List of best-selling singles of the 2000s (decade) in the United Kingdom

A young man wearing a pink shirt and brown straw hat smiles and holds a microphone near his mouth.
Will Young had the best-selling single of the 2000s in the UK, "Evergreen"/"Anything Is Possible".
2000s in music in the UK
Events
Charts

The UK Singles Chart is a music chart compiled by the Official Charts Company that calculates the best-selling singles of the week in the United Kingdom.[1] Since 2005, the chart has been based on the sales of both physical and digital singles, originally on the condition that the single was available in both formats. In 2007, the rules were changed so that legal downloads of all songs, irrespective of whether a physical copy was available, were eligible to chart.[2]

Between 2000 and 2009, ten singles that reached the top of the singles chart sold more than 1 million copies in the United Kingdom.[3] At the end of the decade, a retrospective chart was compiled by the Official Charts Company to determine the best-selling single of this ten-year period. The title was won by Will Young, the winner of the televised talent competition Pop Idol in 2001, with his double A-side single "Evergreen"/"Anything Is Possible", released in 2002.[4] The single sold just under 1.8 million copies and saw Young finish ahead of fellow Pop Idol finalist Gareth Gates, whose debut single "Unchained Melody" sold 1.34 million copies.[5] Young's single included sales of 1,108,269 copies in its first week, at the time a first-week total that had been bettered only by Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997".[6] The X Factor winners Alexandra Burke (5th), and Shayne Ward (8th) and the band formed on Popstars in 2001, Hear'Say (9th), also reached the top ten.[7] Kylie Minogue, Shaggy and Tony Christie were the other solo artists who made the top ten of best-selling singles; Christie's best-seller was a charity single recorded for Comic Relief in 2005. Children's television character Bob the Builder's "Can We Fix It?", voiced by Neil Morrissey, and Band Aid 20's cover of "Do They Know It's Christmas" made up the rest of the top ten singles.[3][8]

The chart is significantly skewed towards singles released at the beginning (2000–2002) and end (2007–2009) of the decade. Digital downloads were included in the charts for the first time in 2005, but it took several years before the download figures made up for the loss of physical single sales.[9] Only six songs released in 2003 and two released in 2004 (including Band Aid 20's million-seller "Do They Know It's Christmas?") made the top 100 best-selling singles, compared with twelve in 2000 and thirteen in 2009. Following changes to the chart ruling in 2007, Rage Against the Machine's 1993 single "Killing in the Name" was declared the Christmas number-one on the strength of an Internet campaign on the Facebook website, even though it did not have a contemporary physical release.[10][11] The song eventually reached number 35 on the best-sellers list.

BBC Radio 1 announced the chart across three programmes, presented by DJ Nihal, between 29 December and 31 December 2009.[12] The list of best-selling albums of the decade in the UK was also announced in a show on 28 December 2009.[12] As it was broadcast during the last week of December, the chart did not include sales from the final week of the year. An updated chart, including sales up to 31 December 2009 was published in the UK trade magazine Music Week in the issue dated 30 January 2010.[13] Apart from some unsurprising rises in the positions of songs from 2009, this updated chart included some major changes to the one broadcast on Radio 1. "Gotta Get Thru This" by Daniel Bedingfield dropped from 61 to 71, "Anyone of Us (Stupid Mistake)" by Gareth Gates fell from 57 to 61, "Angel" by Shaggy fell from 44 to 54, "A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis vs JXL was moved from 31 to 38, and most notably, the Black Eyed Peas' "Where Is the Love?" dropped from 25 to 42. "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback and "Do You Really Like It?" by DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies dropped out of the top 100 altogether.

One other notable omission from the chart is "Toca's Miracle" by Fragma. According to the OCC, then known as the Chart Information Network (CIN), the single was the seventh best-selling single of 2000, selling 530,742 copies.[14] However, it was not included in the chart of the best-selling singles of the 2000s, despite the inclusion of several of the singles immediately below it in the 2000 best-sellers list, and it is also missing from the official list of the 150 best-selling singles of the 21st century to date that was announced in 2012.[15]

Most appearances in the chart goes to the Black Eyed Peas and Eminem with four entries, followed by S Club 7, Gareth Gates and Leona Lewis with three entries each.

  1. ^ "The Official Charts Company". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  2. ^ Swash, Rosie (8 January 2007). "Old songs return to brave new singles chart". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  3. ^ a b Sexton, Paul (31 December 2009). "Will Young tops U.K. singles of decade". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 4 January 2010. [dead link]
  4. ^ Parker, Sam (1 January 2010). "Revealed: the top ten tracks of the noughties". America Online (AOL). Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  5. ^ "Will Young and James Blunt win biggest-selling single and album of the Noughties". NME. 31 December 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  6. ^ Roberts, David, ed. (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London, England: Guinness World Records Ltd. p. 616. ISBN 978-1-90499-410-7.
  7. ^ "Will Young has decade's biggest-selling single". Newsround. British Broadcasting Corporation. 1 January 2010. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  8. ^ "Reality TV stars top decade chart". Daily Mirror. 31 December 2009. Retrieved 6 February 2010.
  9. ^ "Press Release: Chart Rules". The Official Charts Company. Archived from the original on December 30, 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  10. ^ "New Digital Rules Shake Up U.K. Charts". Billboard. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  11. ^ "Rage Against the Machine beat X Factor winner in charts". British Broadcasting Corporation. 20 December 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  12. ^ a b "Radio 1 to reveal best-selling singles and albums of the Noughties". Press Office. British Broadcasting Corporation. 14 December 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference chart was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Roberts, David, ed. (2001). British Hit Singles (14th ed.). London, England: Guinness World Records. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8511-2156-7.
  15. ^ Lane, Dan (8 May 2012). "The Official Top 150 Biggest Selling Singles Of the 21st Century revealed!". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 21 January 2015.