First song to reach the UK Top 40 on streams alone

On the Official Singles Chart dated 4 October 2014, "All About that Bass" by Meghan Trainor (USA) climbed into the Top 40 on the strength of 1.17 million audio streams, with 100 streams equal to one download. From July 2014, audio streaming was factored into UK singles chart rankings, allowing "Bass" to enter the Top 40 before it went to retail. "All About that Bass" entered the Top 40 at No.33 (up from No.53) in its fourth week in the UK Top 75. It climbed to No.1 the following week (11 October 2014), after it was made available to buy on download sites such as Amazon and iTunes.

The rise in popularity of audio streaming (from 100 million weekly streams in January 2013 to 200 million weekly streams in January 2014 and 260 million weekly streams by June 2014) prompted the inclusion of streaming data in the Official Singles Chart from 12 July 2014, although the Official Charts Company had already launched a stand-alone streaming chart back in May 2012.

According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), 7.4 billion tracks were streamed on audio services in the UK in 2013, doubling the 2012 tally. Streaming now represents more than 10% of UK trade income from recorded music.

Billboard magazine described the inclusion of streaming data for the Official Singles Chart as "one of the biggest shake-ups in its 62-year history", a history that has witnessed the transition from 12" to 7" singles, vinyl to cassette singles, cassettes to CD singles and CDs to downloads.

The UK's Official Singles Chart followed the lead of the US Billboard Hot 100, which began incorporating streaming data in August 2007. In February 2013, the Hot 100 went one step further by including US views of songs on YouTube in its rankings, and this is perhaps the next logical step for the UK singles chart.

Daft Punk's 2013 single "Get Lucky" (featuring Pharrell Williams) was the first track to be streamed one million times a week, and in June 2014 Bastille's "Pompeii" was revealed as the UK's most streamed track with 26 million audio streams.

Unusually, in the same week that "Bass" debuted in the Top 40, a downloadable tribute track by Power Music Workout also entered the Top 40, at No.13.

As of 8 November 2014, "All About that Bass" had spent four weeks at No.1 in the UK and eight weeks at the top of the US Hot 100, as well as topping a host of other national charts around the world.

In the USA, Trainor led an all-female Top 5 on the Hot 100 for the first seven of her eight (as of 8 November 2014) chart-topping weeks - a record Top 5 run for female artists on the Hot 100.

Meghan Trainor was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on 22 December 1993.