Just seen a bit of the alleged 40 biggest selling singles of the 90s on VH1 which had Whigfield - Saturday Night at 40 at 800,000 sales. But I'm sure it sold over a million - it's in the all time Top 100 sellers anyway.

 

Also why do they keep ignoring Fragma - Toca's Miracle in similar lists for this decade?

You should really be saying "How accurate were Gallup, and how accurate are Milward Brown. The Official Charts Company do not actually compile the chart. OCC is just the same as CIN (Chart Information Network) were. OCC is just the company that oversees the conclusion of market research.

You should really be saying "How accurate were Gallup, and how accurate are Milward Brown. The Official Charts Company do not actually compile the chart. OCC is just the same as CIN (Chart Information Network) were. OCC is just the company that oversees the conclusion of market research.

 

Oh Ok I got confused. Who does it now then?

Oh Ok I got confused. Who does it now then?

Milward Brown compile the chart for OCC/BBC/MUSIC WEEK. Practically the only Market Research company that compile music charts, today. Unsug heroes really, because they never get mentioned. Like we said before, Fearne and Reggie should really state that the top 40 is compiled for the BBC, by Milward Brown...but they don`t!

Also, Fragma-Toca's miracle was released in 2000!

I watched that as well. Bear in mind that it was the biggest sellers in the 90s and does not include sales in the 00s? Wonderwall was on 800,000 and has since sold a million, as has Eiffel 65s Blue (Da Ba Dee) and Natalie Imbruglias Torn.

There has been some debate that selected 90’s tracks have had their sales adjusted downwards retrospectively by the OCC for instance Whigfield down to 800k and Robson & Jerome down to 1.3million from 1.8m…

 

However I think sales info given on these music channel countdowns should be treated with a grain of salt. I’d imagine the budget to get this data is pretty low, perhaps a list complied in a slightly different way is cheaper to use?!

It appears, based on these OCC compiled best sellers lists which have been appearing on the music channels for a couple of years now that many singles from 1994, 1995 and 1996 have had sales revised downwards. Conversely, some singles from 1987, 1988 and 1989 have had sales revised upwards. Whilst the 1980s sales are perhaps not as accurate and were originally tracked by a different chart compiler (Gallup), sales from 1994 onwards were collated by Millward Brown and should surely be consistent. However, the charts compiled for these music channels are compiled by the OCC (and not Millward Brown) using sales figures in their database so the OCC must be doing something for some reason to revise sales for certain periods of time.

You should really be saying "How accurate were Gallup, and how accurate are Milward Brown. The Official Charts Company do not actually compile the chart. OCC is just the same as CIN (Chart Information Network) were. OCC is just the company that oversees the conclusion of market research.

The OCC do compile these chart specials though. Millward Brown collate the data to compile the weekly charts but the OCC compile these specials from the sales database that all sales are supposedly held in. Alan Jones at Music Week has access to the same sales database and has used it to compile one off chart specials of his own.

 

Also, Fragma-Toca's miracle was released in 2000!

 

still counts as being part of this decade

still counts as being part of this decade

I think the other poster thinks that by "this decade" you mean the 90s. But yes, it keeps getting overlooked in various charts, top selling dance tracks etc. It sounds like the OCC have a few database problems...

 

I think the other poster thinks that by "this decade" you mean the 90s. But yes, it keeps getting overlooked in various charts, top selling dance tracks etc. It sounds like the OCC have a few database problems...

 

I wish they sort out their sales flashes, top 38/39 for the past 4 weeks, so annoying.

 

Just seen a bit of the alleged 40 biggest selling singles of the 90s on VH1 which had Whigfield - Saturday Night at 40 at 800,000 sales. But I'm sure it sold over a million - it's in the all time Top 100 sellers anyway.

 

Quite right - Whigfield - Saturday night sold 1.092 million copies in the UK and is the 66th UK best seller.

 

As for Fragma people get a bit confused. Toca's Miracle was released in 2000. However Fragma's first hit which peaked at #11 was called TOCA ME and was released in 1999

Edited June 14, 200916 yr by Euro Music

Is someone able to post the chart up please?

I've not seen this particular chart, but the reason for the differences would be due to different methodologies being used and revised interpretations of previously announced figures.

 

In the case of Saturday Night by Whigfield, the 800,000 sales is the Defined Universe Sales figure (DUS) and relates the number of copies sold in the identified universe of record shops.

