HITTING THE HIGH NOTES

These are the most successful singles in UK chart history

South Wales Evening Post
6 Oct 2018

By ALICE CACHIA

REACHING number one in the charts is one of the most coveted musical achievements in British radio, but which single has been the most successful to date?

Cruising to an easy first place is, of course, Elton John’s reworking of Something About the Way You Look / Candle in the Wind.

Released in 1997 following the death of Princess Diana, the single has seen a behemoth 4.9 million sales.

Elton famously donated all the proceeds from the track to Di’s favourite charities.

In second place with 3.8 million singles is the 1984 Bandaid charity Christmas track, Do They Know It’s Christmas, ahead of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, which sold 2.5 million copies.

Bohemian Rhapsody was also the first ever song to reach number one twice - in 1975 when it was originally released, and in 1991 following lead singer Freddie Mercury’s death.

Another music legend, Paul Mccartney, and his band Wings have the fourth biggest-selling number one single Mull of Kintyre / Girls’ School, with 2.1 million sales. Grease’s You’re the One That I Want follows closely behind. Also in the top 10 most popular singles is the 1983 song Relax (from Frankie Goes to Hollywood), and Boney M’s Rivers of Babylon / Brown Girl in the Ring. Pharrell’s Happy is the first song from this century (released in 2013) to make the top 10, with 1.93 million sales. The single was more popular than The Beatles’ 1963 hit She Loves You, which sold 1.9 million copies.

According to official UK chart data, only 175 songs have ever sold more than a million copies as of June this year.

One of those is Cher’s Believe, released in 1998, which sold 1.8 million copies.

While it is only the 17th most popular single in UK chart history, Cher is the highest-ranking solo female on the list.

The official chart is now calculated by online streams and downloads, in addition to physical copies of a single. For example, 100 paid streams is equal to one sale, as is 600 free streams on music-sharing sites such as Spotify and Apple Music. There have also been changes to the way the charts are run. As of July 2017, artists are only allowed three of their most popular tracks in the top 100 charts to prevent music’s heavyweight acts dominating the leaderboard. The change came after Ed Sheeran’s latest album Divide scored 16 songs in the top 20 hits in March last year.

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JOLI BOOTLEG


Vu sur Ebay ce soit disant vinyle promo pour l'album STRONGER THAN BEFORE ! C'est joliment fait et ça n'est malheureusement pas le premier objet vendu de la sorte sur Ebay !
Si ONJ avait sorti cet album en 33t je pense qu'on l'aurait su ... et surtout à cette époque les promos étaient réalisés sur CD !
Maintenant si vous avez envie de payez une "blinde" un objet ""unique" ...

Et c'est dommage que ONJ production ne ré-édite pas des 33t ...

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