Lead Singles - Commercial Comparison

[Undertaker]

There was definitely a balls up with Can You Forgive Her? CD 2 was only available in some parts of the UK first week.

They did something similar with Paninaro 95, which might have been their last single to actually climb in it's second week

[Gabby]

There was definitely a balls up with Can You Forgive Her? CD 2 was only available in some parts of the UK first week.

They did something similar with Paninaro 95, which might have been their last single to actually climb in it's second week

Yeah, I recall being quite confused with all the Paninaro 95 stuff. Different sleeves and what not. Not quite as confusing as the multitude releases of West End girls but as a collector puts you in a bit of a tails tailspin.

[Ramzy]

They did something similar with Paninaro 95, which might have been their last single to actually climb in it's second week

Yeah, it was - after that, only two singles (Se a vida e and Drunk) managed two weeks in the top 20 - though things did slightly stabilise after A red letter day's vertiginous second week fall out of the top 40, and it wasn't until I get along that it happened again. The last PSB single to manage two weeks in the top 30 was Love etc and after that it was a very steep downward slope.

[Iyonix]

I think I am right in saying the Can You Forgive her was one of those releases where CD1 came out one week, and then CD2 came out the following week in a bid to push it up the chart. This was common practice back then , I remember many releases coming out in digipacks with a card CD inside saying out next week CD 2.

This definitely happened with Paninaro 95 - CD 2 was released the second week as I was waiting for the PSB radio edit as it wasn't on the CD which came out the first week, same with I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of thing, card sleeve week 1 , plastic shower curtain sleeve the second week.

Don't think there were any more.

[Gabby]

I think I am right in saying the Can You Forgive her was one of those releases where CD1 came out one week, and then CD2 came out the following week in a bid to push it up the chart. This was common practice back then , I remember many releases coming out in digipacks with a card CD inside saying out next week CD 2.

This definitely happened with Paninaro 95 - CD 2 was released the second week as I was waiting for the PSB radio edit as it wasn't on the CD which came out the first week, same with I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of thing, card sleeve week 1 , plastic shower curtain sleeve the second week.

Don't think there were any more.

The production costs on some of those special sleeves must have been astronomical, even back then. The Very "LEGO" case and Relentless sleeves boggle the mind even now.

Stuff like this still catches my eye - I was in a store in Florida a few weeks ago, and they had some amazing stuff but I discovered it's all part of the K-Pop market, so not at all my bag. The stuff looks so flippin' cool though. I guess you can see where the money is in the music industry these days!

[Drico One]

First week sales for Go West have been confirmed. It had 2,880 panel sales - by far the biggest opening week of any of their singles.

Yet, it still sold 12,600 units fewer than Culture Beat's Mr Vain which had about 3,718 panel sales. In other words, it's a myth that Go West was going to go in at number one. If it led the midweeks, its sales were already dropping off a cliff in comparison to Culture Beat by the weekend. Nevertheless, this was a huge opening week for them.

Drico.

[Drico One]

To quote Alanis Morisette, it's a little ironic that three of their top four opening weeks were provided by cover versions. I have updated the figures on page 1.

[Ramzy]

First week sales for Go West have been confirmed. It had 2,880 panel sales - by far the biggest opening week of any of their singles.

Yet, it still sold 12,600 units fewer than Culture Beat's Mr Vain which had about 3,718 panel sales. In other words, it's a myth that Go West was going to go in at number one. If it led the midweeks, its sales were already dropping off a cliff in comparison to Culture Beat by the weekend. Nevertheless, this was a huge opening week for them.

Drico.

It only occurred to me while reading this thread that Go West gave them their highest singles chart entry, since none of their chart toppers actually went in at number one, and What Have I Done... also had to climb to get to its peak.

[Drico One]

Go West's second week sales rose by only 2.4%, meaning that while that was enough to overtake Mr Vain, it fell short by 83 panel sales to Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. In plain English, it lost the number one spot to Boom Shake the Room by 1,245 actual sales.

This was, therefore, the week they "should" have made number one. However, the sales increase was pathetic by their standards even if week 2 sales were still excellent overall - suggesting week 1 was definitely a fan-driven sensation rather than some great crossover hit. So many people bought it in week 1 that its week 2 figures were only marginally higher - and in fact marginally less than those of What have I done to deserve this? Such huge week 1 sales gave the impression that this had crossed over in a big way, but if that were so we would have expected to see another big rise the following week. We didn't. All that happened was it galvanised the fans and dormant fans straight away. With them out of the picture, there wasn't enough crossover to propel it to the top.

