Robbie

^ In the 21/01/89 issue of Record Mirror Alan Jones reported that 'Free Bird' had sold over 300,000 copies. The majority, if not all, of those sales will be for the 'Free Bird EP' which was released in 1976 and which charted in 1976, 1979 (when made available as a 12" single) and 1982 (when made available as a picture disc). The 1976 EP was awarded a Silver disc (then for 250,000 sales) in 1982.

It's been rumoured for a while that she's releasing an album in Quarter 4, 2019. Which probably means some time in November. And no doubt dropping a track in September or October. It's a long wait though for it to happen, nine months away at the very least...

Everything you need to know about 2019 singles chart rule changes by Andre Paine The Official Charts Company has unveiled another modification to the singles chart calculations. From the first chart week of 2019, only streaming data will be used to determine when ACR (Accelerated Chart Ratio) kicks in for an older track. Previously, ACR was also based on download sales but that has now been taken out of the equation. It follows various OCC rule changes to enable the singles chart to evolve in the streaming era, including tracking video consumption, the definition of a million sales and the Ed Sheeran-inspired introduction of ACR and a three-track artist limit. ACR penalises older tracks in decline and allows new hits to come through. George Ezra's smash Shotgun is currently outside the Top 30 as a result of ACR. The refined ACR rules could now result in fewer iTunes sale offers on existing chart tracks, which has previously boosted the performance of flagging hits. While downloads remain a component of OCC singles sales (around 5%), the move is likely to lead to a further decline in the market for downloads. There has been speculation that Apple is set to shutter its iTunes store to focus on the Apple Music subscription service. ACR takes effect after more than nine weeks on the chart and three consecutive weeks of decline below the market streaming rate of change. The standard chart ratio to calculate chart ‘sales’ remains 100:1 for premium and 600:1 for ad-funded services. ACR is set at 200:1 (premium) and 1200:1 (ad-funded). from musicweek.com

They are out there but you'd have to be a journalist or media type person to see them. The BBC still hold them all in their archives which was based at Caversham in Berkshire until last year. They were all moved to London when the BBC sold the building that housed them. Unfortunately you have to have media credentials to access the archives. The playlist for Radio 1 was also published in Record Mirror for a while, from late 1977 to some point in 1978. All those are available online at https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Record_Mirror.htm If you click on the link for 24 December 1977 you can find the then current one for this week in December 1977... the playlist is on page 21 of the PDF. Just look at the wide variety of musical styles from back then! Basically the playlist then was anything in the then top 30 (which is all Radio 1 featured in 1977) except the more middle of the road records plus some singles outside the top 30 and new releases. BRMB in Brimingham and Pennine Radio in Bradford had The Muppets as their top Hit Pick!

I think the Spice Girls helped rekindle interest in the original Waitresses track. I'm sure it (the original) started to appear on Christmas compilation albums from a year or two after the Spice girls covered it. Presumably that helped radio stations to start to play the original again once it was appearing on compilation albums.

'Christmas Wrapping' did get a fair number of plays on Radio 1 but the problem was that the single was released too late to make much of an impact. If I recall it was supposed to be released at the end of November 1981 but didn't make it into stores until a couple of weeks later supposedly due to delays in actually pressing up the single and so lost out on sales in the run up to Christmas. It managed to make the old "Bubbling Under" chart (which was the next 25 singles below number 75 which were on the way up) on the chart dated 26/12/81 but that was too late for it to make any impact. Many stores used the Bubbling Under chart back then as a guide on what to order in so making it to that part of the chart on the final chart of the year wasn't going to help it make any further progress. The single was re-released with far better distribution a year later when it did manage to chart but it fell short of the top 40, peaking at number 45. I'm not 100% sure but I think it had another re-release in December 1983 but if it did it sank without a trace. It's only since the digital era that it has finally been able to once again make the charts and this week it almost matched its 1982 peak. Sadly this belated recognition of the track came too late for lead singer Pat Donahue as she had died of lung cancer at only age 40 in December 1996. Two years after her death the Spice Girls recorded the siong as the B side of 'Goodbye' and the track seemed to gain a new lease of life at radio. 'The Land Of Make Believe' was given a boost in the run up to Christmas 1981 as it was made available in a special "Happy Christmas" card sleeve and booklet. Which I bought. http://www.45cat.com/record/rca163 We sold loads of that special edition!

