Monday December 6, 2021 “Shape of You” Ed Sheeran (#10)
Lists are often arrived at somewhat mysteriously and usually subjectively but in case you missed it Billboard recently released their updated Greatest Hits of All Time. As you know Billboard has been the de facto list maker for music hits forever, actually only since 1894, not sure how that might have worked back at the beginning, but there you go.
This week we will be looking at six of the current top ten greatest hits of all time, and I am quite certain you will be surprised at what they are. The listing is based on weeks at number one, weeks on the charts and record sales, and as you will see it is not limited to any particular year. So let's begin with number 10, “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran.
I’m not really an Ed Sheeran fan and that’s my fault not his, but I saw him do a live Grammy performance of this song and he came out solo and laid down each of the tracks, recorded them separately and looped everything together while he played rhythm guitar and sang.
It was pretty impressive and it sounded just like the tune he recorded in the studio, that's the video included today.
"Shape of You" peaked at number-one on the singles charts of 34 countries, including the US Billboard Hot 100, as well as the UK, Australian and Canadian singles charts. It stayed at number one for a record-tying 16 consecutive weeks on the Canadian Hot 100, as well as 14 non-consecutive weeks on the UK Singles Chart, and 12 non-consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. On December 10, 2018, the song became the first song to hit 2 billion streams on Spotify and continues to be one of the most streamed songs on the service.
“Shape of You” was the best performing song of 2017 on the Billboard charts and sold more than 40 million records, and still counting. So you get the idea of the credentials for this Greatest Hits of All Time list, and this is only number 10.
Stay safe and well...and I do think you will find some surprises on this list as we go along.
Guitar chords: C#m F#m A B