6 minutes ago, Jessie Where said:

'No Scrubs' is just gonna keep extending its lead as time goes on, even if that did get a brief viral boost.

I think in all honesty 'No Scrubs' is timeless sounding, whereas 'Wannabe' is a very of its time thing so that probably works in its favour.

Obviously there is no way of actually knowing, but would be so interesting to know if it overtakes Wannabe's worldwide sales at any point! Wannabe is on over 15 million worldwide according to Melanie C's autobiography. At this point nothing is going to overtake Wannabe's physical sales at least, it will always be the biggest selling physical single worldwide easily.

(EDIT - by a girlband obviously lol)

Edited Friday at 20:581 day by Spiceboy

The Greatest Showman not far away from spending 7 complete years in the compilation chart Top 10

On 16/09/2026 at 19:42, JosephStyles said:

Great Expectation simultaneously becomes Spiro’s sixth gold single, on consumption of 222,304 units (note: gold certification is 200,000 for singles, 100,000 for albums).

I know mistakes happen, however that’s a pretty big thing to get wrong in terms of sales data! 😅🫢

Very nice to get new Wannabe & No Scrubs totals. I do find it kind of mind-boggling that No Scrubs is on the verge of 3.5m units, and is now way out in front as the “most consumed” girl group single in UK chart history. Not that it doesn’t deserve it, but I just think back to the days when it was “only” Platinum certified. At this rate, I could imagine it exceeding 4 million total sales by 2028?

No Scrubs was of course a very big hit in 1999, with a #3 peak and around 550,000 sales. I’m not sure if it would have reached 600,000 in the physical era (taking into account any physical sales made beyond 1999)? Nevertheless, I’m fairly certain that this sales figure already made it the biggest selling single by a girl group from the US, at that point in time.

As of 2009, No Scrubs had a lower sales total than eight Spice Girls #1s, two All Saints #1s, plus #1s by Atomic Kitten, Girls Aloud & Eternal. By 2019, No Scrubs had overtaken all of these, apart from Wannabe and Never Ever. However it was then behind a few newer releases - two Little Mix #1s, as well as Fifth Harmony’s Work from Home. That meant Fifth Harmony had taken both “the biggest selling US girl group single” and “biggest selling girl group single not to reach #1” achievements away from TLC. Which TLC didn’t take too long to snatch back from them. 😅

Now in 2026, No Scrubs is over 400,000 clear of Wannabe and that gap is only going to become increasingly larger as time goes on.

I do love No Scrubs and I agree that it has a timeless quality to it. To me, Wannabe will always be the pinnacle girl group single, certainly in terms of being a phenomenon. I also agree though that it’s of its time (in a good way x) and is more of a party/throwback/retro/cheesy moment in playlists. Whereas No Scrubs has a more general appeal than that.

Also interesting to see Destiny’s Child Say My Name go from 190,000 sales in 2000, to now being over 2m. This would have completely blown my mind as being a possibility even some way into the 2010s as the streaming era took hold. It seems Say My Name does better on a weekly basis than Wannabe too, but not considerably more, so it would surprise me if it catches up/overtakes Wannabe.

A few years ago it looked like Wannabe’s biggest threat to “best selling girl group single” was Shout Out to My Ex by Little Mix. Currently that hasn’t made it to 5xPlatinum yet though, so it’s still behind Wannabe (which reached 5xPlatinum back in July).

13 hours ago, lewistgreen said:

The Greatest Showman not far away from spending 7 complete years in the compilation chart Top 10

It's record of 59 weeks at number 1 on the Compilation Chart is about to end with the K Pop Demon Hunters now just 2 behind !

These sales across the board....we're in the 2000s, I guess