Robbie

Ah, the glory years of Limewire! I have to admit that I used to do a lot of illegal downloading back then, first using Limewire from May 2005 then moving over to Frostwire the following year. I had downloaded some tracks (legally) in September 2005 when Virgin Digital launched but decided to stick to getting music for free. However once I started downloading from iTunes in late 2010 I uninstalled Frostwire and haven't illegally downloaded anything since. These days it's all about streaming for me too. In 2011 to 2013 I was downloading dozens of tracks each year but since I opened a Spotify account in 2014 I've hardly downloaded anything. So far this year I've downloaded a mere 4 tracks.

Cassette singles have been chart eligible since the first cassette single was released in 1978. However at one point there was a minimum dealer price which was set at the same amount as a 12" single and this severely restricted sales of the format. In May 1989 the minimum price was reduced to the same as a 7" single. It was the reduction in the minimum price that led to the growth in availability and subsequent popularity of the format. The minimum price was reduced the week Kylie entered at number 2 with 'Hand On Your Heart', 11,000 cassette sales of the single in its week of release were ruled chart ineligible as they were priced the same as a 7" single. Had they been included Kylie would have entered the chart at number 1 - and would have been the first solo female artist to do so. The first number 1 to be available as a cassette single was 'Woman' by John Lennon, in January 1981. The first cassette only single to chart was 'Your Cassette Pet' by Bow Wow Wow in December 1980.

Sounds good to me! 'Fresh' by Kool & The Gang still sounds excellent!

18/23!

Iron Maiden had a number of "albums" make big drops down the Albums chart in 1990. However the fact they charted on the Album chart was just on a technicality as they were double 12" singles which were counted for chart purposes as albums rather than singles: Running Free / Sanctuary: 10-38-58-75 Women In Uniform / Twilight Zone: 10-47-59 Purgatory / Maiden Japan: 5-51-69 Run To the Hills / The Number Of The Beast: 3-50 Flight Of Icarus / The Trooper: 7-53 Running Free / Run To The Hills: 9-55 Wasted Years / Stranger In A Strange Land: 9-57 Can I Play With Madness: 10-46-75

^ Goodness, it will be 20 years ago next month when it was released. Where has the time gone?

Un-Break My Heart by Toni Braxton. I remember hearing the remix before the original album version. Both versions are quite excellent.

It will be interesting to see. At times it looks like streaming works against many established acts who have a decent sized fan base and so attract sales in week 1 but who don't necessarily attract the casual music fan to stream the track in any great numbers.

I meant 2009 and 2010 not 2010 and 2011 though she was still very successful in the first half of 2011.

Just an observation but her popularity seems to have been on the wane for the past 5 years. Although she still gets column inches it is nothing like it was when she was at her peak in 2010 and 2011. She can still sell tracks but the days of her selling 600,000+ copies now seem a long way in the past.

A fair % of his airplay audience was down to both Radio 1 and Radio 2 playing the track 20+ times each week for a while - which in turn shows how little influence Radio 1 can have on the charts these days...

Don't forget 'Moves Like Jagger', that also spent 7 consecutive weeks at number 2 too, back in 2011! (blimey, 5 years ago already :cry: )

Cheers mdh! I feel like going to the bookies and putting a £1 bet on this being the top 10 on Friday... Olly Murs is the outsider but I believe he appeared on the first episode of the new series of "Strictly Come Dancing" so should get a boost in sales all through the week (I see he's at #3 on iTunes today).

Could you guess what the top 5 (even the top 10!) might be, using your method, to guess what sales may be? It would be interesting to see how close they are to actual sales and positions on Friday? As streaming seems to follow a certain pattern during the chart week I'd be interested to see if your formula works well for that?

The Pepsi Chart was compiled using the same sales data as the official chart as well as incorporating airplay data. The top 10 was sales only, so was the same as the Top 10 on the official chart. Positions 11 to 40 were a mix of sales (provided by CIN / OCC) and airplay data (provided by Music Control). The ratio for sales to airplay in positions 11 to 40 was 30:70 though this was later increased in favour of sales to 50:50. The airplay data used was restricted solely to airplay of records on stations that broadcast the chart (so airplay on, for example, Radio 1, was ignored). The outcome of this mix of sales and airplay often meant that some records would remain stuck at number 11 for weeks because they were highly popular on radio but sales weren't enough to get them into or keep them in the (official) top 10.

