Talk:List of best-selling singles of the 1970s in the United Kingdom

Source

I would like to know where this information is sourced from? There is no reference to back up positions or indeed sales figures. "Merry Xmas Everybody" could not have sold a million in the 70s since it only went on to sell that much by 2002 - which includes multiple re-entries into the charts (including a sizeable return in 1983 where it reached the top 20). Without something to back this up, I conclude that the figures are fabrication. Article and section has been tagged.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 11:45, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

"Merry Xmas Everybody" actually sold its millionth copy in 1980 (source) although obviously that's still outside of the 1970s, so your point is still valid. I could've sworn that I'd added the general ref to this article, but obiously I did not. Drat, I'll have to see if I can find it again... From what I remember, the sales are largely taken from the British TV programme The Ultimate Chart, which was shown on Channel 4 in 2002. A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 11:52, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, as I suspected - but even then, that only accounts for the top 13 - where did the rest of the figures come from? Also the show you mention includes sales up to 2002 (not from the 70s only). "Merry Xmas Everybody" was awarded platinum in 1980, but doesn't really mean it actually sold a million, and unlikely so since it's barely over a million now and like I say, was a top 20 hit in 1983. Calculating sales back to the 70s is a minefield anyway and unlikely ever to be totally accurate. As for the rest of the list I'm unsure especially since a top 100 I saw way back in 1980 had Brotherhood of Man's "Angelo" at No.49 - much higher than it appears here.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 11:16, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I realise I am replying to this thread well after the fact, but I believe the data was taken from here: http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=97339. The author states at the top of the post that he has since disowned the chart, and the fact it was compiled from user-generated data should make it invalid for use on Wikipedia anyway. Nevertheless, it is certainly more accurate than the only 'official' chart of the best selling singles of the 1970s, compiled by the BMRB and published in Music Week early in 1980 – this is the chart that Tuzapicabit remembers having "Angelo" at number 49. This BMRB chart has been widely discredited since, its most glaring errors resulting from the fact that they did not collect any postal returns from chart shops over Christmas each year, meaning that songs that sold well over Christmas periods lost out big time on the decade-end chart. The most obvious example is Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody", which was certified a million seller in December 1980 and therefore must have sold over 900,000 by the end of 1979, yet was only listed at number 67 on the BMRB chart of the 70s. The New Seekers' "You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me" was entirely absent from the BMRB top 100, despite the fact it probably sold over 800,000 copies during the decade. So as Tuzpicabit says, trying to formulate any accurate chart of the 1970s best sellers is fraught with difficulties. Richard3120 (talk) 19:30, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

At best we have a top 12/14 which is accurate(ish). The rest is unsourced, particularly sales and has to go. Perhaps after the million sellers (ie. platinum) a list of songs to go gold (over 500,000)?--Tuzapicabit (talk) 14:42, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Where does the 1.985M sales figure for Rivers of Babylon come from? I remember hearing that it was the 2nd 2M seller after Mull of Kintyre. Was it re-released or were sales rounded down at some point? Btljs (talk) 19:34, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

The lead says 14 million sellers by 1979, but the discussion above would suggest that Slade weren't a million seller until 1980, so isn't that 13? Btljs (talk) 19:38, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

@Btljs: this is the problem with this article – the positions and "sales figures" have come from various chart fans pulling together lots of different sources and estimates, and coming up with what they believe is an accurate list. While their efforts are admirable and in my opinion far more accurate than the official BMRB chart that was produced in 1980, that fact remains that it is entirely conjecture (both positions and sales) and therefore as Tuzapicabit says, I think it has to go.

Some more indication that the BMRB chart is less than reliable: "Sailing" by Rod Stewart was deemed the fourth biggest selling single of the decade. While it certainly sold 900,000+ copies in its two separate chart runs of 1975 and 1976, it wasn't certified a million-seller until a few years ago. Conversely, Boney M's "Mary's Boy Child" was certified a million-seller before the end of 1978 and as far back as the 1980s it was officially reckoned to have sold in excess of 1.5 million copies, far more than "Sailing"... and yet it only made number 16 on the BMRB list. Among the records ahead of "Mary's Boy Child" were "Amazing Grace" by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, "Mississippi" by Pussycat, and "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison... all of which are STILL waiting to be certified million sellers in 2014, so how could they be ahead of "Mary's Boy Child" on the list in 1979? I'm not sure how we can justify keeping any of this article. Richard3120 (talk) 19:58, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

