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David Foster produced the dramatic ballad, which was featured in Houston's movie debut, The Bodyguard. Houston's turbo-charged remake of Dolly Parton 's gentle country ballad topped the Hot 100 for 14 weeks and won a Grammy for Record of the Year. From 2005 on, they are for digital songs.ġ992: Whitney Houston, "I Will Always Love You," 3,086,000. From 1992 through 2004, the numbers are for physical singles. Here's a year-by-year look at the #1 best-selling songs of each of the past 20 years. Sales of the year's top digital song increased each year for six straight years, reaching a peak (for now at least) in 2009 when the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" sold 4,762,000 copies during the year. By 2005, the year's top-selling digital song ( Weezer's "Beverly Hills") outsold the year's top-selling physical single ( Carrie Underwood 's "Inside Your Heaven"). Sales were slow at first, but digital would eventually take the place of physical singles. Three of them were the "coronation songs" by American Idol finalists. The best-sellers in those years weren't by any means the year's biggest radio hits. For five straight years starting in 2001, no physical singles sold 1 million copies during the year. In 2000, there were just two: Santana's "Maria Maria" (featuring The Product G&B) and Madonna 's "Music."Īnd then there were none. There were 21 million-sellers in 1998 and eight in 1999. The biggest was Elton John's "Candle In The Wind 1997," a tribute to Princess Diana, which sold more than 8 million copies in the U.S.īut soon after, sales of physical singles started to plummet. As late as 1997, 28 singles each sold 1 million or more physical copies during the year. When Nielsen SoundScan came along, CD singles and cassette singles were still popular. This first one tracks the best-selling songs of each of the past 20 years. To mark the anniversary, I will post a few Chart Watch Extras this month. This brought an unprecedented degree of precision and transparency to the weekly charts. For the first time, the music industry (and pop fans) could see actual sales numbers rather than just relative chart rankings. The change began with The Billboard 200 and expanded later in the year to include the Hot 100. This year marks 20 years since Billboard began using Nielsen SoundScan data to power its charts. Perry had the best-seller of 2010 with "California Gurls" (featuring Snoop Dogg). Perry's current hit, "E.T." (featuring Kanye West), this week pulls ahead of Cee Lo Green 's "F**k You (Forget You)" to become the best-selling song so far in 2011. It's still early, but Katy Perry may be on track to become the first artist in Nielsen SoundScan history to have the year's best-selling song two years running. Posted Fri 2:56pm PDT by Paul Grein in Chart Watch