Looking at the new issue of UKChartsPlus there's another raft of certifications for Singles. So much so (21 in total this week) that the certification scheme is in danger of becoming meaningless. At one time a certification was meant to be an achievement, now it is fast becoming the norm for tracks that reach the upper echelons of the Singles chart. In the current top 40 we have 28 tracks which have a certification (including 16 of the top 20) of which two are 2 x Platinum and another 9 that are Platinum. The sales needed to achieve Platinum, Gold and Silver were set back in the days of physical sales (and even then were lowered in 1989 when sales were in decline) but reflected sales in an era where physical copies of a single would at one point be exhausted. This changed with the growth of the digital downloads era but even that has been dwarfed by the streaming era. Does anyone think that perhaps now is the time to raise the sales levels needed to achieve a certification? It probably should have been done several years ago (or at least in July 2013 when the automatic certifications scheme was introduced) but perhaps the BPI should seriously consider at least restoring the original levels they set in 1973 which required 250,000 sales for Silver, 500,000 for Gold and 1,000,000 for Platinum rather than the levels set in 1989 of 200,000, 400,000 and 600,000 for those same certifications. At the rate streaming is growing almost every single in the top 40 is going to have at the very least a Silver certification award, which would totally dilute the scheme and all but make it meaningless.

Sales info, taken from Alan Jones' Chart Commentary at Music Week: Singles 1. 79,000 Sugababes 2. 42,500 Darius 4. 35,000 Daniel Bedingfield Albums 1. 31,000 By The Way - Red Hot Chili Peppers 9. 16,000 Melody AM - Royksopp 14. 12,300 X - Def Leppard 51. 4,000 The All-Time Greatest Hits - Elvis Presley Compilations 1. 44,000 Now 53 4. 22,000 Trance Masters As you can see, sales information wasn't as extensive back then. Finally a then recently launched new service - Shazam. Back then you had to phone 2580 from your mobile phone and then place your mobile next to the music source you wanted recognised. After 30 seconds the phone call would automatically end and then a text would be sent listing the title and artist. Cost: 50p per mobile call (59p from Vodaphone) and 50p per tag. The service only worked back then with Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and Vodaphone. Shazam Tag Chart (Pre-Release tracks only) 1. The Theme - Jurgen Vries 2. The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling) - Atomic Kitten 3. Crossroads - Blazin Squad 4. Forever - N-Trance 5. Ultra - Trisco 6. My Neck My Back - Khia 7. Harder - Kosheen 8. Dy-Na-Mi-Tee - Ms Dynamite 9. Silver Screen Shower Scene - Felix Da Housecat 10. Two Months Off - Underworld It took two years for Khia's record to make the top 75, reaching number 4 in October 2004. In November 2002 the record entered and peaked at number 141 and in November 2003 it was re-issued for the first time and peaked at number 195.

If I ever needed an excuse to play 'Into The Groove' now is as good as any... it still sounds brilliant. Non stop sheer exuberance from the first brilliant bass intro to the last.

