What is the best selling song of all time?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a name most of us are aware of from an early age. This makes his lasting legacy all the more fascinating when you realise that outside of a few thousand wealthy folks from Vienna, nobody has actually ever heard him play. He lived before recording techniques were invented and his concerts were frequented by the same repeating coterie of the elite who could afford to see the pompadour prodigy perform his now classical music.
It wasn’t until 1860 that Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville created the first audio-playback of music. This was later honed into the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877. But it wouldn’t be until the early 1900s that any form of recorded music became commonplace with the advent of vinyl. The birth of pop culture then quickly turned this new technology into an artistic and commercial explosion with youngsters hungering for the new Elvis Presley track to blare in their bedroom.
However, as history will tell you, pop culture is an unfurling story of trends. One thing that proves perennial is Christmas. Thus, it is perhaps not surprise that the track that has sold the most physical copies is Bing Crosby’s festive classic ‘White Christmas’. It is believed that this song has shipped over 50 million copies since it was released in 1942.
However, while you might have heard Crosby’s crooning endlessly, you may well have never heard of the best-selling single of all time. That title is taken by the Chinese artist Xiao Zhan whose single ‘Spotlight’ was released in 2020 and almost instantly eclipsed everything that went before it with 25 million physical copies or downloads being fetched in the first two weeks of its launch. That figure now stands at over 54 million. And remarkably, the song has only ever charted once outside of China; weirdly in Hungary where it peaked at a peculiar 26.
Nevertheless, it leads the way as the best-selling song in history, and it has only been out a little over three years. This rampant popularity is proof that music has never been more profitable. For one thing, the market is simply bigger. When The Beatles released their debut single, Earth had 3.1 billion residence. Now, the figure has boomed to the brink of 8 billion, and perhaps beyond if some very recent reports are verified soon. When this is coupled with the ease of which music can be consumed in the streaming age – where now listening to more music than ever (the international average is estimated at 20.1 hours a week) – you see an exponential rise in sales.
This is why the next competitors to spotlight are also relatively modern with ‘Shape of You’ by Ed Sheeran and Luis Fonsi’s ‘Despacito’ also in the top five best-selling singles of all time list. You can see the full records below.
The best selling singles of all time:
- Xiao Zhan – ‘Spotlight’
- Bing Crosby – ‘White Christmas’
- Ed Sheeran – ‘Shape of You’
- Luis Fonsi (feat. Daddy Yankee) – ‘Despacito’
- Elton John – ‘Something About the Way You Look Tonight’ / ‘Candle in the Wind (1997)’
What was the first song to sell one million copies?
According to the Guinness World Records, the first song to sell a million copies arrived in 1902 thanks to the release of ‘Vesti la giubba’ from Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, which was sung by the Italian opera star Enrico Caruso, who has since gone down as the world’s greatest lyrical tenor in history. The operatic movement was recorded in 1902 and released that same year by GT Records. Caruso was 29 at the time of recording.
While opera might not immediately seem like the most commercially inclined genre, at that point in time its popularity was still in its pomp and Caruso’s mix of talent and the soap opera stories surrounding his billowing wealth were gathering headlines. He had also made the trip over to the US and was making ways as a Broadway star which made him marketable on both sides of the Atlantic.
What was the first song to go diamond?
Evidence for the exponential commercial potential of music comes from the fact that 116 of the 117 certified diamond songs have only achieved that status since 2013. The only track that came before Justin Bieber’s gear-changing ‘Baby’ was Elton John’s proto-viral hit ‘Something About the Way You Look Tonight / Candle in the Wind’.
Strangely, even Elton’s effort is indicative of the trend that lay ahead. The song was catapulted into the history books owing to the death of Princess Diana; now, a great number of hits are tied to something beyond the music thanks to Elton paving the way with the first song to surpass the 10 million copies mark.
The highest selling song of each decade:
- 1940s: ‘White Christmas’ – Bing Crosby
- 1950s: ‘Rock Around the Clock’ – Bill Haley and the Comets
- 1960s: ‘She Loves You’ – The Beatles
- 1970s: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – Queen
- 1980s: ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ – Band Aid
- 1990s: ‘Something About the Way You Look Tonight’/’Candle In the Wind 1997’ – Elton John
- 2000s: ‘Anything Is Possible’/’Evergreen’ – Will Young
- 2010s: ‘Shape of You’ – Ed Sheeran
- 2020s: ‘Spotlight’ – Xiao Zhan
