Top singles of all time

“White Christmas” was the world’s bestselling single for more than 50 years until it was overtaken by Elton John’s tribute to Princess Diana in 1997. In 2004 British rock band Arctic Monkeys released their songs only on the internet. In 2004 download charts were published in the UK. Westlife had the first No.1 downloaded single with “Flying Without Wings”. By January 2005, digital downloads outsold physical singles in the UK for the first time. The official singles chart now included both downloads and sales of singles. In 2006 over 525 million individual tracks and 32.6 million full albums were downloaded in the USA. In 2006, “keep Tryin” by Utada Hikaru (Japan) set a new record for 2.5 million downloads. From 2003 to January 2008, iTunes had sold 4 billion downloads, over 70% of all online music sales.