Hassaan

It's probably the latter. With an artist like him, they just care about the big hits. He's not in the mainstream as much now. From 2010 to 2014 he was on a roll with the success he was having. He seemed to capture the mood of the nation and what they wanted from pop music as well as he could.

Correct. 25 is on 4,137,882 and 21 would be something like 5.5 million by now.

Some updated sales: 4,478,515 - Divide 4,025,007 - Multiply

Yeah that's what I meant re: Gary being on the judging panel in 2011. I guess it was not the first time that runners up got ahead of the winner with their first proper single but it can't have helped. I took thought there would be a lane for him somewhere. James Morrison and James Blunt aren't a million miles away from him stylistically but they've had some sustained success when it comes to shifting records.

Rebecca less so. Her album outsold his. What Matt needed on that first album (well, they all do really) was creative control. A big part of releasing "Run For Your Life" as the lead single was because Gary Barlow wrote it and he was on X Factor that year as a judge - but it didn't allow him to hit the ground running which is what he needed. He was a bit older than 1D so was probably not going for the same audience anyway but it didn't allow him to make his mark.

Fearful of what the country will look like if they get into power. It feels like we're sleepwalking into it.

I want a proper progressive party to succeed but I'm not confident that this is it.

Yeah, the industry has changed a lot since 2010-14 and he was probably able to have more "casual fans" than he does now because the industry wasn't so fragmented. Now he's got his core fans but not many outside of that.

Olly's a bloke in his 40s now and won't be considered hot property in the music industry anymore. He's of the age where he's relegated to a "legacy act" which isn't a term I'm personally keen on. I don't think a collaboration is out of the question. I think it's less likely to be someone young and "hot" where the industry is concerned. It might be someone who was also big around the same time but less so now. He's at the point in his career where he can do whatever he wants really. He's probably achieved all the things he wanted to in the industry (perhaps aside from doing something like Glastonbury).

Corbyn & Sultana are being dropped from it too. I don't know if the whole idea is completely dead, but hopefully whoever takes over doesn't waste time arguing amongst themselves.

No. 5 in the end. We also have some album totals: 1,529,875 - Right Place Right Time 1,174,265 - In Case You Didn't Know 1,047,405 - Never Been Better Total album sales of 5,592,917. Total single sales of 15,288,863, including five million-sellers.

It was both of them, really.

He's been quite open on it being more of a passion project for him rather than going for the big commercial success like he is with this one.

Yes - although it falls under the definition of being an EP more than an album as it's 24 minutes long.

I've always run on the belief that Q4 is the best time for albums cos of sales being higher in the run up to Christmas, but these days I don't know how true that is. You could say that he'd chart higher on these current numbers in Q1, but who's to say that he'd even get the same amount of sales in the first place? He's gone on record as saying that this is the album he wanted to make after X Factor, and it clearly has more of a playful vibe than he's known for which probably leaves him more open to piss-taking online. Having said that, it's surely still better than not being talked about at all? Part of the issue is that he doesn't have a very streaming heavy fanbase.