[Photo courtesy of Sam Durrant - http://samdurrantphotography.wordpress.com]
The hit, which peaked at number 6 in the UK charts when it was released in July 2006, has continued to receive extensive use on UK radio, television, online broadcasts and in public since its release.
Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol thinks he knows the secret to ‘Chasing Cars’ success when he said in an interview earlier in the year, “I think that the song has worked because it has an emotion that people can relate to.”
Songs released in 2006 take the second and third spots with Take That’s ‘Shine’ at two and ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’’ by Scissors Sisters at three. Take That are the only act to have two songs in the top ten with ‘Rule The World’ at number 6 though Scissor Sisters have ‘Filthy/Gorgeous’ at number 30. A number of other artists have two entries and these include The Feeling, Kaiser Chiefs, Pink and Stereophonics.
Whilst the majority of the songs were released in the noughties, there is proof that timeless songs are indeed timeless with no fewer than eleven tracks released from previous decades featuring in the Top 50 chart. The highest entry comes from Thin Lizzy (1976) with ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ which is number 12 and the oldest is Aretha Franklin’s ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ released in 1968 at number 50. 2007 is the ‘latest’ year for entries with Sugababes (‘About You Now’), Duffy (‘Mercy’) and Mark Ronson (‘Valerie’) appearing in the chart.
PPL compiled the top 50 tracks of the decade based on the number of plays on UK radio, television, online and in public. It was put together by the Music Reporting Department who processed over twenty billion seconds of data to compile the chart.
Our Head of Music Reporting, Tim Silver commented, “The noughties has been a decade for great new music and which has been listened to by ever growing numbers of people. Just as they love listening to new music, there will also always be a place for golden oldies, evident in our top 50. As we move into the next decade it will be interesting to see how music trends change as well as consumption patterns, and we will accurately capture the data we receive from all our licensees to see how media and usage develops.”
The Top 50 most played and used song of the last decade is as follows: