Streaming Official Charts Company

The OCC has, for the first time, brought together streaming and traditional sales in Britain, to identify records that have been the most popular.

11:37 25 September 2017

In the past, it has been difficult to compare musician’s popularity due to the shifting patterns of music consumption. OCC’s new system now uses a method where 100 streams are equated to a single song sale.  

 

The Official Charts Company chief executive, Martin Talbot, said: “Clearly sales today are not what they were even last year or the year before, because people are moving to this new form of consumption, so it’s going to be increasingly difficult for tracks to physically sell a million copies; we may never see that again.

 

“But if you count streams, it allows us to properly examine who are the iconic and big artists of today.”

 

Using the new system, Elton John’s Something About The Way You Look Tonight is hailed number one. With almost 5million copies sold since its release in 1997, it is one of the biggest selling records of all time. In second place is Band Aid’s 1984 Do They Know It’s Christmas, which sold 3.8million copies.

 

Ed Sheeran lands the top 3 spot with 2.1million streams followed by Justin Bieber and Drake, whose One Dance track gained 1.8million sales through streaming.