John_Squire

After reading about the non-number 1s selling 100k, I wondered about number 4s - specifically Gorillaz 'Clint Eastwood' and Nickelback's 'How You Remind Me'. Both these sold over 400k in year of release (IIRC). Does anyone have sales for the weeks these songs were at #4? I know Gorillaz went 4-5-6-4-5-6, were sales pretty equal over those weeks? Thanks in advance.

:o Is that the best one-week sales figure for a #3 outside Christmas - or ever?

Spiller and Sophie E-B vs. True Steppers, Dane and Posh - 202k vs. 180k, right?

TAIO

I wonder how much artists actually care about albums anyway. With some albums, each track is relevant to the other/is best heard in a certain sequence/tells a complete story/is simply how the artist wants it. With others - I'd say usually but not always with artists who don't write their own stuff - how much does it really matter what tracks go where, or how they're listened to? It's just a grouping of the 'best' (spurious in many cases) songs an artist has at that particular time. If the artist sells only 200k albums but, say, 500k, 400k, 250k and 200k for four cherry-picked tracks, then that's a great incentive to keep an act on the books, especially popular stuff, because the big singles will get the airplay/video views, the albums won't. I'd argue that sales aren't that much of a problem with pop or rock/indie lite - these albums still sell pretty well (example is Pixie Lott - massive sales in this sales climate, considering it's straight up pop music with lots of singles taken from it), though nothing like the massive sales from 2003-05. Rap and RnB albums have generally always sold poorly in comparison to the singles. It's anything alternative/harder rock/indie that's in more trouble, because the singles don't chart as high any more and the albums don't sell very much usually.

Tinchy

Ugh, so much crap in here! I voted for Shayne although to be honest it probably isn't the worst of the X-Factor debuts. Hopefully the charity ones will go quickly.

I would have thought Tight Fit would sell more than the four songs around it

Five-ish.

P.S. Susan Boyle around 200k first week, 700k+ year's end (maybe a million: X-Factor performance?)

Take That should do 300k; certainly at least 250k first week (maybe a massive 350-500k sale closer to Christmas) JLS closer to 200k; I think less (180-190k) but possibly 200-220k. Take That over a million year's end; JLS just under (800-900)

Top 5 due to fanbase and Taio combined (probably around number 4) but doubt it'll be top 40 by Christmas.

I think it should be top 75. Do most people take 'one hit wonder' to mean one big hit (top 5, 10 or 20) as opposed to #1? Strictly speaking it means just a #1, right? I think most people wouldn't automatically think that, though.

I think some of the 2000 songs will be remembered as classics but not necessarily as number 1s - 'Stan' for instance. And Bob the Builder might be remembered for being number 1, but not for what the actual song goes like. Surprised more people don't remember Madison Avenue - it was pretty massive, I'd certainly rank it as one of the big dance #1s of 2000 (like Fragma, Spiller and Modjo) and not like, say, Black Legend, which isn't exactly high-profile. Thought Sonique would be bigger but you never hear it these days, S Club 7's 'Reach' on the other hand is still a cheesy classic and presumably far better known now. To be honest I love lots of those 2000 number 1s (don't even mind Westlife's Fool Again) but lots are forgettable by the general public. Though not as many as 2001: Five, Blue x2, a few by Westlife, two forgotten Robbie #1s, Emma Bunton (which is actually quite good...) I'd say 'true classics' are U2, Spiller, Robbie, Britney's Oops, and to a lesser extent Fragma, Ronan, Destiny's Child, Modjo and Craig David (perhaps more for his 7 Days sexploits) From this year, only Pass Out and Americano. Maybe 'Airplanes' and 'California Gurls' (the equivalent of 'Spinning Around' ?) Telephone isn't Gaga's best and is famous for the video. Usher's OMG isn't as big (or as good) as Yeah IMO and will probably fade like Burn. Owl City: flash in the pan, could be famous like Deep Blue Something though. Possibly Taio Cruz, though I doubt #1s by him or Tinchy Stryder will be well-known in 2020.

I would say don't count the 98 3 Lions but combine all the other chart runs (96,02,06) as they're for the exact same song aren't they? Not Band Aid

37

Must be at least 50k more than Lonestar. Didn't Amazed sell 170k ish at the time?

