December 23, 2024Dec 23 Well 12th-18th is the earliest it can be x It's the chart that you'd see if you look it up on Christmas Day. Now that's true with the charts being announced the day after the sales week ends, but certainly in the 20th Century, when the chart was first announced on the Tuesday (or perhaps even the Wednesday/Thursday when the newspaper carrying the chart was published) the "official" Christmas no.1 can be from an older sales week. The example of 1967 given earlier - the chart dated week ending Saturday 23rd December covered sales to the 11th to the 16th December 1967 as the next chart wouldn't be published until the 26th (Tuesday) at the earliest (and as already mentioned only covered sales to the 20th), so Christmas Day would fall in the sales chart week for the w/e Saturday 6th January 1968 (or Wednesday 3rd January issue of RR). Of course newspapers may publish the chart a little earlier but almost none published what is (errenously) considered the "official" chart nowadays as almost all covered NME's or MM's chart and not the RR chart (also published in RM).
Create an account or sign in to comment