Soldier album in September 1967.

I need more details on this... I'm still in awe that someone has this... how much room does it take up? They must have soooo much space devoted to music.

Built a room on the end of the house: 16ft x 6ft x 9ft high with bespoke shelves constructed exactly to contain shellac (collection mainly of jazz from the 30's and 40's) LPs, 10inch, singles, cassettes and CDs.

 

Shellac: 746

LPs: 11,430 - 9,525 reached the Top 20 (includes Cassettes and CDs)

10inch: 214

Singles: 16,273 - 14,150 reached the Top 20 (includes Cassettes and CDs)

Cassettes: 1,060

CDs: 2,424

 

Note: there is duplication between the LPs and CDs because of collections given or otherwise acquired at auctions etc. - estimate some 400.

Wow yet again! I thought I was bad enough with my comparatively meagre set of 1,600 vinyl albums and 12”

 

That’s some serious dedication to collecting

I seem to remember reading that one of the authors of the old 'Complete Book of British Charts' books from the late '90s/early '00s - I think it was Jon Kutner - had acquired every Top 75 single up to that point (or Top 50 etc when chart size was smaller), which would likely have been around the time physical was giving way almost completely to digital. Although clearly it's far simpler, easier and cheaper to own every single as a download rather than a CD, cassette or vinyl disc, I think a lot of long-term collectors of an older age tended not to embrace the opportunity to continue collecting everything digitally when a physical counterpart was not issued. Collectors in general like tangible, real product rather than ephemeral, virtual equivalents. Hence why there's been such a resurgence in the predominantly-digital era among older physical formats such as vinyl and even cassette, albeit that they of course remain a small fraction of the overall paid-for market, which sadly in itself is rapidly dwindling thanks to streaming (Music Week weekly figures suggest that a similar number of CD albums are now sold to the total number of downloaded tracks which is indicative of how far things have slipped in the latter market).

 

On that point, to answer the earlier question about whether there's yet been a No 1 single that's only been released to stream not buy, this has not yet occurred, although one wouldn't bet against it as sales diminish to frictional levels. I predicted that more and more singles would only be issued for streaming by the early '20s, but so far that seems not to have come to pass - partly because as JulianT says, they're cheap and easy to put out and can do no harm to a song's prospects even when streaming is likely to be by far the dominant means through which people consume it.

 

There are I suppose technically cases of singles not actually getting a 'stand-alone' release per se, because they are released at the same time as a parent album for both streaming and buying; so presumably there's thought to be no need to have a separate stand-alone 'single' issued in that scenario as it's available immediately on the album. The only reason to put one out would be if the artist wanted a vehicle for extra tracks as 'B sides', but then in most cases surely they'd just add all songs they want to release onto the album and have done with it. Our current No 1, 'Anti-Hero' by Taylor Swift is I believe such an example. I haven't looked it up on iTunes or other stores to see if it can be downloaded from a single as well as the album, but certainly it's not given a separate release for streaming on Spotify. If the strategy of releasing a lead single simultaneously with an album catches on, which it may well do among bigger artists given the success Swift has had with it, then I guess this trend may increase, effectively making such singles 'promotional' only. They are of course given their own separate release for video streaming purposes though.

Ellie Goudling's River had 153 pure sales the week it went to #1 - I can't remember where it was available to purchase. It's only a matter of time until there's a #1 with even lower sales, for example Dave's Starlight sold 291 in its final week at the top.

I think River not selling much is more an indication that it only charted cos it was bunged early on amazon xmas playlists but didnt have the same half sales the oldies had so it was outperforming them 2 to 1 while leeching off the back of them. I know i got annoyed with it when it used to come on and drag the mood down. But nobody liked it enough to bother going on Amazon and buy it. Bet the joni mitchell album it originated on outsold it that year....

The other thing that worked in favour of 'River' was that it was being streamed heavily during a successful promotional campaign for Amazon Prime. This was off the back of AP obtaining exclusive rights to show two rounds of Premier League football during December 2019, one in early December and one over the Christmas / New Year period. Amazon Prime ran a promotional campaign that month where a user could sign up for a free month of AP, watch a lot of free football and have access to Amazon Music for free too - with streams counting as premium streams for chart purposes. Apparently Amazon had around 2.5 million extra subscribers to its Prime service that month. I was one of them. There were prominent ads for the Christmas music playlists and 'The River' was usually the first or second song to be played (which is why I gave up listening to the Christmas playlists).

'River' was only available to download on Amazon at the time as well (it's since been given a wider release but still presume its pure sales total is peanuts to date).

 

I think platform exclusives are pretty much the only 'streaming only' songs - maybe there are examples of songs that are available on all streaming platforms but not on iTunes if you look hard enough but I can't immediately think of any!

