Yorkie3

Always loved One Last Time even though I'm no huge Ariana fan - such a great tribute to see it doing so well, hopefully it can last several days and have a shot at repeaking (top 10 even?) Feel quite bad for being happy that the song's doing well as a result of what happened, but we've got to find the positives somewhere.

Guess so. :( When albums are so expensive I guess cherry picking after listening makes a lot of sense, if it's £12 and you only like 10 songs then you're saving money. Unless you like having the complete album, I would always prefer to have all of it even if I don't like every song. But when singles sales are so low I can understand the album tracks getting so high on iTunes.

Galway Girl is already #1 on Irish iTunes! :lol: I think it's a good album on first listen, I don't understand why he gets such huge success though when many other artists of a similar genre are just as good or better!

21 here. As somebody who listens to music whilst out walking with no internet connection almost every day, I will never understand the appeal of streaming. Don't buy music often enough to justify the Spotify membership either, I prefer to spend less and know my money is going directly to the artists I like! Also even if it's a bit abstract in the modern age when it's just a downloaded or ripped file, I like the idea of owning the music I listen to, so it can't be taken away just because I unsubscribe from a service. Voted for downloads and physicals (downloads for singles, physicals for albums unless the download is significantly cheaper) :)

Everybody's allowed to like what they want, but I just don't understand enjoying Stormzy... That style of music is totally monotonous and unlistenable for me. Wasn't expecting this huge popularity for it.

Been a Train fan for years and I must say I wasn't expecting them to have another hit, their music quality has been rapidly dropping and Play That Song sounds awful to me! :lol:

Mr Brightside for 16 weeks at #1 in 2017! :lol:

Really hoping Clean Bandit can keep #1 just for the sake of stopping these annoying campaigns every year - I like the idea of charity singles, but when the Christmas #1 isn't really any kind of achievement any more because of them, it'd be nice if they'd give it a break for a few years. It pretty much depends on how much promotion the Jo Cox campaign gets this week, but it'd need to be selling at about 10 times the rate it is now to stand a chance!

Clean Bandit are British though... :P Having said that it's been a great year for past X Factor contestants, strange seeing as that's accompanied by their lowest ever ratings! I really hope Matt doesn't reach #1 with this though, thought we'd finally finished with the era of the winner's single dominating last year!

320. Greg Lake - I Believe In Father Christmas 957. Greg Lake - I Believe In Father Christmas Should be watching this after hearing Greg Lake sadly passed away today :(

The low sales environment seems to really benefit the Christmas songs, Mariah is already top 10 combined and the Pogues aren't *that* far off... If they're boosted by streaming as much as last year I could honestly see both going top 10 officially over the coming weeks! :D

Don't know if it's the record, but 21 reached 4 million during the week ending 26/2/12, so at most 398 days after release. To beat it 25 would have to sell 4 million before 23rd December, which is not going to happen! :P

Also at 427. The Pogues always start off lower than Mariah and then overtake during December (on sales at least) - wonder why this is?

I'd really love Clean Bandit to get next week's #1 (and probably their biggest hit since Rather Be) but still doubtful that's going to happen. iTunes sales are pretty low right now with no competition and they need to gain on streaming very quickly to stand a chance. Still, it'll make a great sales #1 and that's the chart I follow more nowadays anyway... ;)

Fairytale of New York should not be on this list! :lol: Some real classics here but also a large number of songs I'm very glad missed the top 10...

Oh, I get your point. I think my wording was quite bad there, sorry! Of course I agree people were listening to it week after week, but my point was that it wasn't getting millions of streams because the same people were listening to it hundreds of times - more because of the sheer number of people listening to it a few times. Hence why I don't think stopping counting streams after 100 would actually make much difference to the chart, I just think it's only fair.

I think you'd probably be surprised, the majority of users contributing to One Dance's sales probably didn't actually listen to it 100 times - it was just a sheer mass of people listening to it whilst it was #1 on streaming and top of all the playlists causing the problem! I may be wrong though... If so, it only strengthens my opinion that each user should be limited to one sale!

