Richard also has the distinction of being the only artist to have achieved UK number-one singles in five consecutive decades, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. " Living Doll" first topped the charts in 1959, then again 26 years later in a re-recording for the Comic Relief charity with the cast of The Young Ones (TV series). Richard has achieved 14 number one singles on the UK Singles Chart, including the unique distinction of having two versions of the same song hitting number-one on the singles chart. Although from the mid-1990s Richard has suffered a lack of radio air-play, he still has continued to have top 10 and top 5 hit albums, even still managing to have top 5 singles throughout the first decade of the 2000s, up until song downloads began to be included in the UK Singles Chart. From the late 1970s through the 1980s and into the 1990s Richard not only continued to have many top 10 hit singles, he had a string of hit studio, compilation and live albums, giving him the best album sales of his career. In 1979, Richard's single " We Don't Talk Anymore" became the highest selling record of his career achieving worldwide sales over 4 million. From this time, the singles were generally lifted from the albums (although not exclusively). It produced the lead single " Miss You Nights", released in late 1975 and " Devil Woman", which became his first US top 10 hit and biggest US hit. It was not until 1975 that Richard changed the focus of his recording career from singles to albums, beginning with the recording of the I'm Nearly Famous album. įor the first half of the 1970s, Richard struggled to achieve big hits, apart from his Eurovision Song Contest entry " Power to All Our Friends". In 1968, the track " Congratulations" was chosen to be his first Eurovision Song Contest entry – although it came second in the contest, it became his biggest hit of the last half of the sixties, reaching number one in the UK and a number of European countries. From 1964, despite the emerging dominance of the Beatles and beat music, Richard continued achieving top 10 hits throughout the 1960s although the frequency of top 5 hits dropped off. His biggest hit of this period was " The Young Ones", which debuted at number one on the UK charts, spent a total of 6 weeks at number one and went on to achieve the rare feat in the UK alone, of sales of over a million – it was only the sixth million seller in the UK and remains his highest selling single in the UK. Richard accumulated a total of 28 weeks at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart in this period.
From then, through to December 1963, Richard achieved 19 consecutive top 4 singles, including 7 number ones and a further 6 peaking at number 2. His fifth single, " Living Doll" reached number 1 in August 1959, spent 6 weeks at the summit while becoming the UK's highest selling single of 1959. It reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart and spent 17 weeks on the chart. Richard's debut single " Move It" written by his original guitarist Ian Samwell and released in August 1958, was the first truly home-grown British rock and roll hit.
In the rock and roll era in which Richard's career began, singles were the dominant sales medium, generally far ahead of album sales. Richard's sales of singles within the UK itself make him the highest selling British male solo artist of singles of all time.
Richard, together with his backing band The Shadows, were particularly dominant in the UK from 1958 to 1963 during the pre- Beatles era. It is claimed Cliff Richard's worldwide sales are 260 million, which makes him the second highest selling British male solo artist worldwide of all time, after Sir Elton John. There have been many additional compilation albums and singles released outside the UK that are too numerous to include however, some of the more successful or notable singles released outside the UK have been included in the Singles section.
These figures are based on Richard's releases in his native UK plus a small number of new music releases for specific markets such as France, West Germany, Japan, and the United States. It also includes numerous budget/mid-price compilation albums, repackaged albums, and one remix album. His discography consists of 47 studio albums (45 English, 2 German), seven soundtrack albums, 11 live albums, three stage show cast albums, 17 mainstream compilation albums, seven box sets, eight gospel compilation albums, 46 EPs, and 146 singles (in the UK, including singles only available via digital download).
Sir Cliff Richard is a British singer and actor who made his professional debut in August 1958. Richard performing at the State Theatre in Sydney, Australia in 2013