Ongarboy

Won't this be a very subjective/personal taste list though? What's iconic to one person may be mediocre, indifferent or plain awful to others? The definition of "well known" may be subjective too. I havent heard of a couple of songs on your list and the physical era was my era! 😃 At least with the other list there was a defined criteria metric of having to be platinum (or was it multi platinum?) and also outside the top 40 for inclusion. This thread potentially can include every non top 40 song ever recorded as such a song may be iconic or well known to at least one Buzzjack member...just saying... 😃

I'm interested in the charts but know there's no point over engaging with friends or family on the subject who don't have the same interest. It would be like a darts or badminton fanatic talking incessantly about that to those who are not interested. Its about knowing your audience. I have a friend who is similarly interested but only in 80s/90s music which is my favourite era too. I have answered some very random pop music questions at table quizzes that no one else n the pub could answer so that's one benefit! Also, I'm not sure if this is an Irish thing (where I'm from) but a lot of my gay male friends are Eurovision fans. I mean they have encyclopedia knowledge, know every participant country song from every year and travel all over the continent to each Eurovision annually and gave regular Eurovision social nights here. I've been to a couple but they're too fan intensive for me!! I was interested in it during the 1980s/90s but stopped after Ireland stopped winning!! (ha ha). I get a similar vibe on these chart forums as I do to my friends Eurovision engagement...I suppose its also all about music and number positions too! 😄

I think so many people bought the Dirty Dancing soundtrack at the time that it probably impacted sales of that single. Time of My Life would have been promoted as the lead single. The classic Hungry Eyes also from DD charted poorly too but has had a similar successful new lease of life in the streaming era.

Apologies...having a blank moment!! I only read the first line...not the second!! 🙈

What is Whitney's pre 1994 sales tally for I Wanna Dance With Somebody, would you know? Thanks!

Can see it going 19 or 20 times Platinum by the time the tour hysteria ends!

Out of interest, what ranking and sales total does Whitney Houston's Best Of album have in the Top 100, please? It must be near double platinum soon. Thanks!

While Ordinary is now a Marmite song, at least it's refreshing that the best selling/most consumed song of the year so far is actually a song that isn't a carry over from previous years!

Wow...3 Noah Kahan tracks certified. It's like all his other songs became popular simultaneously on the back of Stick Season! Interesting to see Dolly's version of I Will Always Love You go Gold. Whitney's version seems under certified at just 2xP (last certified in 1993) considering it was a 10 weeks at Number One juggernaut of the 1990s and is still widely streamed to the current day. Has it not accumulated even 600k in almost 32 years to earn another platinum cert?

Surprised Adele's 30 has "only" sold 900k almost 4 years on...her stratospheric superstar sheen definitely had diminished by that album.

This list of No.1s probably could feature quite appropriately in the "Most Ordinary No.1" thread!! too!!

I think you mustn't have lived through the 80s or 90s if you haven't heard of most of those songs. Even if you despised the artist or acts or had no interest in pop music, they were pretty ubiquitous songs, particularly the 80s ones you listed and are definitely not ordinary! 😃

I think this definitely fits! I was living abroad in 1996 back when hits in one country had no correlation with hits in another country concurrently and you were simply unable to listen to them unless someone posted you the CD or cassette single! I remember coming home that Christmas eager to hear the big hits and Number Ones I had missed over the previous 6 months including my first listen to Wannabee months after everyone else even though my friends and relatives kept talking about this new huge girl band on phone calls home. Anyway I digress, I gradually caught up on all the hits including Lemon Tree, How Bizarre etc etc among others but I remember thinking how super bland and non descript Forever Love sounded. It's a song I've never really heard ever since on the radio as I'm guessing the only airplay it received was on chart shows during its initial chart run....the definition of ordinary...

I think this is where this survey starts to become subjective. Maybe it's an age thing but I'd imagine most anyone born before 1980 would instantly recognise this song for better or for worse. It may have generated Marmite type opinions at the time but it definitely wouldn't be classified as ordinary or non descript in my opinion. It famously featured on film cult classic Priscilla, Queen of the Desert too and has been parodied and lampooned in sketches and comedy shows over the years and it's the type of tune that a drunken group would mockingly burst into song if it came on the airwaves back in the day! It was that type of song! 😃 An "ordinary" or forgettable song would never get that much positive or negative attention.

It's interesting that calendar years are no longer as important a benchmark for how successful a song is any more which is kind of a shame. As an 80s and 90s pop music child, I can still vividly associate huge hits from back in the day with different calendar years that also had other milestone moments for me as I came of age whereas nowadays hits carry over into multiple years (Benson Boone anyone?) as their longevity grows and grows from infinite passive streaming, that it's not as easy to associate a song with a particular year. I think it devalues the notion of "the biggest hits of 20**" as half those songs will also be on next year's or last year'slist too (or in albums cases, the next decade). Look at Julian's weekly sales to date list. We're well into Quarter 2 of 2025 but the vast majority of bestsellers included are all songs that were hits in 2024. I guess it's just another evolution in the way we consume and track music....