The Music Week chart commentary for that week... Shakira and Wyclef continue to lead singles chart by Alan Jones Shakira and Wyclef Jean retain their singles title with Hips Don’t Lie turning in the second best sales performance of its nine-week chart residency, improving 15% week-on-week to 33,466, a total it only surpassed when selling 35,982 copies and dipping 1-2 four weeks ago, writes Alan Jones. Hips Don’t Lie’s success continues to impact favourably on Shakira’s Oral Fixation Volume 2 album, which rebounds 19-14 this week, with sales up 12% to 14,284, taking its total to 146,442. With Christina Aguilera’s Ain’t No Other Man weakening despite the release of a second CD variant, Shakira and Wyclef’s nearest challenger is Rihanna, whose Unfaithful rebounds 3-2 even though its sales slip by 6.6% to 24,792. Her album A Girl Like Me also climbs a notch while losing sales, moving 9-8 with sales of 22,216 - 137 down on the previous week. A Girl Like Me has sold 250,078 copies since its release 14 weeks ago. Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous is number one in America for the sixth week in a row, and to clear the way for its release here, her Maneater single was deleted a fortnight ago. As a result, the song - number 10 last week - loses chart status even though it was actually the 12th biggest seller last week, with 9,797 purchasers. Two other songs are amongst the Top 40 sellers but don’t have a chart placing: Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, which would rank 25th with 5,912 sales; and, more surprisingly, Jay-Z & Linkin Park’s superb Numb/Encore mash-up, which is no longer available physically but sped to 4,314 download sales (a 58.9% increase) last week, and would be a re-entry at number 35 if eligible. A number 14 hit in 2004, it’s been popular ever since but its latest leap is due to its prominent use in the new Miami Vice film but absence from the soundtrack album. Numb/Encore has sold 32,567 copies on download this year, and is the year’s 118th biggest seller, despite not being chart eligible. The staggered release strategy didn’t work for Christina Aguilera, whose Ain’t No Other Man falls further behind Shakira’s single at the top of the chart, even though a second CD of mixes was issued last week to bolster the track. Selling 24,581 copies - 13.4% down on the previous frame - Ain’t No Other Man dips 2-3 behind Rihanna‘s Unfaithful (24,792 sales). Aguilera reached number one with Genie In A Bottle, Lady Marmalade (with Pink, Mya and Lil’ Kim), Dirrty and Beautiful. Her new Back To Basics album is out next Monday (14th) German dance trio Cascada vault 41-4 this week, after selling 22,593 copies of their debut hit Everytime We Touch. Based around a chorus from a 1992 track of the same name by British singer Maggie Reilly, it has already been a huge hit in America, where it reached number 10 on the Hot 100 last year, selling a comparatively modest 9,674 copies in physical form but a stellar 919,661 copies on download, the majority of which have been for the ballad version of the song, which has received massively more airplay than any of the dance versions. A number seven hit in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and number three in Canada and Sweden, socialite Paris Hilton’s debut single Stars Are Blind also penetrates the UK Top 10 this week, exploding 35-5 on sales of 21,660 following full commercial release. 25 year old Hilton penned lyrics for three of the songs on her upcoming album Paris, which also includes a cover of Rod Stewart’s sole foray into disco music, D’Ya Think I’m Sexy? In America, Stars Are Blind debuted at number 18 last month Dance music knows no boundaries, and this week’s Top 40 includes club hits from Germany (Cascada), France (Bob Sinclar), Australia (Rogue Traders), Denmark (Infernal), the USA (Armand Van Helden), and Sweden, whence come The Similou, whose introductory single All This Love scoots 49-20 this week on sales of 7,084. A house duo from Gothenburg comprising Dizzy Crane (Joel Eriksson) and Jesse Nectar (Erik Niklasson), The Similou have a deliberately dated sound, and All This Love has been helped by an A-listing at Radio One, where it was aired 19 times last week. Singles sales improved overall by 2% last week to 1,209,313, while albums were also looking more healthy, putting on 5.1% at 2,707,007. Although the compilation market suffered a 13.6% dip primarily because of a steep decline in second week sales of Now! 64, artist albums improved by 12.2%. Overall album sales were also significantly buoyed by Woolworth’s sales, where a large number of titles on the Rolled Gold label were available for as little as £1 - a policy which saw the imprint capture eight of the Top 10 places in the budget chart, with top title Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash selling 12,837 copies, while helping the budget sector to expand 73.5% to 400,297 units. On the regular artist album chart, the only new release to pack enough power to secure a Top 10 debut was James Morrison’s debut album, Undiscovered, although The Puppini Sisters’ nostalgic Betcha Bottom Dollar strengthened throughout the week to secure a Top 20 berth. Four weeks after the release of his first single You Give Me Something, the 25 year old singer/songwriter, originally from Rugby in Warwickshire, enters the album chart at number one. Racking up an impressive 84,611 sales last week, Undiscovered is the eighth debut album released in 2006 to reach number one, following those of The Arctic Monkeys, Corinne Bailey Rae, Journey South, Shayne Ward, Gnarls Barkley, Orson and Sandi Thom. That’s the highest success rate for new acts in more than a decade, and indicative of a very healthy scene. Although comprising three unrelated singers - two Brits and an Italian - The Puppini Sisters are so called in tribute to The Andrews Sisters, the close harmony trio whose vocal and fashion style their own recalls. Applying their 1940s style vocals to more contemporary songs like Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush), Panic (The Smiths) and Heart Of Glass (Blondie) as well as wartime favourites and The Andrews Sisters’ biggest hit Sisters has paid big dividends for The Puppinis, whose first album Betcha Bottom Dollar sold 12,833 copies last week to debut at number 17. First released four years ago, the newly repackaged Sunshine Superman - The Best Of Donovan finally enters the chart this week at number 47 on sales of 4,956, bringing the Scottish folk legend back onto the list for the first time in 33 years. Donovan has remained active throughout the period, despite disappearing from the charts, and released his most recent album, Beat Cafe, in 2004. He also, bizarrely, enjoyed a top five single in Germany in 2002, remaking his song Atlantis with girl group No Angels. Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open is the sixth album to sell more than 500,000 copies this year, joining albums by The Arctic Monkeys, Jack Johnson, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Kooks and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Reaching the target on its 14th week on release, Eyes Open slips 2-3 on the weekly list despite increasing its sales for the fifth week in a row. Sales last week of 38,959 were up 8.6% and lift its cume to 530,461. Meanwhile, the album’s second single, Chasing Cars, continues to climb, moving 15-13, although its sales are down 7.6% week-on-week to 9,556. Finally, although James Morrison earns a deserved number one debut on the artist album chart, his Undiscovered sold fewer copies last week than the multi-artist Now! 64, which continues its reign atop the compilation chart. Declining 48.5% in its second frame, Now! 64 sold 143,699 copies last week to take its 13 day cume to 422,626. It is on course to become the biggest-selling compilation of 2006 later this week, eclipsing its predecessor Now! 63’s fairly meagre 465,544 tally. Sales SINGLES 33466 Shakira 24792 Rihanna 24581 Christina Aguilera 22593 Cascada 21660 Paris 9797 Nelly Furtado [Excluded] (12) 9556 Snow Patrol (13) 7084 The Similou (20) 5912 Gnarls Barkley [Excluded] (25) 4314 Jay Z/Linkin Park [Excluded] (35) ALBUMS 84611 James Morrison 38959 Snow Patrol (3) 22216 Rihanna (8) 14284 Shakira (14) 12833 Puppini Sisters (17) 4956 Donovan (47) COMPILATIONS 143699 Now 64 and finally Shakira's sales so far: 2331 Downloads (54) 29987 (3) 30047 (2) 32584 (1) 35982 (2) 32546 (2) 32322 (3) 29109 (1) 33466 (1)

