Today, Ed Sheeran has made history. His 2017 single, "Shape Of You", is officially the first song to EVER be certified 10X PLATINUM in the UK.

 

@1687474762044317696

But how may of those "sales" are down to streams?

Uhmm doesn't matter, it's still the first.

Pure sales are dead and have been for years even for the biggest hits, it's really time to stop gatekeeping.

I think it had 800k plus pure sales at last count? Still by far the most of any single released as late as 2017.

 

Think Uptown Funk remains the latest released pure million seller (though Hello came close).

Edited August 4, 20231 yr by JulianT

Worst song to ever exist

It went 9xPlatinum 75 weeks ago… which means it’s adding to its total at a rate of 8,000 copies on average a week.

 

The likes of Shape of You is what makes me feel that “streaming equivalent units” are a broken concept for the old huge hit songs that are still highly streamed because of that huge hit status. For it to be the case that after 6 and a half years, the current streaming is considered to be equivalent to that many units a week… it just feels a bit silly to me that it translates like it could in theory still be selling 8,000 downloads or CDs every week.

 

It is what it is, but shrug, it makes me feel totally unmoved by the achievement. We can already tell that it’ll be 11xPlat (6,600,000) sometime in early 2025.

Me approaching this thread:

 

Streams are not sales! You have to buy something for it to be a sale.

When was the last time a song even did enough pure sales to go silver?

When was the last time a song even did enough pure sales to go silver?

Blinding Lights I’m guessing. I know that, Someone You Loved and Dance Monkey all did more than 250k. I doubt Bad Habits did 200k+.

I mean it is an absolutely massive song, should be up there sales wise with massive hits of the past but streams skew so heavy towards modern huge hits getting ridiculously high sales totals.

 

Hahaha, when an artist like Swift breaks records(that include streaming) most of the people here are celebrating, when Ed, who by the way is soo much better, does people try to make less of it. it is funny. Well done Ed

Hahaha, when an artist like Swift breaks records(that include streaming) most of the people here are celebrating, when Ed, who by the way is soo much better, does people try to make less of it. it is funny. Well done Ed

 

That’s not even nearly true, do you actually have an example of that happening or are you just stirring?

When was the last time a song even did enough pure sales to go silver?

 

Possibly Lad Baby.

none of LadBaby’s songs have sold enough to go silver I don’t think

none of LadBaby’s songs have sold enough to go silver I don’t think

 

Yes, you are right. I forgot that "Silver" certification for the singles is much higher than for albums.

Edited August 4, 20231 yr by Last Dreamer

I don't understand why they've not revised the certifications yet. Didn't they adjust them downwards about 30 years ago? Now they should go up. We've got singles that miss the top 40 going platinum for goodness sake.

A load of trash with cringy lyrics

 

Still don't like the song - there are some good lyrics in the song about sweet and sour but the chorus lyrics are cheesy. Also I never liked late 2010s tropical house-pop production.