“Three Lions” is posed for another return to the charts after England’s win over Germany.
But chart rules penalising the song means fans will have to play it around the clock to get the football anthem back to number one.
The terrace favourite, first released by the Lightning Seeds, Frank Skinner and David Baddiel in 1996, has topped the charts on a record four separate occasions, most recently during England’s 2018 World Cup run.
Tuesday night’s victory boosted streaming plays for the song, which once again resonated around Wembley Stadium after the final whistle.
A spokesman for Spotify said that plays of the track soared by 1,200 per cent over the last seven days globally, compared to the previous week.
The hymn to England’s near-misses is set to re-enter the Top 40 on Friday.
But its sales figures are subject to Official Charts Company rules designed to prevent old songs clogging up the weekly rundown.
As the song is more than three years old, “Three Lions” requires 1,200 audio/video streams to equal one sales unit.
Current number one “Good 4 U” by Olivia Rodrigo requires just 600 plays.
The rules didn’t prevent “Three Lions” topping the charts in 2018 as England surged to the semi-finals.
But the Official Charts Company (OCC) said the song had to “work harder” to overcome the hanicap, by racking up more streams than its chart rivals.
A win against Ukraine in Saturday night’s quarter-final could make “Three Lions”’ chart progress unstoppable once again.
To date, the original song has notched up 1.2 million chart sales – including 938,000 pure sales and 39 million streams.
Sony Music has released a limited edition vinyl single to mark the track’s 25th anniversary.
The dominance of Spotify playlists over listening habits means older hits like Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” continue to enjoy substantial streaming numbers which qualify for the chart.
The OCC introduced the Accelerated Chart Ratio weighting to allow more “new” songs into the charts at the expense of lingering hits, even if they have fewer plays.
Baddiel said “Three Lions” was originally predicated on “the fact that England mainly lose”, and to Germany in particular.
An updated version may be needed if England can extend their winning run by three more games.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3w265Pn
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