 

Earlier figures were based on sales figures compiled by

 

1. recording the number of sales from shops in the sample in each week.

2. these figures were scaled down using complex algorithms to a standard 250 shop figure (i.e. the panel sales figure).

3. this figure was then multiplied up by the amount (the multiplier) deemed to be the best fit for the number of shops in the UK at the time.

 

The multiplier could be varied from year to year as the number of shops selling recorded music increased or decreased. Gallup maintained a register of these shops which was then taken over by Millward Brown and OCC.

 

The reason for the difference between the 800,000 figure quoted here and 1.092 million quoted previously is that in 1994 the Defined Universe was only around 3200 shops whereas the multiplier used for singles at the time (17) was based on the assumption that there were (approximately) 4250 shops.

 

The Defined Universe was expanded rapidly during the mid-1990s. By 1997 OCC had concluded that 99% of all singles sales and 95% of all album sales were occurring in the Defined Universe and so DUS figures replaced panel sales times multiplier-based figures. A smaller multiplier is still used to allow for product known to be distributed outside the Defined Universe, a calculation now presumably nearly obsolete as not many singles are sold physically.

 

To answer the original question I would say that the OCC figures are now very accurate. Prior to that they were less accurate, but many of the differences are down to interpretation rather than errors, at least as far back as when Gallup took over the chart in 1983.

 

Presumably, in this chart they also had Spaceman by Babylon Zoo at around 945,000 rather than 1.1 million. If so, the reason for the difference would be same as for Whigfield and the others mentioned.

If the above is true then I made a sort-of-accurate guess about this over at ChC, albeit I thought it might have been an error rather than by design. I posted:

 

 

I don't know what has prompted the OCC to revise these figures and by such a large amount. In 1997 the chart panel was extended to cover just about every record store in the UK, in 1994 when Millward Brown took over chart compilation from Gallup the panel was smaller but I can't believe they've just revised the multiplier they used to calculate total market sales for the period 1994 to 1996 by such a large amount, if that is indeed what they have done at all. Nor does it explain why some sales from 1987 to 1989 have been revised upwards, especially as there was a completely different chart compiler back then and surely the OCC will not have the raw sales figures data available to them.

 

This is a total guess at a theory but perhaps someone at the OCC is misinterpreting sales figures from 1994 to 1996. Perhaps they are quoting the sales figure totals from stores that provided sales data (chart panel sales) rather than total market sales since Millward Brown do actually calculate three sets of sales figures in the chart compilation process. The figure we get to see is the final, total market sales figure which is arrived at by the use of multipliers being applied to chart panel sales. The Chart Panel sales figure would be a fair bit lower than the Total Market Sales figure, especially so from 1994 to 1996 as the chart panel was a much smaller % of all stores that sold singles back then. It's highly unlikely given I doubt the sales database holds more than one set of sales figures but something is not right about the figures they either quoted back in the day or the figures they are quoting now. One set of figures is seriously wrong.

 

which doesn't quite say the same thing but is along similar lines.

Is someone able to post the chart up please?

 

I'm not sure if you after 1999 or 2000

 

This is for 2000, I don't have 1999 on my computer its on paper file, hopefully someone else can help.

 

 

(**) 01 Fragma – Toca’s miracle 856

(01) 02 Craig David – Fill me in

(**) 03 Sisqo – Thong Song

(02) 04 Sweet Female Attitude – Flowers

(05) 05 Bloodhound Gang – The Bad touch

(06) 06 Lock ‘n’ Lock – Blow ya mind

(**) 07 Jessica Simpson – I wanna love you forever

(**) 08 Sash! ft. Tina Cousins – Just around the hill

(07) 09 Melanie C ft. Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes – Never be the same again

(04) 10 Steps – A deeper shade of blue

(03) 11 Richard Ashcroft – A song for the lovers

(09) 12 Destiny’s Child – Say my name

(**) 13 Point Break – Freaky time

(08) 14 Westlife – Fool again

(10) 15 Rank 1 – Airwave

(11) 16 Moloko – The time is now

(12) 17 Santana ft. Rob Thomas - Smooth

(**) 18 Sister2Sister - Sister

(15) 19 Blink 182 – All the small things

(**) 20 Black Box Recorder – The Facts of life

(14) 21 Dr. Dre ft. Snoop Dogg – Still D.R.E.

