Robbie

Spotify Premium. It's still the best! I've tried Apple Music and Amazon Music (I still have another two month free trial with the latter) but still can't get into neither. Both seem to make it diificult to find what I want. Spotify has an intuitive user interface, and probably for one reason - it doesn't mix streaming with downloads. Apple Music is dreadful for that, I find myself flitting from one interface to another.

I'm working on doing some sales estimates and hope to have this finished by next weekend. For 'New Rules' I've estimated 1,025,000 sales.

The number 100 on the YE chart ('Thunder' by Imagine Dragons) sold about 418,000 in 2017. 'Anywhere' by Rita Ora had sold just over 408,000 so was probably not too far from the YE top 100.

The OCC do still compile a top 200 under the old rules with no ACR applied and no restrictions on the amount of tracks by a lead artist that can chart. However it is strictly an industry only chart and is not made public. The OCC differentiate this chart from the oficcial top 100 by giving it a name along the lines of the Top 200 Comprehensive Singles chart. UKChartsPlus approached the OCC to see if it was possible for them to license this fuller chart for publication but the OCC turned down the request though the OCC did say that it wouldn't be possible "at present" which holds out hope that the OCC may change its stance at some stage.

'Got To Be Real' was released back in 1979. I know as I bought the single back then! Sadly it didn't chart. It finally charted, albeit as the B side of 'Encore' (another excellent song by Cheryl), in September 1984. And even then the single only made it to number 68. It should have been a massive hit as it's a brilliant song.

The YTD is also the same as the best selling albums of the year for 2017. The exact sales for the top 3: 1. ÷ - Ed Sheeran 2,702,839 2. Human - Rag'N'Bone Man 1,001,913 3. Thrill Of It All - Sam Smith 501,952

I've just seen the overnights for Christmas Day 2017 and the audience for Top Of The Pops was up (slightly) from last year: 2.04m (18.7%).

Her album is at number 42 on the YTD albums (down from number 38 last week), one place behind Eminem who is in at number 41.

Yum, Kim Wilde! Unbelievably I turned down the offer of going out with someone who actually looked a bit like Kim Wilde. That was back in 1981 - I must have been an idiot! My favourites in that era were The Jam, Buzzcocks, Boomtown Rats, Public Image Limited and Siouxsie and the Banshees as well as the synth bands like the Human League, Depeche Mode, Ultravox and early Spandau Ballet. Plus a host of one hit wonder singles such as the excellent 'I'm In Love With A German Film Star' by The Passions (for anyone who hasn't heard the song check it out on YouTube, it's absolutely brilliant). I was also a big fan of disco music (Chic especially) and reggae. I bought a couple of Police singles but could never warm to them, mainly on account of me finding Sting's voice to be annoying. His only saving grace was when I was very young he and his parents lived just around the corner from me - he lived above the local chippy and his mother used to serve there on a weekend!

I started to lose interest in 1985 and stopped buying Record Mirror at the end of 1985 after a decade of buying it. I even stopped watching Top Of The Pops though in 1986 I did start to watch the then new Channel 4 programme The Chart Show. I just got to that age where the charts mattered less and my life was moving in another direction, away from music. I even stopped buying singles in mid 1986 (by that point I had something like 4,000 or so of them). I did return to following the charts in 1989 and did start buying Record Mirror again until the magazine folded in 1991 and did start to listen again to the top 40 / watch Top Of The Pops but my love for music wasn't as strong as it had been back when I was 12/13 to 20. Most people tend to love the charts the most from when they are in their mid teens and then start to outgrow the music scene as life starts to get in the way! I must have heard 'Christmas Wrapping' on the radio before I started my Christmas job at HMV as I was only there from Monday 14 December 1981 to Saturday 9 January 1982 and I think I bought the single on my first or second day there. We had a tape the manager had made which we used to play all day and I can't remember the single being on that tape. But I don't exactly recall if the single did well on radio in 1981. But I do remember it being a decent sized radio hit in 1982, the year when it was re-issued. I think it was also re-promoted in 1983 but once again it didn't do that well and the label just seemed to give up on the single after that. Even now it still struggles to sell despite it being a popular song, something I find quite strange.

I voted for 1979 but 1981 is a strong contender too. My era for music is from roughly the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s with particular emphasis on the second half of 1977 to around the end of 1985 / the first quarter of 1986. My absolute favourites, in order, are: 1979 1981 1978 1980 1982 1984 1985 1983 and as I mentioned the second half of 1977 and the first part of 1986. I had a Christmas job at HMV in 1981 and it was unbelievable how many copies of 'Don't You Want Me' we sold. We literally couldn't keep up with demand for the single. We were getting dozens of copies of the single delivered every day and by early afternoon it was often sold out. The 12" version of the single was far more popular than the 7" version. Sadly, our stock of The Waitresses 'Christmas Wrapping' remained largely unsold. It was badly promoted by the label and as far as I was aware I was the only person to buy a copy from our stock. As we were a chart return shop it probably explains why the single couldn't get higher than 3 weeks in the Breakers / Bubbling Under chart, the next 25 singles below number 75 (which back then were listed in alphabetical and not numerical order).