All the ones in the north east are on that list too. Maybe Mike Ashley (owner of Newcastle United, though hopefully not for much longer) might buy them though he'd probably turn HMV into another tat shop ;)

Yup, both of 'Don't You Want Me' and the 'Dare' album. We couldn't get enough copies of 'Don't You Want me' to keep up with demand. A shipment would arrive in the morning and was often completely sold out by mid afternoon. It was by far the best selling single in my store over that Christmas period. From memory the other big sellers that Christmas were 'The Land Of Make Believe' by Bucks Fizz and 'One Of Us' by Abba. For albums it was probably between 'Dare' and 'Greatest Hits' by Queen. The other big seller was 'Pearls' by Elkie Brooks which was popular with the 30+ crowd. I mentioned this a few years ago but sadly one single that failed to sell well that Christmas was 'Christmas Wrapping' by The Waitresses. As far as I remember I bought the only copy we managed to sell... not that we had much stock of it, just a few copies as Island messed up the distribution of the single in 1981 which is why it flopped first time around :(

I don't know what my most streamed tracks for this year are but it's safe to say most, if not all, are on ACR! They are mostly from before the 00s...

21 Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy was the first song to reach No 1 on downloads alone, and ended 2006 as the year’s biggest-selling single. Single sales doubled to more than 65m in the year following the inclusion of downloads in the chart. If I recall it was also the first single to be disqualified from the chart that sold enough to have been number 1. It topped the Download chart two weeks before its UK release made it chart eligible and in the second week it outsold the official number 1 single which was 'So Sick' by Ne-Yo (whatever happened to him? He just seemed to vanish in the mid 2010s)

It was. The single was scheduled for a CD release and a promo single did appear with the catalogue number NELLY4. However the record label kept pushing back the release date and in the end decided to cancel it when the track was selling very well on iTunes. It's an excellent song as is the single she released before that, 'All Good Things (Come To An End)'.

Interest in the UK chart is going much the same way as the interest that is shown in the US for the US Billboard Hot 100. I don't think anyone outside the chart fans community takes any notice of the Billboard chart and it hasn't had a syndicated radio programme in the US counting down it for two and a half decades. To most people it is simply invisible. Radio 1 has been good enough to stick by the UK Singles chart but I do wonder how much longer they will continue to stick with it. Few people seem to have an interest in what is in the chart, something that has been the case for many years now. The Christmas number 1 did generate some interest in the media but it wasn't as prominent in the news programmes as it once would have been.

Not every HMV store has been earmarked for closure. Or at least weren't a couple of days ago. The Daily Mirror published a list of stores threatened with closure if administration doesn't work out. These are: -Ayr -Banbury -Basingstoke -Belfast -Birmingham Bullring -Blackpool -Bluewater -Bradford -Brighton -Bristol (Fopp) -Bristol Broadmead -Bromley -Boston -Burton-on-Trent -Bury -Bury St Edmunds -Cardiff -Carlisle -Castleford -Chelmsford -Cheltenham -Chester -Chichester -Colchester -Covent Garden (Fopp) -Coventry -Crawley -Croydon -Cwmbran -Darlington -Derby -Doncaster -Dundee -East Kilbride -Edinburgh Ocean Terminal -Edinburgh (Fopp) -Exeter -Gateshead -Glasgow Argyle Street -Glasgow Byres (Fopp) -Glasgow Union (Fopp) -Gloucester -Grimsby -Guildford -Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent) -Harlow -Harrogate -Hastings -Hereford -High Wycombe -Huddersfield -Hull -Inverness -Ipswich -Kettering -King's Lynn -Kingston-Upon-Thames -Leeds -Leicester -Lincoln -Liverpool LiverpoolOne -Livingston -Llandudno -Maidstone -Manchester, Arndale -Manchester (Fopp) -Manchester Trafford Centre -Mansfield -Middlesbrough -Milton Keynes -Newcastle -Northampton -Norwich Chapelfield -Nottingham (Fopp) -Nottingham Victoria -Nuneaton -Oxford -Oxford Street, London W1 -Peterborough -Poole -Portsmouth Gun Wharf -Preston -Plymouth -Reading -Redditch -Romford -Sheffield High Street -Sheffield Meadowhall -Shrewsbury -Solihull -Southend -Southport -Staines -Stevenage -Stirling -Stockport -Sunderland -Swansea -Swindon -Taunton -Telford -Thanet -Thurrock -Truro -Tunbridge Wells -Uxbridge -Watford -Westfield White City -Wimbledon -Winchester -Wolverhampton -Worcester -Workington -Worthing https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/full-list-hm...s-risk-13785534 There can't be that many HMV stores that aren't on that list.