(20) 22 Lene Marlin – Sitting down here

(24) 23 Lonestar – Amazed

(**) 24 R. Kelly – Only the loot can make you happy/When a woman’s fed up

(16) 25 Chicane ft. Bryan Adams – Don’t give up

(18) 26 All Saints – Pure shores

(17) 27 Madonna – American Pie

(19) 28 Geri Halliwell – Bag it up

(**) 29 Monie Love – Slice of da pie

(13) 30 Basement Jaxx – Bingo Bango

(**) 31 Sting – After the rain has fallen

(21) 32 Atomic Kitten – See ya

(25) 33 N ‘n’ G ft. Kallaghan – Right before my eyes

(28) 34 Savage Garden – Crash and burn

(29) 35 Vengaboys – Shalala lala

(32) 36 Artful Dodger ft. Romina Johnson – Movin’ too fast

(26) 37 ATB - Killer

(30) 38 M2M – Don’t say you love me

(23) 39 Daniel O’Donnell – Light a candle

(**) 40 Matt Darey Pts. D.S.P. – From Russia with love

 

Robbie.

 

Your comment at ChC is indeed basically right.

 

Without seeing the figures for the chart being referred to it is hard to be definitive, but Whigfield had about 800,000 DUS. The difference between OCC's DUS and panel sales times multiplier was bigger in 1994 than later on as the DU grew regularly, and reached the point where it effectively became the market equivalent in 1997.

 

The actual multipliers used by Music Week / Hit Music for singles (albums had a different value) was 17 in 1994 and 1995 and 16 in 1996. However, each of those years had multiplier revisions during the course of the year and Alan Jones' 1996 year-end analysis in Music Week differed from Hit Music's interterpretation of largely the same data. The changes were

1994 15 (inherited from Gallup) to 17

1995 17 to 16, then back to 17 after the year-end

1996 15 to 16, presumably because the DU became greater than the 3750 shops implied by using 15 - hence DUS took over soon after.

 

The data is held by OCC in DUS form. For 1997 onwards, therefore it is as originally presented. For 1994 to 1996 it appears that for this chart they have provided DUS data only and not interpreted it into a multiplier type figure used at the time. This rather sells 1994 singles short and probably 1995 as well. It's probably not far off reality for 1996 and Alan Jones often quotes DUS figures from 1996 in preference to the multiplier ones he quoted at the time. For 1994 and 1995 the reality would be somewhere between DUS and the original figures.

 

As for the 1980s. Without knowing the figures being used in revised charts its again hard to be certain. It ought to be a multiplier revision rather than a DUS because Gallup had a register of shops not a Defined Universe as far as I know. But are deliveries figures being used for the 1980s?

 

Robbie, are you thinking of the 982,000 quoted for Especially For You by Kylie Minogue & Jason Donovan on the all-time chart from 2002. Retail was only 845,000 at the end of 1989 using Gallup's recommended multiplier, as used by Alan Jones in Record Mirror. It had still sold under 900,000 in September 1991 (Alan Jones comment in Music Week) and I do not think it would have sold many copies after 1989 anyway. I think 982,000 sounds like a deliveries figure.

I've seen a top 40 list of best selling records of the 80s that differs from that published in 1989 and which appear to push upwards sales (and positions) of songs from the late 80s, much at the expense of records from 1982 and 1983 which appear to have lost sales with sales from mid decade remaining about the same. I can't find the chart but it's on one of the boards - it will be either here, ChC or Haven - and as far as I can recall it is compiled by the OCC. Maybe it wasn't compiled by them but I'm sure it was. If I find it I'll post the chart.

 

There's an 80s chart thread on the front page of this forum where zeus reports that the OCC have been compiling decade charts, presumably they have revised some of the multipliers used in the 80s.

 

Also, as you mentioned, the sales for Especially For You seemed inflated in 2002. So did the sales for Ride On Time, unless Alan Jones (who co-compiled the 2002 list) used either shipments (unlikely) or combined sales of the song in its various releases, including appearances on other singles they released. The 2002 list showed sales of 973,850 copies, at end 1989 it was said to have sold 849,000 copies. Swing The Mood also had inflated sales of an additional 100,000 sales in the 2002 list compared quoted sales from 1989.

Edited June 14, 200916 yr by Robbie

I'm not sure if you after 1999 or 2000

 

This is for 2000, I don't have 1999 on my computer its on paper file, hopefully someone else can help.

 

Sorry, I was meaning the top 40 of the 90's chart- though I have it now. But thanks anyhow!