Col1967

'Love is all Around' by Wet Wet Wet was deleted in it's 15th weeks at no.1, but this is widely considered to be a marketing ploy which tried (and failed) to match the 16 weeks of Bryan Adams by encourage people to buy it before copies ran out. I don't know if this happened with BA, falls down the chart were much faster in those days, but that does seem to be particulary rapid, especially for such a huge hit.

10 weeks at no.1? That's nothing. You should have been around in 1991 when Bryan Adams spent 16 weeks at no.1. At first it was indeed exciting as chart records were shattered, but at the end I was glad to see the back of it to be honest. Once it slipped from no.1 it actually dropped down the chart very quickly. 1-4-4-6-12-36-63-x-73

Is this your response to anyone who disagrees with you, stamping your feet and calling them a troll? I think you are some kind of a f***wit.

You mean there maybe someone like you?

You could have made it clearer by avoiding the use of the words 'or not'. This implies some kind of 'either/or' situation and you are not sure which is correct. This ambiguity has led to misunderstanding and argument. If you wish to avoid this in future, I suggest you make your posts clear as to what you mean to say.

Perhaps a lot will be given it for Christmas, whether they want it or not :)

You said 'Mother's day or not' which indicated to me you weren't sure whether that was the reason.

My point was completely necessary. How can you argue it was not? 21 reached those levels of sales due to Mother's day. Yes it's unusual for an album to reach a sales peak 10 weeks after release but so what, how else can you account for the huge rise in sales in that particular week, and indeed even bigger drop the week after?

Well, what else could it have been to cause such a tremendous spike in sales?

Well, what else could it have been to cause such a tremendous spike in sales?

Indeed it is not to be sniffed at but the point I am making is that there was a very specific reason for it to have been selling so many copies in that particular week. I said 'one off' in relation to the sales immediately preceeding & following this week, rather than sales many week beforehand.

That was the 'Mother's Day effect' though. Very much a one-off week if you look at the sales. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_in_British_music

It all depends on what factors affecting a track's sales you consider to be 'fair' or not. Some tracks may have massively more promo than others but I don't think many people would consider that to be unfair competition. Heck, some tracks are simply *better* than others :) Price however is a pretty crude tactic. In the early 2000s, along with the release to radio several weeks before physical release creating massive pent-up demand, the CD singe was 1.99 in the first week rising to 3.99 thereafter. This led to an even greater frenzy to buy in the ist week to secure a high chart position. Imagine the effect on today's charts if tracks routinely started out at 59p (or even lower) and rose to 99p in the second week.......

I don't like the idea of the top chart positions being decided by what is essentially a 'price war'. Introduce random oldies at 59p or squeeze a few extra sales from a dying single by all means, but I'd like MLJ to be number one on a level playing field, not just because it's been reduced to 'bargain bin' status.

I too downloaded from the original Napster. In my case it was getting old tracks that couldn't be obtained in any other way. I never downloaded any current tracks, although I wasn't following the charts at the time anyway. This was in the very early 2000s, some years before downloading legally became common. You couldn't just hop onto iTunes and get whatever you wanted! If I want an 'oldie' today, that's what I do.

I'm convinced DJs talked more than was necessary over intros in order to make home taping less attractive.

Home taping? I couldn't *possibly* comment :)

I might well have wanted to buy 5 singles a week when I was 16, but couldn't possibly have afforded it, so that was just too bad. I didn't steal what I didn't have the money to buy.

I laugh at those who think 99p is too expensive for a single and that they can't afford it. 99p? Good grief, when I first started buying singles in 1984 they must have been around that price. Albums certainly were in the 5-6 GBP range. Adjusting for inflation and higher disposable income singles were *far* more expensive 25 years ago than they are today, yet still people complain they can't get everything they want. Kids today, they don't know they're born.....

Ha ha, I was alive for one quarter of the 60s :) But you make a good point. People will always look back at the era they grew up as having the best music. And for me that's the 80s, and especially the early 80s.

Maroon 5 are miles in front on popbars so it will be a while before they overhaul them, though I suspect they will at some point. I think perhaps that Maroon 5 will just about hold The Saturdays off for number one next week, though. They have been selling consistently for a couple of weeks now, and sales won't be dipping significantly this week. Depends how front-loaded The Saturdays are.

It's interesting that a few years ago when downloads became prevalent total single sales rose to record levels, but this was due to the 'long tail' of so many more tracks selling in modest amounts than was ever possible before. Sales towards the top end stayed very low compared to previous years which had considerably lower total sales. Looks like now the 'head' as it were, is starting to catch up.

I meant unoriginal with respect to all those of this year's X-Factor contestants who must be thinking of performing it.

Probably weeping at the fact that people are choosing such an obvious, unoriginal track to perform on X-Factor.

Agreed. That is assuming that all those who bought Amy Winehouse tracks did so as extra purchases on top of what they were already buying. However in reality people only have a limited amount of money to spend so had she not died, other tracks would have sold a bit more, and it wouldn't necessarily have been evenly spread around the chart. In this alternative universe where she is still alive the chart would probably look slightly different to one that simply has all the AW tracks removed.