Amy Winehouse: 1 year on, the Lioness still roars in the charts

One year on from the tragic death of Amy Winehouse, the Lioness remains one of the most popular British singers of modern times – with fans buying more than 1.7m copies of her recordings in the year since her untimely passing.

To mark 12 months since Amy’s shock passing last July, the OfficialCharts.com is celebrating one of the true shining stars of this century – examining the chart legacy she left behind, and revealing Amy’s biggest-selling singles of all time.

In a year which has also seen the passing of Whitney Houston and Donna Summer, two of the world’s most iconic and successful female artists, the chart impact of such tragic events is hard to ignore, as fans pay tribute to late stars by revisiting their music. Particularly in the case of Amy, whose extraordinary impact was accentuated by her relatively brief career.

In the past year, Amy’s British fans have picked up 1.2 million copies of her three albums, as well as 500,000 of her singles, leaving no doubt as to the UK’s lasting love and appreciation of the singer’s musical talent.

Official Charts Company managing director Martin Talbot said: "Many of us will remember where we were when we heard the terrible news about Amy a year ago. And the fact that music fans have, since then, bought her music in such large numbers demonstrates just how highly she was regarded by the great British public.“

Winehouse’s only two studio albums, 2003’s Frank and 2006’s Back To Black both saw a noticeable jump following her death: her debut, Frank, peaked at Number 3 in August 2011, but it was second album Back To Black that rocketed back to the top of the Official Albums Chart on 31 July 2011, having previously held Number 1 for three non-consecutive weeks in January/February 2007. It didn’t stop there either, in the month following Amy’s passing, Back To Black surpassed James Blunt’s 2005 smash hit Back To Bedlam to become the biggest selling album of the 21st Century (although this title has since been taken by the phenomenon that is Adele’s 21).

Additionally, the posthumous release Lioness: Hidden Treasures reached Number 1 upon its release in December 2011, selling 194 000 copies in its first week.

Amy Winehouse’s Official Top 10 biggest selling singles of all time:

While Valerie is clearly the biggest selling single of Amy’s career, (both the Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson versions of the release selling a combined total of 767,000 to date), the most in-demand track since her passing has proven to be the title track of her second album, Back To Black.

Back To Black remains Winehouse’s biggest-selling album with close to 3.5 million UK album sales (and still lies at Number 77 in the Official Albums Chart this week), while Lioness: Hidden Treasures is her biggest seller in the year since her untimely passing, having fittingly sold an impressive 750 000 copies.

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