This is why the next chart rejig is likely to see the streaming ratio to sales for curated playlists on the likes of Spotify being vastly increased so that their effect on the chart is downplayed. Music Week mentioned a few months back that after the last refresh of the rules in July (new ratio rules) that the OCC would be reviewing how the rules operate and two things that the industry were pushing for were being considered: 1. the ratio of streams to sales for curated playlists 2. that old chestnut - including radio airplay. It came close to happening back in 1992 when phsyical sales were in freefall (over the next 7 years they then increased to very high levels) but back then the industry decided to keep the chart as a pure sales chart. Now that streams are included - they are not sales whatever the OCC might try to have us believe - there is a belief that radio airplay isn't that much different and that there is a case for it being included. Will it ever happen? It looks a strong possibility that it might in the next couple of years though personally I think it would make the chart even more stale than it usually is as many radio station groups now have country wide networking and just play the same old songs for months on end.

That's a good article by Peter. I agree with what he's written. I have a tremendous amount of affection for HMV as I once worked in the Sunderland branch, it was a Saturday job I had while doing my A levels as well as working there full time for three weeks over Christmas and New Year 1981/2. I loved the job and as we were a chart return shop we got all sorts of freebies from label reps! The shop was always busy back then, packed out with everyone from teens to grandmothers. Although I love specialist record shops I also loved HMV. While we never stocked as many obscure singles as, say, Volume in Newcastle (then again, who did? It must have stocked every single release from the popular to the virtually unknown). When I worked at HMV not only did I get free records and concert tickets (Japan for example - unbelievably I never went because my then girlfriend didn't like them and wouldn't go - what an idiot I must have been!) but we also got a generous discount on any purchases. I reckon I spent on records just about all that I earned. Which wasn't much - £42 a week for those 3 weeks when I worked full time and £6 for the Saturday job. Though £6 in 1981 was worth a lot more than it is now and when I was 17 I didn't really go out pubbing so most of what money I had did just go on buying Record Mirror (Alan Jones was working for them by this point) and records.

I hope HMV can be saved but I fear that this it this time. Sadly people don't feel the need to actually go to a record shop to buy a record. It's the staff I feel the most sorry for. Losing a job isn't good at any time but to be threatened with losing your job over the Christmas and New Year period is possibly the worst of all. 10 years ago this week Woolies was closing down. Now it could be HMV.

I've not read it through properly but has Alan actually mentioned how many copies 'The Greatest Showman' sold this week?

