Col1967

I think 'Dancing Queen' got to no.1 in the US though, but they never really had any sustained success stateside.

Not exactly a 'Wordwide hit' as such but Thomas Dolby's 'She Blinded me with Science' reached no.5 in the US and no.1 in Canada yet only got to no.49 in his native UK.

So no 'Sat in Your Lap' in the top 20 then despite it reaching no.11. This has always seemed to me to be one of Kate's forgotten hits and perhaps that not surprising as it's rather bizzare even by her standards. The video is very weird! It's one of my favourite tracks of hers anyway.

ISTR they would announce 5 to 2, then run down the top 40. Ater starting at 12.45 and announcing the no.1 at 1pm, the next hour would be a run down of new entries/highest climbers. I never listened at school, nobody I knew seemed particularly interested in the charts so I associate the Tuesday lunchtime chart with school holdays so it was always a bit special to be able to listen to it. The rest of the time there was a more conventional chart run down 6-7pm (I think) on Tuesday evenings.

I had a look at the 'Confirmed Million Sellers' thread and it's in the 'nearly there' section at 955k.

Billie Jean must surely be almost on a million sales by now.

Well this came from the BBC One O'Clock News. Just allowing one stream per day seems very restrictive, I'm sure we've all listened to a track more than once in a day. But more than 10 times? That's going beyond innocent fandom.....

10 streams per day, apparently.

I'm sure iTunes doesn't much like it either. I know they have to report what is selling but I think they would far prefer people to arrive on their site and be presented with a top 10 of at least a reasonably varied diet of music, rather than one in which day by day is becoming increasingly dominiated by one artist. Personally, I wouldn't allow even one instant grat from an album to chart. It distorts the chart because they aren't all buying the single 'on merit' but merely as an incentive to pre-order the album. Obviously this is a compromise though.

I hope this isn't the start of a trend of 'mass instant gratting'. If so the iTunes chart could become so clogged up with chart ineligable tracks that it will become almost useless as a means of determining what the official chart will be.

Rik Mayall was a well known comedian who has sadly just died. 'Noble England' was originally recorded for the 2010 World Cup, but didn't chart back then.

Two whole weeks? I hate these long running no.1s..... They will but will probably perk up again in the run up to the next mach.

So every Kylie record you've ever bought was solely 'on merit', then?

Not this week, but I don't think anybody seriously suggested he would. However if England have a good run (quarters or better) then I wouldn't entirely discount it. I think the momentum will build again in the run up to tomorrow's game and there will be a big boost should England win or draw. That would be in next weeks' chart of course and thereafter the fortunes of this track will be almost entirely in the hands of the England team. When/if they are eliminated from the tournament, it will fall faster than a Christmas track on Boxing day.....

I don't expect it to, it's not like a normal campaign that after an initial surge naturally runs out of steam. The increasing excitement as England's game nears will keep it going. Should England win or at least draw, there will be another big boost, though of couse by then it will be Sunday morning and would count for next weeks' chart.

'Noble England' is a bizzare combination of the death effect and the World Cup effect. Nobody would have ever seen that one coming!

They should be highered not lowered. Back to the old 'traditional' pre 1989 levels of 1m platinum, 500k gold, 250k silver. In the 80s a platinum single was a rare & precious thing, just a tiny handful of singles made it in the entire decade. For the last few years the top 15 or so best selling singles have achieved it. The top award should really be for phenomenal sales, not simply for big hits.

That might explain it. Perhaps it will finally be a really big hit!

14. Pharrell Williams - Happy That's quite a boost in the last 24hrs, anybody know why?

Well in terms of album sales at least, I agree it's pretty 'unbelievable'.

That would have been difficult to predict, but as we all know predictions are always difficult, especially when they concern the future :) However somebody is always going to be the next global megastar and I don't think saying that in 2010 about Adele would be seen as anything approaching as unlikely as Daft Punk suddenly coming back to have a colossal selling no.1, or indeed the sucess of Maroon 5 in a similar vein. It's just degrees of 'unlikliness' I guess, and that's never going to be easy to quantify :)

Was that in retrospect seemingly so very unlikely, though? In 2010 she was already an established star, the whole Brits 'Someone Like You' phenomenon simply turned her from 'star' into *megastar*.

Dare I look this up on YouTube? It's either a good fun novelty type song or awful beyond belief.....

Beat me to it!