POLL: The 11 best selling singles ever

I think basically I'm trying to get inside the head of America circa 1950, when most of the baby boomers were still toddlers, men still wore hats, design work (cars, architecture, advertising, appliances) still echoed with Deco, and music for grownups was obviously the center of the biz rather than something slightly to one side or (much later) an evident niche with its own separate genre name. Not to put that time up on a pedestal or something - it's just fascinating to me.

This has to be 'Rock Around The Clock', which is one of the few songs here that doesn't make me want to rip my ears off.

Domenico Modugno - Nel blu dipinto di blu (Volare)

So was the Dean Martin version of Volare the bigger hit in the US and these millions sold in the rest of the world?

This is a pretty varied and interesting list of pop songs.

No, Modugno's version was slightly bigger (a #1) in the States, though it's funny because Dean Martin's version was also massive and on the charts at exactly the same time

The most surprising thing to me is that, barring Elvis's It's Now or Never at the top of the decade, the 60s had no singles big enough to make this part of the list. It seems like when boomer culture exploded all over the place, but perhaps they've inflated their impact on history in this regard like they have every other.

Gotta be album sales eating into that in a big way, in addition to the generational fragmentation effects. The choice of the top eleven is also playing a role, though... plenty of 60s/70s singles in the 10-15 million range, though not all necessarily boomer artifacts:

Kyu Sakamoto "Sukiyaki" 1961 - 13 million
The Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" 1963 - 12 million
The Monkees "I'm a Believer" 1966 10 million
Procol Harum "A Whiter Shade of Pale" 1967 10 million - wtf
Roger Whittaker "The Last Farewell" 1971 11 million
Middle of the Road "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" 1971 10 million
Carl Douglas "Kung Fu Fighting" 1974 11 million
George McCrae "Rock Your Baby" 1974 11 million
Gloria Gaynor "I Will Survive" 1978 14 million
Village People "Y.M.C.A." 1978 12 million

"I Will Survive," "All I Want For Christmas Is You," and, uh, "Winds of Change" are the only 14-million-sellers per this list, and thus the near-misses for this poll. Had the singles market held out for another year or two, I could totally imagine a reissue putting Mariah over the top.

I think basically I'm trying to get inside the head of America circa 1950, when most of the baby boomers were still toddlers, men still wore hats, design work (cars, architecture, advertising, appliances) still echoed with Deco, and music for grownups was obviously the center of the biz rather than something slightly to one side or (much later) an evident niche with its own separate genre name. Not to put that time up on a pedestal or something - it's just fascinating to me.

But it's also interesting that circa 1950 you had a lot of singers like Sinatra complaining about the record business abandoning jazz-based "Great American Songbook" type material in favor of more juvenile-sounding pop junk. Data from radio station playlists strongly confirm that from around 1948 into the early '50s there was a major shift in what was aired, indicating the generational re-adjustment was already in place before rock 'n roll. I've read about this in Ben Yagoda's book The B-Side, and elsewhere.

I glanced at the rest of the list, but I missed that Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep was there. 10 MILLION?!

the ink spots, obv.

Josefa, that's super interesting. I might have to throw that Yagoda book on my list.

Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll (ignore the stupid title, which is not what it's about) - is really rich in detail about this transitional period also.

These sorts of lists are always interesting, esp since I don't know of a body that keeps track of global sales of music(?). A lot of the sources for Wikipedia's numbers don't seem very authoritative. Not saying that these are necessarily more reliable but this list contains a number of differences; for example, it doesn't include the Mungo Jerry (which I'm not sure I've heard before - and holy shit at rapeyness) or Domenico Modugno songs and does include Baccara's "Yes Sir I Can Boogie". This is totally unsourced and is completely different.

The Elijah Wald book is great btw!

holy shit at rapeyness

I wonder if I would have thought of it this way if I hadn't read this thread, though.

I can see how one line of it would be construed as rapey if that's really what you wanted it to be, but it doesn't strike me as the song's intent at all.

True that it does seem to advocate drinking and driving, though.

I voted for White Christmas bc i am a sap & Christmas aint Christmas in my house without Bing croonin that tune

It's also a really beautiful secular carol imo, but slightly elegiac too & I just find for me it holds up after a bajillion listens & that kind if longevity is an amazing achievement in song performance & writing imo

I can see how one line of it would be construed as rapey if that's really what you wanted it to be, but it doesn't strike me as the song's intent at all.

Agreed. The intent seems pretty innocent and "high school summer vacation" related to me. But ya know, it's 2015, so let's turn everything into a scandal.

Even the alliteration of placing "drink" and "drive" within the same line of lyric seems innocent in this context. Had "don't drink and drive" PSAs even been invented by 1970?

It had, yes. I remember this line being a bit naughty at the time.

What's the 'rapey' line?

A few years later they used that section of the song in a fairly hard-hitting PSA, to redress the balance.

xp about taking out a poor girl and doing as we please when the line before it was about having to take a rich girl out to dinner.

Both lines sound consensual.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

''Volare'' hasn't really left my head since the other morning, kinda wishing I could change my vote.

If it had been the Dean Martin version, I'd have been sorely tempted to vote for it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Damn, missed it. Would've gone for White Christmas or Volare. Rock Around the Clock sounds great remembering it my head, but always disappoints when I play it -- tame, medical piece that doesn't live up to other rock'n'roll of the era.

Wow, surprised that every song got votes!

I'm surprised to see 'In The Summertime' quite high up there, to be honest with you, I've always found that song incredibly irritating.

Well I like it, I like their next number one hit more but hey..