I was asked if I could post this in case no chart mods were available to post this for a while tonight. If / when the main sales thread is posted please feel free to delete! Singles Charts analysis: Ariana Grande scores sixth week at singles summit by Alan Jones In an unchanged top three that consists entirely of female American soloists in their mid-twenties, Ariana Grande’s Thank U, Next racks up its sixth straight week at No.1 on sales of 58,450 copies (including 53,754 from sales-equivalent streams). The last single by a US female soloist to spend longer at No.1 was Cher’s Believe, which endured for seven weeks in 1998. Thank U, Next’s latest triumph comes in the week when two songs by Grande top the million mark on overall consumption. They are 2016 No.14 hit Into You and No Tears Left To Cry, which reached No.2 in June. Into You ends the week on 1,001,914 sales, while No Tears Left To Cry is on 1,001,261. They are the third and fourth Grande singles to reach seven figures, following 2014 No.2 hit One Last Time (1,428,631 sales) and 2016 No.4 hit Side To Side (feat. Nicki Minaj, 1,102,132 sales). 242 tracks have had consumption of more than 1m units in the 2010s, but only 40 of them achieved paid-for sales of a million. The one with the lowest paid-for sales/consumption ratio is J Hus’ 2017 No.9 hit Did You See, which has consumption of 1,085,878 units but paid-for sales of just 82,423. The track to secure the highest tally of sales-equivalent streams is Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You, which has total consumption of 4,030,188 units, of which 829,887 are paid-for sales. Still in prime position to top the chart next week and thus become the Christmas No.1, Thank U, Next nevertheless suffers a 30.14% dip in sales week-on-week, with Ava Max’s Sweet But Psycho (2-2, 49,708 sales) and Halsey’s Without Me (3-3, 36,622 sales) reducing their arrears. Thank U, Next’s advantage is entirely down to streaming – its paid-for sales of 4,694 in the week were exceeded by five other songs, with the top title on this metric being Nothing Breaks Like A Heart, Mark Ronson’s collaboration with Miley Cyrus, which dashes 10-4 with total consumption of 34,198 units including 11,133 paid-for sales. It is Ronson’s fifth top five single as an artist, Cyrus’ fourth. Although ACR has halved the value of their sales-equivalent streams compared to a year ago, Christmas-related songs decorate the chart in impressive quantities yet again. Twenty-four of them appear in the Top 75 this week, with 13 of them in the Top 40 and three in the Top 10, namely Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You (6-5, 31,528 sales), Wham!’s Last Christmas (14-7, 27,306 sales) and The Pogues’ Fairytale Of New York (feat. Kirsty MacColl, 18-10, 23,618 sales). No.2 when first released in 1994, All I Want.. is on its fifth run in the Top 10, including the last three years in a row. No.2 on release in 1984, Last Christmas is on its fourth run in the Top 10, also including the last three years. No.2 on release in 1987, Fairytale… is on its sixth run in the Top 10, including the last two years. If ACR had not been introduced earlier this year, 18 of the Top 40 this week would be seasonal songs, and All I Want For Christmas Is You would be No.1 for the first time ever on consumption of 59,503 units. Top 10 tracks not mentioned hitherto: Thursday (5-6, 29,400 sales) by Jess Glynne, Woman Like Me (7-8, 25,738 sales) by Little Mix feat. Nicki Minaj and Post Malone’s Sunflower (feat. Swae Lee), which dipped 9-16 last week and now bounces back to No.9, even though its sales are off marginally at 23,865. Both of James Arthur’s Top 10 entries from last week now depart the top tier. His Rewrite The Stars collaboration with Anne-Marie slips 8-11 (23,090 sales), while X Factor winner Dalton Harris’ coronation single The Power Of Love (feat. James Arthur) slides 4-19 (17,662 sales). Also leaving the Top 10: 6ix9ine’s Kika (feat. Tory Lanez) (9-18, 17,876 sales). The only new entries to the Top 75 are tracks from slain rapper Xxxtentacion’s posthumous Skins album. Almost entirely fueled by streaming (their combined paid-for sales are 685), they are: Whoa (Mind In Awe) (No.37, 14,322 sales), Bad (No.41, 13,287 sales) and Guardian Angel (No.44, 13,122 sales). Four other tracks from the album are ‘starred-out’ of the Top 75. There are new peaks for Close To Me (21-17, 18,317 sales) by Ellie Goulding x Diplo feat. Swae Lee and Baby (25-24, 16,719 sales) by Clean Bandit feat. Marina & Luis Fonsi. While streaming drove the new million sales achievements of Ariana Grande (see above), there’s a bona-fide million seller in the form of Mr. Brightside by The Killers. The 2004 No.10 hit was announced as a million seller by the OCC on Friday (14), though it actually reached the target 17 weeks ago. The track is the 177th million seller on paid-for sales of 1,006,784 to date – that tally ballooning to 2,334,353 when stream-equivalent sales are added. Overall singles sales are up 0.15 week-on-week at 17,514,641, 17.32% above same week 2017 sales of 14,928,411. Paid-for sales are down 11.92% week-on-week at 790,057, and are 20.30% below same week 2017 sales of 991,290. They are below same-week, previous-year sales for the 280th week in a row. ************************************************************************************** Albums Charts analysis: Encore for The Greatest Showman by Alan Jones The album jumped 39-4 in the first week of 2018, and has remained in the top five ever since. Its return to the apex kickstarts its sixth tour of duty at the summit, and raises its cumulative weeks at No.1 to 22 – one less than the 21st century record of 23 weeks set by Adele’s 21 in 2011/12. After starting 2018 with cumulative sales of 7,021 copies from three weeks on release, The Greatest Showman’s consumption has risen to 1,498,993 units (including 506,664 from sales-equivalent streams). No.2 for the year, George Ezra’s Staying At Tamara’s is also No.2 for the week, climbing from No.4 to secure its highest chart position for 25 weeks, and its highest sale (40,558) since it opened 37 weeks ago at No.1 on sales of 62,564 copies. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra score their third Top 10 album in as many weeks, and The Carpenters their first since 2016 as Carpenters With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra debuts at No.8 (25,006 sales). The Carpenters’ 11th Top 10 album in all, it blends their original recordings with newly-recorded instrumental elements from the celebrated orchestra, whose Unchained Melodies collaboration with Roy Orbison made the Top 10 a fortnight ago, and now reaches a new peak (6-4, 37,424 sales) while their True Love Ways collaboration with Buddy Holly, which made the Top 10 last week, now slips 10-17 (20,613 sales). The rest of the Top 10: Love (3-3, 39,647 sales) by Michael Buble, Odyssey (5-5, 29,424 sales) by Take That, Si (9-6, 26,875 sales) by Andre Bocelli, Christmas (7-7, 25,956 sales) by Michael Buble, Bohemian Rhapsody (8-9, 24,853 sales) by Queen and LM5 (11-10, 23,579 sales) by Little Mix. After debuting at No.1 last week, The 1975’s third album, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships makes a huge retreat, slumping to No.33 (8,916 sales). It is the second biggest dive from No.1 in chart history, after the 1-35 suffered by The Vamps Night & Day in July 2017. Coldplay have an unbroken run of seven straight No.1 studio albums dating back to their 2000 debut Parachutes but fall just short of the Top 10 with their new Live In Buenos Aires set (No.15, 22,097 sales), which was actually recorded not in the Argentinian capital of that name but at La Plata in the province of that name, some 60km away. Dutch violinist, conductor and orchestra leader Andre Rieu & The Johann Strauss Orchestra’s latest collection of tunes, Romantic Moments II, debuts at No.22 (12,178 sales). Dubbed the “world’s first classical superstar” and “the king of the waltz”, 69 year old Rieu has now had 18 Top 50 albums - all since the age of 60 - and 31 Top 200 albums. The Kidz Bop Kids franchise scores its fourth Top 75 album with Kidz Bop 2019 (No.28, 11,138 sales). Xxxtentacion scores his third chart album in all, and his first since his death in June, with Skins. Following on from 2017 debut 17, which reached No.11, and March release ?, which reached No.3, Skins opens at a more lowly No.29 (10,969 sales). It is one of the chart’s shortest-ever entries - its 10 tracks have a combined playing time of less than 20 minutes. Veteran singer/songwriter Van Morrison scores his second chart album of the year and 47th of his career, with The Prophet Speaks (No.40, 6,696 sales). His 40th studio album, it includes his take on songs originally recorded by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke and Solomon Burke alongside six originals. The 73 year old from Belfast reached No.20 in May with You’re Driving Me Crazy, a collaboration with US jazz keyboards player Joey DeFrancesco. No.1 for three weeks when first released in 1998, Manic Street Preachers’ fifth studio album This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours is newly released in an expanded collectors’ edition, and is back on the chart for the first time since 2000, re-entering at No.55 (4,194 sales). Now That’s What I Call Music! 101 tops the compilation chart for the third time on sales of 48,642 copies. Its runner-up throughout is The Greatest Showman Reimagined, which chalked up its highest weekly sale of 27,150 copies in the latest frame. Overall album sales are up for the eighth week in a row, climbing 5.35% week-on-week to 2,948,283, 6.09% below same week 2017 sales of 3,139,541. Sales-equivalent streams accounted for 1,099,503 sales, 37.29% of the total. Sales of paid-for albums are up 8.83% week-on-week at 1,848,780, 18.88% below same week 2017 sales of 2,279,052.