@Richard3120:What does OCC use to arrive at its current totals? They must have inherited sales figures and then added to them? Can't we take the total at 2004 and subtract any re-releases in the 80s and 90s - there wasn't any other time they could have added to their sales was there? I suppose Xmas songs get re-released fairly regularly, otherwise it's just the odd one like Bohemian Rhapsody? Btljs (talk) 20:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't that then count as "original research" on our part? How would we be able to give a citation for a verifiable source for our figures, apart from a pretty convoluted explanation? The problem is we can't be sure if the OCC did inherit sales figures: they may well have gone back and recalculated them from scratch – isn't that what they did with their "Top 60 of the 60s" chart that was on Radio 2 a couple of years back? I wouldn't be surprised if one day we get a similar "Top 70 of the 70s". I appreciate what you are saying but I fear we may end up guilty of the same "best guess" accusation that this chart has. I'd be surprised if "Mary's Boy Child" has been re-released or added much to its sales total since 1979, even at Christmas. Richard3120 (talk) 20:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

It's a fine line certainly. I prefer the approach of "X says Y but A says B" (with refs) to "Y is the truth" (no ref). If there was an official chart, better to report it and then cite the sources which contradict it than to engineer our own. Statistically, any figure should be accompanied by a margin of error - these figures just have very large ranges of uncertainty. Btljs (talk) 21:10, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I think realistically the only two options for this article are:

(1) Reproduce the official 1980 BMRB chart, and note with references to later charts produced by Gallup/CIN/OCC the discrepancies in positions – no sales figures as I don't think these were included in the official chart;

(2) Delete this article entirely.

...unless anybody comes up with any other suggestions. Richard3120 (talk) 21:22, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd go for (1) because if you delete it someone will come along and put it back in and because it is information even if flawed. Btljs (talk) 21:29, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

The list is for best selling singles "of the 1970s," not which had the most sales during the 1970s (which in theory at least could have been a song released in 1969). So it should not be a problem to include sales that occurred later, as long as the song was first released in the 1970s. Rlendog (talk) 22:08, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Then the article title needs to be reworded, because the point of the list was the best-selling singles within the period 1 January 1970 – 31 December 1979, otherwise all we would be doing is reproducing the 27 singles in the middle section of List of million-selling singles in the United Kingdom (because we wouldn't have either positions or sales for any other records apart from these). Strictly speaking you are correct, but certainly in the UK it's generally accepted that the phrase signifies within the 1970s only: when people think of the best-selling single of the 1970s, they think "Mull of Kintyre", not "Bohemian Rhapsody" (which sold more than half its total amount after 1990). Richard3120 (talk) 22:52, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I think a top 100 list is out since we can't source it. I'd go with a list of certified sales. First section: Singles to have sold a million (within the 70s) followed by an alphabetical list of songs (13). Second section: Singles to have sold over 500,000. These can be sourced directly to the BPI website which lists them and also gives a specific date when they achieved this certification. This gets rid of sales figures which we can't source and order of songs within a top 100 which we can't source. I think it would at least be better than totally deleting the article.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 10:30, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I think there's consensus on the order of the top 10 isn't there? I've never heard anyone argue convincingly for a different order (but maybe someone will point one out to me). Is there any such thing as certified sales? If you mean platinum, gold etc. weren't these based on shipments? Btljs (talk) 12:37, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

@Btljs: I don't think there IS consensus on the top 10... here's the "official" top 10 that BMRB came up with in 1980:

1 "Mull of Kintyre"/"Girls' School" – Wings

2 "Rivers of Babylon"/"Brown Girl in the Ring" – Boney M

3 "You're the One That I Want" – John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

4 "Sailing" – Rod Stewart

5 "Save Your Kisses for Me" – Brotherhood Of Man

6 "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" – New Seekers

7 "Summer Nights" – John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

8 "Don't Give Up on Us" – David Soul

9 "Bohemian Rhapsody" – Queen

10 "Under the Moon of Love" – Showaddywaddy

This is markedly different to the list in the article as it stands, and as far as I can tell, includes three songs that were only certified million sellers decades later, but excludes at least two songs, "Mary's Boy Child" and "Eye Level", that were certified million sellers by the end of 1978. Compare also the current certified sales of "Summer Nights" with those of the songs just above it... it's unlikely that it has added hundreds of thousands of sales more than them since 1979. It seems the only consensus is for the top three. :-/ I'm happy to go with Tuzapicabit's suggestion. Richard3120 (talk) 16:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

