This final piece of 1997 Nostalgia is dedicated to the memory of Kevin Greening. He was the Radio 1 breakfast show host of the time, not bettered in the decade since, and his sudden death was announced yesterday.
| Number One | Too much- Spice Girls - 2nd week (Number 780 in seq.) |
|---|---|
| Highest new entry | (none in top 75) |
| Fastest climber (within top 40) | Spice up your life- Spice Girls - up 8 to 30 |
| Fastest climber (within top 75) | Crush on you- Aaron Carter - up 12 to 39 Stand by me- Oasis - up 12 to 50 |
| Lemming-like fall | Pink- Aerosmith - down 17 to 55 |
| Top 40 debuts | (none) |
| Top 40 exits | Hot Chocolate |
| Top 75 debuts | (none) |
| Top 75 exits | Dreem Teem |
There's very little to say about this week's chart: no new entries in either the 40 or 75, lots of re-entries, some fast climbers, the Spices secure their second straight festive number 1. And Elton John returns to the top 10, displacing Mase. It set us thinking, how much did this chart sell in total?
The figures below are sales, in thousands, of each single in the top 40. Totals above 970,000 are taken from the All-Time Top 100 of 2002, adjusted where noted. Other totals are from the top 200 year-end charts of 1997 (minimum: 80,000) and 1998 (minimum: 70,000), with small increments for records that sold into 1998 without making the year-end list. Where there is error, we believe these figures are consistently an under-estimate.
01. (-) Spice Girls - Too Much 536
02. (--) Teletubbies - Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh! 1107
03. (--) Various Artists - Perfect Day 1548
04. (--) All Saints - Never Ever 1255
05. (--) Janet Jackson - Together Again 740
06. (+1) Robbie Williams - Angels/Walk This Sleigh 860
07. (-1) Aqua - Barbie Girl 1722
08. (--) Natalie Imbruglia - Torn 1000
09. (--) Boyzone - Baby Can I Hold You/Shooting Star 546
10. (+1) Elton John - Something About The Way You Look/Candle In The Wind 4860
Top 10 total: 14,240,000
** Based on top-200 sales during 2007, we've credited Angels
with 30,000 digital sales; Torn
with 18,000, taking it to a million. These are almost certainly too low.
This is a record for total sales of a week's top ten; the runner-up in this category was set two weeks earlier, when Houghton replaced the Spices.
11. (+1) Steven Houghton - Wind Beneath My Wings 510
12. (+1) Barbra Streisand And Celine Dion - Tell Him 410
13. (+4) Lutricia McNeal - Ain't That Just The Way 340
14. (+2) Celine Dion - The Reason 120
15. (+4) Five - Slam Dunk (Da Funk) 170
16. (-1) Chicken Shed - I Am In Love With The World 50
17. (-7) Mase - Feel So Good 60
18. (--) Reds United - Sing Up For The Champions! 160
19. (-5) Vanilla - No Way No Way 80
20. (--) Steps - 5, 6, 7, 8 304
Top 20 total: 16,368,000, a record for total sales of a week's top 20, jointly held with the previous week's chart. We leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine why.
21. (+2) Backstreet Boys - As Long As You Love Me 450
22. (-1) Louise - Let's Go Round Again 170
23. (-1) Sheryl Crow - Tomorrow Never Dies 100
24. (+3) The Verve - Lucky Man 150
25. (-1) Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing 550
26. (+2) The PF Project Featuring Ewan McGregor - Choose Life 200
27. (-1) The Seahorses - You Can Talk To Me 70
28. (+2) Propellerheads And Shirley Bassey - History Repeating 75
29. (+8) Spice Girls - Spice Up Your Life 800
30. (+1) Gala - Let A Boy Cry 90
Top 30 total: 19,023,000. Yep, a record for total sales of a week's top 30.
** It's known that Hot Chocolate sold 180,000 in 1997; we've credited 80,000 from a top-ten release in 1987, 275,000 from the original number 2 in 1975, and 15,000 sales from 1998 to the present day.
31. (-2) Bryan Adams - Back To You 70
32. (+7) Will Smith - Just Cruisin' 50
33. (+2) Levellers - Dogtrain 50
34. (+8) Mariah Carey - Butterfly 65
35. (+11) The Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up 105
36. (-2) Sting And The Police - Roxanne '97 145
37. (-12) Paul McCartney - Beautiful Night 30
38. (+2) Blackstreet - (Money Can't) Buy Me Love 50
39. (+12) Aaron Carter - Crush On You 100
40. (-7) U2 - If God Will Send His Angels 55
Top 40 total: 19,743,000. We believe this to be a record, though it's possible that some of the charts from early 1985 may better this mark.
** We estimate that Roxanne sold about 45,000 in 1997, we aggregate with 100,000 from the 1977 original release.
Top 75 highlights (only totals of 80,000+)
43. (7) Hanson - I Will Come To You 130
44. (4) Sash! Featuring La Trec - Stay 400
50. (12) Oasis - Stand By Me 290
54. (6) Dario G - Sunchyme 500
56. (-9) Chumbawamba - Tubthumping 780
63. (R) 911 - Party People... Friday Night 110
66. (R) The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work 370
67. (8) Eternal - Angel Of Mine 250
70. (R) The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony 310
71. (R) Peter Andre - Lonely 80
** No allowance has been made for digital sales of these tracks; we suspect Oasis, Verve, and Chumbawumba will have sold well, but have no figures to back this up.
Assuming an average of 35,000 for the remaining 35 records (and, again, that's cautious) gives a ballpark figure of
24,188,000
Let's be ultra-conservative and round it down to two sig fig. 24 million sales from records in the top 75 for the last week of 1997. 14 million for the top 10. Yes, these figures are inflated by the sales of Elton John, but even if his song had never been released, the top ten would shift very nearly 10 million between them.
By comparison, the total single sale in 2004 was approximately 26.5 million.
