Most played Smiths and Morrissey songs on UK Radio (recent month)

This list is from the most recent month's worth of airplay figures:

1. This Charming Man (41 plays) Marr
2. First of the Gang (39) Whyte
3. How soon is now (31) Marr
4. Suedehead (29) Street
5. Panic (23) Marr
6. Irish Blood (17) Whyte
7. What difference (16) Marr
8. Bigmouth strikes again (14) Marr
9. There is a light (13) Marr
10. Heaven knows (12) Marr
11. Every day is like Sunday (12) Street
12. The last of the famous (10) Street
13. The more you ignore me (10) Boorer
14. Ask (8) Marr
15. Boy with thorn (7) Marr

It's interesting to see these lists as they show you which songs the general radio-listening public would recognise.
If Morrissey was to perform at a festival, these are probably the songs that would go down the best, or at least that most people would be able to sing along to.
Not surprisingly, the Marr contributions dominate although, less predictably, Alain's First of the Gang nearly takes the top spot.
The list shows Street in a pretty good light. He only wrote 5 singles for Morrissey, and 3 are in the top 15. That's probably a better strike rate than Marr.

It doesn't generally reflect well on Morrissey's post-Smiths repertoire. Nearly 4 times as many songs but it's still the Marr compositions that dominate.
I would argue this is partly due to consistently poor choice of single. Had he released his most melodic and catchiest songs over the years (e.g. Staircase, Now My Heart, Nobody Loves Us, When last I spoke to Carol, etc) I reckon the airplay list would be quite different.


Do it by album sales , say the first five years of release, and it comes out differently still. Add downloads or even do downloads and you get something different again perhaps by generation. Statistics are fun
 
This list is from the most recent month's worth of airplay figures:

1. This Charming Man (41 plays) Marr
2. First of the Gang (39) Whyte
3. How soon is now (31) Marr
4. Suedehead (29) Street
5. Panic (23) Marr
6. Irish Blood (17) Whyte
7. What difference (16) Marr
8. Bigmouth strikes again (14) Marr
9. There is a light (13) Marr
10. Heaven knows (12) Marr
11. Every day is like Sunday (12) Street
12. The last of the famous (10) Street
13. The more you ignore me (10) Boorer
14. Ask (8) Marr
15. Boy with thorn (7) Marr

It's interesting to see these lists as they show you which songs the general radio-listening public would recognise.
If Morrissey was to perform at a festival, these are probably the songs that would go down the best, or at least that most people would be able to sing along to.
Not surprisingly, the Marr contributions dominate although, less predictably, Alain's First of the Gang nearly takes the top spot.
The list shows Street in a pretty good light. He only wrote 5 singles for Morrissey, and 3 are in the top 15. That's probably a better strike rate than Marr.

It doesn't generally reflect well on Morrissey's post-Smiths repertoire. Nearly 4 times as many songs but it's still the Marr compositions that dominate.
I would argue this is partly due to consistently poor choice of single. Had he released his most melodic and catchiest songs over the years (e.g. Staircase, Now My Heart, Nobody Loves Us, When last I spoke to Carol, etc) I reckon the airplay list would be quite different.
 
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First wave xm plays Morrissey and Smiths about 15 times a day. They don't usually play the obscure songs like Pretty Girls Make Graves, there should be a Smiths channel. Miss you Morrissey, please tour soon.
 
Boomers listening to the radio. How many people play a solo song on YouTube or soundcloud etc
 
Interesting chart, thanks Maurice!
Nice to see Moz having those royalties (the good kind!) add up. :guitar:
 
Luckily for Morrissey, as fantastic as UK radio may be, there's a wide world outside it. Outside radio and outside UK.
 
I'm guessing Jesse Tobias isn't earning much royalty on radio airplay then?
 
Who knew? Fascinating stuff. I bet Morrissey knows about this now and will be requesting further monthly radioplay stats from hereon in.
 
BBC6 Music play shedloads of Moz/Smiths stuff at all times of the day.
 
What's a CD, grandpa?

It is interesting to see the format ending. Walmarts and target like stores used to sell a bunch to the point where artists would compromise just to exist there and now the target near my home barely has one shelf dedicated to them and most are either country stars, classic comps like the Beatles or Taylor swift like pop. They'll probably be gone soon or collected like vinyl by a group of people who only play half. I'm of no opinion on the good and bad of this but economics seems to say they be gone before long and it's super interesting to see the trends play out. Recently read this book the new America: boomers vs millennials the looming showdown I'm pretty interested in the giant generation gap and how it will play out. As a Cusper or millennial myself born in a place even further back in time who very much embraces the millennial mindset lifestyle per se it's been interesting to watch
 
A while ago I made a list of the best selling Morrissey and Smiths albums, based on available UK and US sales data. There isn't full data available, so this is just a guide, not guaranteed 100% accurate, and sales figures are very much approximate. Here is the top 20:

1) Louder Than Bombs (1.11 million)
2) The Queen Is Dead (1.08 million)
3) Strangeways Here We Come (931 k)
4) Viva Hate (800 k)
5) Singles (796 k)
6) Best 1 (596 k)
7) You Are The Quarry (583 k)
8) Bona Drag (580 k)
9) Hatful of Hollow (534 k)
10) Meat Is Murder (495 k)
11) Vauxhall And I (493 k)
12) Your Arsenal (416 k)
13) Kill Uncle (381 k)
14) Best 2 (358 k)
15) The Smiths (330 k)
16) The Very Best Of The Smiths (300 k)
17) The Sound Of The Smiths (300 k)
18) Suedehead (280 k)
19) Ringleader Of The Tormentors (234 k)
20) Rank (200 k)

The total sales of Morrissey and Smiths albums in the UK and the US looks like it might be about 12 million.
 
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A while ago I made a list of the best selling Morrissey and Smiths albums, based on available UK and US sales data. There isn't full data available, so this is just a guide, not guaranteed 100% accurate, and sales figures are very much approximate. Here is the top 20:

1) Louder Than Bombs (1.11 million)
2) The Queen Is Dead (1.08 million)
3) Strangeways Here We Come (931 k)
4) Viva Hate (800 k)
5) Singles (796 k)
6) Best 1 (596 k)
7) You Are The Quarry (583 k)
8) Bona Drag (580 k)
9) Hatful of Hollow (534 k)
10) Meat Is Murder (495 k)
11) Vauxhall And I (493 k)
12) Your Arsenal (416 k)
13) Kill Uncle (381 k)
14) Best 2 (358 k)
15) The Smiths (330 k)
16) The Very Best Of The Smiths (300 k)
17) The Sound Of The Smiths (300 k)
18) Suedehead (280 k)
19) Ringleader Of The Tormentors (234 k)
20) Rank (200 k)

The total sales of Morrissey and Smiths albums in the UK and the US looks like it might be about 12 million.

Be neat to see the sales for each over time as viva hate has been on sale for much longer than say ringleader which is not my fav album and then to see it correlated to cd sales or album sales in general over the same period of time. Just curious
 
Tour, tour, tour. Tour this summer? I am taking the summer off and a few Morrissey's shows in the US would be great. I imagine he is tired of singing alone now and surely he misses us?
 
I prefer the way some bands like The Cure credit the songwriting to the band. Morrissey has a huge influence on the melody of the songs. He has been handed some Royal reeking rank songs at times and manages somehow to turn the steaming turds into gold nuggets. Take the vocal off a lot of Moz songs and you're left with very little.
 

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