The bestselling singles of all-time – reranked by streaming stats

How do Elvis, Bing Crosby and Mariah fare if you take Spotify’s data into consideration? We’ve rewritten the record books to take account of modern listening habits

The music industry, traditionally, has been built on measurements. It used to measure physical sales – the charts – but that has evolved into a new series of metrics. As well as physical sales, you might judge an artist’s popularity by their streaming numbers, their social media stats, their YouTube followers or live ticket sales.

What’s certain is that what defined an artist as popular, say, 40 years ago, is no longer an accurate measurement. What’s equally true is that the old record-books no longer hold the sway they once did, because of the changes to measurements and also the changes to music consumption and listening habits. The list of the biggest-selling records of all time is a product of a bygone age, and a new way of calibrating those figures is needed.