2 minutes ago, Hayzayy said:

07 Doves - So, Here We Are: Best of Doves (5,299)

08 Celeste - Woman of Faces (5,167)

09 Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair (5,163)

10 Lily Allen - West End Girl (5,163)

Lily being 0 sales always from 9, 4 sales from 8 and 136 sales from 7, wow!

What’s the rule when the sales are the same? I guess they prioritize physicals numbers then?

Decimal sales from streaming. Chances of an actual tie are slim to none in the streaming era

27 minutes ago, JosephBoone said:

Music Week Top 40 Sales Flash

Singles

18 Wham! - Last Christmas

20 Mariah Carey - All I Want for Christmas Is You

40 Brenda Lee - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Typically the Christmas songs have climbed from Monday to Wednesday, and then dropped from Wednesday to Friday. However, when the weather changes this sometimes doesn’t happen - and as there has been snow in some places today, and there is evidence that Christmas songs are climbing on Apple for example, they could continue to climb by Friday.

On 15/11/2025 at 00:01, seven. said:

Albums (Top 100)

01 5 Seconds of Summer - EVERYONE'S A STAR! (14,265) [13,328 physicals, 172 downloads, 765 streaming]



Albums

01 5 Seconds of Summer - EVERYONE'S A STAR! (15,812) [13,328 physicals, 172 downloads, 765 streaming]

Hm ? Same numbers for 5SOS (physicals, downloads, streaming) ??

4 minutes ago, Hayzayy said:

What’s the rule when the sales are the same? I guess they prioritize physicals numbers then?

From what I recall, these figures are rounded to a whole number, so they will then look at the decimals - that result from streaming.

Just now, Jo' said:

Hm ? Same numbers for 5SOS (physicals, downloads, streaming) ??

No, this is a human error, it happens! My apologies, there were no numbers given other than its overall total today so disregard the rest.

21 minutes ago, blackmascara said:

Yeah no this is completely different. It is not “double standards” as you are very desperate to push given your at least 5 comments banging on about it but RAYE is an independent artist while Taylor is literally one of the biggest artists of all time with major label backing. Taylor shouldn’t be getting flack for it either but they are not comparable, and she clearly makes multiple versions to get up the chart. Nothing wrong with that! But RAYE does not do this lmao, are you really trying to suggest she made a 1000 limited copy £70 7” for the charts?? 😭

I really don’t think you listened to a word I said as you seem very dead set on repeating your same point over and over again without ever expanding on it.

 

I believe they’re starting to be dispatched. Unfortunately I think my one may have got lost as it has yet to reach Royal Mail despite the fact I ordered it within the first 20 mins of release. I’m hoping for the best but right now idrk 🫠

No it's the same thing doesnt matter if you are humgous or an up and comer, if you play the variant game its the same thing 🤭🤭

You just said Taylor does it to get up the charts , then why is Raye pushing for number 1 if its not to get up the charts 🤔

Its the same thing , im on about the people moaning about variants being double standard but hey ignore what im saying to fit your own narrative I guess 🤭🤭

And yes I want Raye to get number 1 as well btw but hey ignore that too 🤷

Get that 11th week at #1, Golden! Also yay at Mariah top 20 in today's update!

19 hours ago, Mangø said:

Adverts don't really provide as much of a chart boost as they used to though, so many people stream these days rather than having to sit through adverts watching live TV. I very rarely see TV adverts these days, haven't even seen the John Lewis one yet.

I don't really watch TV anymore but I've seen it a lot on TikTok. Could be my age for the algorithm

re the variants

I think the majority of the variants debate comes from someone like Taylor releasing extra versions at convenient moments, which we know she did a lot with THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. It's all fair game, but I get why it attracts criticism because she's prone to doing it over multiple weeks, which not many others do (beyond, say, a late release Blood Records exclusive vinyl, or a full re-issue like Tate McRae's doing this week). It's not wrong or unfair and anyone can do it, but I totally get why it looked shady in the past.

On a wider scale, we all know variants are largely keeping the physical album market afloat, and Taylor is just one of many who utilise it to its full potential - again, it's all fair game, and I don't think any one person can be criticised more than another for this, because everyone is able to play the game should they want to.

