List of million-selling singles in the United Kingdom

A million-selling single is regarded as one that has sold over one million copies.^{[nb 1]} In the United Kingdom, singles that sold this quantity were formerly classified as a "platinum record", although the platinum sales threshold was reduced in 1989 due to declining sales.^[3] Despite this, the seven-figure mark has retained its importance^[4] and The Official Charts Company (OCC) and Music Week regularly announce when a record reaches this threshold.^[5][6][7] The OCC classify records as million-sellers using sales data from November 1952 onwards and for the 2010 summer bank holiday the BBC commissioned them to compile a chart of records that had passed this mark.^[8]

As of January 2012^[update], 110 singles have achieved this feat.^[9][10] At the start of the century, 70 records had sold one million copies. Since the introduction of music downloads in 2004, nineteen singles released in the prior century have passed the one million sales,^[5] and a total of nineteen records released this century have become million-sellers.^[10] The most recently released is "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera^[11], which is also the most recently classified. The best-selling record is Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997".

The following list is restricted to sales data since the inception of a UK chart in 1952. One likely further million seller is Bing Crosby's "White Christmas". Introduced in the 1942 film Holiday Inn, it is believed by some to be the best-selling single worldwide.^{[12][nb 2]} With no exact sales figures, worldwide sales are estimated at between 30 and 50 million copies.^[14][15] Estimating UK sales before the charts began it is believed to have sold over one million copies with the OCC deducing this feat was achieved around 1977.^[16]

History

In 1959, British periodical Disc introduced an initiative to present a gold record to singles that sold over one million units.^[17] 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.^[17] This led to errors, such as The Shadows instrumental, "Apache", and The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" incorrectly being awarded a gold disc in January 1970.^{[nb 3]} Such inaccuracies led to the instigation of an official classification system.^[17] 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 over 1,000,000 units.^[18] 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).^[18][19][20] In February 1987, the BPI introduced multi-platinum awards so if a single sold 1,200,000 units it was classified as double-platinum, 1,800,000 units as triple-platinum, etc.^[19]

The Beatles' song "She Loves You" became the best-selling single of all time in 1963.^[21] 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 two million copies.^[22] In 1984 Band Aid released the charity-record "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in response to the famine in Ethiopia; it sold one million copies in the first week and soon became the best-selling single.^[23][24] 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 over 650,000 copies on the first day and more than 1.5 million in the first week, it quickly became the best-selling single.^[23][25][26] It was classified by the BPI as nine-times platinum (5.4 million) in October 1997 but more recent estimates suggest approximately 4.9 million sales.^[27][28]

List of million-selling singles

Footnotes

References