Robbie

This! Hearing the song always reminds me of Christmas.

'The Power Of Love' wasn't a Christmas number 1 - by the time Christmas Day 1984 came around it had been knocked from the top by the combined might of Band Aid and Wham and in fact was already down to number 5 but it had strong Christmas associations due to the video.

It's just one of those songs that was released at the right time of year and as you've mentioned has a Christmas themed video. It's always linked to the festive season too so in most peoples minds is a Christmas related song.

The only one missing that I can think of is 'The Power Of Love' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood which had been a regular on the album for a number of years but which has been removed from the 2013 revamp in favour of Gabrielle Aplin's version from last year. Her version is lovely but FGTH's original is iconic and is sadly missed (at least by me!). FGTH's original is also another Christmas / Christmas themed song from my favourite ever Christmas chart year, 1984, so its removal is disappointing. Another good Christmas song from 1984 was removed several years ago but being as it was 'Another Rock n Roll Christmas' by Gary Glitter, the removal of that track was understandable.

I love them though I would like to hear more contemporary Christmas songs being recorded - the efforts by The Killers and Coldplay have been OK but aren't anywhere near being classics. Anyway, I've just bought the new version of the Now Christmas album and as I bought it from amazon I've not only got the CD on its way to me but as it also includes the AutoRip feature it means I've been able to download the MP3 version immediately - which I am currently listening to! 'Last Christmas' by Wham! is currently playing... I do hope the neighbours don't think I've started Christmas early this year! http://www.amazon.co.uk/ThatS-What-Call-Mu...+christmas+2013

I would love anything except the latest X Factor puppet to be number 1 but unfortunately we all know that the winner will be number 1 :puke2:

:lol:

I was wondering about this myself last week. It just doesn't look like the book is ever going to appear. It looks like it was originally due to be published in August and this was pushed back to November but the website in the first post hasn't been updated for months.

On 08/12/90 two songs called Crazy entered the top 75 - one at number 45 by Seal and the other at 66 by Patsy Cline. On 12/01/91 both songs were in the top 20, Seal at number 4 and Patsy Cline at 14. The next two weeks both songs remained in the top 20 at the same time.

On the charts dated 28/09/85, 05/10/85 and 12/10/85 there were two songs called 'The Power Of Love' in the top 20 - one by Huey Lewis & The News (chart run for those 3 weeks: 12-11-15) and the other by Jennifer Rush (15-2-1). A few weeks earlier, on 31/08/85 the Jennifer Rush song was at number 47 with the Huey Lewis song a new entry at number 49.

Music Week ran an article about this a couple of months ago and pointed out that sales in the top end of the chart are still continuing to increase. I suppose it was inevitable that sales of older tracks would decrease at some point. If you look at the top 20 there are newer tracks in there with even the top 40 having fewer old songs hanging around. In a way it's quite healthy to see newer songs dominating the chart rather than oldies hanging around all the time.

Indeed! There's nothing wrong with timing re-issues / deluxe versions in time for the Christmas period but it's the cynical nature of how fans are now routinely ripped-off due to the same album being reworked to attract twice the sale. It's what puts off most purchasers of albums in the first place. At the very least, it sends out a mixed message along the line of "buy the album now" when the album is first released and then a few months later "buy it again because there's a few extra tracks"...

Yes, they should be counted as a new album - though with a rider. If it's just one or two new tracks then that's fair enough on the grounds it hardly amounts to a "new" album. However if the extra material is a whole new set of tracks (for example, 5+ new tracks) and is enough to expand the re-release to an extra CD then it's a total rip-off to package it as a "deluxe" album. It's basically a new album with the old one attached to it. The OCC only changed the rules on how Deluxe albums are treated regarding amalgamating sales with the original when album sales began to decline and this was seen as a way of artists expanding the life of a project. It's a basic rip-off for fans. It probably contributes to falling sales as most casual buyers who are aware of Deluxe versions being released some months down the line will hold back and will wait for the re-release (which is basically what a deluxe version is). Years ago, the extra tracks would probably have been the B side of the CD singles of tracks released as singles from the original album.

The official charts. Though many people do also compile their own chart too so the poll could apply to both.

I've just binned all my print editions of Music Week that I had from January 2008 to December 2012. It was getting to the stage where I had no space left to keep them and for those editions I have all of the digital versions on my computer. Apart from all of the print editions from this year I still have all of the print editions from October 2004 to December 2007.They are all in one storage box as the magazine used to be so thin then with some weeks 32 pages or less so the 3 and a bit years worth don't take up that much space. Unfortunately there's no digital editions from before October 2007 so I don't know what to do with them. I don't want to just throw them out but it's impractical to scan them all and in any case my scanner is just an A4 sized printer / scanner / copier so it's no good for scanning Music Week as the pages are too big. I don't want to start ripping out the chart pages either as I'd just end up with a load of messy, torn pages. Back then the charts used to be at the back of the magazine and across several pages so there would be a lot of ripping out of pages to do.

