ChartManiac - I've not included W/B 24th December 1945 because that was not a 'missing'

No.1 Week for White Christmas.

 

White Christmas was at No.2 on W/B 17th December 1945. That means it was still at No.2 in the

'missing' Week of W/B 24th December.

 

You Belong To My Heart, (again by Bing Crosby), was No.1 on W/B 17th December, so it is that

which gets an 'extra' No.1 Week on W/B 24th December. Giving it a 4th Week at No.1.

 

White Christmas did not reach No.1 until W/B 31st December in 1945. It was one of about 17

times, that Bing replaced himself at No.1, between February 1940 & December 1946.

 

Thanks for clearing that up zeus555 - I've got my glasses back tonight so hopefully no more mistakes! I must have looked at Bing's name at the top of the list for December 17th 1945, and did'nt pay attention to the title.

So, Leona Lewis has the most Top 5 Singles, (for a British/UK Solo Female), since November 1952 - 8.

She does not, if you go back to January 1940.

 

Counting each Top 5 Hit once, (even if it was Top 5 as a Re-Entry), Vera Lynn has 27, including 7 No.1's.

Only one of the Top 5 Hits was since November 1952 - 'My Son, My Son', which was No.1 in 1954.

 

Anne Shelton has 9 - only 1 of which was since November 1952 - 'Lay Down Your Arms' - a No.1 Hit for

her in 1956.

 

It might interest members to note the reason that Colin Brown stopped these charts in 1952 was because of the emergence of Rock and Roll. Colin hated that style of music. Somebody also told me that Colin had said that NME chart (after his) was made up rubbish, compiled by the women in the office of NME.

 

I have also found that some of the Brunswick records (who marked records A and B sides) in this book quote the B side and not the A. This might apply to other record labels, but since they often don't show which is the A side it will be harder to spot.

 

If you look at the new entries in the book they also come at the start of each month. I have been told that it was the practice to release all records at the start of the month. However Record Information Services imply that it is not as simple as that. With actual release dates being very hard to pin down. I'm still not clear when the monthly release ended. I believe Record Retailer had weekly issues for records when it started in 1960. Certainly by 1962-63 weekly release sheets for Record Shops had replaced the monthly ones. However I find it hard to believe that by 1955, records including the new 45's, where only issued at the start of each month. Especially with the weekly charts becoming more popular than the Sheet Music Charts.

That still doesn't explain why they ended 1 week before the start of the NME charts. Surely as a statistician, and knowing the date of the 1st NME chart, he would have wanted to link up the two periods properly. not leave a single week hanging?

I have also found that some of the Brunswick records (who marked records A and B sides) in this book quote the B side and not the A. This might apply to other record labels, but since they often don't show which is the A side it will be harder to spot.

 

Speaking of Brunswick, does anyone else feel that that label is somewhat over-represented in Colin's charts? Take a look at the list of number ones for most of the 40s and they are nearly all on Brunswick. I don't know a lot about the relative size and success of the different labels during the 40s but this seems like some sort of near monopolisation. It could be genuine although in the existing charts any label that starts to dominate does so for maybe 3 years max (i.e. PWL in 88-90 etc). Since this is based on shop orders is it possible that Brunswick offered shops a larger case size or better price per unit or something, and therefore got slightly larger orders from shops compared to the other labels?

Speaking of Brunswick, does anyone else feel that that label is somewhat over-represented in Colin's charts? Take a look at the list of number ones for most of the 40s and they are nearly all on Brunswick. I don't know a lot about the relative size and success of the different labels during the 40s but this seems like some sort of near monopolisation. It could be genuine although in the existing charts any label that starts to dominate does so for maybe 3 years max (i.e. PWL in 88-90 etc). Since this is based on shop orders is it possible that Brunswick offered shops a larger case size or better price per unit or something, and therefore got slightly larger orders from shops compared to the other labels?

Someone at another forum commented upon this and the general conclusion was that it may be that most of his returns were from distributors for Brunswick releases. I do know that many record stores back then were provided with stock from only one record label so I assume his sources for sales information were mainly distributing Brunswick releases.

The obvious answer is that the biggest dealer who was the main stockist for Brunswick would be ordering a lot of stock. The biggest dealer this would apply to is Woolworth's.

