To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Official Singles Chart, the Official Charts Company revealed The Official Top 10 Biggest Selling Male Singles Artists Of All Time! Ding! Ding! One month to go! Yes, in just a little over four weeks from now we will be grabbing our balloons and party poppers to celebrate 60 glittering years of the Official Singles Chart; the institution that has kept pop fans like you and me salivating with anticipation on a weekly basis since we were knee-high to a grasshopper.In the meantime, how’s about we all get our inner chart geek limbered up for the big occasion with The Official Top 10 Biggest Selling Male Singles Artists Of All Time.
Elvis Presley tops the chart with combined sales of over 21.7 million singles. And despite his tragic death in 1977, Elvis’ legacy lives on strongly in the UK. Over the last decade, The King Of Rock And Roll has sold over 5.7 million albums and 2.2 million singles (this includes 1.3 million track downloads). In the last 18 months alone he has sold an incredible 317,000 albums and 333,000 track downloads.
Elvis scored his first UK hit way back in 1956 with Heartbreak Hotel, which peaked at Number 2. And it was a year later that he eventually landed his first UK Number 1 with All Shook Up. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s not forget that Elvis still holds the record for the most Number 1 singles, 21 in total. His biggest selling single was 1960’s It’s Now Or Never, which also hit the top spot in 2005.
At Number 2 in the countdown, with a combined total of 21.5 million singles, it's Cliff! Forget those brilliantly naff Cliff calendars you see in the shops at Christmas time (you know the ones, featuring ‘Cliff on a tennis court’ or ‘Cliff in Hawaiian shirt’), our Cliff is actually a bit of a legend around these parts.
Making his chart debut in 1958 with Move It, which peaked at Number 2, Cliff is the most successful British male solo artist of all time, achieving the rare feat of having a Number 1 single in five different decades. He is one of only a few artists who have taken the same song to the top of the Official Singles Chart in completely separate chart runs; Living Doll hit Number 1 upon its released in 1959, and then again nearly 30 years later in 1986 with the cast of The Young Ones TV show. Ironically, Cliff's biggest selling single of all time is his 1962 smash, The Young Ones.
The King Of Pop, Michael Jackson, is in third place with a combined sales total of 15.5 million singles. And what was his biggest single? Earth Song. Yes, Earth Song! (Which you may remember was also the Official Christmas Number 1 of 1995, the last one before the Spice Girls hogged the festive top spot for three consecutive years!)This is probably down to the fact that Michael has two of the Top 10 biggest selling albums of all time – 1982’s Thriller and 1987’s Bad – so the UK public were clearly moonwalking down to HMV, Woolworth’s and Our Price in force in the ‘80s to pick up the whole album, rather than what critics and fans consider to be his classic singles... Still, Earth Song?
Elton John (Number 4) and David Bowie (Number 5) complete the Top 5 with combined singles sales totals of 15 million and 10.7 million, respectively.
Wild Tiger At The Hilton
Released today by the MxF importlabel is the fourth volume in the “Wild Tiger at the Hilton'' featuring the complete and previously unreleased recording of the Las Vegas January 28, 1974 Dinner Show. The Cd has a running-time of 60 minutes.
From the press-release:
After almost five months of rest, Elvis back to the Hilton in better shape and stronger respect the previous season. The early season show here presented is without doubt better as quality respect the one included in the volume 3. Elvis appears concentrate and his performance is superb , He deliveries a long show, practically 60 minutes….respect the classic 45.00 min. of the rest of the Season. Elvis was very energetic on stage, full of enthusiasm he sang with power and sensitivity, delivering a solid and heartfelt repertoire like the “new” songs “Spanish Eyes, Help me and Let Me Be There recent hit from Olivia Newton-John” and the classic “Trying to Get To You” sang terrifically. At the same time he introduce the oldie “My Baby Left me” without forget the classic early 70’ songs like You’ve Lost Than Loving Feeling, Polk Salad Annie and Sweet Caroline. As you can see from the track list the number of the classic oldies in the show are significant reduced. This season will be the first with the new agreement , Elvis signed two years of contract performed twice at year, but only two weeks at the time rather than the previous four.
Best song: Let Me Be There
The Love from Elvis for the song cannot be denied, He able to make the own song.. delivering an original version with a full reprise.
The show is unreleased and complete, Here we present the show directly from a first generation copy of a privately-recorded 60-minute cassette. The sound was painstakingly restored for your listening pleasure. The sound quality here is incredible good, considering it was taped from the audience. Elvis’ voice is loud and clear, the band sounds very powerful in very good balanced mix with some great James Burton’ guitar solos, the audience is never too intrusive giving instead the real feeling of the concert.
Like its predecessors, this new release will be presented in a beautiful four panel digipack with a collection of photos taken during the Season.
The recording excellent quality and the superb show give to Wild Tiger At The Hilton vol.4 the status of unique. Don’t miss it!
Tracklisting: As recorded live at Las Vegas Hilton, January 28, 1974 DS
01. Intro
02. CC Rider
03. I Got a Woman
04. Love Me
05. My Baby Left Me
06. You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling
07. Sweet Caroline
08. Love Me Tender
09. Trying To Get To You
10. Rock Medley
11. Fever
12. Polk Salad Annie
13. Killing Me Softly (by Voice)
14. Spanish Eyes
15. Why Me Lord ? (by Stamps)
16. Suspicious Minds
17. Band Introduction
18. I Can’t Stop Loving You
19. Help Me
20. An American Trilogy
21. Let Me Be There (+ reprise)
22. Can’t Help Falling In Love
23. Closing Vamp
(Source: Official Chart Company / e-mail)