JCM20

Right now albums are only having a tiny fraction of their sales dictated by streaming, in the UK anyway. Over in the States, however, it's out of control. A few weeks ago Adele's 25 "sold" more than 55,000 copies purely from people streaming "Hello". And last week BBTM by The Weekend sold around 39,000 copies, but only 13,114 were from actual purchases. Whilst streaming has now pretty much taken over the singles market, is the albums market next?

Proper sales are only terrible here now because streaming was introduced, making it easier for free access - they were fine beforehand: Rather Be sold almost 163,000 in its first week, plus My Love, I Got U, Nobody to Love, Hideaway, Waves and Summer all sold over 100,000 in the first half of 2014.

Thanks Gezza!

If streaming is included in x's sales here then Ed Sheeran has gained a lot of steam over Take That because of it. Same with Sam Smith and ITLH lower down

Can't wait for the top 5 tomorrow. I can already guess them but even so, still interesting

Any more news?

Adele has produced the two biggest selling albums of the 21st century and we seem to be acting like 25 is a failure

Gezza will reveal that information in less than 48 hours

21's almost at 5 million - 25's almost at 2.7 million. I don't see it happening TBH

Amy Winehouse has been dead for almost five years. Her getting a nomination purely because of her documentary film is basically a giant middle finger in the faces of Ella Eyre and Ellie Goulding

I love how there's a minus sign (hyphen) right next to that plus sign ^_^ A space after the plus sign would've made it clearer

Does anyone have any idea why 18 Months has never been given any certification? Not even a Silver one?

Lady Gaga almost at 3 million - though she may take a while to get there

Also does anyone know the sales figures for Random Access Memories? I know it's nowhere near popular enough for the chart, just curious

I hope George can make it to 1.2 million (4x Platinum) before his album falls out of the top 100.

It's unbelievable how Taylor Swift used to be nothing special here. Her self-titled second album peaked at number 81! Plus, Speak Now was only in the top 100 for a total of nine weeks! Although that's probably because country music has never been a really big deal here, even though Americans absolutely adore it

Nevermind has sold 2,255,000 but is only 5x Platinum? Is this another bit of calamity from the BPI? If it'd been released before 1989 I might've understood, but it wasn't, so...???????

Of course there's been a huge amount of million sellers in the last few years, but the only songs to sell 2 million in the 21st century are Happy and Uptown Funk - and in both songs' cases that's down to streaming. Only 7 songs in history have sold 2 million proper copies and the last was Candle in the Wind 1997.

Yeah, Love the Way You Lie is the only song in history to not spend a single week a number 1 and still be the best-seller of the year. Moves Like Jagger nearly did in 2011 though - it had seven weeks at number 2 and was only outsold by Someone Like You. All of Me also got to number 3 in the 2014 year-end charts without going to number 1 and only spending one week at number 2. Also weirdly enough, It Wasn't Me only had one week at number 1 in 2001 and still managed to outsell Whole Again (four weeks at number 1), Can't Get You Out of My Head (four weeks), Pure and Simple (three weeks), Because I Got High (three weeks) and another of Shaggy's hits that year, Angel (three weeks). Although selling 375,000 copies in a single week (the highest this century) probably helped.

Last Christmas spent 5 weeks at number 2 behind Band Aid

What has Adele's 19 sold this decade? I think it it was only on about 650,000 by the end of 2009 Also it's amazing how 21 was certified 16x Platinum (4.8m) before it had even sold 4.4m. Although I guess the BPI weren't too exact until the automated certifying began in July 2013

No, in brackets you have the overall sales of 2,874,600 - and according to Music Week Beautiful World has sold more than that, and yet last year's OCC list showed Only by the Night further up the list. Update: Apologies, misread it. Beautiful World had sold 2,820,100 as of 2011.

According to what you've posted, Only by the Night has sold less than Beautiful World by Take That, even though last year's OCC list put Only by the Night 12th and Beautiful World 13th in terms of the century's best sellers. And according to a 2011 article by Music Week, BW had higher sales five years ago than OBTN does now

Last May, the OCC released the top 40 songs of both the decade and the century. Some (non streaming-) sales figures remain unknown though: such as Wake Me Up, Love the Way You Lie, It Wasn't Me, Amarillo, Rather Be, Let Her Go, etc.. Just wondering if anyone could help me with any of those songs. Thanks!