Gambo

It's an interesting question. But, like so many chart phenomena, it isn't always easy to identify future behaviour of certain tracks or acts, even in the shorter let alone longer term. Indeed, it's usually quite the reverse, with some things panning out in a polar opposite way to how one might have predicted based on prior performance or wider trends. I think it fair to say that even with the artificial expedition of declines downwards due to the ACR rule, it was fairly obvious a bet that the likes of 'Anti-Hero' and 'As It Was' would linger very much longer in the official 100 beyond their initial 2022 showings, if only because of their mega success as keenly-awaited lead singles by major artists and their obvious cross-appeal musically and radio/TV-friendliness. But who really saw 'Calm Down' coming?! No offence to this pleasant-enough little Afrobeats ditty, but given the artist had no prior profile as such and the song was not an eagerly-anticipated release, it's harder to pin down why it's become so enduringly successful. Okay, it was given the 'add famous name' treatment earlier this year when they issued an alternative vocal version with Selena Gomez, which doubtless boosted its streaming fortunes somewhat. Yet that alone doesn't seem to properly-explain why this song which came from nowhere has made such lasting impact. Perhaps it did well on TikTok - being an old luddite I can't comment on that side of things and so often now it is found to be behind the sudden success of a hitherto unknown song/act or the seemingly random revival of an established former hit. That isn't always the reason though. I guess this is nothing new - througout our chart history, sometimes unknowns and un-obvious songs have crept up from little promise and end up just somehow capturing the moment and in the streaming-led world, stick like glue to playlists. If only we knew a more certain formula to this we'd all be down the studio churning out year-long hit records!

Second Image - funk/pop band from the eighties. Plenty of sub-40 action but nothing there or higher I don't think.

Sounds good mate thank you.

Appreciating the estimated combined tallies for the Top 100 Julian T in the apparent absence nowadays of these being made public via OCC as used to be the case.

I seem to remember reading that one of the authors of the old 'Complete Book of British Charts' books from the late '90s/early '00s - I think it was Jon Kutner - had acquired every Top 75 single up to that point (or Top 50 etc when chart size was smaller), which would likely have been around the time physical was giving way almost completely to digital. Although clearly it's far simpler, easier and cheaper to own every single as a download rather than a CD, cassette or vinyl disc, I think a lot of long-term collectors of an older age tended not to embrace the opportunity to continue collecting everything digitally when a physical counterpart was not issued. Collectors in general like tangible, real product rather than ephemeral, virtual equivalents. Hence why there's been such a resurgence in the predominantly-digital era among older physical formats such as vinyl and even cassette, albeit that they of course remain a small fraction of the overall paid-for market, which sadly in itself is rapidly dwindling thanks to streaming (Music Week weekly figures suggest that a similar number of CD albums are now sold to the total number of downloaded tracks which is indicative of how far things have slipped in the latter market). On that point, to answer the earlier question about whether there's yet been a No 1 single that's only been released to stream not buy, this has not yet occurred, although one wouldn't bet against it as sales diminish to frictional levels. I predicted that more and more singles would only be issued for streaming by the early '20s, but so far that seems not to have come to pass - partly because as JulianT says, they're cheap and easy to put out and can do no harm to a song's prospects even when streaming is likely to be by far the dominant means through which people consume it. There are I suppose technically cases of singles not actually getting a 'stand-alone' release per se, because they are released at the same time as a parent album for both streaming and buying; so presumably there's thought to be no need to have a separate stand-alone 'single' issued in that scenario as it's available immediately on the album. The only reason to put one out would be if the artist wanted a vehicle for extra tracks as 'B sides', but then in most cases surely they'd just add all songs they want to release onto the album and have done with it. Our current No 1, 'Anti-Hero' by Taylor Swift is I believe such an example. I haven't looked it up on iTunes or other stores to see if it can be downloaded from a single as well as the album, but certainly it's not given a separate release for streaming on Spotify. If the strategy of releasing a lead single simultaneously with an album catches on, which it may well do among bigger artists given the success Swift has had with it, then I guess this trend may increase, effectively making such singles 'promotional' only. They are of course given their own separate release for video streaming purposes though.

