Robbie

Also, the weekly sales for 'Love Is All Around' by Wet Wet Wet. Gezza's version based upon how sales were calculated at the time: 04-Jun Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 87,525 11-Jun Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 104,210 18-Jun Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 115,718 25-Jun Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 113,021 02-Jul Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 100,986 09-Jul Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 100,901 16-Jul Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 98,031 23-Jul Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 85,942 30-Jul Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 85,963 06-Aug Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 87,996 13-Aug Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 83,773 20-Aug Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 89,278 27-Aug Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 82,170 03-Sep Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 77,059 10-Sep Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet 64,961 while back in January 2005 in an article in Music Week titled "Celebrating 1,000 Number Ones" Alan Jones revealed the sales held in the OCC computer: The discrepancy between Gezza's totals and those given by Alan Jones boils down to the fact that the figures in the OCC computer are based on actual sales from about 75% or so of all record shops in the UK whereas the figures revealed at the time, and which Gezza posted, are what were known as "total market sales", which were arrived at based on the old "chart panel" method of calculating sales in all record shops. The OCC figures downplay sales while the chart panel method probably overestimates sales to some degree.

Gezza posted the following back in June 2011 13-Jul Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 65,000 20-Jul Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 98,000 27-Jul Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 105,000 03-Aug Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 115,000 10-Aug Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 108,000 17-Aug Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 105,000 24-Aug Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 95,000 31-Aug Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 93,000 07-Sep Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 91,000 14-Sep Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 90,000 21-Sep Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 75,000 28-Sep Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 69,000 05-Oct Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 63,000 12-Oct Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 57,000 19-Oct Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 49,000 26-Oct Everything I Do (I Do it For You) Bryan Adams 47,000 I'm not sure if some of the above are estimates but if so they probably aren't far wide of the mark - back then Alan Jones rarely gave weekly sales figures.

One achievement that Drake isn't likely to accomplish when compared to both Bryan Adams and Wet Wet Wet is recording an increase in sales of the track even as the record falls from the top spot. Bryan's sales increase was particularly impressive as the record fell from number 1 to 4 despite sales of the single increasing by 6%. Wet Wet Wet's sales increased by an unbelievable 60% the week the single fell from number 1 to 2. For the Wets it was the highest sale of their single for 12 weeks.

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus It even got to number 1 despite being banned back in 1969 by both Radio 1 and Top Of The Pops! Edit: I've just noticed richie has posted the song. In which case: Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi

It depends on the act. Many acts make more money from touring these days than they do from album sales, that's why many labels have what they call 360 degree contracts with acts - the money comes in from much more sales. It usually includes money from concerts, merchandising, publishing and other sources as well as sales. The latter usually provides the smallest amount of revenue.

I suppose it depends on what the artist / act prefers. A number 1 album or an album which charts lower but sells a decent amount over a longer period of time without ever hitting the top. These days an act would probably go for a high entry even if it is followed by a ridiculous drop the following week.

Janet's sales for her 90s records. The number in brackets is the position of the record in the 1990s decade chart Togther Again - 743,501 (60) The Best Things In Life Are Free - 246,105 (457) (1992 release) Scream - 244,239 (461) Gone 'Til It's Gone - 193,654 (621) That's The Way Love Goes - 188,085 (649) Again - 155,568 (835) Runaway - 152,829 (852) The Best Things In Life Are Free (Remix) - 152,001 (860) (1995 release) Whoops Now / What'll I Do - 151,045 (866) What's It Gonna Be - 141,763 (927) Sales to March 1997 were based on the old chart panel compilation method so the sales figures may be higher than the figures the OCC hold.

According to Hit Music 'Born Slippy' sold 462,400 copies in 1996 and 33,508 copies in 1997, a total of 495,908 for those two years.

Another 1980s movie song that should have charted much higher is 'Danger Zone' by Kenny Loggins (from "Top Gun"). It peaked at number 45 in a 11 week Top 75 chart run in late 1986 / early 1987. It was also certified Silver a few weeks ago for sales of 200,000, all of which are from the digital era (November 2004+). The Silver certification is even more astonishing as it has never charted inside the Top 200 during this time.

A few months ago Billboard introduced a further rule to remove older songs from the Hot 100. Not only are records below number 50 removed from the chart after 20 weeks but a second rule now applies that removes tracks that are below number 25 after 52 weeks. Records can, at the discretion of the Hot 100 Chart Manager, be allowed to remain on the Hot 100 if there are special circumstances. Personally I prefer to see an actual Top 100 in proper sales order with no exclusions. Perhaps we should look to the ARIA compiled Australian chart rather than the Billboard Hot 100. The ARIA chart seems to get the balance right with a decent amount of new entries each week and the top 40 seems a lot fresher with fewer records spending multiple months on the chart. What is it that ARIA does right (given their chart is also a mix of paid-for sales and streaming sales to the same ratio) that the OCC doesn't? One thing that stands out with the ARIA chart is the relative lack of multiple hits by one or two acts which is one trend that tends to clog up the UK chart. At one time (when the ARIA chart didn't include streams) record labels had to not only actively register a track for it to appear on the singles chart but they had to also choose a maximum of three variants of a download version of a song and sales from any other variant / version of that track would be ignored. In addition none of those variants could include a Now-type compilation album. I don't know what has changed since streaming data started to be included in November 2014 but however ARIA do it, the inclusion of streaming hasn't brought the chart to a complete standstill. The chart rules section on the ARIA website seems to have been removed so I don't know if there are still restrictions on how many versions of a song can be counted towards a chart position and whether this may have been extended to streams. The current ARIA Australian Singles chart: http://www.ariacharts.com.au/charts/singles-chart

