2000s in music in the UK |
Events |
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Charts |
The UK Singles Chart is a music chart compiled by the Official Charts Company that calculates the best-selling singles of the week in the United Kingdom. [1] Since 2005, the chart has been based on the sales of both physical and digital singles, originally on the condition that the single was available in both formats. In 2007, the rules were changed so that legal downloads of all songs, irrespective of whether a physical copy was available, were eligible to chart. [2]
Between 2000 and 2009, ten singles that reached the top of the singles chart sold more than 1 million copies in the United Kingdom. [3] At the end of the decade, a retrospective chart was compiled by the Official Charts Company to determine the best-selling single of this ten-year period. The title was won by Will Young, the winner of the televised talent competition Pop Idol in 2001, with his double A-side single "Evergreen"/"Anything Is Possible", released in 2002. [4] The single sold just under 1.8 million copies and saw Young finish ahead of fellow Pop Idol finalist Gareth Gates, whose debut single "Unchained Melody" sold 1.34 million copies. [5] Young's single included sales of 1,108,269 copies in its first week, at the time a first-week total that had been bettered only by Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997". [6] The X Factor winners Alexandra Burke (5th), and Shayne Ward (8th) and the band formed on Popstars in 2001, Hear'Say (9th), also reached the top ten. [7] Kylie Minogue, Shaggy and Tony Christie were the other solo artists who made the top ten of best-selling singles; Christie's best-seller was a charity single recorded for Comic Relief in 2005. Children's television character Bob the Builder's "Can We Fix It?", voiced by Neil Morrissey, and Band Aid 20's cover of "Do They Know It's Christmas" made up the rest of the top ten singles. [3] [8]
The chart is significantly skewed towards singles released at the beginning (2000–2002) and end (2007–2009) of the decade. Digital downloads were included in the charts for the first time in 2005, but it took several years before the download figures made up for the loss of physical single sales. [9] Only six songs released in 2003 and two released in 2004 (including Band Aid 20's million-seller "Do They Know It's Christmas?") made the top 100 best-selling singles, compared with twelve in 2000 and thirteen in 2009. Following changes to the chart ruling in 2007, Rage Against the Machine's 1993 single "Killing in the Name" was declared the Christmas number-one on the strength of an Internet campaign on the Facebook website, even though it did not have a contemporary physical release. [10] [11] The song eventually reached number 35 on the best-sellers list.
BBC Radio 1 announced the chart across three programmes, presented by DJ Nihal, between 29 December and 31 December 2009. [12] The list of best-selling albums of the decade in the UK was also announced in a show on 28 December 2009. [12] As it was broadcast during the last week of December, the chart did not include sales from the final week of the year. An updated chart, including sales up to 31 December 2009 was published in the UK trade magazine Music Week in the issue dated 30 January 2010. [13] Apart from some unsurprising rises in the positions of songs from 2009, this updated chart included some major changes to the one broadcast on Radio 1. "Gotta Get Thru This" by Daniel Bedingfield dropped from 61 to 71, "Anyone of Us (Stupid Mistake)" by Gareth Gates fell from 57 to 61, "Angel" by Shaggy fell from 44 to 54, "A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis vs JXL was moved from 31 to 38, and most notably, the Black Eyed Peas' "Where Is the Love?" dropped from 25 to 42. "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback and "Do You Really Like It?" by DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies dropped out of the top 100 altogether.
One other notable omission from the chart is "Toca's Miracle" by Fragma. According to the OCC, then known as the Chart Information Network (CIN), the single was the seventh best-selling single of 2000, selling 530,742 copies. [14] However, it was not included in the chart of the best-selling singles of the 2000s, despite the inclusion of several of the singles immediately below it in the 2000 best-sellers list, and it is also missing from the official list of the 150 best-selling singles of the 21st century to date that was announced in 2012. [15]
Most appearances in the chart goes to the Black Eyed Peas and Eminem with four entries, followed by S Club 7, Gareth Gates and Leona Lewis with three entries each.
