80's UK Chart Sales and Info

[Tentenlad]

George Michael 1980’s singles ranked by UK sales

‘Careless Whisper’ 1,137,708
‘A Different Corner’ 439,416
‘I knew You Were Waiting’ (with Aretha Franklin) 419,152
‘Faith’ 297,194
‘I Want Your Sex’ 198,033
‘One More Try’ 102,459
‘Father Figure’ 69,547
‘Monkey’ 64,107
‘Kissing A Fool’ 55,148


Wham! 1980’s singles ranked by UK sales

‘Last Christmas’ / ‘Everything She Wants’ (combined sales for all 1980’s) 1,230,834
‘Freedom’ 672,316
‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ 603,568
‘I’m Your Man’ 492,099
‘Young Guns’ 463,322
‘Bad Boys’ 387,719
‘The Edge Of Heaven’ 317,509
‘Club Tropicana’ 296,208
‘Wham Rap’ 207,672
‘Club Fantastic Megamix’ 116,127

[Neilatrone]

The 90's sales figures won't all be available until later in the year so I will compile the information and put it on here then. In the meantime will add a few other bands sales rankings from the 80's. If there is any artist anyone wants to see the figures for let me know.

I presume that Band Aid had the highest sales?

[OakeyDokey]

Would you have Soft Cell or Dexys please?

[Nickname]

I think the data of Spotify is more accurate to know the popularity of the songs all around the world and not only in UK.

With the exception of Depeche Mode, PSB have better numbers than New Order (with the exception of Blue Monday), Erasure, Frankie goes to Hollywood (with the exception of Relax), Spandau Ballet and not too far from Duran Duran.

Not sure that's accurate. FGTH sold massive amounts more than PSB even if you only count Relax, TT and PoL. Duran Duran looks like they outsold them too by a long mark, albeit with more singles. It's UK figures here, nor worldwide.

It's obvious Relax was a massive hit in UK but not as much as you can think in the rest of the world. For example, "It's a sin", "West End Girls", "Always on my Mind", "Heart" and even "Go West" had better results than "Relax". "Two Tribes" had better chart numbers than "Relax" worldwide too. Anyway, it's obvious the success of the song was massive but basically in UK, a bit less in the rest of the world (for example, USA).

But I know we are talking about UK on this thread. Duran Duran are more popular in UK than PSB but I don't know if we could say the same worldwide without "Ordinary World".

[Tentenlad]

Soft Cell 1980’s singles ranked by UK sales

‘Tainted Love’ 1,067,968
‘Torch’ 377,706
‘Bedsitter’ 373,563
‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ 370,450
‘What!’ 301,565
‘Where The Heart Is’ 84,675
‘Soul Inside’ 62,560
‘Down In The Subway’ 59,092
‘Numbers/Barriers’ 44,574


Marc Almond 1980’s singles ranked by UK sales

‘Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart’ (with Gene Pitney) 446,726
‘I Feel Love Medley’ (with Bronski Beat) 284,835
‘Tears Run Rings’ 59,415
‘Stories of Johnny’ 44,081
‘A Woman's Story’ (with Willing Sinners) 28,118
‘The Boy Who Came Back’ 24,106
‘Bitter Sweet’ 18,734
‘Ruby Red’ 17,42
‘Only The Moment’ 16,184
‘You Have’ 15,317
‘Love Letter’ 12,053
‘The House Is Haunted (By The Echo Of Your Last Goodbye)’
11,169
‘Melancholy Rose’ 8,806

Other singles released were not in the top 1000 sales figures and not calculable (Usually less than 5,000 copies sold)

[Tentenlad]

Dexy's Midnight Runners 1980’s singles ranked by UK sales

‘Come On Eileen’ 1,072,835
‘Geno’ 562,188
‘Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile)’ 249,723
‘There, There My Dear’ 187,488
‘Show Me’ 146,280
‘Let's Get This Straight (From The Start)’ / ‘Old’ 137,595
‘The Celtic Soul Brothers’ 108,501
‘Because Of You’ 77,316
‘Dance Stance’ 62,375
‘Plan B’ 17,880

Other singles released were not in the top 1000 sales figures and not calculable (Usually less than 5,000 copies sold)

[tottenhammattspurs]

So the theme tune to Brush Strokes sold more than George Michael’s Kissing A Fool!!!!

[OakeyDokey]

Amazing. Have we had Human League?

[Ramzy]

These are so interesting, thanks very much tentenlad. Would I be right in thinking all of these figures were produced using the panel sales (ie sales from a group of 250 shops, multiplied by a particular number to give a UK-wide estimate) that we've been discussing in Drico's thread? Or are more accurate figures available based on, say, shipments and returns that were calculated later on?

Cheers!

[Tentenlad]

These are so interesting, thanks very much tentenlad. Would I be right in thinking all of these figures were produced using the panel sales (ie sales from a group of 250 shops, multiplied by a particular number to give a UK-wide estimate) that we've been discussing in Drico's thread? Or are more accurate figures available based on, say, shipments and returns that were calculated later on?

Cheers!

They are based on the panel sales yes.

[Tentenlad]

Human League 1980’s singles ranked by UK sales

‘Don’t You Want Me’ 736,373
‘Love Action’ 468,028
‘Mirror Man’ 391,558
‘Open Your Heart’ 314,784
‘(Keep Feeling) Fascination’ 293,726
‘Being Boiled’ 242,903
‘Sound of the Crowd’ 188,520
‘Human’ 156,638
‘Louise’ 143,956
‘The Lebanon’ 100,079
‘Life On Your Own’ 67,864
‘Holiday 80’ 41,263
‘Boys and Girls’ 28,992
‘Empire State Human’ 24,388
‘Love Is All That Matters’ 22,117
‘I Need Your Loving’ 7,004

[Tentenlad]

Out of the top 1000 besting selling singles in the 1980's - 5 were from Pet Shop Boys

130th ‘Always On My Mind’
179th ‘It’s A Sin’
213th ‘West End Girls’
620th ‘Heart’
664th ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This?’

[OakeyDokey]

Cheers our kid. Imagine these numbers nowadays even at 99p a single?!

[OakeyDokey]

Goes to show that the chart position only tells you so much. A number 1 in 1995 in sales may not have scraped the top ten in 1985.

Re the Human League. Incredible to think at this time of the year in 1981, their new line-up had posted a decent (for them) just under 30k sales for Boys & Girls with their transitional line-up.

Fast forward 9 months and four singles later which sell over 1.5m copies between them and the parent album Dare another million seller.

[daveid]

Goes to show that the chart position only tells you so much. A number 1 in 1995 in sales may not have scraped the top ten in 1985.

Re the Human League. Incredible to think at this time of the year in 1981, their new line-up had posted a decent (for them) just under 30k sales for Boys & Girls with their transitional line-up.

Fast forward 9 months and four singles later which sell over 1.5m copies between them and the parent album Dare another million seller.

Would be nice to have 80s and 90s stats for these bands. The League released two corkers in the early 90s - Heart like a wheel and Tell me when.