Talk:List of best-selling singles by year in the United Kingdom

Untitled
I'd be interested to know the source for this list.

The Music Week/British Market Research Bureau lists for best-selling singles of each year of the 70s, reproduced in full in 'The 70s: A Book Of Records' by Tony Jasper (Futura, 1980), are considered by many to be the most authoritative reference. These are at variance with some of the titles here.

According to MW/BMRB, 1970's best-selling UK single was 'In The Summertime', Mungo Jerry, and 'The Wonder of You' was 2nd.

In 1972, the best-seller was 'Amazing Grace', Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Band, and 'I'd Like...World To Sing' No. 5.

In 1973, it was 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon', Dawn, and 'I Love You Love Me Love' No. 8.

In 1974, 'Tiger Feet', Mud, was the year-end champion, and 'You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me' well down at No. 45.

In 1975, it was 'Bye Bye Baby', The Bay City Rollers, while 'Bohemian Rhapsody' finished at No. 22.

Durajohnpatrick, 9.7.06

The above is correct - the lists on the page are combined sales in different years - esp The New Seekers which had divided sales--Tuzapicabit (talk) 19:11, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Since nobody else seems to be doing anything about it - I'll go ahead and change the list since it is clearly wrong. You can't count a single's TOTAL sales just because it was released in that year - that would mean a million-selling single released on 31 December 2007 wouldn't even register on the year-end chart for 2008 (the year it would have its chart run).--Tuzapicabit (talk) 14:12, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

1981
Wasn't Soft Cell's Tainted Love the best-seller for 1981 - or did the Human League overtake it after the cut-off point for the year-end chart? MFlet1 14:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

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Also, hey jude and sugar sugar topped the US year-end chart, not UK

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The list Of The UK's No.1 Singles Of The Year is obviously based on the Total Sales of Singles RELEASED in the Year - adding in their entire Chart Run's Sales - even if they split between 2 Years. So, (for example), 'Bohemian Rhapsody's' 1976 Sales are added to its 1975 Sales.

Some Lists have 'In The Summertime' as the Best Seller of 1970 - others say it was 'The Wonder Of You'.

Tony Jasper did not use definitive End Of Year Lists in his Books. For example, his Year End Top 20 for 1964 is clearly based on Points - not Sales. 'Can't Buy Me Love', & 'I Feel Fine', by The Beatles, were the only 2 UK Million Sellers of that Year - but, Mr. Jasper does not even have them in his Top 20 of 1964. Instead, no less than 7 of his 1964 Top 10 were not even UK No.1 Hits - because they scored a lot of Points. But - most of them - were not actually in the Top 10 Best Sellers of that Year. The Wikipedia Yearly Best Sellers List, shows which Singles SOLD the most in their complete Chart Runs - NOT which Singles sold the most between January 1st & December 31st. The 2 things are not the same, & give - often - a different No.1 Best Seller Of The Year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.22.121.169 (talk) 14:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This list is actually really complete rubbish, in fact the article might as well be deleted as it doesn't follow any official records, therefore is totally inaccurate and also very misleading. Why not create an article that specifies the actual best selling singles of the year, which is all that is relevant, which would then mean this article is pointless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.195.91.134 (talk) 21:28, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, well fix it - provided you can give good reasons for what you're claiming. I see you changed "Don't You Want me" - it was recently changed from "Tainted Love" - but I'm not sure since I saw 3 year-end charts from 1981 - the last one was about a week before the end of the year - did "Don't You Want me" sell more by December 31st? I don't know. What are your issues with it? Discuss and we'll see if it can be fixed.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 22:29, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

My Only Issue is that an encyclopedia is meant to record facts, and the main Point of this article is to list the biggest selling single of the year. The facts are Tainted love was the biggest selling single of 1981, you can find this information pretty much anywhere on the internet. This is calculated by looking at which single sold the most "units" i.e physical and downloads as of the final published chart of the year. This can vary in date due to the calendar, but as of the final chart countdown in that year, this is where the records are taken. Maybe in the last few days of 1981 "don't you want me" sold more, but the sales in those extra days are recorded in the first chart of 1982. I just believe you should record facts alone on here as stated by the official charts company, not particular interpretations by people. And so hence 1975 is wrong too as is 1970. I know its not an official website but www.everyhit.com states all the biggest selling singles since 1952. Regards. Michael Cooper —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.195.91.134 (talk) 22:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I never disputed 1970 or 1975 - although everyhit does agree with 1970 as it is here. Most sources do say Bye Bye Baby for 1975 though so I'd go for that .--Tuzapicabit (talk) 09:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

1996
Wannabe (Spice Girls) was very close to Fuggees. Indeed, some litss say Wanabee sold more (e.g. all time UK charts). Anyone know?