By the way, i think we will have to at least mention the BMRB top 100 in the lead, as it was an official chart, regardless of how accurate or not it may be – if we don't, you can be sure someone will bring it up and likely add it to the article. Richard3120 (talk) 17:07, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Crumbs! I see what you mean. I wrote to Gallup(? or whoever it would have been) in about 1985 or 86 and they sent me an all time top 20. It definitely had 1,2,3,5,7 in it, but 7 was higher than 5 and it had BM:MBC above Summer Nights. I used the ones I knew the sales of in the 80s (plus the Beatles ones) to work out the range of the others- it all works quite well with the official million sellers list as it is now. The theory of missing Xmas sales breaks down over Summer Nights doesn't it? This should definitely be above 4,5 & 6. Of course the early 70's had strikes that affected chart returns - could the estimate for Sailing just be wildly inaccurate because of lack of available information? Btljs (talk) 20:50, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem is we don't know if the list was compiled from shipment orders or actual sales or a mixture of both – some chart observers think the differences are due to relying on shipping orders only, but I would have thought that would work in "Mary's Boy Child"'s favour, not against it: there was huge expectations for it from record stores following the success of "Rivers of Babylon" and the advance orders were supposedly a million, according to what I've read in the music magazines from November 1978. Richard3120 (talk) 23:07, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

@Btljs: just a follow-up to your post above... I can well believe that the top 20 that Gallup sent you in the mid-80s is more or less the same as the current million-seller list and the chart as shown in this article at present: the positions have not really changed in the last 30 years, which is why some people find the BMRB chart a bit suspect. I also remember seeing all-time lists in Record Mirror occasionally during the 80s and they also tie up far better with Gallup/OCC positions than the BMRB's. In 1987 Gallup compiled a chart of the Top 100 Singles and Albums of the previous 20 years for Radio 1's 20th anniversary – I still have those lists and I'm sure if I dig them out and remove the 60s and 80s songs from them, they'll be much closer to the order accepted nowadays (although they also had some glaring errors in them). Richard3120 (talk) 09:29, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@Tuzapicabit: I know I said above I would go along with your suggestion, but I've now realised that leads to another problem... certifications on the BPI's website don't necessarily reflect sales. For example, the best-selling single of 1970 was "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry, and it's almost certain that it sold more than the 500,000 required for a gold disc... but neither that song nor their other number one "Baby Jump" are listed on the BPI's certifications even as a silver certification, the band just have a silver disc for "Alright Alright Alright". Then as now, it was/is up to the record company to apply for certification, and if they didn't bother (which was very often the case in the 1970s), then it doesn't come up on the BPI's database. So any list of gold records from the 1970s is going to be incomplete – I think there ought to be somewhere around 130 singles that sold 500,000 or more from the 1970s, but I think we'd find far fewer than that from the BPI's database. Richard3120 (talk) 23:07, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Of course, certifications in the UK didn't start until 1973, so yes, it would be incomplete. The only reason I suggested certified sales was because the List of best-selling music artists uses it as a (partial) back-up to their claims. Certainly discs are based on shipments rather than sales, but they still give a rough indication as to how well a record sold. Whether this system was the best is not really for us to judge as it's how the industry worked in the 1970s. Singles going gold or platinum was how the record industry gauged a record's success (eg. "their last single went gold" to signify it was popular), so we would also have to respect that that was the benchmark at the time rather than them publishing sales figures. What the BPI register as gold or platinum is solid fact in a way that estimation of sales figures is not. Another option would be to individually source each single to a ref that mentions what its sales were (as long as these are reliable sources). This would also make the list incomplete, but until the OCC come up with an official list, that's all we have. Remember though that we do have definite sales for the top 13 which were published in 2002. Back then downloads hadn't come into consideration and barring a few examples (eg. "Bohemian Rhapsody") were made up of sales from the 70s.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 09:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's fair enough, can't argue with that. Obviously we would have to state clearly that the list is incomplete, and of course it would have to be unordered (except alphabetically). Richard3120 (talk) 09:35, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Just to say that I have located the BMRB top 100 list in the last issue of Music Week for 1979 – what I didn't realise is that there is an equivalent top 100 albums list as well... but that's another can of worms. Interestingly, the list is titled "Singles of the 70's"... the word "best-selling" isn't included, although I think it's safe to assume that was what was meant. No dates given on the list, but I would imagine that as it was compiled for broadcast on Radio 1 on New Year's Eve, the cut-off date is probably around 10 December 1979, same as for 1979's year-end charts. Richard3120 (talk) 10:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