Wow yet again! I thought I was bad enough with my comparatively meagre set of 1,600 vinyl albums and 12”

 

That’s some serious dedication to collecting

 

 

That's a lot of vinyl though Dandy. I have about 800 CD albums.

I think River not selling much is more an indication that it only charted cos it was bunged early on amazon xmas playlists but didnt have the same half sales the oldies had so it was outperforming them 2 to 1 while leeching off the back of them. I know i got annoyed with it when it used to come on and drag the mood down. But nobody liked it enough to bother going on Amazon and buy it. Bet the joni mitchell album it originated on outsold it that year....

 

I liked it and was one of the famed 153 buyers, having downloaded it from Amazon :lol:

 

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I don't see a No.1 unavailable to download coming to pass anytime soon because it's essentially throwing away a very easy, low cost revenue stream if you don't. Releasing a song for download globally literally costs tens of pounds a year, there's no point not doing that if it's likely to get even 200 sales. Plus, while it's rare these days, on some close weeks it can still make a difference to No.1 so it really makes no sense to not have it in the mix, especially when there's still a market for downloads existing - even though it's vanishingly small now.

On my PC, i have a database of all the No.1 singles since 1952

I seem to remember reading that one of the authors of the old 'Complete Book of British Charts' books from the late '90s/early '00s - I think it was Jon Kutner - had acquired every Top 75 single up to that point (or Top 50 etc when chart size was smaller), which would likely have been around the time physical was giving way almost completely to digital. Although clearly it's far simpler, easier and cheaper to own every single as a download rather than a CD, cassette or vinyl disc, I think a lot of long-term collectors of an older age tended not to embrace the opportunity to continue collecting everything digitally when a physical counterpart was not issued. Collectors in general like tangible, real product rather than ephemeral, virtual equivalents. Hence why there's been such a resurgence in the predominantly-digital era among older physical formats such as vinyl and even cassette, albeit that they of course remain a small fraction of the overall paid-for market, which sadly in itself is rapidly dwindling thanks to streaming (Music Week weekly figures suggest that a similar number of CD albums are now sold to the total number of downloaded tracks which is indicative of how far things have slipped in the latter market).

I know Jon Kutner (I take part in his weekly virtual music quiz) and I knew he was an avid collector of singles but I'm not sure he has every top 75 single as that would be virtually impossible I'd have thought - I'm going to ask him when I speak to him next week!

I though Phil "The Collector" Swern had acomplete collection of every uk top 40 single. He compiles the questions for PopMaster.

 

https://longlivevinyl.net/2017/05/17/phil-c...wern-interview/

Yeah and doesn’t he produce Pick of the Pops too?

I attempted to collect all the number ones too. I've no idea exactly how many I have on an original format, but it would be the majority from 50s to 00s, so well into the hundreds, and in many cases I have mutliple formats, as I wanted all formats for each release too. I began the collection around 2000 and started to drift away from it in 2009 for a combination of reasons, one was I got my own flat, which in one stroke limited my available funds and my potential storage space (somehow I never worried about storage space when I was at my parents house, filled my room, then began taking over my sister's room with it) Another was that not all new number ones were available on a physical release to start with (and I only dabbled with downloads for a little while into 2010 or 2011), and those that were available on physicals, at least in my branch of HMV, tended to be on Syco/BMG and be exactly the things I least liked about the charts at that time. The third reason was that I moved away from collecting in general at that time (I had many different collections, not just music), again partly due to funding and space, and partly because it stopped being fun and luck-based when you could go on ebay or Amazon Marketplace and basically complete a collection in the first day/week of trying to collect it. Collecting for me was fun when it was a weekly trawl around local charity shops to see what might turn up for any of my collections, and perhaps the odd visit to a car boot if I had a weekend off, as that meant it was entirely down to fate as to what I would find, and it also helped control my spending a bit as I wasn't likely to find and need to buy dozens and dozens of items in one go. I could have carried on like with weekly trawls and ignored the ecistence of ebay et al, but it would have always been on my mind and bugging me that a single big splurge on ebay could have finished what would otherwise have been potentially years of dedicating one afternoon a week to endlessly trawling shops.

 

I really must do an audit of my collection though, both to ascertain what and how many I have, but also to do a check for condition and storage, as it's been way to long since I fought my way into the back end of the apare room to check on any of the vinyls. I think cassettes from 89-03 and CDs were probably complete for all number one singles that had one. I know I must have put a list of my cassette nymber ones on this forum at some time in the past as a couple of people have contacted me over the years to ask if they could buy one of the rarer 2003 ones from me.

Oh and someone had a complete collection, including downloads where applicable, up to 2012, because they were feature in articles during the 60th anniversary, and at the time were looking to sell it to someone else (with the downloads all on an ipod), which if they did then it clearly isn't this guy's collection.