I'm getting the same banners as yourself. There was a similar promotion at Christmas with the choice of one of a number of top albums being offered at a discount price (I think it was something like 50% off and the discount only displayed when the item was in the shopping basket). I bought an album using this promotion back then. I wonder if this is why I can't see any albums now being offered at a discount? Perhaps Google Play run this promotion at random times but allow a customer only one chance to buy a top album at a discount? Did you buy an album using the discount that was offered at Christmas?

It's the first time they've done this since I started to subscribe to Music Week, which is now well over a decade ago. I assumed it was down to the fact that the publishers went to press on the Thursday, a day before the charts were compiled. In the past the magazine would be printed after the Easter break and so would contain all the charts. I did email the editor and did get a reply. He confirmed that it was partly down to the printers going to press prior to the long weekend and also that there were no staff in the Music Week office over the weekend to produce the weekly Chart Pack which is sent to subscribers on a Friday evening. The Chart Pack is basically the charts section of the magazine. I do think that charging the full amount for the weekly issue was wrong though given that the magazine was missing an entire section - all of the charts! - and as a result had very few pages. In the past when there has been a smaller page count (it sometimes used to happen after the Christmas / New Year holidays when the issue was basically consisted of charts and little else) the first issue of the New Year always had a cover price which was at least £1 cheaper than the price of the regular weekly magazine. As the issue published after the Easter holidays had no charts at all it should have been reduced by much more than £1.

Technically it was 'The Journey Continues' by Mark Brown featuring Sarah Cracknell which I ordered / paid for from hmv.com in February 2008. However it never actually arrived (despite supposedly being dispatched 3 times!) so I got a refund. The last one I managed to successfully buy was 'I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor' by the Arctic Monkeys in November 2005.

It's a rather unfair one too!

I don't think it does. A stream of a song from an album has to be linked to a parent album: as far as I am aware it's not possible to connect it to two albums. I may be wrong, but it would be unfair to give a stream "two bites of a cherry" so to speak. Though in a way it already does, it both counts towards the singles and album charts.

Coldplay have released a Greatest Hits album ('The Singles 1999-2006'), though it was a boxset of their singles but it was classed as an album for chart purposes. The band refused to allow it to be issued as a conventional "all on one CD" release. I can't remember if it charted but it was released in 2007.

Perhaps the OCC need to add an extra exclusion - records which have fallen from the top 40 are not eligible for the Trending Chart. The inclusion of both Fetty Wap and Little Mix, both of whom had lengthy top 40 chart runs with their respective entries but who have since fallen from the top 40, on the grounds that their singles have gained in sales, totally undermines the purpose of this chart.

Yup, it was 'Saturday Night' by Whigfield that knocked Wet Wet Wet from the top. 'Barbie Girl' by Aqua knocked the Spice Girls ('Spice Up Your Life') from number 1 three years later!

Quoting myself here but I'm still curious about 'A Sky Full Of Stars'. Streaming sales for other Coldplay titles seem to be in the 50k to 70k region. For this particular track they are over 260,000 and indeed are probably going to be a higher than that now, possibly a lot higher. I'm curious why this track has been so heavily streamed compared to any of their other tracks. I'm wondering whether the download sales quoted by the OCC are correct? Has the OCC previously given any download sales figures for this track?

And 'A Sky Full Of Stars' was certified Platinum on 22 May 2015 yet it has only sold 338,000 downloads. That leaves a lot of streaming sales to make it up to 600,000+ "sales". It had only been certified Gold on 21 November 2014 which means in 6 months it managed to add another 200,000 sales. Most of those must have been streaming sales.

Am I right in thinking that only 'Holler' from back in the day is now yet to go at least Gold? I know 'Headlines' hasn't but I'm thinking back to the days when they were an active recording act. 'Stop' sold about 330,500 copies in 1998 so that's 69,500 or so since then, probably most of the sales will be since it was made available as a digital single in November 2004 which is a decent amount.

^ and if you are offline, listening to a track, when you sync with Spotify, the amount of times you've listened to a track is sent back to Spotify. I do wonder if listening to a track last week when being offline will count towards this week's chart when the information is sent to the OCC via Spotify? Or even listening to the track, for example, four weeks ago when offline and then going back online, would that count towards the current week sales period when the play was 4 weeks ago?

Yup. You can download a track to your iPod to listen offline to the track and you will then have 30 days to play the track. In that time frame you can listen to it as many times as you want. If you sync the iPod to Spotify within that time, the 30 days countdown starts again. If you don't, you can't listen to the track(s) once 30 days is up.

The Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) annual summary for 2015 has also been published. ERA are the trade body for retailers (in the same way the the BPI are the trade body for record companies). '25' by Adele tops the Top 20 listing, which includes not only music releases but also video and games titles. As is usual with the end of year ERA summary, physical sales of music titles are upweighted by 5% to account for / to estimate sales which have taken place outside of "Defined Universe Sales", the OCC quoted sales figure which is calculated from all retailers that provide sales data to the OCC so the figure given by ERA for '25' is 2,604,850. http://www.eraltd.org/news/era-news/entert...bn-barrier.aspx

Here are the Top 40 year end charts in an (hopefully!) easy to view list SINGLES 1 UPTOWN FUNK Mark Ronson Ft Bruno Mars (1.76m) 2 CHEERLEADER (FELIX JAEHN REMIX) Omi (1.52m) 3 TAKE ME TO CHURCH Hozier (1.25m) 4 LOVE ME LIKE YOU DO Ellie Goulding (1.19m) 5 SEE YOU AGAIN Wiz Khalifa Ft Charlie Puth (1.17m) 6 HELLO Adele (1.12m) 7 LEAN ON Major Lazer Ft Mo & Dj Snake 8 HOLD BACK THE RIVER James Bay 9 WHAT DO YOU MEAN Justin Bieber (0.988m) 10 SORRY Justin Bieber (0.934m) 11 KING Years & Years 12 THINKING OUT LOUD Ed Sheeran (0.917m) 13 SUGAR Maroon 5 14 HOLD MY HAND Jess Glynne (0.876m) 15 WHERE ARE U NOW Skrillex & Diplo/Justin Bieber (0.874m) 16 WANT TO WANT ME Jason Derulo 17 ARE YOU WITH ME Lost Frequencies 18 FOURFIVE SECONDS Rihanna/Kanye West/Mccartney 19 SHUT UP & DANCE Walk The Moon 20 HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE Calvin Harris & Disciples 21 CAN'T FEEL MY FACE Weeknd (0.778m) 22 FIRESTONE Kygo Ft Conrad Sewell 23 TRAP QUEEN Fetty Wap 24 LOVE YOURSELF Justin Bieber (0.719m) 25 THE HILLS Weeknd 26 EARNED IT Weeknd 27 BLACK MAGIC Little Mix 28 WISH YOU WERE MINE Philip George 29 PHOTOGRAPH Ed Sheeran 30 THE NIGHTS Avicii 31 RUNAWAY (U & I) Galantis 32 ELASTIC HEART Sia 33 BLOODSTREAM Ed Sheeran 34 MARVIN GAYE Charlie Puth Ft Meghan Trainor 35 UP Olly Murs Ft Demi Lovato 36 NOT LETTING GO Tinie Tempah Ft Jess Glynne 37 SHINE Years & Years 38 AYO Chris Brown & Tyga 39 DON'T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF Jess Glynne 40 HOTLINE BLING Drake ALBUMS 1 25 Adele (2.496m) 2 X Ed Sheeran (0.971m) 3 IN THE LONELY HOUR Sam Smith (0.893m) 4 IF I CAN DREAM Elvis Presley (0.881m) 5 PURPOSE Justin Bieber (0.645m) 6 1989 Taylor Swift 7 I CRY WHEN I LAUGH Jess Glynne (0.583m) 8 CHAOS AND THE CALM James Bay (0.518m) 9 A HEAD FULL OF DREAMS Coldplay (0.507m) 10 WANTED ON VOYAGE George Ezra 11 GET WEIRD Little Mix (0.389m) 12 HOZIER Hozier 13 NEVER BEEN BETTER Olly Murs 14 MADE IN THE AM One Direction 15 WILDER MIND Mumford & Sons (0.308m) 16 ANOTHER COUNTRY Rod Stewart 17 TITLE Meghan Trainor 18 ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE Jeff Lynne's Elo 19 HOW BIG HOW BLUE HOW BEAUTIFUL Florence & The Machine 20 COMMUNION Years & Years (0.260m) 21 CHASING YESTERDAY Noel Gallagher's High Flying 22 ROYAL BLOOD Royal Blood 23 A PERFECT CONTRADICTION Paloma Faith 24 1000 FORMS OF FEAR Sia 25 THE VERY BEST OF Cilla Black (0.200m) 26 BEAUTY BEHIND THE MADNESS Weeknd 27 THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION Paul Simon 28 AMERICAN BEAUTY/AMERICAN PSYCHO Fall Out Boy 29 DARK SKY ISLAND Enya 30 DRONES Muse 31 CHAPTER ONE Ella Henderson 32 A YEAR OF SONGS Alexander Armstrong 33 III Take That 34 DELIRIUM Ellie Goulding 35 RATTLE THAT LOCK David Gilmour 36 THE BALCONY Catfish & The Bottlemen 37 LIQUID SPIRIT Gregory Porter 38 + Ed Sheeran 39 KEEP THE VILLAGE ALIVE Stereophonics 40 CHRISTMAS Michael Buble