braindeadpj

Yes, two charts Best sellers - real sales Best sellers (real sales + streaming) perhaps since 2014 as its apples and oranges to compile a chart combining both for the whole 70 years.

Not the first time someone has been No.1 'officially' while they also had a different No.1 in acuality (ie, without ACR) since Ed Sheeran's Bad Habits was replaced by Shivers offically for 2 weeks and Beautiful People replaced I Don't Care. Also Sabrina Carpenter had Please Please Me replacing Espresso for 2 weeks making Olivia Dean the third artist to do so (2nd British artist).

It doesn't compare, that's the whole point., It's apples and oranges. You cannot compare the pre-streaming era to the streaming era, they are different beasts, they are the same in name only. You need two sets of "records"/achievements - prestreaming and during streaming

So Last Christmas now holds the record for longest run at No.1 as the real biggest seller... Of course we should have a pre-streaming and post-streaming record as the methodology is so different now. It's also unclear how ACR kneecapping No.1s affects their ability to remain as the biggest seller each week as the official chart showing a record dropping (drastically in some cases) from No.1 even though it is the biggest seller could mean that people no longer stream/purchase it as much, so it's possible the record would've been broken/set earlier if the charts reflected the real sales. I guess something we'll never know for sure.... Of course, this record needs an asterisk as it's a Christmas record that primarily sells for 5-6 weeks each year and then almost nothing vs the"normal" sales pattern of other records...

To be accurate, any record set during the sales-only period of the charts cannot really be broken during the streaming era as you're comparing apples to oranges, despite what they'll try and tell you.....so there are really two versions of each record; pre-streaming (only sales) and post-streaming.... There are a few records that were only set during the streaming era - such as being at every position in the Top 10 (down down to 28 i think isn't it - though of course that's based on the fake 'official' chart rather than the real actual true unit consumption chart....)

In addition using Record Mirror instead of NME for pre-1960 would also give you another 3 EPs.... (as well as the 22 that using the Record Retailer chart excludes....)

The two All Star Hit Parade releases are not officially EPs as they have a normal Decca catalogue number rather than the EP-specific one. It is true that they feature 6 cover versions by different artists - unless they're a medley?...

Great thread. Did you do a similar one for 2024? If so, has things changed? Are real sales dropping off faster compared to a year ago or they still similar?

Ordinary drops to 3 as its halved sales are 24,204 and Golden's on 48,943 so no way it could've beaten that...

This is the way Germany calculates their charts I believe. I suspect they are not the only country either....

If someone is streaming just a specific song, then its not an album stream in my opinion. Album streams should only count if a person streams a certain percentage of an album otherwise its just single (or song) streams

Now that's true with the charts being announced the day after the sales week ends, but certainly in the 20th Century, when the chart was first announced on the Tuesday (or perhaps even the Wednesday/Thursday when the newspaper carrying the chart was published) the "official" Christmas no.1 can be from an older sales week. The example of 1967 given earlier - the chart dated week ending Saturday 23rd December covered sales to the 11th to the 16th December 1967 as the next chart wouldn't be published until the 26th (Tuesday) at the earliest (and as already mentioned only covered sales to the 20th), so Christmas Day would fall in the sales chart week for the w/e Saturday 6th January 1968 (or Wednesday 3rd January issue of RR). Of course newspapers may publish the chart a little earlier but almost none published what is (errenously) considered the "official" chart nowadays as almost all covered NME's or MM's chart and not the RR chart (also published in RM).

The Virgin Top 40 dates are the publication dates for RR (6th, 13th, 20th, 27th) while the 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th December refers to the Saturday after this as most of the charts from the 70s to the 2015 use this....- so RR was published on the 27th December and the 30th December is often used as the Saturday week ending date (but actually covers sales to the 20th December - instead of the "usual" (probably) 23rd December for that week (and so wold not have included Christmas Day in its sales week either even without the adjustment.

As you say, most of them are not single week no.1s, but in most cases where it changes in the 20th Century, they're just no.1s whose reign came to an end the sales week that included Christmas Day (if compiled) and so were not single week No.1s. However one thing to bear in mind is sometimes the next chart after Christmas may still not include the Christmas Day sales week. The Christmas chart for 1967 is presumably the chart dated the 23rd December as the next chart (w/e 30th December) would not have been announced until the Tuesday/Wednesday or 26th/27th December. The chart w/e 30th December 1967 actually covers the sales period from Monday 11th December to Wednesday 20th December (they added the sales data from Monday 18th to Wednesday 20th to the Monday 11th to Saturday 16th sales data -the Christmas chart). Something similar may have happened during the 70s for at least some of the Xmas no.1s....

Thanks for the explanation. I guess it make sense......