(Thanks to Richard3120 for bringing this dicussion to my attention.) My thoughts would be that, if the information in this article is incorrent and/or badly sourced, then it needs to be removed. How much information can we actually be sure of? All the sources seem to agree on what the top three best-selling single of the 70s in the UK were – if nothing else, we can at least state that, and then explain from where the disambiguation regarding further chart positions arises. Personally, I question BMRB's top 10 from 1980 – as I understand it, "Mary's Boy Child" had sold over a million by 1978, whereas "Sailing" didn't achieve such a feat until the start of this decade. That would suggest to me that "Sailing" was not, in fact, the fourth best-selling single of the decade.

I'd also be extremely uncomfortable with employing the methodology used in List of best-selling music artists – there has been criticism in the past that it basically constitutes original research. As a point of note, the top eight singles that the article currently lists match up exactly with the ones given by this source and everyHit. Make of that what you will... A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 19:10, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

@A Thousand Doors: I'd never seen that Times article before, thanks for bringing it up. I wanted to say that in the BPI Year Book for 1979 there is a list of the top 30 best-selling singles from 1960 to 1979, compiled by Record Business (BMRB's main rival for chart returns, although they were never used for the official charts). Once you strip out the songs from the 60s, the top ten is very similar to the 2007 Times list: "I Love You Love Me Love" pips "Don't Give Up on Us" to the number 10 position, and "Bright Eyes" is at number 7, with "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Heart of Glass" each moving down one place accordingly. That would make sense, as "Bright Eyes" beat "Heart of Glass" to be 1979's biggest seller according to the BMRB, and it's plausible that from 1979 to 2007 it had less enduring appeal to the casual buyer than the other two songs, which could then have overtaken it. The next five in the Record Business chart were "Eye Level", "Save Your Kisses for Me", "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool", Merry Xmas Everybody" and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" – again, this seems to match certifications... the first two were already certified million-sellers by 1979, and the next three passed the mark by 2010. "Sailing" was certified after 2010, and doesn't appear in the Record Business chart, which again tallies up.

I'm very wary of the EveryHit site: it never tells you where their top ten lists are sourced from, yet Wikipedia articles and other media quote them on blind faith. Richard3120 (talk) 19:54, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It's all clear as Mud really. According to the Maconie article the OCC give sales to 2007 of 1.3m for Bohemian Rhapsody. Clearly they have only counted the original 1975 release not the 1991 or 92 ones. Which means we could take these as 1970s sales (?) after all a single can only sell until its deleted unless it is re-released. I'd be happy with this top 10. Btljs (talk) 22:26, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Interestingly (to me anyway) I just checked Mull of Kintyre on BPI Cert.s and it got a second platinum in 1986. Now, as I understand it, the platinums stay at the value they were at when the single was released, so this was presumably (belated) recognition of the 2M mark. Rivers of Babylon and You're the One didn't get this, so they don't seem to have passed 2M by that time. Btljs (talk) 22:32, 4 October 2014 (UTC) (Which doesn't explain why Band Aid wasn't given a multiple platinum at the same time - time to stop) Btljs (talk) 22:44, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Again, I think it comes down to the fact that it's up to the record company to ask for certifications, the BPI don't give them out automatically. I don't think anybody doubts, for example, that Bridge Over Troubled Water has sold enough to be certified multiple platinum in the UK, but to date it still only has a single platinum award (given retrospectively, of course). It's clear that whatever form the revised version of this article takes, it will have to be carefully worded to emphasise the uncertainty surrounding it all. Richard3120 (talk) 10:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Better ABBA picture

A picture of what ABBA looked like in the 70's would be more appropriate if someone can find one. Btljs (talk) 21:29, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

