America, with Billboard, started recording music charts before we did in the UK. There has been somewhat of an American chart since 1940, when the Best Sellers In Stores chart was established. Billboard also collated Most Played by Jockeys (essentially an airplay chart) and Most Played in Jukeboxes which is self-explanatory. NME published it’s first chart for the week of 14th November 1952. The closest to the US sales chart, this was considered the measure of what was popular on the UK. An all encompassing chart, even though it didn’t consider airplay or jukeboxes. America had a single publisher of charts. The UK were soon to have many, as rival publications jumped on the bandwagon to gain popularity by publishing a chart of the most wanted records in the country: Melody Maker, Record Mirror, and most importantly, Record Retailer. The US chart was not considered an all encompassing chart until the same week (12th November) 3 years later in 1955, when the first Top 100 was published. The predecessor of what became the Hot 100 in 1958, weighting physical sales and radio play, with the addition of digital sales and streaming weighting, is still the same today.
In contrast to the US’ Singles chart being born from a number of separate charts, the UK Singles chart, even if retrospectively from the publication of the first Guinness Hit Singles in 1977 to the current owners of the data (The Official Charts Company), there has always been the idea of a single lineage. This idea and early chart collation techniques have thrown up some odd anomalies in that time! Examples include LP albums on the singles chart, even after the creation of Album chart (Sometimes called the LP chart), also a sales-only chart. Bill Haley’s Rock N Roll Stage Show being at #30 on the singles chart (9th November 1956) while simultaneously at #2 on this albums chart, as they were compiled by different companies . Other strange phenomena included the 2 sides of a record being listed separately but charting simultaneously. Perhaps strangest of all being Michael Holliday’s The Gal With The Yaller Shoes and Hot Diggity (Columbia DB3783). The Gal With The Yaller Shoes appearing first on it’s own, then the 2 sides separately and simultaneously for 2 weeks in June 1956. Hot Diggity re-entered on it’s own in August only for them leave the chart as a double A-side listed together. Now encompassing streaming, the UK chart is still directly and exclusively measures public consumption of music (i.e. no radio play). In the pre-streaming era, this was paid-for physical sales and downloads and calculated on a straight forward, unweighted units basis. A 99p Cassette would count the same as a £2.99 CD, for example.
Although calculated by different third parties over the years, including BRMB, CIN, Gallup and Milward Brown, the charts have been published by Record Retailer (now Music Week) and considered official since 1960. The change from NME to Record Retailer hasn’t always been recorded in the same way and Guinness have changed the way this transition was calculated. The start date of the Record Retailer Top 50 chart was considered for many years to be Week Ending 10th March 1960 because that was the publication date of the issue of the chart of 5th March 1960, which corresponded with the NME chart of 4th March 1960. The 2nd edition of Guinness Top 40 Singles, stating the last NME date for calculation in the official charts being 26th February 1960 (one week earlier).
Examining this, the current OCC website and previous issues of the Guinness Hit Singles (1st, 12th,13th, 14th , 16th and 19th editions), it is clear there is now an additional NME top 30 for the week of 4th March 1960 taken into account.
Each one of those 30 has one less week counted in the 1st edition compared to all of those later editions. The separated re-entries listed in the 1st and 12th editions were particularly helpful in establishing where the errors were. The records falling into 3 main categories: Those entering the chart on or before 26th February and still on chart 10th March, those entering or re-entering on or after 10th March and new entries of 4th March. There were 4 New Entries listed in this final top 30 week: Russ Conway (Royal Event), Percy Faith (Theme From ‘A Summer Place’), John Barry Seven (Hit And Miss) and Freddie Cannon (California Here I Come). Taking one of these as an example (Hit And Miss), we can see the ambiguity of this new week. The first edition does not list it at all as shown by the entry date (10th March) and The 12th to 15th editions listing the re-entry separately, the 19th stating just a total 14 weeks coming from the 12 of the previously documented initial run, the re-entry week and newly accounted for new entry week, dated 10th, 5th and 4th of March respectively – all supposedly representing the same entry week for the single. Only the 19th edition correctly adding the extra week to the title and artist totals despite these changing dates.