This but Brandon and Katy other way round. Interpol low top ten. Most of the rest top 20 or top 30.

Rock'll come back. Probably. Ten years ago there was very little rock in the charts as far as I recall. The only big hits I can recall that are vaguely 'rock' (which I guess encompasses anything guitary that isn't straight-up pop) are 'Beautiful Day', 'Take A Look Around' and 'Smooth'. I don't know but I'd imagine that those percentages in the MW article would have been similar for 2000, only with dance occupying a good 20-30% and rock probably even lower - 10-15%? Between Britpop (and most of that would be lumped into rock/indie, surely) and late 03-early 04 (discounting nu-metal, and the Strokes, White Stripes and KoL's first big hit albums), rock was nowhere excepting the occasional big hit. Same from late 07 (or early 08) to now. Of course, the singles markets that got Iron Maiden a number 1, U2 and Oasis multiple number 1s, are dead thanks to downloads. Then again, chart runs for 'She Sells Sanctuary' or 'This Charming Man' (ok indie not rock there) wouldn't be out of place now.

74-75 (not The Connells' song, which is good) wasn't great for hits overall. Tail end of glam and the Rollers. Not great. As for out-of-place stuff (but in a totally brilliant way) how about Rumer's Slow? Still top 40 this week, doesn't sound like it was recorded this side of thirty years ago, yet it's completely wonderful.

Ah, no, Westlife being better...that's a bit too far. I'm not that fussed on IHAD, but Abba's version has its good bits - the music after Frida says 'I have a dream' is pretty good, and the pause in 'I believe in angels' near the end.

Singles - 60s Albums - 80s Of course, you can't really make things that clear-cut. If I go by favourite songs/favourite album tracks/etc, then the 70s, 90s and 00s could all come out on top. Growing up in an era does affect things too - I really like a lot of chart music from about 2000-2003, whereas a lot of people don't at all.

I don't understand the bit about copies. Does that mean he includes sales of all blank cassettes/CDRs sold in a week, or not?

Hmm. I don't know if they're going to pull in many new fans, and are a lot of their 04-05 fans going to buy McFly songs these days? Maybe. I think potentially around 35k and #7. If this is going to chart in mid-September then won't it be in an increased sales climate? Summer always used to be quieter for sales although I don't know if that's the same now with downloads. If they had released in July maybe challenge for the #1 but would they realistically have sold the 60k+ that you need to have a serious shot at #1 most weeks? Probably not.

Absolutely abhorrent idea UNLESS if they did it whereby every song a user plays in a week is listed as one 'sale' for that song, regardless of how many times the songs are played. If you buy a CD or a download you could listen to it 100 times a week, but only that one sale is added to the chart totals. Therefore, if you stream a song 100 times in a week, it should count as one 'sale' only, for that week. That's fair, and stops chart manipulation by people streaming 500 times a week and every time counting. If they did it like that, the only difference to now would be that if a person streamed a song the following week, and the week after that, etc, then it would be equivalent to the person buying a new CD/download every week, which I doubt even 0.00001% of people actually do at the moment. That would boost 'sales', of course, though probably not long-term for particular songs, as I imagine most people go through phases where they play a song a lot, then not so much or not at all: often the time when the song is most popular chart-wise anyway. Perhaps an artificial (non-paid sales) boost for 4-6, maybe 8 or 10 weeks of a song's peak popularity, decreasing as the song loses general popularity. That would be OK. If the OCC/whoever did want to be anal about it they could include as many plays of a song from one streaming site as they currently allow multiple purchases of singles/downloads from a single source. The problem there is that if that permitted total was, say, 5, then a song streamed only 5 times (but with all 5 counting) by one person would be as popular in terms of the chart as a song streamed 50 times by one person but with only 5 counting, when of course it isn't; this would always be a problem when using what's basically airplay, not sales. Hence why it should be one weekly sale per streamed song, regardless of the number of times it's played that week. As for songs that otherwise wouldn't get into the charts, like 60s/70s/80s/90s stuff that doesn't have TV show exposure: yes, those songs would gain greater 'sales' via streaming, but it's unlikely to affect the charts much, as songs that would chart highly will also be streamed highly, keeping things pretty much as they are now.