I spotted recently that Kylie’s XMAS increased sales by 15% in the week it dropped from number 1 to number 4. Obviously there were special circumstances that week.

The only other occasion I can think of in the ACR era was “Freaky Friday” by Lil Dicky feat. Chris Brown back in 2018. It got to number 1 on a relatively low sale, surged during the following week but was overtaken by Drake, and then was overtaken by Dua Lipa / Calvin Harris as well the following week. Its peak week of sales was actually the week it was at number 3.

Can anyone think of any other examples?

I’ve often wondered about Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s single “The Power of Love” in December 1984, whether its sales rose when it dropped from number 1 to number 3 behind Band Aid and Wham?

Wet Wet Wet's Love Is All Around's sales went up a lot the week Whigfield knocked it off the top. A lot of people think it went down because the single was deleted, but actually the publicity around its deletion led to people rushing out to buy it (which I suspect was the real reason the label did it). It just wasn't enough to stop Whiggy.

Escapism by Raye did so in 2023. I think Someone You Loved also did in 2019?

Oh and yes, Frankie's sales did go up from 5379 (panel sales) to 7291.

https://www.ukmix.org/forum/chart-discussion/chart-analysis/10895472-uk-singles-charts-1984-including-chart-panel-sales/page25

7 minutes ago, AcerBen said:

Wet Wet Wet's Love Is All Around's sales went up a lot the week Whigfield knocked it off the top. A lot of people think it went down because the single was deleted, but actually the publicity around its deletion led to people rushing out to buy it (which I suspect was the real reason the label did it). It just wasn't enough to stop Whiggy.

Just realised that I had completely misremembered this! Interesting considering the original post is about Kylie - I incorrectly remembered that Whigfield kept ‘Confide In Me’ off the number 1 spot - when in fact ‘Confide In Me’ was released the previous week, and Wet Wet Wet kept Kylie off the number 1 spot, before dropping to 4.

 

So I guess the question is – what are the biggest percentage increases posted when dropping to each of the positions 2, 3 or 4 (excluding any tracks falling because of moving to ACR)?

Of course the week before “XMAS” Wham! also increased in sales and were knocked off. That sort of thing must have happened plenty of times around Christmas in recent years.

“Changes” by Ozzy and Kelly nearly doubled when moving 1-3 in Christmas week I believe.

I have a memory that S Club 7’s Don’t Stop Movin’ increased its sales again the second time it fell to no.2.

Orson's 'No Tomorrow' famously had the lowest weekly #1 sales ever, with 17,694 copies, but increased to 19,181 the following week despite dropping to #3.

"Let's Party" by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers increased its sales in its second week (in December 1989) when it fell to number 2 compared to its first week when it came straight in at number 1, but unsurprisingly, it just couldn't compete with "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid II, so fell to second place despite registering higher sales than in its first week.

In 1988, Perfect by Fairground Attraction recorded an increase in sales the week it fell to number 2 (w/e 21 May 1988), compared to the week it spent at number 1, overtaken by the With A Little Help From My Friends/She's Leaving Home double A side.

Edited January 12Jan 12 by donnahjaneymack

On 11/01/2026 at 11:32, gasman449 said:

Escapism by Raye did so in 2023. I think Someone You Loved also did in 2019?

These are both great examples, RAYE's peak sales week was actually her fourth week at Number 2, three weeks after being Number 1, and Capaldi's peak week was his fifth week at number 3, a full six weeks after being number 1, which given that he was number 1 for 7 weeks is insane!

Edited January 25Jan 25 by Matt63

Great thread. Evidently it's not that rare an occurrence but it would be interesting to find the biggest percentage increase in sales when dropping from number one - 'Changes' doubling its sales as Julian mentioned might be a good shout for this but I guess it's not an easy thing to find definitively!

Edited January 26Jan 26 by Mangø

^ Particularly when we have an entire era lacking in any sort of reliable weekly sales figures to use in order to make such calculations - and I'm not just referring to the pre-official (February 1969) period during which limited sales reports were converted into points to compile the charts; it wasn't really until as late as April 1997 that we had reliable enough returns of sales from nearly the entire UK market as 'defined universe' units on which to be more certain of which position each title should be at - and sadly to date we don't even have all the weekly tallies for each chart position even in that more accurate era (although admittedly most former No 1 singles' exact sales/consumption totals have been cited in Music Week reports in the week in which they are toppled, alongside the tally for the new No 1, since the late 2000s). Then since July 2017 we have the issue of tracks which were 'actual' or 'true' chart-toppers, but whose position was artificially lowered for the official published weekly chart purposes, thereby to some folks making the figures given for the official No 1 and positions below it somewhat less meaningful...

Interesting thread though as you say. What it highlights most keenly to my mind is that if one truly cares about how big songs actually are, one must drill down into the consumption figures - be they weekly or to-date - in order to establish fairer comparisons between titles' performances. Chart positions in themselves tell us a much narrower picture of relative success, and arguably even less nowadays, given not just the artificiality of the official weekly rankings as presented by the OCC, but also the way songs can build up huge consumption tallies through time primarily via streaming-equivalent units, despite sometimes having no obvious weekly chart profile whatsoever.

On 26/01/2026 at 09:10, Mangø said:

Great thread. Evidently it's not that rare an occurrence but it would be interesting to find the biggest percentage increase in sales when dropping from number one - 'Changes' doubling its sales as Julian mentioned might be a good shout for this but I guess it's not an easy thing to find definitively!

This doesn't truly count because it happened in reverse but I think What's My Name by Rihanna has 100,000 sales at #2 but later climbed to #1 with 50,000 sales (or I might have just completed misremembered).

The Tamperer feat. Maya - "Feel It" sold about 48,000 or so the week it climbed to number one in May 1998. The following week it fell back to #4 but increased sales week-on-week to about 68k (which bizarrely was actually its biggest sales week): https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/Music-Week/1998/Music-Week-1998-06-06.pdf

Edited January 29Jan 29 by ThePensmith