9TH JANUARY 1982

 

 

1981 ends and sees not much changing so far as "Don't You Want Me" racks up a fifth week at the top though sales predictably fall to a still impressive 106,000 (506,016 in total for 1981), the Human League also see "Dare" return to the top this week to complete double domination in the UK charts. It's worth bearing mind that the sale for "Don't You Want Me" is essentially on 4 days sales once the various bank holidays are factored in and readers should note that the chart week has now changed and runs Friday- Thursday, this is to allow the maximum number of sales diaries to be collected and a new chart to be compiled by the time the chart is announced on Tuesday Lunchtime and should allow any errors to be weeded out as the compilers BMRB won't be working to such a tight deadline.

 

 

 

The chart throws up two entries with the first coming from Kool & The Gang who rocket 26-7 (43,000) with their third top 10 hit "Get Down On It". It's the second single from the album "Something Special" which has yet to make the top 20 here, indeed the group have yet to make the big 20 here and this is their 15th album in total!

 

 

 

 

Moving swiftly onto album two (due in spring) Altered Images follow up "Happy Birthday" with "I Could Be Happy" which this weeks heads 20-10 (34,000) and after the near miss of their last hit they must be hoping for a quicker and easier trek to the top spot, initial results look promising as lead singer Grogan has become something of a pin up since the band broke a few months ago.

 

 

 

As you might expect sales dive all around with nothing in the top 10 matching their sales figures for the Christmas week, so even though they lose 6% in sales Bucks Fizz still rise 5-2 (84,000) with "The Land Of Make Believe" which could top the charts next week as pretty much the last song standing, an interesting feature of the Christmas fall out is what track manages to survive, and I'm sure they won't mind becoming this years beneficiary, Adam & The Ants also climb a spot 4-3 (68,000) but lose a whopping 26% saleswise and must be fancied for a hefty drop next week, other tracks moving up despite a sales loss are Madness 6-4 (62,000, down 30%), Dollar 9-8 (40,000, down 23%) and Jon & Vangelis 10-9 (36,000 down 28%). No such luck for some acts who lose sales and position, Abba recede 3-5 (59,000, 47% sales loss), and poor Cliff Richard collapses 2-6 (54,000, down 56%) with the heftiest sales dip of all.

 

 

 

1- DON’T YOU WANT ME?- The Human League (106,000)

2- THE LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE- Bucks Fizz (84,000)

3- ANT RAP- Adam & The Ants (68,000)

4- IT MUST BE LOVE- Madness (62,000)

5- ONE OF US- Abba (59,000)

6- DADDY’S HOME- Cliff Richard (54,000)

7- GET DOWN ON IT- Kool & The Gang (43,000)

8- MIRROR MIRROR- Dollar (40,000)

9- I’LL FIND MY WAY HOME- Jon & Vangelis (36,000)

10- I COULD BE HAPPY- Altered Images (34,000)

 

I appreciate you said you were going to pop a post on to explain more and I’m looking forward to reading it, but the totals for Don’t You Want Me really are odd. I know that Don’t You Want Me was retrospectively adjusted to be the year end number one, and that it was often cited that it was this final ‘in between week’ that hadn’t been properly taken into account, but it feels like a huge amount to be out by from the figures in here. I mean the sales so far total nowhere near Tainted Love and it would be hugely improbable that it would suddenly sell 400K in the final week of the year?

 

It also doesn’t feel like it is on track to make anywhere near a million, even with 1982 sales to come. So were these sales figures for multiple weeks just massively under what they should have been?

 

 

Edit - although I now realise you haven’t posted the static chart, but still that feels like a huge gap in sales to make up

The Problem with “Don’t You Want Me” and 1981 sales

 

So some may wonder what exactly has happened to sales of the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” which has (recently) been proclaimed as the best selling single of 1981 by the OCC here https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/t...of-1981__32604/

 

So let’s go back to the start and monitor 4 tracks (all will become clear)- “Don’t You Want Me (DYWM)” “Daddy’s Home (DH)”, “One Of Us (OOU)” and “Ant Rap (AR)”.

 

The first list of best selling singles of 1981 was produced by the BMRB in December 1981 covering sales up to 12/12/81 (W/E 19/12) and showed DH at No 76 for the year, and DYWM at No 83 with OOF and AR missing (understandably).

 

A second top 100 was published in early 1982 which revised the list and extended it to cover the whole year.