As for RAYE, a couple of vinyl variants is nothing major, and it's fair for her to release them, and I don't think she should be criticised for it.

I don't really know why this comparison's started up as the Taylor variant debate hasn't felt quite so prominent recently, The Life of a Showgirl's variants were largely (but not entirely, I know) contained to week 1 and it hasn't felt like she's employed tactics that could be seen as shady to block other artists from #1 at the last second. This certainly doesn't apply to RAYE so probably a good idea to let this discussion drop x

1 hour ago, Dj Cheeky magpie said:

Hope hazbin hotel only stay around 1 week bug off

They’ve been climbing for the last few weeks - the series finale is out today, so they’ll be around for at least one more week.

Hope there’s some more Raye vinyls to be added !

Putting my two cents into the variants debate, I draw the line at "ONLINE EXCLUSIVE NEW VARIANT WITH ONE BONUS TRACK AVAILABLE FOR 24 HOURS ONLY" done multiple times.... why should an online version be limited if not only for chart manipulation. It's not like it can sell out and it costs nothing to upload all bonus tracks together. And why even have various albums each with a different bonus track - it's so bad for die-hard fans with completion OCD etc.

But I am now a sucker for physical variants so I get that, but the digital variants is a step too far in my opinion but each to their own~

53 minutes ago, 777666jason said:

No it's the same thing doesnt matter if you are humgous or an up and comer, if you play the variant game its the same thing 🤭🤭

You just said Taylor does it to get up the charts , then why is Raye pushing for number 1 if its not to get up the charts 🤔

Its the same thing , im on about the people moaning about variants being double standard but hey ignore what im saying to fit your own narrative I guess 🤭🤭

And yes I want Raye to get number 1 as well btw but hey ignore that too 🤷

As I said in my original reply, the 2nd WIMH! variant was released on her website on Friday evening. This would be before she received any sales info about the song and therefore it wasn’t for the chart lmao. She’s pushing it now because she now has that sales info and wants the #1

1 minute ago, blackmascara said:

As I said in my original reply, the 2nd WIMH! variant was released on her website on Friday evening. This would be before she received any sales info about the song and therefore it wasn’t for the chart lmao. She’s pushing it now because she now has that sales info and wants the #1

I'd disagree that it's not for the chart, I think any physical she released would be for chart purposes, same goes for any artist releasing physicals for a current hit. That's not a bad thing at all though and fair play to her for maximising her opportunity!

8 minutes ago, blackmascara said:

As I said in my original reply, the 2nd WIMH! variant was released on her website on Friday evening. This would be before she received any sales info about the song and therefore it wasn’t for the chart lmao. She’s pushing it now because she now has that sales info and wants the #1

What joseph said 🤣

2 minutes ago, JosephBoone said:

I'd disagree that it's not for the chart, I think any physical she released would be for chart purposes, same goes for any artist releasing physicals for a current hit. That's not a bad thing at all though and fair play to her for maximising her opportunity!

It’s not a bad thing, but I still believe it wasn’t the original intention. Genesis. also had an exclusive alt variant and I think it was just more of that again. The push is undeniably there now of course and I do get where you’re coming from 100%. That being said a new limited edition T-shirt also got put on her website today but then again you could also make a case that it would help with the push so.

Not the variant debate lol

All artists have a fair playing field that's why the OCC has rules that apply to everyone and as we know if artists find loopholes (Signed 99p singles for instance) it's usually acted upon.

In the case of Taylor I'm sure 80% of other artists would do exactly the same if they had the same size fanbase.

All is fair in love and war as they say 😉

Edited Wednesday at 20:102 days by Mr. C. Joel

21 hours ago, Hadji said:

People don’t just see adverts on TV. They also see them in places such as cinemas. Past few times I’ve been to the cinema, they’ve shown that advert without fail

Yeh but M&S are using Black Box and it’s nowhere to be seen!

Hope Die on this Hill can peak in the top 10 before the Xmas rush!

The issue with Taylor Swift is that she can be accused of being inconsistent. Her initial campaign about the ownership of her music could be portrayed about standing up for emerging artists. She was saying that the contracts she signed early in her career were unfair. That's fine. However, her strategy of regular stunts to boost her album sales can be said to deprive other acts of the promotion they would get from a number one album.