Col1967

Yes, one track from each year and as far as I can tell, only one track per artist. Rather limited you might think but there are well over 1000 no1s, to ask people to select from those would be rather unwieldy.

Ah, the 'It's for me sister' defense....

It's not a bad song for a charity release, I've heard a lot worse. Video is cringeworthy though.

Since 2009 Cliff has added just 0.2m. This is presumably from sales of his Christmas songs, he hasn't charted with a new track in that period. Trickle sales of his other tracks must be practically non-existent. The Beatles as you say, 1.1m. I know that there was a flurry of interest when when they first appeared on iTunes but have they *really* sold over a million singles in 3 years? I guess it's spread over a huge number of tracks, but even so it sounds an awful lot. Elvis is even more baffling. Where does he get 0.9m sales from?? Must trickle-sell far better than Cliff.....

Very tight for the top 3. If Cliff had a big Christmas single (don't laugh, it could happen) then perhaps he could return to no.1?

You'd think though, if there was a strike then sales info would still have been collected by shops, just not sent to whoever was running the chart at the time. When the strike was over, the missing weeks could be added retrospectively. The singles chart appears to be unnafected at that time though.

I read that as Kylie having had floppy ears and was wondering if she had a bunny rabbit period....

It is a great track, I bought it at the time. However I'm surprised it's the highest on iTunes. I guess that's simply because it's their most recent big hit, but that's still 25 years ago. I would have thought that their 70s disco classics would be highest. 'Night Fever' & 'Stayin' Alive' or perhaps 'Tragedy'. The latter may well have been overshadowed by Steps of course.

You will be waiting a long time for Moves Like Jagger to disappear, especially if you consider 'the chart' to be the top 200. I wouldn't entirely rule out a second return to the top 40.

He's always been something of a hate figure though. There was a pretty nasty internet hate campaign at one time, don't know if that's still active. Thing is with Justin Bieber is that he's an easy target considering the demographic is music is aimed at. What I've heard of his stuff sounds bland and uninteresting to me, but as a 40-something bloke, I'm a very long way from his target audience :)

Yes. Westlife's version was an abomination compared to the Billy Joel original. Well you did ask.....

They were as near to 'punk' as anything managed to get in the late 80s. Oh, and if you owned a VW you'd better watch out....

That is much more speculative as I think we're talking sales of around 1.5m ultimately for those two tracks. While sales of 1m are easy enough to predict from CMM's current sales, 1.5m much less so. One thing I am pretty certain of is that none of the 3 tracks will make 1.5m by year end.

It will move slowly down the chart and in so doing so accumulate significant sales as it does so. Lokk at 'Moves Like Jagger'. That's sold nearly 200k this year despite never being higher than no.11. I reckon it's got at least another 100k of sales in it before year end.

It's pleasant. It's decent enough. If pushed I might say it was 'quite good'. But are there that many people out there who really 'love' it, or just a whole load who like it enough to buy it? It just seems so 'ordinary' to me. I do like the little twist at the end of the video though.....

I'm sure that the 1.3m+ people that bought it might consider it to be more than a little 'debatable' whether it is shite or not.

And if you can post this now, why wouldn't you be able to post YTD figures on Monday? You just take them from your spreadsheet, shirley?

I think it's pretty inevitable that it will get there. Sales just aren't going to suddenly plummet. It will be above 50k for many weeks to come and obviously accumulating many more sales as it moves slowly down the chart. Haha, I at least made it to my early 30s before that happened!

In 20 years' time when the classic tracks of the 2010s are being determined then I'm sure STIUTK will be amoung them. But Call me Maybe? I don't think so. Sure, it's a decent enough song, but that's about it. I fail to see what is persuading 100k+ people to download this every week. Or perhaps it's just one of those track that few people really love, but an awful lot of people like it enough to buy it. Conversely perhaps relatively few people really hate it. Gotye on the other hand is so different, so distinctive that even though I love it, I can well imagine a lot of people loathe it.

That's how I see it too, look at the climb to the top of 'Someone I used to know' or 'Domino'. They could easily have been 80s chart runs. That said, there are still far too many instant no.1s & top 10 entries that just plummet. In the 80s you had to be a pretty big act to even go straight into the top 10, never mind no.1.

Over what time period is the chart compiled?

Vinyl will never be anything more than a niche market for the nostalgic. People wax lyrical over the 'warmth' of vinyl and you've got the sleeve notes and artwork too but give me CDs/downloads any day. With vinyl you had the dust, the noise, the scratches, the warped discs and even the odd breakage. People of today's generation will never know the heart-rending noise as the stylus tears itself across the face of your favourite album. Who, seriously, would want to go back to all that?

Well radio in the main isn't about breaking new talent, it's about keeping listeners. So it's generally going to play 'safe' stuff that has been or is a big hit. Tracks that most people like, radio for in the car, background music etc. How many times have I been the works canteen and heard 'Domino' playing in the kitchen? Jessie J is about as safe as you can get :) Though I suspect that was a rhetorical question you were asking and you really already knew the answer....

Indeed. To think our airwaves have been polluted 200,000 times with that Goddawful dirge!