• DYWM rose from 83 to 21

• DH rose from 76 to 27

• OOU was at No 76

• AR was at No 79

 

And that was pretty much it for 1981 at the time. Panel sales of DYWM were 42,168 in 1981, applying a multiplier of 12 gives you 506,016 for the year in terms of what BMRB recorded for sure and what is evidenced in this thread. This tallies with the Gold certification in December 81 for sales of 500,000.

So could it have sold more?

 

Undoubtedly as no sales were recorded for the W/E 2/1/82 (sales period 21-26 December) it would have sold significantly that week but sales were not recorded anywhere and therefore were never added to the BMRB database (exactly as had happened every year since 1969).

 

The sales needed in that week to make DYWM to be No 1 for the year would have been northward of 380,000- in my view this is unlikely.

 

Given its availability on the “Dare” album for some months (the album had charted for the last 12 weeks in 1981 and was never lower than No 8 in that run and during December 81 moved 8-6-3-3-1 so was selling heavily -sales given as 850,000 in January 1982) would eat into sales of DYWM. A look at the other top 10 best selling singles of 1981 shows that none were available on albums at the time they were No 1, except Michael Jackson whose album was essential a “best of” and didn’t make the top 10.

 

Weather was also very adverse in December 1981 as noted already between December 7 and 18 January where the UK recorded one of the worst and coldest winters on record, which we know impacted sales as similar examples at later points in time also negatively affected sales. it was also a 5 day sales week instead of 6 days (given Christmas Day itself would have seen the shops closed).

 

So where has this “million selling” status come from?

 

This would only have been known in a crude sense by the record label who would be keeping tracks on how many it was shipping out BUT these are certainly not demonstrable in terms of panel sales. It seems logical to suggest that shipments were not moving too far ahead of sales for obvious reasons as it would only mean that stock would end up being returned at a later date.

 

Its figure on the decade end chart however would mean that DYWM would have to have sold around 1.2 million so the most likely situation is that Gallup (after they took over)/Alan Jones) accepted it had sold a million off the certification and then added the 230k that the song sold in 1982 to give it the decade end total.

The problem is that if we accept the record companies valuation of what the track sold in the missing week then it disadvantages all the other tracks in the chart who wouldn’t be credited for any missing week sales. We can see that in the movement of the four tracks between the final BMRB chart and the OCC produced one which showed

 

• DYWM shot from 21-1

• DH moves from 27 to 25

• OOU and AR both fail to make the top 50

 

In short the other tracks should have certainly had more movement if the “missing week” had truly been “found” by the OCC. Conclusion must be therefore that the OCC ran with the gallup figure from the decade end chart and took the view that it sold a million in 1981 and made it the best seller of the year. As noted this is problematic as no other record from any year that had a frozen week has had the same benefit.

 

Conclusion- the song sold 506,000 in 1981 and that’s what the panel sales evidence. We cannot reasonably add anything to DYWM for the frozen week and nothing to any other track, and the figure needed to take the song to No 1 for 1981 is, in my opinion, and following my reasoning, an implausible one.

 

Hope all that made sense!

And with that it's goodbye to 1981- my thanks to all as usual who have commented- 1982 will be coming in September!

Gezza: Don’t You Want Me didn’t sell as many as they claim and isn’t really a million seller :o

 

Phil Oakey: It’s much too late to find you think you’ve changed your mind. You’d better change it back or we will both be sorry

Gezza: Don’t You Want Me didn’t sell as many as they claim and isn’t really a million seller :o

 

Phil Oakey: It’s much too late to find you think you’ve changed your mind. You’d better change it back or we will both be sorry

:D It's certainly a million seller now- Phil and I can agree on that! But it certainly doesn't have the panel sales in the 80s to show it!

Couldn't they have just doubled the Christmas week sales to cover for the missing sales week? That would have put 'Don't You Want Me' on just under 650k.

It's certainly the best Christmas #1 of the 80s for me, and if we take its 1981 "bestseller" status as fact, probably the best of those in the 80s too.

 

'I Could Be Happy' is another I enjoy from Altered Images, especially rhyming "tree" with "holidee" and those clanging bells like the ones Band Aid would use 3 years later.

 

Thanks for the 1981 sales and commentaries Gezza - will look forward to 1982 when it comes!

I love how some of the older quoted sales are shenanigans and since inaccurate. Interesting read.

 

Already looking forward to 1982.

Couldn't they have just doubled the Christmas week sales to cover for the missing sales week? That would have put 'Don't You Want Me' on just under 650k.

It's certainly the best Christmas #1 of the 80s for me, and if we take its 1981 "bestseller" status as fact, probably the best of those in the 80s too.