From what I've read Duffy was very upset that her second album didn't too well and sank into depression as a result. She's supposedly recorded a third album but for whatever reason she seems reluctant to actually release it. Also, when Adele announced she was about to release her second album I can remember thinking at the time that it would probably be a flop! In fact I think I might have even posted that over at Moopy - then one snowy night back in the great snowy November / December we had back in 2010 she appeared on Jools Holland's "Later" show and sang 'Someone Like You' and I had to admit that perhaps I might be wrong...

I think she's waited far too long to follow up her debut album. She's going to find it hard to make a success of her next album as she's lost all momentum.

Duffy's first album was quite good. At the time she was more popular than Adele. Then she released a turkey of a single to promote the second album, sacked her manager (the wonderful Jeanette Lee, formerly of Public Image Ltd and a co-owner of Rough Trade records) and it all went downhill after that.

Here's the chart run for both Bryan Adams and Wet Wet Wet on the MRIB/ Network Chart: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You Entry: 30/06/91 30-3-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-3-6-6-8-12-OUT (the chart was a top 30 at the time) Love Is All Around Entry: 15/05/94 6-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-5-11-19-29-49-OUT Wet Wet Wet did manage 15 weeks at the top, in sync with the Official Chart. However Bryan Adams only managed to spend 14 weeks at the top.

It was the same with both Bryan Adams and Wet Wet Wet though. Both singles were selling in far smaller amounts that what was then normal for a number 1 for the last few weeks of their respective runs at the top. I don't know if this was the same for Wet Wet Wet but Bryan Adams remained at number 1 for the last month or so purely on Saturday sales and most likely sales from Saturday sales in Woolworths. On the MRIB / Network Chart which had a cut off point of Thursday (though Woolies didn't provide sales info for that chart) the record had fallen as low as number 6 towards the end while the single was still at the top on the Gallup / BBC chart.

For 'The Fly' I have 66,000 (again, posted by Gezza in 2011 but since removed). Sales of Bryan Adams' single actually increased by 4% the week it fell from the top down to number 4. That week coincided with school half term, a time when (in physical sales days) sales in general would often increase.