btljs

The Xmas number one is not really the target for "good Xmas songs" is it? If you are trying to write a lasting Xmas number, you're looking at charting every year for the rest of your life - nice little earner.

Looks like Bridge will get the most sales - just up against all the Biebites who are streaming non-stop. Rather neat that it's a charity record vs one called "Love Yourself". ;)

Christmas songs chart totals: top 100, 40, 20 Fairytale of New York 82, 53, 40* Merry Xmas Everybody 80, 29, 11 All I Want for Christmas Is You 70, 43, 28 Last Christmas 65, 39, 14 Do They Know It's Christmas? (1984) 59, 22, 13 Happy Xmas (War Is Over) 56, 18, 10 I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday 50, 26, 9 (not counting 80s remixes) Merry Christmas Everyone 50, 13, 6 *=All time chart record

What's the time limit? Does it count if you stream something else in between the tracks or log off for a while and come back?

On the double counting of songs towards both singles and albums charts: the main issue here is inconsistency - if you download an album (as I understand it) each track doesn't count towards the singles chart (?) and that kept digital sales in line with physical sales. But that presents a problem for streaming as there is no obvious way of counting one continuous album stream (would there be a time limit between tracks? would the tracks have to be in the right order? etc.) so they plumped for this weird calculation based on individual track streams. They could have turned this round onto the singles chart and only allowed the excess sales of the top 2 tracks above the average (which aren't counted in the album chart); this would have prevented the Bieber effect where a big new album release swamps the singles chart, but it goes against their ethos of counting every song download and stream in the singles chart. It is worth remembering that the main purpose of the charts is to promote the market. When sales fall, the market looks bad, so the inclusion of streaming keeps the market looking buoyant and healthy while downloads nosedive. I think they've missed a crucial factor though, which is that the chart must also be dynamic, with new songs coming in and old ones falling out. While streaming is growing, new songs have a built in advantage so it has held up OK, but the cracks are starting to show: fewer and fewer new entries, songs lingering in the chart for over a year. If artists can't get their new songs into the chart because of a backlog of album tracks by a handful of Sheerans or Biebers, then the chart loses its relevance to them, their fans and promoters.

To be fair, the song does exactly what it says on the tin and that's why it sold rather than well-placed sticky tape

I've been eyeing the Shaggy figure all week - I don't count Bob the Builder as it's Christmas and people buy any old thing. In terms of sales she's around 300K so could match Kylie but I guess we have to count streams as well which should put her pretty close to Shaggy.