Whigfield was one of the first artist of that new era post 1994 who took advantage of pent up demand and this was perfected by Take That releasing ‘Back for Good’ 7 weeks after a Brits performance in 1995. The 1994-2006 era was the exception in chart history rather than the rule, hence the ability of Westlife to have so many no1s and the like of Walsh and Cowell dominating the landscape with poor cover kareoke singers. Would much rather pre-94 and post-2007 imho! You had to work for that music career.

the chart is a top 100 not a top 75 though

Just now, Bjork said:

the chart is a top 100 not a top 75 though

In that era, a lot more importance was placed on the Top 75 specifically though.

21 minutes ago, Steve201 said:

Whigfield was one of the first artist of that new era post 1994 who took advantage of pent up demand and this was perfected by Take That releasing ‘Back for Good’ 7 weeks after a Brits performance in 1995. The 1994-2006 era was the exception in chart history rather than the rule, hence the ability of Westlife to have so many no1s and the like of Walsh and Cowell dominating the landscape with poor cover kareoke singers. Would much rather pre-94 and post-2007 imho! You had to work for that music career.

From my perspective the singles chart operated in a similar fashion until at least 2015; I wouldn’t say things changed drastically directly after 2006 to the point of classifying 94-06 as a distinct period. The “pent up demand with held back releases resulting in high debuts” thing, that was still very much happening throughout the download era (for singles released before an album). Ultimately it was a solid 20 years of the chart working like that, with high debuts not just possible, but normal. A significant chunk of the chart’s history! So I wouldn’t say it was an exception. It’s not like today’s charts are all that comparable to pre-1994. They’re all very distinct from each other!

1 hour ago, -Jay- said:

In that era, a lot more importance was placed on the Top 75 specifically though.

From my perspective the singles chart operated in a similar fashion until at least 2015; I wouldn’t say things changed drastically directly after 2006 to the point of classifying 94-06 as a distinct period. The “pent up demand with held back releases resulting in high debuts” thing, that was still very much happening throughout the download era (for singles released before an album). Ultimately it was a solid 20 years of the chart working like that, with high debuts not just possible, but normal. A significant chunk of the chart’s history! So I wouldn’t say it was an exception. It’s not like today’s charts are all that comparable to pre-1994. They’re all very distinct from each other!

Yeh agreed, I always argued on here the pointless nature of pent up demand singles in the post 2006 era as the songs that sold best generally rose to the top even if there was still pent up demand singles making the playing field unfair. It was with the NMF world wide release in place that things changed drastically.

There are also plenty of post Whigfield examples of songs rising until Q2 1997!

Just want to put this forward as a point of interest (and because it took way too long for me to collect and present the data to discard it), the distribution of #1 debuts as a concept varies quite a bit on different charts, so it's as much about the era in general as it is the way the chart is calculated. You'd imagine there'd be a lot more #1s in the US if not for airplay! Adding the UK would be too much work but I imagine a VERY drastic progression.

On 06/04/2025 at 10:59, -Jay- said:

In that era, a lot more importance was placed on the Top 75 specifically though.

In fact, at the time, anything below 75 was not considered canon, at least by Music Week. The positions 76-100 from the compressed top 200 that are on the OCC website now weren't even published at the time.

On 06/04/2025 at 12:10, Steve201 said:

Yeh agreed, I always argued on here the pointless nature of pent up demand singles in the post 2006 era as the songs that sold best generally rose to the top even if there was still pent up demand singles making the playing field unfair. It was with the NMF world wide release in place that things changed drastically.

There are also plenty of post Whigfield examples of songs rising until Q2 1997!

I disagree that it was pointless. Yes, surefire hits more often than not find their way up the chart, and of course streaming has changed the market completely. There's absolutely no going back now. But holding back singles gave the opportunity to many more singles, especially by new artists, to make the charts. There was a dramatic decline in the number of singles making the top 40 when OAOS came in. The only good thing about it is that a single isn't necessarily completely written off if it fails to chart in week 1 - but the tradeoff is that it's one of the contributing factors to the chart being as slow as it is.

That’s streamings fault as that is the main way people consume music these days it’s not the fault of the way songs are released.

4 hours ago, Steve201 said:

That’s streamings fault as that is the main way people consume music these days it’s not the fault of the way songs are released.

I said it was a contributing factor.

No it will never happen ever ever again. Hell will freeze over and the four horseman of the apocalypse will march upon us before it happens lol

Edited April 8Apr 8 by chartjack2

It's hard to see how somebody could debut at #1 in the first week with their first single in this day and age, unless they somehow significantly pre-hyped it before release.

Even though a #1 debut is much rarer nowadays, I firmly believe that we will see more #1 debuts in the future.

I'm not sure how it's really possible anymore when most need to build up a following for the steady climbs up the chart

I could maybe see it happening for someone who was very famous for something else, then decided to do music and release their first single. That way they'd have the advantage of instant name recognition, but even so it'd have to be the right person with the right song, for it to happen.