These are the top 40 biggest-selling songs of the 2000s, according to the Official Charts Company. [13]
"Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. North wrote the music as a theme for the prison film Unchained (1955), hence the song title. Todd Duncan sang the vocals for the film soundtrack. It has since become a standard and one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, most notably by the Righteous Brothers in 1965. According to the song's publishing administrator, over 1,500 recordings of "Unchained Melody" have been made by more than 670 artists, in multiple languages.
Number Ones is a greatest hits album by American singer Michael Jackson. It was released on November 18, 2003, by Epic Records. Number Ones was Jackson's first proper compilation album with Epic Records, after the release of the first disc of HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I in 1995. The album included Jackson's singles that reportedly reached number 1 in charts around the world, hence the album's name. Number Ones also features the last original single released during Jackson's lifetime, "One More Chance", released four days after the release of the album.
"That's My Goal" is the debut single by British singer Shayne Ward, the winner of the second series of The X Factor. It was released as his winner's single on 21 December 2005. Ward was the first X Factor winner to release an original song as his winner's single; all other winners released a cover version of another song, until Matt Terry's "When Christmas Comes Around" in 2016. "That's My Goal" was later included on Ward's debut studio album, Shayne Ward (2006).
"Anything Is Possible" is a song co-written by Chris Braide and Cathy Dennis for the winner of the first series of Pop Idol in the United Kingdom. Will Young won the competition and therefore released the song as his debut single, with production by Dennis and Oskar Paul. It debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart, and has been certified 3× platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. It has since become the 14th best-selling single of all time in the UK, as well as the second best-selling UK single of the 21st century.
"Leave Right Now" is a song by British singer-songwriter Will Young. It was written by Eg White and produced by Stephen Lipson for Young's second studio album, Friday's Child (2003). A song about unrequited love, it was released as the album's first single, becoming another number-one hit on the Irish and the UK Singles Chart.
"Can We Fix It?" is the name of the theme song from the British preschool animated television programme Bob the Builder. It was written by Paul K. Joyce and produced by Hot Animation. The song's title is derived from the catchphrase of the programme's titular character, and the chorus of the song features this phrase prominently, as well as the response, "Yes we can!" Vocals on the song are provided by Neil Morrissey, who voiced Bob at the time of the track's recording. It was released as a single on 4 December 2000 in the United Kingdom.
"Evergreen" is a song co-written by Jörgen Elofsson, Per Magnusson and David Kreuger, and originally recorded by Irish boy band Westlife. The song appears on their album World of Our Own (2001). It was composed in the traditional verse–chorus form in C major, with band members Shane Filan and Brian McFadden's vocal ranging from the chords of F#3 to B4.
Pop Idol was a British television talent show that ran for two series, in 2001 and 2003. The show was produced for ITV in a reality television format and aimed to unearth a previously undiscovered singer who could become an international success. Will Young was the winner of the first series and was awarded with a £1 million music recording contract. Young became the most successful contestant with a series of top-five hits, including his debut single "Anything Is Possible" / "Evergreen", which peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart in 2002 and broke chart sales figure records. During the next seven years he recorded two further number-one singles, while two of his four albums were number-one in the UK Albums Chart. In the second series, Michelle McManus emerged victorious. Her debut single "All This Time" charted at number one in January 2003. Her second single, "The Meaning of Love", charted at a peak of number 16 and an album of the same name reached number three in the UK Albums Chart.
"Wherever You Are" is a song written by Paul Mealor and performed by the Military Wives Choir, sung by ladies from Chivenor and Plymouth under the direction of Gareth Malone. It is a spin-off of the BBC Two television series The Choir: Military Wives. It was released on 19 December 2011 following a campaign to make it the 2011 UK Christmas number one. The song entered the UK Singles Chart at number 1, claiming the Christmas number 1 – selling more than 556,000 copies in the week, more than the rest of the Top 12 combined. The song also claimed the status of the biggest first week sales since "A Moment Like This" by Leona Lewis sold over 571,000 copies in its first week in 2006. The song was included on their debut studio album In My Dreams.