Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Oct 2, 2014 2:16:31 GMT 1
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Post by rubcale on Oct 2, 2014 13:42:56 GMT 1
Are these total sales and not just sales in the decade? Certainly Cliff's We Don't Talk Anymore did not sell 900k in 1979 but then others look lower than today's estimates. It doesn't even give a date as a point of reference.A pity but all you can do is take with a pinch of salt. |
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Oct 2, 2014 13:56:07 GMT 1
Not sure but looks like these are total sales and not just sales in the decade? Certainly Cliff's We Don't Talk Anymore did not sell 900k in 1979. I did once read that 'We Don't Talk Anymore' sold 879,000 in 1979 - though many years ago I did see a figure of 940,000 which may suggest shipments for this figure - so a rounding up to 900,000 would be a fair rounding of the figure. How many copies do you have it as selling in the 1970s? |
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Oct 2, 2014 23:16:52 GMT 1
The top part is based on figures that appeared in the all-time top 100 in 2002. These were all record-company figures or estimates for singles on labels that didn't or couldn't supply figures. Alan Jones had been building these up over many years from the 1970s itself. Lower figures may have been surmised from these. Not a good idea for anyone attempting to estimate over-the-counter sales.
Over-the-counter figures for 1976 are reasonably well-known because the BPI published figures for the first 49 weeks of the year in its Yearbook, and these have been verified by several posters to be based on multiplying the panel sales by 17. It has also been explained why 17 was the choice.
The list falls down as a result. The panel sales for Save Your Kisses For Me give a figure close to the figure quoted in this chart, but Don't Go Breaking My Heart sold 890,000 over the same period and so an 835,000 estimate is too low. Some of the other estimates are too high, particularly I Love To Love by Tina Charles, which is given 680,000 on this list, but the panel sales indicate only 550,000.
While over-the-counter figures for other years are perhaps less certain I expect there will be plenty of anomalies in the Wiki list for singles from these years as well.
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Post by rubcale on Oct 3, 2014 12:52:54 GMT 1
Not sure but looks like these are total sales and not just sales in the decade? Certainly Cliff's We Don't Talk Anymore did not sell 900k in 1979. I did once read that 'We Don't Talk Anymore' sold 879,000 in 1979 - though many years ago I did see a figure of 940,000 which may suggest shipments for this figure - so a rounding up to 900,000 would be a fair rounding of the figure. How many copies do you have it as selling in the 1970s? As far as I was aware BMRB had WDTA on 840kfor 1979 based on panel sales. The 900k is that generally quoted today. I don't understand why 840k would be "rounded" to 900k. Incidentally, Record Business came up with a figure of 755k for Talk in 1979 (one explanation could be the multiples in BMRB's panel but it is a significant difference which is disturbing.) |
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Oct 3, 2014 13:29:44 GMT 1
I did once read that 'We Don't Talk Anymore' sold 879,000 in 1979 - though many years ago I did see a figure of 940,000 which may suggest shipments for this figure - so a rounding up to 900,000 would be a fair rounding of the figure. How many copies do you have it as selling in the 1970s? As far as I was aware BMRB had WDTA on 840kfor 1979 based on panel sales. The 900k is that generally quoted today. I don't understand why 840k would be "rounded" to 900k. Incidentally, Record Business came up with a figure of 755k for Talk in 1979 (one explanation could be the multiples in BMRB's panel but it is a significant difference which is disturbing.) Now I think about it, the figure I had seen was the 840,000 that you've quoted. Record Business seemed to understate some sales figures. I can remember Dave Taylor once commenting that 'Heart Of Glass' was not only not a million seller but also that it was nowhere close to selling a million. It did of course ship a million. I have some scans of record Business charts up to mid March 1979 and up to the chart of 12/03/79 'Heart Of Glass' has a total Sales Index of 692. Dave posted that its total sales were 810,000 but I'm wondering if he got this figure by adding up all the sales points for 'Heart Of Glass' and then multiplied them by 1,000. I'm sure Dave said the multiplier was 12 (or possibly 11, I forget), not 10, so perhaps his figure for 'Heart Of Glass' should have been 972,000 (or 891,000 if using an 11 multiplier) . Similarly, if the Record Business figure you quoted for 'We Don't Talk Anymore' came from Dave perhaps the 755,000 figure should really be 906,000 (or 830,500 if using an 11 multiplier). |
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