This article, part 2

This is intended mainly for @Tuzapicabit:, @A Thousand Doors: and @Btljs: who commented on the state of this article a few months ago, but comments are welcome from anyone with an interest in this list. I have created in my sandbox an outline of the four existing lists which attempt to chronicle the best-selling singles of the 1970s (note: I haven't checked all the links, some may point to disambiguation pages, but for now that's not important). As you can see, they vary considerably. Now, I imagine that the first reaction from anyone reading the article in the sandbox will be "four lists are too confusing Richard, we should just come to a consensus and stick with one that can be sourced"... I agree, my intention was merely to provide all the possible information that I am aware is in existence, in order to help us come to a conclusion as to how to rewrite the article. What we can say is (1) the current unsourced and unofficial list must be removed, and (2) the "official" BMRB list that was produced in 1979 seems to be the least accurate, not just with respect to the other lists that were produced, but also compared with the current OCC official million-sellers list and the dates the records were certified as million sellers. Richard3120 (talk) 17:23, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

The 'obvious' choice is the top 15 from the third list (2nd Record Business chart) - but justifying why this is the correct choice is more difficult. The BMRB list is so different from anything that it is not worth considering. The 1987 chart can't be used even though it may be the most accurate as it isn't limited to the 70s. It does serve as a good benchmark, however and the Record Business chart matches it well down to number 15 (once you take out Slade due to 1980s sales). You would hope that it is more accurate than the earlier Year Book chart - Bright Eyes in particular being adjusted downwards. I wouldn't go any lower than 15 because then the discrepancies get bigger and therefore the certainty lower. Does that cover all the million sellers and platinum records? Then we could put another chronological list of Gold records, maybe. Those are my thoughts anyway. It would be interesting to know Alan Jones' reasoning behind the changes by 1987 - was there new information he had by then? But I doubt we can afford him ;-) Btljs (talk) 19:25, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Good work. I think the first list is probably the most accurate, despite it being from mid 79. "Save Your Kisses for Me" only barely sold a million according to the 2002 list and yet in all the other 3 lists it's higher than a lot of the others. It's placing at 13 in that one seems better and the placing for "Merry Xmas Everybody" seems good too. But perhaps put them all to show the discrepancies and they're all from notable sources. Perhaps even a 5th list could be added at the end - what the sales currently stand at for anything released in the 70s (from the 2012 OCC list) just as an alternate way of looking at it. I don't think the sandbox page looks messy at all, certainly it may confuse people, but as long as it explains things then that's all we can do. --Tuzapicabit (talk) 20:18, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

We seem to be like the blind men and the elephant. I agree with @Tuzapicabit: about "Kisses" making the first Rec Bus chart look more in line with later OCC sales figures but we don't really know how they came to these either do we? If you took a poll of polls then there's 4/5 consistency on the top 5 down to "Summer Loving", 4/5 have "YMCA" at 6 or 7, then you get a real split over "Kisses" v "Bright Eyes" with 3 putting "Kisses" in the top 10 and 2 putting "Bright Eyes" there. If you look at the OCC sales figures then they are not really that close - it has to be a difference of methodology. If we accept the OCC sales figures then we have to agree with "Kisses" at 13ish, but this leaves the question of why the Rec Bus chart changed to putting it in the top 10 and why the 1987 chart agreed with this.

I agree that all the excellent commentary from the sandbox should be included and then maybe a sortable table with positions for the 3 charts that actually measure 1970s sales in columns. I don't think we should add the 1987 chart or any figures from the OCC (which in any case are well covered elsewhere) but can mention them in the commentary. Btljs (talk) 11:31, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Btljs, it occurred to me yesterday that a sortable table might be one way of comparing the different charts: have columns for the title and artist, then four columns for the four different charts with the song's respective position in those charts, and maybe a final column with the most up to date sales figures from the OCC, which would add another level of comparison. Obviously not all the songs will feature in all the charts, so there would be plenty of blanks, but it would allow people to make their own minds up regarding accuracy and show just how differently the official 1970s chart placed "Heart of Glass" and "Merry Xmas Everybody" to everyone else, for example. Richard3120 (talk) 18:21, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Just to add, I do have that 1987 chart, even though it is not referenced in my draft article... anybody who was around and listening to Radio 1 at the time will remember that you had to send off for printed copies of the charts, which I still have – apparently some legal problems prevented them from being reproduced anywhere else. I think I will flag up this discussion on WikiProject Music and see if anybody else wants to add to the debate here. Richard3120 (talk) 18:25, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