It is indeed about time that they updated this list, given the last one issued officially in completeness was February 2020 (albeit without exact sales figures which they'd helpfully provided with the previous September 2017 update - though one could fairly readily make estimates of where each song was to the last 1,000 or maybe 5,000 based on the '17 figures as relatively few true sales had accrued in the intervening streaming-heavy 4.5 years). It is indicative of how minuscule actual paid-for purchases are now that in the best part of three years, only one further catalogue track has been added (we know we'll never see another contemporary release make the million again so it's now just about topping-up with trickle-sales on download of these familiar titles released before 2015). It would've been interesting for them to give a heads-up on tracks their database indicates may soon tip into seven-figure territory, such as possibly 'Amazing Grace' as Jimwatts suggests above. There must be a handful of songs now over 990,000 which wouldn't take too much more time on low weekly sales to reach it. But then there is always so much more the OCC could do with this table and it could provide way more ancillary information and analysis to support just the basic rankings when it deigns to update them. As usual, I expect the lazy yoof who seem to populate its offices nowadays just aren't interested or can't be arsed. I'm guessing many of them probably regard the notion of paying for a single a rather quaint activity indeed!

Fascinating data sets from KOS as ever above! To think how much these stats have risen in the streaming era; it tells quite a story in itself. And lest we forget, had the chart not been manipulated to remove anything beyond the third biggest track per artist and accelerate decline by the ACR rule since July 2017, the numbers would surely be even higher.

It's an old and never-to-be-resolved problem, and debate continues on many fora as to the rights and wrongs of it. But on the sheer basis of logic and reasonableness, let us be clear on this: presenting combined sales and 'sales-equivalent' unit tallies is flawed, and given the differences in the two modes of consumption, is essentially meaningless in statistical terms, regardless of how much a of a stamp of 'officialness' is put on them because they are presented to us via the Official Charts Company. Seeking to compare the relative abilities and talents of Elvis Presley and Ed Sheeran on an objective musical, lyrical or performance basis is a tricky task that may well result in no easy singular conclusion. But it's still a more worthwhile exercise than trying to compare the relative value of an online rented stream of a recording to a paid-for purchase of it as a physical or digital product! There really is no meaningful level playing field possible when trying to tally both true sales and notional ones through streams; providing consolidated totals of both for a track makes no sense other than to serve the apparent need to simplify and smooth out the process of transiting from one form of consumption to the other over time, for the purposes of weekly chart compilation, and providing a false narrative of continuity in our history of 'best-sellers' by citing total consumption figures to the public, which would be more awkward to report if the two discrete measures, of sales and streams, were to be cited in every case. Albeit that we all must tolerate the reality that buying music is now largely a niche activity of a diminishing minority, while streaming it is the preferred medium for an increasing majority, they are two entirely separate ways of consuming such product, and it can hardly be a fair process to simply add together notional 'sales-equivalent' units derived from streaming figures from 2014 onwards to the number of actual purchases, using an arbitrary conversion ratio based on simplistic mathematical convenience (100:1), where acts that released tracks before (and which had their commercial peaks prior to) the advent of streaming as an alternative method of consumption will by and large eventually always lose out, as once-impressive sales tallies readily get eclipsed by 'sales-equivalent' counts in a short period of time. This inevitably skews the surface performance of songs as at face value these figures suggest that more recent streaming-heavy but sales-light tracks are essentially more 'successful' commercially than those which were sales-heavy, but have been streaming-light. Arguably it should if anything be the other way around, if we assume a paid-for sale of a single song as a discrete product (whether it be a £2.99 CD or 99p digital download) and that can then be listened to indefinitely at the purchaser's leisure, must surely carry more gravitas than numerous repeated listens to it paid for either by a £15 monthly umbrella subscription or 'free' via advertising subsidy. The investment in that particular product in its own right for personal ownership is seemingly greater than if one rents listens of it off a digital platform. It seems perfectly correct to assume that had streaming been available in the time of Elvis, The Beatles, Cliff and all other acts whose traditional sales performances were strong prior to the 2010s, would have accrued far larger overall tallies had listens been measurable and added alongside buys. We can never know by what margins of course, but given their widespread cross-society appeal and musical/cultural impact as reflected through en-masse sales, it's safe to say that they would likely have outshone the likes of Ed et al for some time to come, especially as acts who've only scored hits in the streaming-driven era, unlike their sales-led forebears, have accrued so few overall sales to add into their mix. It simply isn't acceptable to say a song that's accrued over 1,000,000 sales-equivalent units is a 'million-seller' and while it is a worthy achievement by current norms, it should be categorised separately from the true million-selling list, which now is essentially frozen in time, with only the odd move every now and then as digital sales trickle to frictional levels. In fairness, even the Official Charts Company do still seem to recognise this key distinction and once in a while will present a table of only those releases which have sold one million copies or more either in-store or by click, entirely without any additional notional numbers disingenuously wrung out from streams. Conversely, it is probably true to say that had streaming not been invented (or not taken off as the preferred means of consuming music in the way it has), digital sales in particular would've continued to be strong as they were ten years ago, and some of the most popular titles we've seen in the last few years would doubtless have gone on to shift large numbers of paid-for copies in the absence of an appealing streaming model; the likes of 'Shape Of You', 'Despacito', 'Blinding Lights' and so on would likely now be in the hallowed hall of seven-figure sales hits if buying them had been the only means of accessing them. History did not play out that way. But to begin falsely totting up numbers derived from such discrete measures of consumption doesn't solve the problem and will only present an increasingly unfair and warped account of what our most 'popular' songs through time have been, based on apparent commercial appeal. Popchartfreak puts it far more concisely in their post above - it's like trying to "compare oranges with cabbages"!

