Download CSV. Top United Kingdom. The most Shazamed tracks in the past 7 days. Joel Corry Feat. Looking for Me.
About Billboard
Follow Billboard
Fri 5 Jun We present to you a ranking of the greatest UK No 1 singles since the charts began in The only rule was that an artist could only feature once. As such, it is very much open to discussion, which we heartily encourage in the comments section. Also, note that dates listed are the dates the songs reached No 1. As much a generational bellwether as a pop classic. The weirdness of 70s Britain in musical form. Trevor Horn and co turned this material into postmodern gold, building jingles, prog, orchestral pop and more into a screwball fantasy.
Althea and Donna – Uptown Top Ranking (1977)
Yes, yes. The dads, unfortunately, are at it again. Radio X, the radio station of choice for people who call the shed at the back of the garden their "Man Cave," has run its second annual "Best of British" poll, where listeners are invited to vote for the tracks they believe to be the best British songs of all time. Behold the top ten:. What we have here is a poll albeit one called "Best of British" which sounds more like a marketing campaign for sausages than a serious music vote claiming one band made five out of the ten greatest musical achievements in the history of an entire nation. The result, while unsurprising considering Radio X's listener base, is actually kind of important because it speaks to the way that many consider white maleness to be the default for British musicianship. In , that couldn't really be further from the truth, and it's a shame that a poll with a wide-spanning title like "Best of British" should represent only one tiny sub-section of British society although admittedly, it's a sub-section that is overrepresented in the British music industry. It's also pretty typical of a casual listenership: you won't find any deep cuts in the top on this list — it's all singles, and extremely famous ones at that. But let's be honest: if you were to scrape together the most popular and broad music for our generation in about 30 years, the list would likely be a shambles too.
For the purposes of calculating sales, 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. Since September , the single has sold over 4. Sales of singles have been monitored and charted in the UK since , when Percy Dickins of New Musical Express NME telephoned around 20 record stores and aggregated their best-selling singles into a hit parade. The highest-selling by a solo female artist is " Believe " by Cher — released in October , it has sold over 1. Released in December , the single sold more than , copies in its first week, but was kept off number one by " Do They Know It's Christmas? It has since sold more than 1. The highest-selling single paid for purchases in the 21st century is " Happy " by Pharrell Williams , which has sold 1. The most streamed song is " Shape of You " by Ed Sheeran with over million streams 2 million equivalent sales from Twenty other songs have been streamed over million times, including two more by Ed Sheeran. Until June , only a paid download or a purchase of a physical single counted as a sale.
