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

message: 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)
thread_title: Untitled

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: 1981

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: =

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

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Sales 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Sales and Streams 

message: 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)
thread_title:  1952