And here we have a scan of Alan Jones' "Chartfile" column in the issue of Record Mirror dated 9 February 1980, in which he describes the official BMRB chart of the 1970s as "a farce", provides sales figures for "Merry Xmas Everyone" and "Another Brick in the Wall" to the end of 1979, states that "Merry Xmas Everyone" was the 14th biggest seller of the decade, and provides the top 13 in "true" sales order... make of that what you will. Richard3120 (talk) 21:29, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

What a great find! I used to have that week's chart recorded on my parents' old reel to reel tape recorder off the radio (via a tranny and a mic covered with a cushion). Talk about nostalgic. Captain Beaky (sigh). I think that's a really good source for a top 14 and include the explanation of how the BMRB chart differs and why. Still puzzled why the 1987 chart is different though. I've never understood why record companies are so cagey about sales figures (even to this day) - although I suspect it has something to do with retaining royalties for returns so they can have a platinum, gold or whatever based on wholesale but pay out far less for retail and thus hype the popularity of their artists while protecting their bottom line. Btljs (talk) 22:00, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I still have cassette tape recordings of a lot of the charts from December 1977 onwards, when it was a Top 20 and Tom Browne used to present it, but that's by the by. And you're right, it doesn't explain the differences in the 1987 chart, seeing as it was Alan Jones who compiled that chart! Richard3120 (talk) 22:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Aaaaaaand part 3... in September 2009 Music Week published a special issue celebrating its 50th anniversary. The issue basically summarised everything that had gone on with music and the charts during the magazine's lifetime, broken down into decades, and including the Top 20 best-sellers from each decade. Here is the 2009 Music Week list of the best-selling singles of the 1970s, with some approximate sales figures noted by Alan Jones:

1. "Mull of Kintyre"/"Girls School" – Wings (more than 2 million)
2. "Rivers of Babylon"/"Brown Girl in the Ring" – Boney M. (1,985,000)
3. "You're the One That I Want" – John Travolta and Olivia Newton John (1,975,000)
4. "Mary's Boy Child" – Boney M. (1,790,000)
5. "Summer Nights" – John Travolta and Olivia Newton John (1,515,000)
6. "Y.M.C.A." – Village People (1,380,000)
7. "Bohemian Rhapsody" – Queen
8. "Heart of Glass" – Blondie
9. "Bright Eyes" – Art Garfunkel
10. "Don't Give Up on Us" – David Soul
11. "I Love You Love Me Love" – Gary Glitter
12. "Merry Xmas Everybody" – Slade
13. "Save Your Kisses for Me" – Brotherhood of Man
14. "Eye Level" – Simon Park Orchestra
15. "Long-Haired Lover from Liverpool" – Little Jimmy Osmond
16. "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" – Pink Floyd
17. "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" – Julie Covington
18. "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" – New Seekers
19. "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" – Tony Orlando and Dawn
20. "Under the Moon of Love" – Showaddywaddy

The first thing to ask is whether this is a chart of the best-sellers between 1970 and 1979, or of the best-sellers up until 2009 by singles released in the 1970s: the fact that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is in seventh rather than second place and that it doesn't include John Lennon's "Imagine" strongly suggests the former. In which case, I would suggest that this chart, produced in 2009 by the UK's foremost chart statistician for the UK music industry trade paper, is as close as we are ever going to get to an "accurate" list of the 1970s best-selling singles. Note that once again we have a list that is far closer to all the others apart from the official BMRB list of the time: "Sailing" is nowhere to be seen, "Merry Xmas Everybody" is back up just outside the top ten, and Pink Floyd's position is entirely believable, having been certified a million seller in January 1980. Richard3120 (talk) 01:55, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

The OCC have announced a revamp of their online archives including Top 100s for each year and "other exciting things yet to be announced". I wonder whether a decade chart could be included. Btljs (talk) 11:58, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Really? Very overdue and much needed, particularly for the 1990s which have been a complete mess from the start, so much so that they have never ever published a "best-sellers of the decade" chart for the 90s... I think they wanted to sweep the whole thing under the carpet in embarrassment.