There were too many oldies in 1976 with a 30s and 40s sort of revival. Plus there were a number of 50s records charting. I think the long hot summer evokes a sense of nostalgia that hearing records from those hot months helps bring back. Everytime I hear 'The Boys Are Back In Town' by Thin Lizzy I automatically think of hot days and warm nights. That said, the summer came to an end in style with heavy downpours and flooding on the very weekend 'Dancing Queen' by Abba sold enough to climb to number 1. I can still remember listening to Radio 1 on the Wednesday that the record climbed to the top (the chart was delayed by a day because of the Bank Holiday) and as I was walking around Whitley Bay on North Tyneside the heavens opened just as the "Britain's Number 1" jingle played and 'Dancing Queen' started.

^ and I can still remember the first and last records I bought in 1979. The first was YMCA by The Village People and the last was Spacer by Sheila B Devotion!

Mine is 1979. The music was brilliant, the charts were excellent and I was buying about half a dozen records each week!

Would they sell in sufficient quantities to make it a worthwile exercise? There's a generation of music consumers growing up who have not got into the habit of buying physical product. Plus at £1 a time a CD single would be such a loss leader that unless that could help drive album sales (not streams) by changing consumption habits of teenagers in general record companies would not likely be interested.

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I've just read the message posted in the Digital Spy Top Of The Pops thread about the two Top Of The Pops editions from 06/12/84 and 13/12/84. They were both uploaded to WeTransfer back in November but the link expired after 7 days so both are no longer available. I downloaded them at the time and saved them saved to my Microsoft OneDrive account. I'll post a link to them tomorrow for you to download them - I would post the links now but the OneDrive service is currently down so I can't check to see if the links work.

One of the more forgotten number 1s. Alan Jones' Music Week Chart Analysis article for 10 years ago told of a much healthier time for albums though even then a decline in year on year sales had set in...

I guess at some point the new top 40, or at least the new top 10, will be announced. Possibly sometime between 4pm and 5pm?

^ The Beatles Box Set is now £99.99! That was some error someone at iTunes made...

I've just tried to purchase this and a dialogiue box appears stating "Purchase of this item is not currently available. The item is being modified. Please try later". It looks like iTunes have made an error with the pricing and have blocked the sale of the album at £8.99.

I'm assuming the Christmas number 1 will also be shown?

Not so much illegal as breaching (certainly for Apple Music) T&C's. Tracks on Apple Music are saved in an Apple propriety DRM format .m4p. There are some converters out there that can turn m4p files which the user has downloaded for offline use into mp3's which can then be moved over to a CD etc but these are not free. I'll not name the one I once tried as it will possibly breach the T&Cs for posting on BuzzJack but it worked perfectly. But it would have cost £40 to buy (I downloaded an evaluation copy which works for 30 days and has a restriction on use) and it worked without a hitch. But again it breaches Apple Music's T&C's, specifically the one that says that any content in Apple Music must in no circumstances be downloaded in a way that can enable it to be transferred to a CD etc. This is because there is a restriction on how many devices an account holder can play the content on and it must always be played through the Apple Music interface.

Adding to the debate, there is also the possibility that the streaming provider you subscribe to could just close down or be bought out. For all Spotify is the market leader it still is a loss making venture (it has never turned in a profit during all the time it has existed) that is being kept afloat by investors. If investors think they are never going to see a profit they could just decide to pull the plug. It's very unlikely to happen but if it did your streaming collection with Spotify would be gone. At least a dowload would still be in your possession (unless the file became corrupted or your hard drive dies and you haven't backed up your collection...). That said, I've only bought a small amount of downloads in 2017 and the last one ('New Rules' by Dua Lipa) was bought in August. I am currently subscribed to three (!) streaming services, Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music though the latter is a 3 month subscription that was on offer on Black Friday for 99p for the entire three months. I mainly use Spotify and am unsure about how long I will keep subscribing to Apple Music but I do like the way that streaming is integrated in with downloads so that I don't have to go to two different libraries in iTunes to find what I want. Amazon Music needs some work done on the interface though. It looks good but I have to look in too many places to find what I want.

I think Reggie has just signed his own exit papers from the BBC. I'm guessing Fearne alone but the BBC should have gone for someone a bit more relevant (i.e. from Radio 1) anyway in the first place. We've had the same two presenters for years and they just seem out of place now. Well, now it's just the one presenter unless a stand-in can be drafted in at the last moment.