As a matter of fact though my late uncle did buy some of the records featured in the book, he had kept them in the original sleeves and wrote the title on them, so I know that he bought them from the same store. That store wasn't Woolworth's but an Independent shop. The sleeve advertises the products sold, including all the major labels. So clearly there were stores that were supplied with a full range of various label products.

I too have read that it was practice - for instance EMI records, could be only sold at places like HMV shops. Or if the shop wanted to stock EMI records they had to become a "dealer" for the label. And that the shop couldn't stock other labels. It's a bit like Car Dealers in that respect, you could only buy a Ford at a Ford Dealer.

It also wasn't common practice to browse for records in a lot of shops. You had to ask for the record. So if you went into an HMV shop and asked for a song by Bing Crosby, the dealer could say we don't have it, but we do have the Frank Sinatra version. If you went in and ask for just the title you would get the EMI label version of the song, maybe which was most popular. But probably the version that the shop couldn't get shut off.

 

One of the problems of using shipping figures is that it doesn't take into account the fact the public might be buying it faster than the record companies can ship it. On the other hand the public might ignore a record that is sat in boxes gathering dust on dealers shelves, which is top of the distribution list. With low sales figures of this time a number one record might shift 40,000 in total, in the shops, but seen as only reaching number 20 in this book. Whereas a number one record in the book might only reach number 10 in the Shop Chart, if one was available at the time. I think this might explain one of the reasons why too many copies sometimes go out to the stores using a Bing Crosby record as an example.

Personally I would dispute that the Bing Crosby White Christmas was number one nearly every year after it's first release, in terms of actual sales by the shops themselves. I would put most of these figures in the book down to mangers ordering too many copies of the record for Christmas. If you look at the first chart of the year after Christmas, White Christmas drops out of the top 30 completely, as orders ceased.

As to concerns whether the OCC will or will not 'recognize' this new chart book 1940-52, I am of the opinion that the OCC is illegitimate when it comes to chart 'recognition' prior to Feb 1969, and for probably a few years after that. They 'recognize' Record Retailer charts as the 'canon' for the 60s, I absolutely do not, history does not, and I hope most posters here do not either.

 

What is needed is a rival organization to the OCC, made up of chart historians/experts/critics, and for them to establish a new chart canon prior to Feb 1969 and possibly a few years after that. Get it talked about, get some press coverage, magazine articles written, etc. Keep pushing for the chart truth and never give up...

I think you're about twenty years too late, the horse has bolted from the stable.

Edited January 9, 201411 yr by fchd

As to concerns whether the OCC will or will not 'recognize' this new chart book 1940-52, I am of the opinion that the OCC is illegitimate when it comes to chart 'recognition' prior to Feb 1969, and for probably a few years after that. They 'recognize' Record Retailer charts as the 'canon' for the 60s, I absolutely do not, history does not, and I hope most posters here do not either.

 

What is needed is a rival organization to the OCC, made up of chart historians/experts/critics, and for them to establish a new chart canon prior to Feb 1969 and possibly a few years after that. Get it talked about, get some press coverage, magazine articles written, etc. Keep pushing for the chart truth and never give up...

Sadly the time to do that was when the first Guinness book was published. Those books are now considered by the majority of the public (leaving out those who don't care) as an official record, particularly as they originally came with the backing of the publishers of the most trusted book of world records. There are posters here who feel that chart history should begin in 1969. While there are perfectly valid arguments for doing so, it would seem wrong to write the most successful years of the Beatles, the Stones and Elvis out of the record books so I doubt it will ever happen.

 

BTW, don't leave it so long before your second post :o

Everyone will tell you that I'm not a fan of the OCC. I can say however that they inherited the situation in regards the use of the 1969 charts. The OCC wasn't set up till after the first Guinness books came out. In a way OCC canon was set up by Finchingfield's "chart historians/experts/critics" in the form of Jo & Tim Rice, Paul Gambaccini and Mike Read. It was they that decided to use the Record Retailor chart instead of the NME chart, simply because it was bigger than the top 30 of NME. A problem that they clearly had to address in later editions, after much criticism was levelled at them over not using the NME chart.

There are lots of these chart books out there, so dropping the RR charts wouldn't solve the problem. Thankfully the NME charts are now published too. It would also be nice to have a book that listed both the official and NME lists together in one volume. But sadly that book would be expensive to make these days and wouldn't have a good market for it.