I've just posted a message on the talk page of the best-sellers of the Noughties article (like you, I loathe the term) – as it stands that list is incorrect and doesn't merit its featured list status for several reasons. Richard3120 (talk) 13:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Btljs: nope, the OCC have only posted year-end charts, not decade-end charts... and even then only from 2006 onwards. Richard3120 (talk) 19:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@Richard3120: "Our End of Year Singles Chart archive covers the period from 01.01.2006 to 03.01.2016" Who says the charts aren't fixed? But the dates, man! Have you looked at the chart dates?! I haven't checked them all but they are Sundays back to the 70s and something else in the 60s. Btljs (talk) 21:28, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I've just sent an e-mail to the OCC asking why they have decided to arbitrarily change the chart dating system to be different to all other chart books and sites, it's ridiculous. I'm not surprised at the dating system in the 1960s, it was always various midweek dates until 1969, but then it was Saturdays from August 1969 onwards. I'm also not surprised that they haven't done any year-end charts all the way back to 1970 – the OCC don't have the data from the BMRB or Gallup eras, and the Millward Brown data is deeply suspect, so they can only really provide data back to 1998 when as CIN they took over the chart compilation. Richard3120 (talk) 10:37, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

@Btljs: I have a reply back from the OCC already... after years of criticism that they never answered any queries, they should be commended for replying so promptly. The end of year charts for before 2006 are being prepared and will be available on the website shortly. As for chart dates, they feel that by giving a date range (e.g. this week is listed as 15 February to 21 February 2015) they have covered all possible options to avoid date confusion... in the 1950s and 60s this was the date of publication in Record Retailer, NME or whatever, then from August 1969 it's the date the chart was last relevant (i.e. w/e Saturday date), and nowadays it's the current announcement date (Sunday). So they don't feel that the chart dates have changed as such, just that they now provide a date range. I think we should stick with w/e Saturdays, at least for charts 1969–2007, as this matches up with all dates in chart books, and the OCC don't seem to have an objection to this. Richard3120 (talk) 13:09, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

@Richard3120:Yes, the chart dates in the song histories still use w/e Saturdays. There is the issue of the URLs for all the references which will have to be moved on by 1 day, but I never thought that a separate link was necessary for every week anyway so I'm leaving that to the 'week by week' enthusiasts. Btljs (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Part 3

@Btljs: @Tuzapicabit: @A Thousand Doors: OK, so I've updated the article in my sandbox. I think we should go with the top 20 published in Music Week in 2009 for three reasons:

1. It's the most up to date and therefore presumably accurate chart available.
2. It appears in the UK's music trade paper and was produced by the OCC - it doesn't get more official than that.
3. It includes official estimates of sales figures for the top six, at least.

My main concern is whether to place this chart at the top of the article rather than at the end, after the lengthy discussion of previous charts. Chronologically it makes more sense as it stands, but perhaps the other lists detract from the main table. I've cut the other charts down to top twenties as well: not only to tie up with the main list but also there doesn't seem point in listing a top 50 of a chart that is unofficial or discredited - they're there just for comparison. Richard3120 (talk) 19:12, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Addendum: reading back over this thread which feels like it was started sometime back in the 17th century, I clicked again on the link to the Times article that Tuzapicabit provided, and realised the sales figures there were identical to the ones in the Music Week list. So perhaps we can extend the estimated sales amounts to the top ten, rather than the top six, using this source as a citation? Richard3120 (talk) 22:25, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd lead with it, I think. Have a section called something like 'Official chart compiled by OCC in 2009' then all the others underneath in section(s) 'Other charts'. Otherwise I think someone will come along and slap a 'too much detail' template on the article. My own view is that your version is way more informative and useful than what we currently have in the article. Btljs (talk) 09:41, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you about the ordering of the article – I think anybody looking for the information will be expecting it to be there at the top of the page in a big table, the rest is really background info for context. I also agree that my previous draft was far too long (I said at the time it was more a case of collecting together all available information, rather than the finished, er, article), which is why I cut it down both in text and in chart tables – there doesn't seem much point in comparing a top twenty with a top fifty, especially when that top fifty is wrong/unofficial. Richard3120 (talk) 17:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

(Thanks for the ping.) Personally, part of me wonders whether we should just present the 2009 Music Week chart as fact. As Richard says, it was produced by the current chart compilers, reported by the UK's foremost chart statistician, and appeared in the UK's music industry trade paper. Plus it's the most recent chart, and it matches up with what appeared in that article in The Times. To me, this all adds up to its being the most reliable and verifiable source that we have available. Whether it's correct or not is another matter (although I trust it, personally).