I think judging by the OCC's list of examples we can tell what sort of average age its staff are nowadays! Only two of 15 pre-2000 and nothing before the 1990s.

Apparently, for those like me who didn't already know, 'MRC Data' stands for 'Media Rights Capital' is the a branch of the company that is the equivalent of Nielsen Soundscan.

Some additional tracks are made available on Spotify singles besides the main 'A side', much as was the case with some download singles, and so these could be considered the direct equivalent of 'B-sides'; the concept has never died out completely despite the transition from 7" to cassette and CD, and thence to downloads and audio streams. However, I'd imagine few of these are recordings unavailable anywhere else, unless the release is in fact an EP of new material and no parent LP has yet been released containing those same tracks. In my experience, quite a few B-side tracks on streamable singles are simply songs which have been released as singles in their own right earlier on; I can think of one recent example where the first song was released as a single-track single, the second single as a two-track bundle with the first single as a 'B side', and third single as a three-track bundle with the previous two singles as 'B-sides'! The album they're all likely to feature on in the same versions is due at the end of this week, making it possible to stream those songs from four possible different packages on Spotify! It would've doubtless been preferable in the interests of musical diversity to feature new songs for 'B sides' with each single release, or at least variations on the versions which are due to appear on the forthcoming album. I suppose a lot of that is whether the artist has the repertoire and inclination to bother recording additional tracks that are only to appear as subsidiary tracks on a single; especially when that will inevitably incur further costs for studio use etc. Actually that was to some extent the case even in the good old 7" days; from the early '80s onwards it became increasingly common for acts to just go down the lazy route of putting an instrumental, live or remixed version of the 'A' side on as a 'B' side rather than a brand new song. Even when the 'B' side was a different song to the 'A', often one could find it on an already-available or soon-to-be-released album. As singles became perceived increasingly as loss leaders and primarily there to trail upcoming albums and once the album was issued to keep interest in it going over the course of the next year, the notion of putting songs out as 'A' or 'B' sides of a single that weren't to be featured on an album sadly became less and less fashionable, as it became less and less cost-effective. There was some revival in the 'B' side's fortune in the mid '90s when pushing differently-tracked multiple-formatted singles was all the rage to maximise initial chart impact, but since the digital era dawned, they've once more taken a backseat, as let's face it have LPs - the ability to cherry-pick songs from an album to buy, and latterly to stream separately, has rather taken the impetus out of creating a complete canon of 12 tracks, as the consumption of that album in its entirety as a singular piece of work is now pretty narrow. It's only more committed fans of an artist who'll bother with the whole LP and possibly listen to it end-to-end, and it's probably only those same few people who'd really be interested in buying or streaming new songs only put out as 'B sides'. Alas few consumers now are that devoted to singular acts and few are that completist. Which is why I suspect we won't see an across-the-board revival of the 'B side' additional track only available as part of a single release. But I agree it would be nice, especially where the artist is bothering to issue their singles on CD for their fanbase.