If they did that then they would have had to done that for every song in the missing week from 1969 to 1982- I don't know if that was even possible for the older years but I suppose it is what it is and nothing was collected. Even doing that wouldn't have made it a million seller in the 80s or the best seller of 1981 :o

And 'My Own Way' sadly only got to #14, good fast dance track with disco violins!

 

 

This look at 1981's music has been great. Looking forward to looking at 1982, loads of iconic top 10 hits and quite a few songs I like which didn't go top 10 which I will mention too.

Edited July 20, 2024Jul 20 by TheSnake

'The Land of Make Believe' is amazing :wub:

Thoroughly enjoyed this look at 1981, thanks Gezza :heart: hyped for 1982!

Bucks Fizz had a big kiddie following, which was ironic as each record they released got more and more sophisticated. I'd been converted with the previous single, One Of These Nights a change of pace, and bought Land Of make Believe as a personal chart-topper after ABBA had given up the throne. Still love it.

 

changed this to clarify I mean personal chart-toppers - no UK sales spoilers :lol: The real chart (mine) was Human League/Abba/Bucks Fizz as the Dec/Jan chart-toppers.

 

Quo's single wasnt that great, though it made a nice change of pace. I went off Quo when the line-up changed circa 1981 bar 2 or 3 great 80's singles. Dollar's top 10 singles are not necessarily representative of sales - Shooting Star and Who Were You With In The Moonlight peaked outside the 10 but they sold well, and they were fab singles in 78/79, and Hand Held In Black & White was a real upgrade in quality pop, arguably their best record. Mirror Mirror was fab though. Jon & Vangelis' was nice, but I Hear You Now is the gem. State Of Independence should have been a hit. If only Donna Summer had decided to record a great cover..... :)

 

 

Get Down On It is decent KATG but they had def lost the funk edge and gone MOR discofunk to set up the 80's success.

 

Re: sales, all fascinating, Tainted Love was always named as the top record of 1981 at the time, but during 1982 it became known that Human League had sold a million, I think, so that matches up with the logic on the analysis. It wasnt unusual for Year-End chart-toppers to be overhauled by Christmas chart-toppers during the next year or even years. I always got frustrated by that - which is why I dont do Jan-Dec personal chart "sales" for any year. It's total chart sales for the entire chart run of the year they peaked in, much more sensible! :)

So I've done some more digging.

 

Certifications back in the 80s were done only when the record company requested them from the BPI. Once the request was received the BPI would then audit the sales to ensure that it had in fact reached that level of shipments and would then give the award.

 

"Don't You Want Me" achieved platinum status on W/E 6/2/82 by which time the panel sales for it indicate a sale of approx 672k which would in turn make the missing week of sales around 327k and if we add that sale to the "known" sales of DYWM in 81 that would make it the third best seller of the year and still over 50k behind Soft Cell. By the end of January there would not be much stock left in shops given it was at that point falling fast and was outside the top 20 so it would just have trickled over the million mark, it only sold about 65k for the rest of 1982 after this point in a run 28-54-66 chartwise. Again certifications were given on shipments not sales so sales would have been lagging slightly behind again reducing that 327k figure down slightly.

 

Like I say i would be loathed to add it given that other tracks wouldn't get theirs added (including TL and S&D) so not a level playing field. In any case definitely NOT the best seller of 1981

Interesting, thanks for the updated information. That does feel about right - plus I do prefer Tainted Love out of the two so I'd be happy for it to remain best seller of 1981, even if Don't You Want Me would eventually win the war

That’s by far my favourite Bucks Fizz track and the Jon & Vangelis track is my fav in the top 10, so magical, loved it when watching the old TOTP episodes - a great discovery!! Both songs are quite festive and unlucky not to be staples imo!

The Jon and Vangelis track sounds quite Christmassy to me - I think its the lyrics about the seasons and the sun rising in the east. Very nice song.

Yes, which is why I don’t know why it’s not a Xmas staple but guess there’s more proper Xmas songs around at the time so they didn’t become the East 17 of their generations.

Interesting, thanks for the updated information. That does feel about right - plus I do prefer Tainted Love out of the two so I'd be happy for it to remain best seller of 1981, even if Don't You Want Me would eventually win the war

Welcome. Also on the BPI website historically the certification date was always given as the first of the month regardless of when it actually got certified in the month. So DYWM is in the database for platinum on 1.1.82 even though it got certified at the end of the month. It's possible that the OCC overlooked that and took the first of January as its literal certification and therefore proof that it sold a million by new years day (thereby making it 1981's best seller) whereas it was the 31st of January in fact