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[kingofskiffle]

The Chart Book Weekly

It’s not often a new chart publication comes along but when it does it has to be right. It has to do something that nobody else does. It has to be relevant. And it has to be priced well.

And that’s what my new weekly PDF to your inbox will do (I hope!)

The Chart Book Weekly will take a week in chart history and present charts from that week in glorious detail. Want the writers? All there. Duration? All there (singles only mostly there for albums with more added all the time). Track listing? Chart run? Tick that’s there too. What about the artist history to that chart week? Oh yes that’s in as well.

But will that all be readable? That’s a lot of information. And it is a lot and it is readable. Don’t believe me? See the sample below. (Please note sample is not 100% finalised and is used to illustrate layout.)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3696ikma3e3hm8r/C...Issue0.pdf?dl=0

The issues will include a singles and albums chart from the UK and the USA (where appropriate as we know that not all weeks had then printed) together with some notes in the charts shown. If issue 10, say, is released on 1 February then the charts will be from an interesting chart year about that date (so maybe 29 Jan or 3 Feb).

The charts won’t always be the usual official charts, at least as far as the UK is concerned. We have Record Mirror, Melody Maker, Disc and others to choose from. From America, for now, we will limit to Billboard only but in the coming few years that will expand. I want to add in Record World and Cashbox.

In addition each issue will feature the full chart history for a charting artist across all the charts in the database.

Nobody else is issuing a weekly look back at older charts. Nobody else is doing the level of detail presented here. And nobody else has the level of detail presented here.

So what is the cost you ask?

1 issue. £1.99

1 month (4 issues) £6.99

3 months (12 issues) £19.99

6 months (26 issues) £34.99

12 months (52 issues) £67.99

Special introductory offer : 60 issues for £67.99 - ends 31 March 2019 (5pm UK Time)!

All subscriptions - for now - come via sending money to PayPal.me/LReadioff for the required amount with a note including email address to which the publication can be sent to.

The website will be updated soon to reflect buttons for sending this off.

The issues will be released on Tuesday mornings (although I reserve the right to issue on the preceding Sunday or Monday or the Wednesday after up to four times in a calendar year if required due to illness or unforeseen circumstances.)

The first issue will be released on Tuesday 26 March. So what are you waiting for? Sign up today!

A couple of notes:
1. The database currently has charts from 1949-1965 and more are being added once the data has been verified. As such, data is exclusive to this period but data is added at the rate of about a year every week (this will slow down when we reach 1994!).
2. Errors will exist. It’s a fact of life and no matter how carefully I prepare I know some data will be in error or missing due to lack of original sources. Those spotting and correcting an error will receive one free issue per error. If they subscribe they will have one issue added to the relevant subscription option.
3. The charts that form this come from my own collected data. I spent many happy hours in the British Library Newspaper Archive and online at https://www.americanradiohistory.com/ where copies of Billboard may be found. I have found and corrected numerous errors and researched the charts as best I can using internet sources (Discogs for track listings, 45cat and Wikipedia for writer credits as a start). Joel Whitburn excellent book series have been used to verify my data as correct in terms of checking peak positions and highlighting errors in my work.
4. If for any reason I have to cancel the publication, I shall close to new subscribers first and then finish as subscriptions naturally end.
5. Questions? Ask!