Russ Conway suffered a similar fate. As both artists have had no hits since the first edition of Hit Singles, their totals can be clearly seen to be retrospectively updated across the editions. His chart entry date also changed, having only a single chart run of 7 weeks corrected to 9 weeks in the 19th edition. He had lost an extra week at the peak position of #15 as a non-mover in the earlier editions.
Marv Johnson’s You Got What It Takes was previously overcredited at #5 in the first edition. This was corrected to #7 for the troublesome 10th March week by the 12th edition. In part due to Acker Bilk’s Summer Set being to another record reaching it’s peak position (#5) that week? We can only speculate but it was one of only 3 singles to peak below #1 in the week of 4th March. The aforementioned Freddie Cannon hit is now being credited with entering at it’s new highest position. Guinness claiming #25 since the 14th edition, OCC crediting it at equal #24 (with Hit And Miss).
Nat King Cole’ Time And The River is a unique record: The only one to have a chart run before, during and after this week. All 3 runs documented in the earlier editions. The middle run increasing it’s length from 2 to 3 weeks with the inclusion of the new week, which appears to have taken place for the 16th edition: the first to remove the separate re-entries from the listing.
Thanks to the increased chart size, none of the top 30 in that last NME week dropped out of the Record Retailer top 50, though Neil Sedaka’s Oh Carol came closest, falling 29 to 50 in it’s 18th week. All Guinness editions only credit this record with 17 weeks. Being credited with just 17 in the first edition, shows that 18 is the correct amount of weeks, as currently on OCC data. The 18th edition was not updated to include this extra week.
The first edition does not credit Gene Vincent’s My Heart with it’s 2nd one-week re-entry, though Top 40 Charts and later editions do. The 8th top 50 week overall. Be My Guest by Fats Domino was correct in the first edition with a run of 8 weeks followed by a run of 4, incorrectly added a 13th week by the 19th edition. With adding weeks to records on chart over the transition period, I suspect being ‘correct’ by today’s calculations in that first edition was more accident than design, thus introducing the error to the later editions, which has since been corrected again by OCC. Bobby Rydell’s Wild One was belatedly credited with it’s 1-week #47 re-entry by the 12th edition.
Without exception, Top 40 Charts marries up perfectly “Last Week” on 10th March with the NME Chart of 26th February. It shouldn’t come as a surprise as it does state in the cover it uses 26th February as the last NME chart and first top 40 is 10th March and doesn’t use the NME 4th March chart. It was a surprise, however, is that doing these calculations showed a whole extra week is now considered part of the official chart with no mention of it’s inclusion. Most changes this new addition makes are quite minor, the main ones have already been discussed above, which have been used to determine which chart to use and if they are correct and the printed publications agree. From the type of changes made in the various editions of Guinness Hit Singles, I can only conclude that it was not done by one person at one time, and therefore, a mention of the new week was omitted as it was a gradual correction over several editions. Luckily, no records were on chart for exactly the week of 4th March only. All 30 had already been hits in other chart weeks.
The last 2 discrepancies, which haven’t impacted my analysis but are worthy of note are:
Adam Faith – What Do You Want
Johnny Mathis – Misty
Adam Faith’s record was not on the chart for the previously disused 4th March week, according to Top 40 Charts and Hit Singles 19th edition, it has a continuous 19 week run. With this extra week, it has a 15 week followed by a 4-week one. A fact already acknowledged by the first edition (1977), re-entering on 10th March. The opposite is true for Johnny Mathis. The first edition states a continuous 13 week run. The 12th edition, not updated to count the 4th March, states the split in the run with a re-entry after the initial 9-week run. Of course with the new week now being counted, the correct facts are a 10 week initial run followed by a 2 week run (total 12 weeks). Re-entry, correct dates and number of weeks are in the 19th edition only and the current OCC data.
As the only time in UK chart history where the publisher has changed, and the changes in the weeks used in the Official calculations over time established, that should be the most difficult and changeable part of the chart research complete. Particularly, as going forward, chart collation methods became more accurate, it should also mean the end of oddities like joint positions and both sides of the same record being simultaneous hits. We shall see!
Although there is a very famous specific joint position which may be mentioned in a future article. Give you a clue: it has a tenuous link to the Adam Sharp playlist.
David Carbines: The Hit Collector 