Graham A

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.

I watched the show and for the first half hour I thought that most of the acts were not good at singing live. The vocal performance was often muted and drowned out, by the music, especially when the act was talking in the verses. Fearn and Reggie are kid show presenters, because that's how the BBC see TOTP. However we need a chart show each week now, just to stop the ridicules following of what the USA wants to send our way via iTunes. With downloads making the charts responsive to TV airplay now, a proper music show (not necessarily TOTP) can place new acts in the charts. If these were UK acts not currently in the charts, that would certainly be a good thing don't you think?