For most of chart history the Christmas number 1 had always been a foregone conclusion as the record that was at the top two or three weeks in the run-up usually ended up as the Christmas number 1. It's only the last couple of decades where it was normally a new entry. The market has gone back to how it used to be with one exception - sales are now rubbish comapred back to then. Mainly due to streaming which just flattens sales and makes it harder for singles to have a sales spurt in the week or two before. Once record labels work out how to work the market in the week or two before Christmas it will go back to how it has been in recent years.

I've just bought the Christmas and New Year edition of the Radio Times (£4.90 :blink: ) and have noticed that Radio 1 are counting down the top 100 tracks of 2018 from 1pm to 6pm on Friday 28 December. 1pm - 4pm: Dev 4pm - 6pm Scott Mills There's no mention of a regular top 40 show that day or whether there will be a quick countdown of what will be the last chart of 2018.

There's an article just been published on the BBC website discussing the lyrics of certain Christmas songs including FONY. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46425160 I'm old enough to remember the track from the first time around and there was some discussion of the lyrics back then though the main problem wasn't the F-word (though it was commented on) but rather Michael Hurll, producer of Top Of The Pops, insisting that Kirsty MacColl sang "ass" rather than "arse" as the latter was deemed to be too offensive for family audiences.

I did think of Napster but in 2000 wasn't that more of an issue in the US where faster internet access was more common? By the time faster internet access became more common in the UK Napster had already been closed by court order.

Yeah, I think £3.99 was the norm then after week 1. Plus the price of albums started to fall. It's probably no coincidence that singles sales fell by about 22% while album sales rose by about the same amount.

And the cassette single too which went from having consistent sales from 1994 to 1999 (shipping about 18-20 million a year) to being an almost dormant format by 2003 (sales under a million). It was very strange how overall sales suddenly went into sharp decline in 2000 after holding up well in 1998 and 1999. I doubt it was to do with illegal downloading as in 2000 most people on the internet were on dial-up. 2000 was also the first year since 1993 that the year end best seller didn't sell over a million copies during the calendar year.

Probably Michael Buble.