I say this is a massive piece of work! As others have already said, well done for committing to it and it could be a really useful resource for quite a few people. It is very interesting to get a broad flavour of the sorts of songs not currently on Spotify as these lists are determined purely by the peak chart position they happened to attain and their presence is in no way related to the genre of music or type of act that recorded it. There is a lot of charity/one-offs/talent show stuff which perhaps one might expect not to find, but also some really random 'everyday' tracks of all sorts which one would legitimately assume by now would've found their way onto a platform as prominent as this. Not quite clear on your reasoning for extending the project beyond No 10 just to No 11 though; if that were me it'd increasingly interfere with my OCD tendencies which would eventually force me like it or not into committing to doing a further nine lists to complete the Top 20 positions! I have compiled Spotify playlists for what are believed to be the Top 100 biggest songs of each decade from the 1980s, '90s, 2000s and '10s (most of which were available, but as you found, a handful or so of those tunes are not streamable on Spotify), which function quite nicely as slightly bizarre background music that lasts most of the working day if at home. I half-fancy breaking it down further to annual playlists, perhaps Top 50s, but the work involved just puts me off, as well as the reality that not all tracks will be available and the more granular one becomes, the more gaps there may be. I know though that if I completed say the first ten years, sooner or later I'd have to find the time and inclination to do the remaining thirty! It's all or nothing for me so I'm sticking to just the decades for now! In any case, I appreciate what must've gone into this and it's good of you to share more widely.

Yes I must endorse what Shaky has just posted; this really does display a huge amount of time, effort and knowledge and the least anyone can do who is interested in the more detailed delvings into the British singles charts is to subscribe to this series. I've received the 1952 edition and despite it being obviously only a seven-week chart year, Lonnie still manages to spin 49 interesting pages out of it! If that's '52, think about how much you'll get for a year in the '00s when you're in Top 200 territory! The value for money can only increase with each passing decade. The word 'comprehensive' doesn't really do it justice. Just watch out for his occasional typos though... :rolleyes:

You mean to tell me there is actually such a thing as an Official Charts Company MUG and KEYRING??!!! Sales I'd imagine would be pretty poor - almost as low as digital downloads nowadays - though the difference between digital music consumption and buying cheap naff tat is that they can't artificially bolster the true sales figures by adding in streaming-equivalent 'sales'!!

Wasn't there some statistic published a few years ago that had calculated that the world's most heard, and self-performed - and therefore arguably 'famous' - song is the traditional standard 'Happy Birthday'?! Okay it's not a charted 'hit' recording as such (no clever replies re Stevie Wonder and Altered Images please!) and I don't think the originators of the lyrics and melody could even be traced now (haven't checked any of this out online by the way so maybe my recollections are incorrect), so perhaps many wouldn't consider it to qualify for the purposes of this thread. But in terms of sheer familiarity, cross-cultural, cross-generational and predictable annual relevance to all who celebrate having completed another 12 months of life intact, 'HB' is to my mind a likely contender for 'most famous song ever', if we are generous in our definition of the term 'song'. Apols if someone's already pitched for this but I haven't time to read all the preceding posts!

Surely it's one of those well-known and instantly-hummable tunes from D-Block Europe....

Oh I see - yes I was basing that on the legend that UKCP still have for the airplay chart that says Sun - Sat. So everyone uses this weird split week now then! Oh well; consistent I suppose which is something. Actually looking at it again the chart did bear a date of Fri 31 Jan, which I presume then must have been the chart week-commencing date (corresponding to chart week-ending Thu 6 Feb).