 

Exclusion from the Canon of the pre 1952 charts I can well understand, seeing they are not based on what shops and record sellers sold. The OCC being made up by Record Sellers (in part) themselves.

Here’s what I’m thinking. We set up an organization to rival the OCC. It’s open to everyone. We don’t necessarily have a brick and mortar building / physical address. Rather we are connected by our like mindedness of historical charts, we could exist as possibly an internet site / forum.

 

We come up with a name, something similar to “The Historically True UK Chart Canon Company.” HTUKCCC, or whatever.

 

We collectively decide on what the UK chart historical canon should be. We could do this one of several ways, picking and choosing the best chart to represent a given time period based on certain criteria (such as number of record shops sampled), jumping to another music paper chart when it becomes more accurate. This could also involve choosing a best chart for the Top 30 (say NME), and using positions 31-50 from another chart (say RR). Working out all the quirks and bugs as needed.

 

Or we decide that the new canon should be back calculated from the available national charts of the day, similar to the BBC averaging but weighting the records based on the number of shops sampled per music paper. And we include every record on every chart every week in the mix. So the total number of chart positions could fluctuate as needed. The driving idea is to represent all chart history, every charted record makes an appearance on this new average weighted chart.

 

Step 1 we decide on what the formula should be, Step 2 we crunch the numbers and create the charts. That’d be only constructing 520 weekly charts for the 60s.

 

I’m mostly thinking of this in regards to the 1960s, but also open to the 50s, and early 70s. We could also determine if and when we would flop over to the OCC charts, what year they truly did become historically accurate, etc.

 

The alternative is to try and get the OCC to change the error of their ways. Get a group of chart experts together, form a committee, approach the OCC with their findings and recommendations, and try to reason with them to correct their own canon of 60s charts, for the sake of truth and history! If necessary, compile the weighted 60s charts and GIVE them to the OCC…

 

Or we infiltrate the OCC in the upcoming years, planting secret HTUKCCC members, and when enough members are in place, then a bloodless coup takes over and changes the OCC canon overnight.

 

One way or another, this can be done, and it needs to be done, especially for the 60s. History is history, and it should not be rewritten!

 

Perhaps one of our chart experts with music industry contacts could approach Paul McCartney / Ringo Starr / George Martin / EMI (or now Universal), Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, etc., and try to get them to bring this thing up in the national music press, during their next set of interviews. As we know, Please Please Me and 19th Nervous Breakdown (among others) DID hit # 1 on all the national charts that mattered back in the day, regardless that Record Retailer / OCC says they peaked at # 2. It irks me beyond words that EMI went for the lie and didn’t include PPM on The Beatles “1” CD, totally unbelievable. With the weight of a famous champion like Macca, this issue could very well get out to the masses.

 

I really can’t think of an easier way than to get Macca to take this up. Especially with all the Beatlemania now going on with various reissues, copyright extensions, 50th anniversary of them arriving in the US, etc. Just remind him that the OCC says PPM never got to # 1 on the official UK charts, and check his reaction…

 

OK. So who amongst us knows Paul McCartney and can approach him about this?

 

Or does anyone else have a better idea?

 

Are you both Dave Taylor aliases or something?

Here’s what I’m thinking. We set up an organization to rival the OCC. It’s open to everyone. We don’t necessarily have a brick and mortar building / physical address. Rather we are connected by our like mindedness of historical charts, we could exist as possibly an internet site / forum.

 

We come up with a name, something similar to “The Historically True UK Chart Canon Company.” HTUKCCC, or whatever.

 

We collectively decide on what the UK chart historical canon should be. We could do this one of several ways, picking and choosing the best chart to represent a given time period based on certain criteria (such as number of record shops sampled), jumping to another music paper chart when it becomes more accurate. This could also involve choosing a best chart for the Top 30 (say NME), and using positions 31-50 from another chart (say RR). Working out all the quirks and bugs as needed.

 

Or we decide that the new canon should be back calculated from the available national charts of the day, similar to the BBC averaging but weighting the records based on the number of shops sampled per music paper. And we include every record on every chart every week in the mix. So the total number of chart positions could fluctuate as needed. The driving idea is to represent all chart history, every charted record makes an appearance on this new average weighted chart.