It's not that I don't agree that streaming should be included in some way (it's a huge source of revenue for the music industry so probably should be, although I doubt it makes up over 80% yet as it does in the chart so something must be wrong), but I actually don't agree with the statement that the chart looked stupid in 2005 - having the possibility of Elvis getting to #1 was interesting, and sales may have been depressingly low but the rise and fall of singles was still a normal thing to see, and (at least to me) it was a lot less stupid than it is now! I agree with all the statements about finding some way of limiting the streams for a song - firstly finding some way of separating paid streams and not counting free users towards the chart is a perfect idea, as personally I don't think somebody should be contributing to the chart without paying a penny. This could make a massive difference - I'm not sure exactly how many people use Spotify for free, but pretty much everybody I've spoken to about it does! Secondly, though the difference here would be miniscule as barely anybody actually listens to the same song week after week, I also agree that one user shouldn't be able to contribute more than 1 sale equivalent. This is just on principle, as when I buy a single I will often listen to it well over 100 times, and don't like the idea that I'm contributing less to the chart than somebody who didn't even buy it! I may just be old-fashioned though :P The absolute biggest change that NEEDS to happen though, is Spotify and other streaming services must stop advertising their "most played" playlist so much - it just leads to people listening to songs purely because they've been listened to so many times already, which for obvious reasons is really bad for chart movement. Forgive my rant, I know this has all been said before, but the chart is getting so tedious now, just wanted to add my voice to the crowd...

Am I the only one who really likes Toothbrush? It's so catchy! :P

Looking at the iTunes chart, it looks like (unless a huge name is involved) a track basically has to be reduced to 59p to take off these days - half of the top 20 are currently at 59p. Whilst it's good that they're (mostly) giving boosts to new tracks, it's looking like reducing the standard price would be a good idea to convince people to buy more music. Apple might never actually go through with this, but from the artist's point of view, considering how little revenue they apparently get from streaming, I'd imagine most would be happy with this.

Fair enough, I'm not denying that. I just see reducing the price after 14 weeks at #1 as a blatant attempt by the record company to manipulate the chart and get more weeks. On the other hand, it was clearly an effort to do the same thing when Wet Wet Wet deleted their single, but they didn't get any more weeks from it anyway as the competition proved too strong when Whigfield released. I'm probably just biased when it's been 11 weeks since the song was even #1 on sales, it really shouldn't still be there at this point and anything that gives it a boost is a terrible thing in my view :lol:

It just seems like such a coincidence if not. iTunes often promote songs that are struggling to rise up the charts (especially recently) but I can't remember a time when a song already at #1 has been reduced, ever. Some have got there after being made 59p. To do so for a song that has been there for 14 weeks is ludicrous and I would think Apple have more sense than to do that unless they're given good reason to. Sure, by all means reduce its price when it's dropped out of the top 40, but not now!

Putting Jonas Blue/Calum Scott back to full price was definitely the right choice this week now they're big hits, but WHO thought it would be a good idea to reduce One Dance???!!! Until now I doubted the idea that Drake was paying Spotify to keep promoting him, but this happening on the week he probably would have fallen from #1 screams foul play. Actually lost all interest in the chart now, I probably won't be listening for a while :(

+5 Kungs vs. Cookin' On 3 Burners - This Girl +4 Galantis - No Money +3 Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling +2 Calvin Harris feat. Rihanna - This Is What You Came For +1 Clean Bandit feat. Louisa Johnson - Tears -1 Sia feat. Sean Paul - Cheap Thrills -2 Gnash feat. Olivia O'Brien - I Hate U, I Love U -3 Cheat Codes & Kris Kross Amsterdam - Sex -4 Drake feat. Wizkid & Kyla - One Dance -5 Drake feat. Rihanna - Too Good Still love all the top 6 :)

+5 Mike Posner - I Took A Pill In Ibiza +4 Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling +3 Sia feat. Sean Paul - Cheap Thrills +2 Calvin Harris feat. Rihanna - This Is What You Came For +1 Kungs vs. Cookin' On 3 Burners - This Girl -1 Clean Bandit feat. Louisa Johnson - Tears -2 Galantis - No Money -3 Gnash feat. Olivia O'Brien - I Hate U, I Love U -4 Drake feat. Wizkid & Kyla - One Dance -5 Drake feat. Rihanna - Too Good