{"id":60,"date":"2006-11-19T14:51:08","date_gmt":"2006-11-19T13:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/?p=60"},"modified":"2024-07-04T09:33:24","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T15:33:24","slug":"best-selling-vs-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/best-selling-vs-best\/","title":{"rendered":"Best-selling vs. Best"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week another chart\/list<\/a> is published.\u00c2\u00a0 Television music channel VH1 has compiled a list of the\u00c2\u00a0 ‘Best-sold UK Albums of All Time’.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Compiling such lists seems to have become a major preoccupation with the music press over the last couple of years – something I can only attribute to lazy journalism (and the main reason I cancelled my subscription to Q after 10 years).\u00c2\u00a0 VH1 claims their new list has more credibility than most because it is compiled purely from actual sales figures for the past 50-some years.<\/p>\n

The full chart runs to 100 albums, but for brevity, the top 10 are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Queen <\/strong>Greatest Hits<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Beatles <\/strong>Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. Oasis <\/strong>(What’s the Story) Morning Glory<\/em><\/li>\n
  4. Dire Straits <\/strong>Brothers in Arms<\/em><\/li>\n
  5. Abba <\/strong>Gold – Greatest Hits<\/em><\/li>\n
  6. Pink Floyd <\/strong>Dark Side of the Moon<\/em><\/li>\n
  7. Queen <\/strong>Greatest Hits 2<\/em><\/li>\n
  8. Michael Jackson <\/strong>Thriller<\/em><\/li>\n
  9. Michael Jackson <\/strong>Bad<\/em><\/li>\n
  10. Madonna <\/strong>The Immaculate Collection<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that this is consumer sales and not dealer\/distributor sales, and ignore the fact that it probably doesn’t consider returns, unwanted gifts, and albums that are passed straight to the second-hand stores.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll even assume that ‘all time’ only started about 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

    But even taking this into account, all you have is a list of albums that sold well.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not necessarily a reflection of popularity.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you think it is – after all, people are voting with their money – but it’s not.\u00c2\u00a0 I am one of the several million Britons who own a copy of Sgt. Pepper<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 I think I’ve played it twice.\u00c2\u00a0 True, it was a landmark album, but really, I can’t listen to it on a regular basis.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’d be surprised if there are many people who can.\u00c2\u00a0 And Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms<\/em> only sold well because when CD players came out, it and the loathsome Graceland<\/em> by Paul Simon were just about the only CDs you could buy.<\/p>\n

    If I were to list the ten albums that I listen to on a regular basis – and my iTunes ‘Most Frequently Played’ playlist broadly backs me up on this over the past year – it would be (in no particular order):<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Radiohead<\/strong> OK Computer<\/em><\/li>\n
    2. Desaperacidos<\/strong> Read Music Speak Spanish<\/em><\/li>\n
    3. Bob Dylan<\/strong>, Highway 61 Revisited<\/em><\/li>\n
    4. Jesus and Mary Chain<\/strong> Darklands<\/em><\/li>\n
    5. At The Drive In<\/strong> Relationship of Command<\/em><\/li>\n
    6. Pleasure Forever <\/strong>Altar<\/em><\/li>\n
    7. Oasis<\/strong> Definitely Maybe<\/em><\/li>\n
    8. Suede<\/strong> Dog Man Star<\/em><\/li>\n
    9. Nick Cave<\/strong> Let Love In<\/em><\/li>\n
    10. Bright Eyes<\/strong> Lifted\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Now I’m not saying that these<\/span> are the greatest albums of all time, or that my list is any more valid than VH1’s – but I own exactly one copy of these albums, along with one copy of Sgt. Pepper<\/em>, and likewise some 800+ others (so I feel I have a realistically-large sample set).\u00c2\u00a0 And I would argue to the last that Sgt. Pepper<\/em> does not deserve the same magnitude of vote as OK Computer<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 By VH1’s reckoning they both get exactly one vote from me, but I would weight OK Computer<\/em> about 250 times higher, by virtue of the fact that I have probably played it 500 times, to Sgt. Pepper<\/em>‘s twice.<\/p>\n

      Now if we could get a complete set of play frequencies from every music consumer in the world, that<\/span> would give us a better indication of popularity.\u00c2\u00a0 But until then (which will be never), the VH1 list, along with all of the other lists (and we can expect a fresh crop of 2006 lists as we approach year-end) will never amount to anything more useful than a way for those of us who take our music seriously to feel superior because we’re not one of the 5 million people who were duped into buying a copy of Queen’s Greatest Hits <\/em>that’s now gathering dust in the garage pending the next car boot sale.<\/p>\n

      <\/p>\n

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      This week another chart\/list is published.\u00c2\u00a0 Television music channel VH1 has compiled a list of the\u00c2\u00a0 ‘Best-sold UK Albums of All Time’.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Compiling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-music-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}