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A million-selling single is regarded by the Official Charts Company (OCC) as one that has sold at least 1 million copies since the start of the UK Singles Chart in November 1952. As well as a traditional purchase of a physical record, a sale can represent one permanent digital download of a track (physical singles usually consist of two songs, although both are only included in sales figures for double A sides or where both receive a high level of interest and airplay). Both British Phonographic Industry (BPI)-certified awards (Silver, Gold and Platinum) and the weekly charts now include audio streaming but these are not included in the sales figures published by the OCC. Certified awards can also include shipments (sales to trade). The OCC and Music Week regularly announce when a record becomes a million seller.
Contents
- History
- Million selling singles
- Artists with the most million selling singles
- Songs with 1 million combined sales
- References
As of October 2016, 167 singles have sold 1 million copies in the UK. Of these, 108 were originally released in the 20th century (70 of them selling 1 million before the year 2000) and the remainder were released between 2000 and 2014. The most recently released single to become a million-seller is "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, which was released in December 2014 and passed a million sales ten weeks later in February 2015. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" is the earliest release: originally 1942, although only sales from 1952 onwards are counted. The year in which the most million-sellers were released is 2011, with twelve; while a record 36 releases from both the 1990s and the 2010s have sold a million copies. Only two million sellers have failed to reach the top 5 on the UK Singles Chart: Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", both of which peaked at number 6.
History
In 1959, British periodical Disc introduced an initiative to present a Gold record to singles that sold more than 1 million units. Information about when a record was classified Gold by Disc is "not well documented", and the awards relied on record companies correctly compiling and supplying sales information. This led to errors, such as The Shadows' instrumental "Apache" and The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" incorrectly being awarded a gold disc in January 1970. Such inaccuracies led to the instigation of an official classification system. In April 1973, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) began classifying singles and albums by the number of units sold. The highest threshold is "Platinum record" and was then awarded to singles that sold more than 1 million units. For singles released after 1 January 1989, the number of sales required to qualify for Platinum, Gold and Silver records was dropped to 600,000 units (Platinum), 400,000 units (Gold) and 200,000 units (Silver). In February 1987, the BPI introduced multi-Platinum awards so that if a single sold 1,200,000 units it was classified as double Platinum, 1,800,000 units as triple Platinum, etc.
Digital downloads have been counted towards singles sales from 2004 onwards. Additionally, audio streaming has been included in the official chart and BPI awards since 30 June 2014, at a rate of 100 streams representing one unit sale, however the OCC still compiles a 'sales' (only) chart and still quotes these traditional sales figures in its features and articles.
In 1963, The Beatles' song "She Loves You" became the best-selling single of all time in the UK. This record was broken in 1977 when Paul McCartney's new band Wings surpassed it with "Mull of Kintyre", which also became the first song to sell 2 million copies in the UK. In 1984, Band Aid released the charity-record "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in response to the famine in Ethiopia; it sold 1 million copies in the first week and soon became the best-selling single. This record was broken in 1997, following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, when Elton John released "Candle in the Wind 1997", a re-write of the Marilyn Monroe tribute released in 1973. Selling more than 650,000 copies on its first day on sale and more than 1.5 million in its first week, it quickly became the UK's best-selling single. It was classified by the BPI as 9× Platinum (5.4 million) in October 1997, but more recent estimates suggest sales of 4.93 million.
Million-selling singles
The following list is restricted to sales data since the inception of a UK chart in 1952. Sales figures from the OCC are on the date given in the reference. The OCC differentiates 'chart sales' (which include streaming) from 'sales' (which are downloads and physical purchases), and uses traditional sales to define a million-seller: these are the figures quoted below.
Although "Brown Girl in the Ring" was listed as the B-side, it received extensive airplay, which caused the single to peak in the charts for a second time.
Artists with the most million-selling singles
Twenty-one artists have had at least two million-selling singles in the UK (if John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are counted as one artist), but only three artists have had more than two: The Beatles, who have six; Rihanna, who has four (including one as a featured artist); and Pharrell Williams, who has three (including two as a featured artist).
* Includes featured performances Duets
Songs with 1 million combined sales
In addition to those listed above, since the incorporation of streaming into the singles chart in 2014, a large number of singles have reached a million combined sales when streaming is taken into account (100 streams equivalent to one download or physical sale). Music Week regularly refers to these as million-sellers, but the OCC does not. Five songs have achieved one million combined sales on streaming alone (over 100 million streams): "Thinking Out Loud", "Sorry", "Love Yourself" and "What Do You Mean?" by Justin Bieber, and "One Dance" by Drake. Although the ratio for streaming in the Official Singles Chart was changed from 100:1 to 150:1 in 2017, running totals as measured by BPI for their awards continue to be 100:1.