In an excel file for every chart from November 1952 to December 2007. All the charts since then are in issues of Music Week and UKChartsPlus that I have on my computer. For UKChartsPlus I only have a full run going back to November 2010 though I do have quite a few issues going back to September 2001. For Music Week I have every issue back to October 2004.

If A and B sides of singles are included, the original version of 'Do They Know It's Christmas' by Band Aid is very close to outselling 'Candle In The Wind 97'. I know it's not the same as the Band Aid singe outselling Elton John on one single release but the 1984 original has sold 3.73m while it has also sold 1.1m as the B side of the Band Aid 20 CD single, which adds up to 4.83m. 'Candle In The Wind 97' has sold 4.91m so the original Band Aid single is within 80,000 of outselling Elton John. Had the Band Aid 20 single been released as a double A side, the original version of 'Do They Know It's Christmas' would be very close to surpassing Elton John's total...

Definitely millions of lost sales, 31.5 million cassettes out of a total of 89.3 million albums were shipped to record shops in 1982 alone. Assuming that Alan Jones is correct about cassette sales not being counted I'm guessing it was done to just simplify the chart compilation process - up to the arrival of Gallup in January 1983 record shops had to complete chart return diaries by hand and someone at the then chart compilers BMRB had to input the catalogue numbers to the computer by hand to actually run the chart. Perhaps it was done to make it easier to write down / input one catalogue number per album. Perhaps vinyl album sales were once upon a time seen as being more representative of all sales so there was no need to record cassette album sales. Certainly the albums chart wasn't as important back then as it is now, the singles chart was always seen as the most important and was always the first to be compiled. The albums chart was pretty much an afterthought at one time. In terms of what cassette albums were actually sold, the record labels would have been able to discover this from what they shipped and from their own sales representatives. Possibly the way estimated sales were worked out included a general amount for cassette sales even though they weren't recorded and of course even though certain types of music sold better on cassette.

I wasn't aware at the time too until Alan Jones mentioned it in a Record Mirror article about Gallup taking over the compilation of the charts http://scans.chartarchive.org/UK/1982/UK%2...nd%20albums.pdf (PDF file, see 4th and 5th pages of the PDF file)

If no albums sell a million this year then it will be the first time since 1982 that no album has officially sold a million copies. The top seller that year was 'Love Songs' by Barbra Streisand which sold around 900,000 or so copies. I say "officially" because the real best seller was The Kids From Fame's album of the same name which did sell a million. However some of its sales were on cassette which wasn't a chart eligible format in 1982, the format only being included in sales return figures from January 1983. Prior to 1982 the last time no album, officially or otherwise, passed a million sales was in the 1970s, possibly 1975 when the best seller was 'Best Of' by The Stylistics.

Slightly off-topic but the Now Christmas album is having a slight revamp this year and for the first time ever it will feature 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' by Mariah Carey. Past versions of the album have featured versions of the song by Samantha Mumba and Lady Antebellum. The album is due for release on November 18 which is two weeks later than it normally appears each time it is revamped.

Not that I'm aware of but from comments he has previously made when his column was at Yahoo Launch it seems certain that he does sometimes visit here. He did used to made the occasional post in the Chart Forum at Dotmusic, as did Alan Jones though that is because both were employed by either Dotmusic (JM) or Music Week (AJ) who actually owned Dotmusic until 2002. Ben Drury and James Kane who co-own the digital website 7 digital also used to post at Dotmusic. Again both were at one time employed by Dotmusic before they opened 7 Digital in January 2004 when Dotmusic closed. Drury was responsible for setting up Dotmusic in 1995 and opening the message boards in 1998 and Kane joined Dotmusic in 1999 as a web developer. Both were also moderators who banned their fair share of troublesome posters!

If you click on the link you can download part of the book, JM has made available the "A" artists part as a free download.

Estimated sales for all 14 releases Thanks to Shireblogger from Haven for the following post:

Here are some sales taken from the end of year charts. CALIFORNIA GIRLS (#1, 2010, 7th best seller of year) 648,400 TEENAGE DREAM (#2, 2010, 32nd) 408,200 ET (#3, 2011, 36th) 418,800 LAST FRIDAY NIGHT (TGIF) (#9, 2011, 45th) 358,100 PART OF ME (#1, 2012, 55th) 336,300 WAKING UP IN VEGAS (#19, 2009, 138th) 129,000 THINKING OF YOU (#27, 2009, 208th) 76,000 Obviously all these singles, especially Teenage Dream, will have sold additional copies beyond the year in which they appeared in the top 200 (top 250 for 2009) year end singles.