1997
I think CITW sold 4864611. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.137.41.75 (talk) 15:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes but that was alongside SATWYLT, which it was a double-A side with, thus making Something About The Way You Look Tonight the de facto best selling single in the UK, and, effectively, the best selling original song of all time in the UK (as CITW was a rewritten version of a much less successful 1973 song).--2A02:C7D:3E28:3100:5151:CE97:9682:9008 (talk) 19:50, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Sales
The sales section needs to be removed since it features the total sales of each song - and not the sales within each year, which is what the list is about. Unless of course someone can provide that information (but apart from recent years, it's unlikely to be available anywhere).--Tuzapicabit (talk) 14:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've now found the sales for certain years and songs - so Ive changed it to sales within a year - which makes much more sense. If you put the total sales then the list of top selling singles doesn't make sense because (and as I put at the top of the page) Kylie and Jason's "Especially for you" outsold Cliff's "Mistletoe and Wine" overall and there are a few other instances of this as well.

Also, I had a suspicion that "Don't You Want Me" was the 1981 best seller - in fact it easily outsold "Tainted Love", but I was surprised to find that "Bohemian Rhapsody" was 1975's top seller, but I suppose you have to remember that about the last half of December was left out of the year end chart back then and the final sales of a year would normally be huge, so I suppose it makes sense really.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 00:43, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

1975: Bohemian Rhapsody was huge the first time around, selling over a million as far as I'm aware. Not sure how much it sold when double a-side with These Were the Days of Our Lives at the top over Christmas and New Year 1991-92 but must have been a lot.

1977: Wings sold over 2million over its run spanning late 1977 and early 1978, superseding the Beatles' She Loves You as officially the biggest-selling single of all time unil Band Aid at Christmas 1984. Before the advent of Band Aid charity records were seen as a bit of a joke (it was kind of assumed that the music must be crap so the only way to sell it was to devote the proceeds to charity) and never found their way into the chart but Messrs Geldof, Ure and company changed all that, paving the way for an endless stream of chart-toppers in a good cause!

1978: Rivers of Babylon sold about 2million in combination with Brown Girl in the Ring. Rivers of Babylon was Number 1 in the early summer (before being knocked off by another near-2million-seller, "You're the One That I Want" by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John) but had slipped to the lower reaches of the top 20 by mid-July when, unusually, the record was flipped over to make its erstwhile B-side, Brown Girl in the Ring, the A-side. This was responsile for it climbing all the way back up to number 2 again by early September. 1978 was the biggest selling year for singles ever, with subsequent big peaks taking place in 1984 and 1997.

1981: The Human League, at the top in December 1981 and well into January 1982, sold comfortably over a million during their run. Soft Cell were certainly near to a million. A number of records on this list were Christmas chart toppers that may not have been top of some lists because of having their total sales split between one year and the next. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.23.53.116 (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My point was that the article isn't interested in what something sold in total - just within a year. By the way 1979 had higher single sales than 1978 - and 1984 comes below a few other years such as 1980, 1982 and about five years from the 1990s. Nothing to do with anything, but there you go. --Tuzapicabit (talk) 20:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Sales and Streams
I've added an extra column for the combined sales & streams figure which is now commonly presented (sometimes even in preference to the sales figure). The figures used for 2015-2019 were the combined figure, so I've moved those to this new column and included the sales figure where available (sadly only for 2016-2018). This makes the sales column comparable again, and it no longer implies that Sheeran outsold Band Aid. This page gives further comparisons of these different figures.

This also means Adele's "Someone Like You" becomes the biggest seller for the 2010s. I think that's correct, if you're going to compare it with those from previous decades.

GNU/Andrew (talk) 19:08, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

1952
Other sources, like the OCC (and the Kutner book?), claim the bestselling single of 1952 was "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" by Vera Lynn, rather than Al Martino's "Here in My Heart", as it says on this article. Based on chart sales, it would clearly be the latter, as it was no1 for the whole period. However, based on overall sales, it could be the former record.—TrottieTrue (talk) 14:24, 21 August 2022 (UTC)