Pharrell Williams' 'Happy' named UK's most-streamed song of 2014 so far

The Oscar-nominated producer's pop anthem of the year is a streaming hit

Top hat: Pharrell Williams (AP)

Pharrell Williams' hit single "Happy" has been named the UK's most-streamed track of 2014 so far.

“Happy” is one of the pop anthems of the year - it crossed cultures and borders. Williams' tears on the Oprah show were his response to being shown a clip of home-made videos of fans from all over the world dancing and lip-synching to his song.

Pharrell's unique talent of producer, songwriter, musician, rapper and singer has put him in the spotlight of the music industry, but his open and sunny disposition, together with his personal style, recently characterised by a bucket of a Vivienne Westwood hat and some sparkling sneakers, has gained him huge popularity.

As Beyonce once said about his cheerful song, “he was the person who made it cool to just be you”, and that was enough reason to just play it over and over again.

The most-streamed tracks chart aims to track the nation’s most popular songs rather than those most widely bought.

For this, the British singles charts enters a new era next month, counting audio streams from services such as Spotify, Napster, Xbox Music, O2 Tracks and Deezer, alongside paid-for downloads. The first to do this will be the Official UK Singles Chart, broadcast by Radio 1 on Sunday 6 July.

Video views on YouTube and Vevo will not count towards the chart.

Streaming in the UK is soaring in popularity. The total number of weekly audio streams has risen from 100 million in January 2013 to 260 million last month.

These figures stand in contrast to last year sales, which fell 3.4 per cent to 183 million singles, reflecting a global slump in iTunes music downloads.

Martin Talbot, Official Charts Company chief executive, said: “The chart has evolved from vinyl to CD singles to downloads and this is the latest stage of that progression - it will align the Official Singles Chart with the consumption habits of the future. It’s the result of months of testing the methodology and now we’re ready to launch.”