 

Step 1 we decide on what the formula should be, Step 2 we crunch the numbers and create the charts. That’d be only constructing 520 weekly charts for the 60s.

 

I’m mostly thinking of this in regards to the 1960s, but also open to the 50s, and early 70s. We could also determine if and when we would flop over to the OCC charts, what year they truly did become historically accurate, etc.

 

The alternative is to try and get the OCC to change the error of their ways. Get a group of chart experts together, form a committee, approach the OCC with their findings and recommendations, and try to reason with them to correct their own canon of 60s charts, for the sake of truth and history! If necessary, compile the weighted 60s charts and GIVE them to the OCC…

 

Or we infiltrate the OCC in the upcoming years, planting secret HTUKCCC members, and when enough members are in place, then a bloodless coup takes over and changes the OCC canon overnight.

 

One way or another, this can be done, and it needs to be done, especially for the 60s. History is history, and it should not be rewritten!

 

Perhaps one of our chart experts with music industry contacts could approach Paul McCartney / Ringo Starr / George Martin / EMI (or now Universal), Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, etc., and try to get them to bring this thing up in the national music press, during their next set of interviews. As we know, Please Please Me and 19th Nervous Breakdown (among others) DID hit # 1 on all the national charts that mattered back in the day, regardless that Record Retailer / OCC says they peaked at # 2. It irks me beyond words that EMI went for the lie and didn’t include PPM on The Beatles “1” CD, totally unbelievable. With the weight of a famous champion like Macca, this issue could very well get out to the masses.

 

I really can’t think of an easier way than to get Macca to take this up. Especially with all the Beatlemania now going on with various reissues, copyright extensions, 50th anniversary of them arriving in the US, etc. Just remind him that the OCC says PPM never got to # 1 on the official UK charts, and check his reaction…

 

OK. So who amongst us knows Paul McCartney and can approach him about this?

 

Or does anyone else have a better idea?

If this is to succeed (and I wish I could be more optimistic than I am), it would be better to get somebody with no vested interest but some authority on board. The best place to start is the four compilers of the original Guinness book. Nobody knows who Jo Rice is, Paul Gambaccini has other priorities at the moment and Mike Read is largely seen as a prat. That leaves us with Tim Rice.

Nobody knows who Tim Rice is

 

I believe he's a rather famous lyricist :)

I believe he's a rather famous lyricist :)

Oops, I did, of course, mean his brother Jo :ph34r:

Here’s what I’m thinking. We set up an organization to rival the OCC. It’s open to everyone. We don’t necessarily have a brick and mortar building / physical address. Rather we are connected by our like mindedness of historical charts, we could exist as possibly an internet site / forum.

 

We come up with a name, something similar to “The Historically True UK Chart Canon Company.” HTUKCCC, or whatever.

 

We collectively decide on what the UK chart historical canon should be. We could do this one of several ways, picking and choosing the best chart to represent a given time period based on certain criteria (such as number of record shops sampled), jumping to another music paper chart when it becomes more accurate. This could also involve choosing a best chart for the Top 30 (say NME), and using positions 31-50 from another chart (say RR). Working out all the quirks and bugs as needed.

 

Or we decide that the new canon should be back calculated from the available national charts of the day, similar to the BBC averaging but weighting the records based on the number of shops sampled per music paper. And we include every record on every chart every week in the mix. So the total number of chart positions could fluctuate as needed. The driving idea is to represent all chart history, every charted record makes an appearance on this new average weighted chart.

 

Step 1 we decide on what the formula should be, Step 2 we crunch the numbers and create the charts. That’d be only constructing 520 weekly charts for the 60s.

 

I’m mostly thinking of this in regards to the 1960s, but also open to the 50s, and early 70s. We could also determine if and when we would flop over to the OCC charts, what year they truly did become historically accurate, etc.

 

The alternative is to try and get the OCC to change the error of their ways. Get a group of chart experts together, form a committee, approach the OCC with their findings and recommendations, and try to reason with them to correct their own canon of 60s charts, for the sake of truth and history! If necessary, compile the weighted 60s charts and GIVE them to the OCC…

 

Or we infiltrate the OCC in the upcoming years, planting secret HTUKCCC members, and when enough members are in place, then a bloodless coup takes over and changes the OCC canon overnight.