I'd be reluctant to have more than one list on the page. Unfortunately, I suspect that most of our readers will do no more than click onto this article, briefly scan over the list to find the information that they're after, maybe look over the images captions, then click off again, probably without reading much (if any) of the prose. Throwing in extra lists will just confuse things. Commentary somewhere about how sales were monitored and the differences between the various end-of-decade listings would be fine, but I reckon we just go with the 2009 list as being the true reflection of the decade's best-selling singles. (That all said, I've just realised that Merry Xmas Everybody is above Save Your Kisses for Me, despite the fact that the former didn't sell its millionth copy until 1980, whereas the latter did so in 1976.) A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 17:52, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Cheers A Thousand Doors, you make some very good points. I think you may well be right about having extra lists in there – I was aware that they may confuse and detract from the "real" chart, which is why I only had them in list form and cut them down in size: I didn't want to draw too much attention away from the main chart. I think I would still prefer to mention the other charts in text form, even if it's only a line or two: the reason being (especially in the case of the BMRB chart) that many people may well remember the Radio 1 countdown of the time or have access to the Guinness Hits of the 80s book in which it appears... as indeed Tuzapicabit remembered it (see above). So it seems to me it might be a good idea just to mention it in passing to explain why that chart is no longer considered relevant, otherwise I can imagine somebody coming along and saying, "hang on, I remember listening to that chart and I've got it recorded on cassette somewhere", or that they have the book, and end up overwriting the article with what they feel is a trusted source.

As for the Brotherhood of Man/Slade discrepancy, you can see now why it has taken me so long trying to iron out the inconsistencies and come up with an article that covers all bases! Thanks to you and Btljs for your input, I really appreciate it. Richard3120 (talk) 17:36, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the extra detail is valuable as long as it's after the main chart. We shouldn't dumb down when the people who aren't interested won't read that far anyway and there are others like us (I hesitate to use a descriptive name) who will find it informative. Btljs (talk) 13:47, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Richard3120:That's a real improvement, thanks for all your work on this page. Is the "14 records over a million" from a reliable source? If so, we can have 1,000,000+ or something in the sales column? Btljs (talk) 09:24, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@Btljs: Thanks. The battery on my laptop was running out, so I made sure I posted the chart up and then planned to come back and look at the text another day. That line about "14 million sellers" was uppermost in my mind for checking – it was a leftover from the previous version of the article. According to Alan Jones in that Record Mirror article of 9 Feb 1980, he states categorically that there were 13 million sellers during the 1970s: essentially, the top 14 in the chart in this article as it now stands, minus Slade. But he then lists them in (his words) "true sales order"... and has "Bright Eyes" at number 7. So clearly "Merry Xmas Everybody" isn't the only song from the era whose sales have been subject to some revision. "Bright Eyes" pipped "Heart of Glass" to be the best-seller of 1979, but virtually every chart since of the decade or of all time shows "Heart of Glass" ahead, so maybe the BMRB got it wrong in 1979.

According to Jones, Slade had sold 989,000 copies of the song by the end of the decade... 11,000 sales short is nothing really, and it's quite easy to imagine that subsequent revisions have decided it was a retrospective million seller before the end of the 70s... for example, I can easily imagine that it might have sold a couple of thousand copies every Christmas since 1973, which would have pushed it over a million, but these sales were so small that they didn't show up on the weekly charts of the time, and have only been included in retrospect. In any case, the answer to your question is "either 13 or 14" but that's not verifiable, so it might be just as well to delete the line. If A Thousand Doors or another editor decide that the other charts in this article are too confusing, I won't object to them being removed. I think this article (and the other decade-end articles) will need some clean-up in the text in due course, but at least the "true"(???) positions are there now. The 80s articles probably don't need much work as the charts seem to be generally accepted as fact: the 90s singles one, however, is a horror story and I don't know what anybody (least of all the OCC) are going to do about that chart. Richard3120 (talk) 22:27, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Not very high on OCC's list of priorities I suspect. Anything pre-digital is like ancient history to them really. They'll be too busy working out new formulae for making 'chart sales' out of ringtones and Facebook likes. Btljs (talk) 23:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

True, but they're blameless over the 1990s debacle: Gallup refused to let their successors have the sales data from 1990 to 1993, and Millward Brown's figures are next to useless. So CIN/OCC were only left with 1998 and 1999 that they could rely on. No wonder they never produced an official chart of the decade. Richard3120 (talk) 16:49, 21 March 2015 (UTC)