Why you’ve never heard the best-selling single of all-time
If you were forced to guess the best-selling single of all time, one would likely presume it’s a track by a historic act such as The Beatles or a modern popstar like Ed Sheeran. However, the individual holding the title is far from a household name, and the story behind them achieving the feat is remarkable.
Regarding physical copies, Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ holds the record for most sold after shifting 50 million. However, one song has sold over 54 copies digitally, and it’s a protest effort in a bid to rally against Chinese censorship that you’ve almost certainly never heard of despite its record-breaking accolade.
The story begins in January 2020, following the release of The Untamed in 2019, which starred Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo. Fan fiction began to spread on the Chinese social media site Weibo, which focused on a same-sex love affair between the two lead actors and caused controversy.
In February, the Chinese regime intervened and banned the original fan-fiction site, Archive of Our Own, from being accessed in mainland China which only added fuel to the fire. Zhan’s fans were furious with the ban, which led to him facing a severe backlash as he was deemed responsible for their behaviour.
Many brands, such as Cartier and Estée Lauder, were boycotted because of their affiliation with Zhan. During the middle of this fiasco, he released his new single, ‘Spotlight’, which his fans rallied behind to fight against censorship.
Astonishingly, within the first 24 hours of its release, the track had sold over 24 million copies. For context, that’s twice as many sales as The Beatles’ highest-selling single, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’. After two days on sale, it had broken the Guinness World Record for the fastest-selling digital track in Chinese history.
It’s understood Zhan’s devoted fanbase bought multiple copies of the track, which bloated the figures, and placed ‘Spotlight’ in the history books. Remarkably, his agency stepped in on Weibo to try to stop the mass-purchasing campaign and asked fans to prioritise other areas of their life.
Although ‘Spotlight’ has sold 54 million copies, rabid fan support helped it become the best-selling single of all time, and it had nothing to do with industry backing or radio support. However, it’s also a dystopian tale, and it’s somewhat frightening how his supporters see Zhan as a messianic figure which led to him releasing a statement to tell them to stop buying his single.
The plotline reads like a script for a Black Mirror episode, and perhaps, the most frightening part of the story is how it didn’t become international news despite Zhan being the owner of the best-selling single of all time.