 

One way or another, this can be done, and it needs to be done, especially for the 60s. History is history, and it should not be rewritten!

 

Perhaps one of our chart experts with music industry contacts could approach Paul McCartney / Ringo Starr / George Martin / EMI (or now Universal), Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, etc., and try to get them to bring this thing up in the national music press, during their next set of interviews. As we know, Please Please Me and 19th Nervous Breakdown (among others) DID hit # 1 on all the national charts that mattered back in the day, regardless that Record Retailer / OCC says they peaked at # 2. It irks me beyond words that EMI went for the lie and didn’t include PPM on The Beatles “1” CD, totally unbelievable. With the weight of a famous champion like Macca, this issue could very well get out to the masses.

 

I really can’t think of an easier way than to get Macca to take this up. Especially with all the Beatlemania now going on with various reissues, copyright extensions, 50th anniversary of them arriving in the US, etc. Just remind him that the OCC says PPM never got to # 1 on the official UK charts, and check his reaction…

 

OK. So who amongst us knows Paul McCartney and can approach him about this?

 

Or does anyone else have a better idea?

 

People call me nuts for doing the Real Chart :rolleyes:

 

It all falls apart this idea on the basis you can get people to agree on things. And you will get any experts to agree on anything.

The NME charts for example are just the sheets of paper you see in each issue. There's no-way to tell if it was more accurate than one put out by any paper. Since methods of doing them and even the days it was done are different for each publication. I doubt if there are even the calculations used to compile a chart from the 1960's even for the Record Retailer. So you can't "crunch numbers".

You can't get an accurate chart from combining several charts together.

All you can do is get the people who compile chart books to include the NME charts from the present cut off point to the introduction of the BMRB chart in 1969. I should point out that when the 1969 chart came about, the NME refused to take part in it. So it was largely NME's fault that it took so long to get a full national chart. They were part of the negotiations for new charts of 1969. Sadly they couldn't agree on things, which bodes well for The Historically True UK Chart Canon Company.

People have some wonderful ideas, but getting bodies and experts to agree is a nightmare. You could finish up with two sets of charts, that still nobody likes, as different factions pull out of THTUKCCC and slag it off!

You only have to look at the NHS formation and the battle they had with doctors. Now most doctors are it's biggest defender!

 

If you want the accurate list of 50's and 60's number ones you know where to go ;)

 

And even now when we do have what is supposed to be a completely comprehensive sales-based chart, we get things like the "Real" chart adding and deducting sales seemingly at random just to be different from the "official" chart, the mess that is the Big Top 40 and so on.

I've been reading your comments with interest guys and there are valid points made on all sides. We could debate for ever which charts were the most accurate, and which were most consulted at the time. Yes, Record Retailer was a joke, it had the smallest sample, fact. NME definitely in the mix as you say but it by no means had it's own way n the sixties. The Melody Maker chart carried at least as much authority and from July 1060 had consistently the bigger sample of shop returns used and also polled Ireland. So it is a hard one to call.

In many ways ironically the BBC chart is the best remembered by most from the era due to the millions that followed Top Of The Pops and Pick Of The Pops, but the BBC compilation method was a joke and not sufficiently robust.

 

I don't agree with the comment above that you can't compile a chart by adding charts together. after all this is EXACTLY how RR, MM, NME were compiled from shop returns (or shop charts to use another description). After all there is logic in adding the main charts together, to get a balanced average which has to be more accurate than any one stand alone chart. The BBC had the right idea but the methodology in their averaging system was wrong. It's interesting now too how the BBC are re writing history, purging all knowledge of their own chart's existence from the airwaves, denying knowledge of their very existence, embarrassed by them, as they are now bedfellows with the OCC.

 

But I too think the horse has bolted, history is written, defined, and accepted, and there's no going back. As someone said earlier the move should have been made way back when the infamous Guinness book was in it's infancy. But as both the NME and MM rolled over and kept quiet at the time, and accepted the RR chart to be elevated above their own, who are we to argue.

 

By the time the first Guinness Book came out both the NME and Melody Maker papers were not interested in the charts as they were full of pop bands such as ABBA and Brotherhood of Man. The music these papers raved about didn't go near the charts or if it did the acts that did it had sold out to the corporate media and institutions. Can you really see the NME having anything to do with Mike Read? A man who modelled himself on Cliff Richard!!