It’s been a record breaking week this year with all the headlines going to Band Aid whose “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has introduced the world to the concept of the charity record. Stemming from a report on the BBC by Michael Buerk about the current famine in Ethiopia back in October, it spurred Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to combine their talents and enlist the help of the biggest pop stars of 1984 onto one track which was recorded given to radio and made available in the shops all in just a week. Special note should be made of Paula Yates (Geldof’s wife) who was the connection between Geldof and Ure after Ultravox guested on “The Tube” shortly after the news feature. Such was the demand for the track that the media has hyped up the release with Radio 1 playing it on the hour and a record 750,000 copies being shipped to store in preparation for the Christmas rush. The track is retailing at £1.35 plus VAT (basically cost only) and the paying of VAT has been a bone of contention between Geldof and the Government with neither side backing down at present, Geldof also managed to harrang BBC1 into showing the video after TOTP in its entirety, again a first! The result of this media frenzy and festive goodwill? An amazing tally of 639,000 copies have been bought, by far the highest weekly tally of the decade and puts Band Aid as the 7th biggest seller of the year after 6 days on sale. Astounding.
That might make you feel slightly bad for Wham! Who were one of the favourites for the Christmas No 1 single before the announcement of Band Aid, their double A-Side “Last Christmas/ Everything She Wants” couldn’t compete with Band Aid though of course it isn’t all bad news for Michael who appears on that track too, kind of holding himself off the top spot. Wham! Have announced that proceeds from this single will similarly go to the Band Aid cause and that the current AA side “Everything She Wants” will be issued with a promo and remixes once Christmas is done to help generate further sales (and maybe a shot at the No 1 slot after all?) It also sold better than any Wham! Single in its first week and in any other week of the year the 348,000 copies it sold would have earned it the No 1 spot, that sales tally meaning that the top 2 alone sold almost a million copies between them!
Naturally Frankie Goes To Hollywood get ousted 1-3 in wake of Band Aid and Wham! But even they share in the bonaza as their sales increase 32% week on week to 109,000 copies which is the normal bounce one would expect a new chart topper to get. Frankie, along with David Bowie, are the two notable absences from the Band Aid track as they were unavailable for the recording though both send messages on the b-side of the track and Bowie presents the promo. After three weeks “The Power Of Love” has sold 252,000 copies- not bad but no million seller- have the group reached saturation point?
Also showing marked improvements this week are Paul McCartney 9-4 (87,000) and Madonna 8-5 (76,000), McCartney now has four top 5 singles in a row, something he’s not done since his Beatles days, but for Madonna it’s her first top 5 single.
The lower half of the top 10 is nowhere near as exciting as it consists of 5 fallers, Jim Diamond drops 2-6 (48,000), Shakin Stevens dips 5-7 (46,000), Nik Kershaw slips 3-8 (36,000), Eurythmics trip 4-9 (35,000) and Alvin Stardust topples 7-10 (32,000)
https://forum.popjustice.com/thread...-by-week-1984-1985.38232/page-32#post-3625617