Irish boy band Westlife achieved the first number one on the UK Singles Downloads Chart with "Flying Without Wings" in September 2004.
The UK Singles Downloads Chart is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC) on behalf of the music industry. Since July 2015, the chart week runs from Friday to Thursday, with the chart date given as the following Thursday.[1]
The main chart contains the Top 200 downloads (which are published in UKChartsPlus), with the top 100 published on the OCC website. The chart only uses sales of permanent digital downloads, that is single-download tracks on non-subscription online music stores. Some downloading services offer a monthly fee plan where generally an unlimited number of tracks can be downloaded within a month for a certain price. Tracks downloaded in those instances do not qualify.[citation needed]
Before the inauguration of the download chart, only sales of physical formats—such as CD, vinyl and cassette tape—contributed towards a single's position on the UK music charts. From the late 1990s onwards, these sales began to significantly decline.[2] By the start of 2004, they had dropped to their lowest level in over 35 years, with singles needing to sell only 35,000 copies to reach number one.[3] One year later, a limited edition re-release of "One Night" / "I Got Stung" by Elvis Presley topped the chart with 22,000 copies, making it the lowest selling number-one single at that time.[4] Conversely, the music download market was growing considerably: during the same 2004–05 period, sales of downloads grew by 743%, and overtook physical sales in December 2004.[5][6] The following year, the UK's online music revenue reached £42.1million.[7]
As a result of this growth, the OCC were commissioned in 2004 to compile a new music chart based solely on the UK's download sales, which was initially sponsored by Coca-Cola.[8] A "sample" download chart was trialled for 10 weeks, with the first number one being "Bam Thwok" by American rock band Pixies.[9][10] After this ten-week period, the UK Official Download Chart was launched on 1 September 2004, with Irish boy band Westlife achieving the first official number one.[11] The group topped the chart with a live version of their 1999 single "Flying Without Wings", a move that UK chart commentator James Masterton branded a "stunt".[12]
Sales of downloaded singles were finally incorporated into the UK Singles Chart on 17 April 2005,[2] initially on the condition that physical copies were available to buy at the same time.[2][13] In April 2006, the UK Official Download Chart was expanded to include an album chart. The first album to top the chart was This New Day by English alternative rock band Embrace.[14] By 2007, the UK had become Europe's largest consumer of online music, with almost 78million tracks being downloaded that year; by 2012, this figure had more than doubled.[7][15]
The single with the longest stay on the Downloads Chart is "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley, which stayed the top spot for 11 weeks. On the week end 26 December 2009, "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine became the fastest-selling download of all time.[16] As of 9 September 2014, "Happy" by Pharrell Williams is the most downloaded song in UK music download history.[17]
In 2006, McFly became the first band to have two number one singles with "Star Girl" on both the UK Downloads Chart and the UK Singles Chart at the same time.
Criteria for inclusion
The track must have a maximum playing time of 15 minutes.
PDDs (Permanent Digital Downloads) must be bought by the retailer at a minimum of 40p per track, or 32p if the record company does not publish a set dealer price. The retailer may sell tracks at a loss at its own discretion.[citation needed]
The Official Charts Company is a British inter-professional organisation that compiles various official record charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France.
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-selling singles in the United Kingdom, based upon physical sales, paid-for downloads and streaming. The Official Chart, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and MTV, is the UK music industry's recognised official measure of singles and albums popularity because it is the most comprehensive research panel of its kind, today surveying over 15,000 retailers and digital services daily, capturing 99.9% of all singles consumed in Britain across the week, and over 98% of albums. To be eligible for the chart, a single is currently defined by the Official Charts Company (OCC) as either a 'single bundle' having no more than four tracks and not lasting longer than 25 minutes or one digital audio track not longer than 15 minutes with a minimum sale price of 40 pence. The rules have changed many times as technology has developed, the most notable being the inclusion of digital downloads in 2005 and streaming in July 2014.
Irish boy band Westlife have released twelve studio albums, sixteen video albums, one live album, three karaoke albums, thirty-eight singles, twenty-one promotional singles, nine compilation albums and fifty-four music videos. Formed on 3 July 1998, the group was made up of singers Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan, and Brian McFadden. The band was signed under Simon Cowell, Clive Davis, and Jordan Jay and under record labels' BMG, S Records, Arista Records, Sony BMG, Syco Music, Sony Music Entertainment and RCA Records from 1998 to 2012 and currently on Universal Music Group and Virgin EMI Records from 2018. The last four members remained active until their last live concert performance in the Europe's third largest stadium Croke Park on 23 June 2012 and have reunited on 3 October 2018 for new music and tour. Based on the British Phonographic Industry certifications, the group have sold more than 26 million records and videos in the United Kingdom alone across their 20-year career–12.8 million singles, 13.5 million albums and 1.3 million videos. Their biggest selling album is their first Greatest Hits compilation, followed by Coast to Coast, with seven of their albums selling one million copies or more. Their biggest selling video is "Where Dreams Come True", which has sold 240,000 copies to date.
The UK music charts are a collection of charts that reflect the music-buying habits of people within the United Kingdom. Most of them are produced by the Official Charts Company.
The Official Classical Singles Chart was a record chart based on downloads and streaming of classical music in the United Kingdom. Each week's chart was compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC) and was first published on Monday afternoon on their official website. The chart ran for 140 weeks from 2012 to 2015, during which time a total of 23 singles by 22 artists reached number one. The most successful artist was the Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi, who topped the chart with three singles for a total of 54 weeks, while the most successful record label was Decca Records, which spent 89 weeks at number one with six singles. Einaudi's track "I Giorni" from his album of the same name spent 51 weeks at number one, longer than any other single. In January 2013, following the release of Einaudi's album In a Time Lapse, singles by the pianist accounted for 13 of the Top 20 on the Official Classical Singles Chart. Martin Talbot, managing director of the OCC, described him as one of the chart's "biggest and most consistent stars".
The UK Album Downloads Chart is compiled by the Official Charts on behalf of the British music industry. Since July 2015, the chart week runs from Friday to Thursday, with the chart date given as the following Thursday. The chart was introduced in April 2006 to coincide with the OCC's decision to include sales of album downloads in the UK Albums Chart. The first album to top the download chart was This New Day by Embrace.
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