Talk:List of highest-certified singles in Australia

Title does not reflect article; article does not make sense
The title of this article, "List of best-selling singles by year Australia", is not descriptive of the article, which seems to be a list of recordings certified triple platinum in Australia.

Yet a simple change of title is not what is required. The lead paragraph is nonsense. It reads, "All of these singles have sold over an excess amount of copies to claim the highest selling singles, meaning they are all triple-platinum single or more." This doesn't indicate the sales threshold for any of these certifications. Another section says simply "After 1989, the certification changed," though it does not indicate from what to what. Most of the entries on the list are from the 2000s, which suggests either an incomplete list or some skewed metric.

A visit to the ARIA site finds that they are only listing certifications awarded since 1997, which seems to explain why there is virtually no representation in the Wiki article from prior decades. This is insufficient information from which to compile a list based on all recordings to have surpassed certain sales thresholds, which is what appears in this article. The only way to handle this is to A) hunt down information about sales prior to this period, or B) do what the title of this Wiki article suggests: present a list of certifications by year. In this case, it would be clear that only those records certified from 1997 to present are being included, and that the majority of recorded history, indeed the majority of the rock era, is completely ignored.

Additionally, "www.lodzeppscociety.org" seems to be a dead link. So does "www.ledzeppscociety.org". It sounds like a fansite; be advised that fansites are not reliable sources for sales figures. In any event, presenting only one recording from a period prior to the '90s is misleading, as it implies to the casual reader that no recordings but this one had ever achieved comparable sales levels prior to this time.

I invite the contributing editors or other interested parties to change the article accordingly. I would be greatly interested to learn the Australian sales figures for releases prior to 1997, and hope editors can make them available. Abrazame (talk) 06:24, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Please fix the incongruities noted above or this article will be nominated for deletion
Refer to the above post. Again, it is not enough to simply rename the article (though that would help, and has not been done), as the contributing editors' understanding of the topic as well as their access to information seems gravely limited ("After 1989, the values of the certifications changed, so singles released before 1989 have probably sold fewer copies than denote its certification today"). Abrazame (talk) 11:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I wrote that statement, and I agree, I do have limited access to information, because I do not know what the certifications denoted before 1989. To be a sustainable article, it needs to be referenced and expanded.  Ss 112  07:22, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Renamed again
As no data seems to be widely available for actual sales levels prior to 1989, the article has been renamed. In the event that a significant number of pre-1989 sales levels can be reliably sourced, please post those titles and references to this talk page and when enough have been added, we can discuss, given the data available, whether to revert to the article's original scope and title ("List of best-selling singles in Australia by year") or how else we might present the data in the main article. I will watch this talk page and would likely be able to respond within 7 days to any substantive discussion. Abrazame (talk) 17:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Add titles and sources for pre-1989 titles in this section, in the interest of expanding/renaming the article in the future

 * "Stairway to Heaven" - Led Zeppelin

I removed this from the article, as I noted some time ago, the ref is wrong. If someone can properly source any bestselling title, that would be most welcome. Such a number may be lower in previous eras than the numbers currently in the article; probably for space issues we'd cut it off at the 10th best-selling single of any given year. However, if the 11th or lower sold more than other titles on this list, that would be valid to note. It's certainly possible that one year's #15th-biggest outsold another year's #7th-biggest. Abrazame (talk) 18:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Please add all referenced titles below the most recent post immediately above this line, so references will appear together.

This article is still deficient in explaining its parameters or giving any context to its claims
The article states that a dearth of published information prior to 1989 makes it hard to certify the success of pre-'89 titles, implying that those on the chart do fit the criteria not only of being certified but being cited. So why are there no sources referenced whatsoever in the article?

Additionally, were there Gold, Platinum and Multi-Platinum certifications in Australia prior to 1989? The article notes that the certification values were different prior to 1989; were they higher prior to that period, as is true in the U.S., or were they lower then, and rose as did the population? Some background here, and/or links to the Wikipedia article(s) that explain(s) such things, would be informative to the reader.

Finally, the current article for Australian Recording Industry Association reads:
 * "Gold" and "Platinum" ARIA awards are based on units shipped to retail outlets, not on how many of those units are sold to customers. A lukewarm album or single release can achieve Gold or Platinum status by flooding the market with copies, and if 99% are returned to the manufacturer that in no way affects the status of the award.

Presuming that article is correct on this point, are the figures represented in this list based on verified sales, or are they based on units shipped? Abrazame (talk) 10:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Poker Face cert unverified
The certification for Poker Face, whilst being correct, does not reflect actual sales. As noted by the above poster, certifications in Australia are determined by record companies and are unaudited. "Poker Face" should actually be in the 4xPlatinum category as can be seen in the decade sales chart on the ARIA website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.85.219 (talk) 04:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Change to a table
I was thinking maybe this article could be changed to a table, so that you could sort by artist, and include other info such as year, album or highest position on chart? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tristan 753 (talk • contribs) 07:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I had been thinking the same thing, (then thought I'd better see what the talk page had to say).
 * There don't seem to be any objections. Pdfpdf (talk) 04:06, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested moves

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: article moved Armbrust, B.Ed. WrestleMania XXVIII The Undertaker 20–0  06:37, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

List of best-selling singles in Australia → List of singles certified Platinum in Australia – The list recently went through an Afd with consensus to keep. However, it was also brought up that a rename would be more suitable, as the content here is based on certification, not sales, contrary to the article's title. Till I Go Home talk 01:50, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Article name change
I was just wondering, shouldn't the article be renamed to "List of singles certified more than quadruple platinum in Australia" because that's all that is listed in the article. If the article name was to be true, there would have to be platinum, double platinum and triple platinum certified singles listed there. Zacco33 (talk) 11:25, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

ABBA
I came across this site which has ABBA certifications for a few singles from the 1970s. What were certification levels then? ABBA(Coachtripfan (talk) 12:10, 20 February 2016 (UTC))

Cutting the list at
The list becomes unmanageable. I updated 10× and more for 2021, but there are 42 new entries for 7-9× in 2021 and it just takes too much time and starts to border WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The list of albums stops at 10×, I suggest the same for this list. --Muhandes (talk) 16:14, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I am going to go WP:BOLD on this, if someone objects feel free to revert and discuss. --Muhandes (talk) 10:42, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Beyoncé
Beyoncé has now added a new certification for Crazy in Love and the song is certified 10x platinum. 190.108.215.196 (talk) 14:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)