UKChartsPlus reported in its issue W/E Sat 8 Feb '20 that 'Blinding Lights' had finally reached No 1 on the Radio Airplay chart compiled by RadioMonitor, having first charted there W/E 14 Dec '19 at No 78 (nine weeks earlier). As they still stick to a more conventional Sunday-to-Saturday week to compile their chart, I assume that week's tabulation was derived from audience impressions from Sun 25 Jan to Sat 1 Feb '20. It went on to be the airplay chart-topper for many weeks on and off thereafter of course, as indeed happened with its equally enduring performances on the OCC's overall combined, sales and streaming charts across the spring of last year. It's even more impressive to register that its chart profile on the combined Top 100 would be even better, had it not been relegated to ACR, and would have extended considerably beyond 104 consecutive weeks were it not about to be cut short artificially by the incursion of the mass-streamed Christmas crap. Though one would be naive to suggest it'll never be back, as it has all the hallmarks of a new 'Mr Brightside' as discussed earlier, and even the manipulation of the main chart to massage out the inconveniences streaming creates has so-far failed to keep that song out of the now-'compressed' Top 100 for long. Personally I'm still not really tired of hearing it on the radio, despite it having been released exactly two years ago this week (Fri 29 Nov '19) and it still being on the official charts without break. It's the compelling melody, his capable vocal performance and the delightful - if rather by-numbers - eighties synthpop revivalism that appeals to my (and presumably still thousands of others') ears. There's just so few new tracks out which embed themselves as memorably, as so many lack any discernible melody or hook, or at least one that at least sounds reasonably original. Let's face it, I still don't turn a song like 'Take On Me' off the radio as and when it's played, and that's now over 36 years old! I suspect for many 'BL' will sit in the same category and will be one of the few late '10s hits that'll still be spun on radio and TV etc regularly in another 30 years.

I'm fairly sure 'Cold' by Annie Lennox (not 'Lennon' as the OCC apparently had it!) was the first UK Top 75 chart single that had not been released on vinyl since the format became dominant in the late 1950s. Just cassette and CD.

Just to say I like this idea Mick if you can assemble all the relevant and reliable info.

The '82 edition looks tremendous as per its predecessors, although I can't yet say I've had sufficient time to really dive deep into the numerous facts, figures and analysis that Sean presents in his very rigorously-researched tomes. It's something one has to dip into over a longer period to really appreciate, but it'll be worth it in the end. Anyone with either a penchant for historical music information (not just charts and sales data), and/or a love for the year in question (happily I have both - what 30 Spells Shakey says above about this year is completely correct BTW - '82 should be so much more Blue Zoo and Classix Nouveaux than Goombay Dunce Band or Charlene!) should invest what is a very small sum for this book. The only regret here is that it'll take many years for Sean to gather the similarly vast mass of material needed to present annuals for the remainder of the eighties; as a slightly OCD sort who prefers to collect all or not at all, it's annoying I don't yet have '83 to '89 on my shelf alongside '80 to '82!! But patience is a virtue and all that. Keep up the hard work mate and thank God it's a labour of love as hopefully you won't get halfway in and decide to give it all up!

I remember hearing 'Lose My Mind' in a pub in Portsmouth in early 2011 and on declaring I really liked it, I was dismissed as being "a gaylord" by my mate. I rose above this and purchased it on download (a real commitment!). I still insist that it is not only The Wanted's best single (that I've heard anyway), but one of the best out-and-out pop moments of that period! Incredibly catchy, well-sung, not over-produced like so many tracks of the era were becoming, and I think showed they were capable of just a little more than the average boy band.

I'd love to know his pure and streaming-equivalent sales breakdowns and tables of his biggest-selling and most-streamed hits.

Didn't 'In My Place' also match No 2 in Aug '02 as lead single from 'AROBTTH'?! Another OCC research oversight. It likely sold overall more than 'Speed Of Sound' too, although one could argue that the latter was the band's first brush with topping singles charts, as it hit No 1 on the downloads chart W/E 30 Apr '05 for three consecutive weeks ahead of its physical release (some three years two months before 'Viva La Vida' made No 1 on the by-then combined physical/digital main chart).

If it's not already been mentioned, an obvious and very deliberate case of 'download-only' syndrome was that live version of 'Flying Without Wings' by Westlife which was specifically released solely on the digital format on 23 Aug'04 in order to have an excellent chance of debuting at No 1 on the first-fully-published official downloads chart (W/E 4 Sep '04) - which needless to say it did - and of course could make no impact on the main chart at that stage. It fell rather flat after that, but it had by then served its purpose of getting into the history books. It's just great that most chart nerds consider the actual first download chart to be the 'test' tabulation for W/E 26 Jun '04 published in MW a week later where the aforementioned 'Bam Thwok' appeared as its first chart-topper (though I seem to recall even that had been released very much with getting into the much-vaunted new chart in mind, hence a lack of what was then a conventional presumed CD version).