For comparison, Erasure's Abbaesque sold more than twice as many as Go West did in its first week. THAT was crossover (albeit it was easier to capture the public's imagination with a covers EP of songs by one of the biggest pop combos of all time). Their sales were so massive that week that they could suffer major decline in subsequent weeks and still stay top. But the fact that even their sales fell held the truth that they too were largely a fanbase act, albeit one with a bit more crossover appeal at that point. In hindsight, the seeds of the commercial decline of the two most successful synth duos of all time were present in the sales figures of Abbaesque and Go West.

In other words, Go West was, basically, a massive success against the odds. And one never repeated.

[Ramzy]

Thanks, Drico, I'm finding this thread so fascinating.

Beyond a vague idea that only some shops counted towards the charts when I was growing up, I didn't really understand exactly how the panel system worked until now. I'm guessing the locations of the shops was a closely guarded secret to avoid chart manipulation - but now that the system is obsolete, has anyone managed to find out which 250 shops dictated the charts for so long? Or did it in fact change regularly to cancel out any unforeseen biases within the supposedly representative sample they'd chosen?

Edit: I'm actually also wondering how sales certifications worked in a world where no one was sure how many copies a record had really sold. Was it done based on shipments, or simply divided down by the panel multiplier so that e.g. a platinum album was awarded for 18,000 panel sales (or whatever)?

[G_Goalden]

It needed a CD2 didn’t it? That must have been enough for 1200 sales. Without looking it always seemed quite sparse for formats.

[Leonidas]

Am I right in saying there was no TOTP performance for Go West?

[Ramzy]

It needed a CD2 didn’t it? That must have been enough for 1200 sales. Without looking it always seemed quite sparse for formats.

I think it got the 12" in week one (alongside the cassette, 7" and CD), meaning all four chart-eligible formats were already used up. Might a remix CD have sold better than the 7" or 12"? We'll never know, but you have to wonder if they based the decision on how the various editions of 'Can you forgive her?' performed a few months earlier.

Am I right in saying there was no TOTP performance for Go West?

That's right, and a big live performance with a choir might have added to the hype, but speaking as someone whose PSB journey began by seeing the bizarre, magical video on TOTP as a little kid, I'm not complaining. It made such a big impression on me that, when I started going to record shops a couple of years later, 'Go West' would be the first thing I'd look for. I didn't find it until 1998, by which time the search for this one barely remembered song had become (to my 10yo mind) sort of mythical. I still remember the elation and disbelief of my eventual success so vividly, I guess the way other kids might have experienced their team winning the premier league or completing an epic videogame. So yeah, the video did just fine for me.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

I think it got the 12" in week one (alongside the cassette, 7" and CD), meaning all four chart-eligible formats were already used up. Might a remix CD have sold better than the 7" or 12"?

I reckon it would have done better than a 7" and would have been a good excuse to release the Mark Stent 12", the other Farley & Heller mix, and the other Kevin Saunderson one.

Retro.

[tottenhammattspurs]

Go West's second week sales rose by only 2.4%, meaning that while that was enough to overtake Mr Vain, it fell short by 83 panel sales to Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. In plain English, it lost the number one spot to Boom Shake the Room by 1,245 actual sales.

This was, therefore, the week they "should" have made number one. However, the sales increase was pathetic by their standards even if week 2 sales were still excellent overall - suggesting week 1 was definitely a fan-driven sensation rather than some great crossover hit. So many people bought it in week 1 that its week 2 figures were only marginally higher - and in fact marginally less than those of What have I done to deserve this? Such huge week 1 sales gave the impression that this had crossed over in a big way, but if that were so we would have expected to see another big rise the following week. We didn't. All that happened was it galvanised the fans and dormant fans straight away. With them out of the picture, there wasn't enough crossover to propel it to the top.

For comparison, Erasure's Abbaesque sold more than twice as many as Go West did in its first week. THAT was crossover (albeit it was easier to capture the public's imagination with a covers EP of songs by one of the biggest pop combos of all time). Their sales were so massive that week that they could suffer major decline in subsequent weeks and still stay top. But the fact that even their sales fell held the truth that they too were largely a fanbase act, albeit one with a bit more crossover appeal at that point. In hindsight, the seeds of the commercial decline of the two most successful synth duos of all time were present in the sales figures of Abbaesque and Go West.

In other words, Go West was, basically, a massive success against the odds. And one never repeated.

It needed that "CD2" or remix 12" on week two. Considering the sheer amount of Go West mixes out there, I'm surprised this didn't happen