Talk:List of best-selling singles

Proposal to set 10 millions copies sold as the minimum.

The List of best-selling albums stipulates that the albums listed must have sold 20 million copies worldwide. The current minimum for List of best-selling singles is 5 million copies sold worldwide. I propose raising this minimum to 10 million copies worldwide (20/2 = 10). Richard Hendricks (talk) 00:27, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Support. The current threshold is too low. A zillion of singles have sold over 5 million, which do not necessarily mean "best-selling". Bluesatellite (talk) 03:52, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support per Bluesatellite, and this is much closer to what's actually among the top selling songs. The only exception would be the section listing each year's best-selling singles from 2007 onwards as there can be times when nothing reaches the 10M threshold within a calendar year. Snuggums (talk / edits) 00:57, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I concur with the exception for the the section listing each year's best-selling singles from 2007 onwards. -Richard Hendricks (talk) 03:08, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support strongly. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 14:37, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, I fail to see a net positive with this. It's not as if this article is too long to be manageable, and removing information about singles selling between 5 and 10 million copies does not help the reader. If anyone is only interested in reading about singles that sold more than 10 million copies, don't read the rest of the list. It's simple. feminist (talk) 10:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose... though it's not really important. There are so many (physical) singles with inflated singles (and many - digital mostly - deflated sales), which is much more worrying about the credibility of this article. The physical/digital difference doesn't make sense when sales are combined in most countries. Also, taking into "sales figures" that include streaming makes no sense and indicates that the article needs a new name. As for the 5M limit itself, I think it's too low if we consider singles that sold over 5M are missing in the tally - if all +5M sellers were there, I think the limit should be on 7M. · Mcdonalds (talk · cont), at 04:15, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, first of all physical and digital singles should be combined as nowadays most recent articles include sales of digital, physical and even streaming. I agree with the user above, the article needs a new name. As far as the threshold of 10 million is too high. 7/8 million would be the most appropriated, at least for now. Chages in this article are a must. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 14:40, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• strongly support, I like your idea there are just to many singles and i think only the very best songs of the entire century should be included

Stover75 (talk) 01:51, 30 July 2018 (UTC)*Oppose, I think the more variety of singles the better, I concur that it could be raised to 7 million. However many songs are missing I feel. I am surprised that Green Green Grass Of Home by Tom Jones is not in there. I couldn't find its worldwide sales figure.

Yes Sir I Can Boogie - Baccara - Hugely Exaggerated Sales

There is no way that 'Yes Sir I Can Boogie' by Baccara, sold 18 Million copies. That 1977 Hit had sold around 3 Million, in Europe, before it was released in the UK. It became a UK No.1 & sold around 700,000 copies there. Its Sales in the rest of the World were about 2 Million. To be generous, we can estimate 6 Million Global Sales for it - nothing like the 18 Million claimed in the Article. It was not even a Hit in the USA or Canada. To be a Global 18 Million Seller it would have had to be No.1 in the USA for Months & to have sold around 10 Million there. However, I've heard the 18 Million claim before. It is as absolutely laughable that Wikipedia has been using the claim for Years. It shows that it is easy to make fools of people who ought to know better. 'Yes Sir I Can Boogie' is said to have been the World's 5th Best Seller of 1977, on 2 different Global Chart Sites. It was not even a No.1 Hit in the Global Charts. It reached No.2 for 2 Weeks. That proves that it sold nothing like 18 Million. In the Pan-European Charts it was No.1 for 3 Weeks in 1 of them, & No.1 for 6 Weeks in another. 'Fernando' by ABBA, was No.1 in the Pan-European Charts for 18 Weeks - yet your Article does not include it - at all - in the World's Best Selling Singles. But, 'Fernando' sold 6 Million Globally. The Baccara Hit was not huge in France No.5, Australia - No.9, Italy - No.30, or New Zealand - No.33. Nor was it a Hit in Japan. Which means that it flopped in the World's 2 biggest Music Markets - the USA & Japan. It would had to be Number 1 in virtually every Country on Earth, to sell 18 Million. I've just proved that it can't have had anywhere near such Sales. 86.2.61.136 (talk) 20:36, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

This is absolutely right -- the "source" is a memorial webpage for a co-writer of the song which makes the sales claim with no source or support. I had never heard of the song and was shocked to see it listed alongside exclusively well-known hits. 18 million sales seems hard to believe, to put it mildly.

you know people live not only in North America, Australia and UK...in Mexico alone live more than 100 mln people Spanish speaking people and the duo is Spanish speaking duo

Sales in Spain/Latin America low esp for most singles.

Any proof of huge Spanish sales? Coachtripfan (talk) 14:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Is chartmasters.org a reliable source for worldwide singles sales?

Well, should it be considered a reliable source? Richard Hendricks (talk) 15:15, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

No. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 16:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

chartmasters.org

is chartmasters.org a reliable source? the source itself looks more of a forum than a news organization. furthermore, the sales figures posted on that site, and the way they were extracted, seems highly unreliable. there was even one comment posted on the site's feedback page sometime in 2017 which questioned where and how the site's runner/s came up with their numbers. apparently the owners never clarified those questions, citing their formula was more "accurate" than those posted by the ifpi, nielsen soundscan and the occ (in the uk). they even had computations for countries with smaller music market sizes such as finland and yet they claim it is more accurate than what the official certification bodies in those countries provide. the site even said those organizations - the riaa and bpi in particular - are questionable. so now the question is, is the site reliable at all? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshay.16 (talk • contribs) 00:26, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

need adjustment according with the number of people in the world and the economy of the world

or at least do it by 2 decades: 20-30, 40-50, 60-70, 80-90, 00-10 and so on

• The best selling single of all time was released in 1942. The third best selling single of all time was released in 1935. Dividing the list up by time period is not necessary. -Richard Hendricks (talk) 05:38, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Physical/Digital singles or Singles before/after 2000? Streaming?

I think that it would be a good idea to split between "older" (until 2000) and "more recent" (after 2000) singles, instead of physical and digital singles, because some older singles has impressive digital sales and it is very confusing since they are technically in the physical singles category, but they have sold million of digital copies (for instance Thriller by Michael Jackson). I would still split the list in two parts (or maybe three, for example until 1980, 1981-2000 and 2001-present), since singles' sales have never been stable and the more recent ones starting from 2006-2007 would otherwise eclipse the older ones. Personally speaking I also find the split between physical and digital not adequate anymore, because now singles do not sell a lot of digital copies, the majority of their revenues come from streaming and I think we have to accept certifications that include streaming. At the moment we are in a strange situation, where we consider the numbers written in the IFPI reports correct (and I think this is right, of course), but we do not accept RIAA's, CRIA's or BPI's certifications anymore because they include streaming too. I believe we should include streaming, otherwise we should also not use IFPI's sales and the list should not be split depending on the format (physical / digital). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.66.130.72 (talk) 21:50, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

• I'd be in favor of eliminating the distinction between physical and digital sales as long as the definition of a best seller is raised to 10 million copies. -Richard Hendricks (talk) 05:35, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
• The physical/digital difference makes no sense when both are combined in most countries. No splitting is necessary. Also, there's "sales" in the name of this article so streaming should not count or give the article a new name. · Mcdonalds (talk · cont), at 04:22, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
• I strongly agree with what the unsigned user said. Streaming will count, IFPI uses it in their numbers of singles in the past 3/4 reports if I'm not mistaken, and it's combined, not separated. A side note should be added in that case. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 14:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)