Chart Of All Time - 1960s

Home >> Articles >> Chart Of All Time

by Matthew Dixon

The 1960s is widely regarded as the greatest time in British music. Acts such as the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks and the Hollies showed that Britain was very good music. But who was the greatest charting artist. Was it the Beatles? Many people would think so, but was that the case? Did they have the greatest charting hit, or was it Englebert Humperdinck's "Release Me" from 1967, Mr Acker Bilk's "Stranger On The Shore" from 1961 or possibly something else?

The first thing I can confirm is that the Beatles did not have the best charting hit, nor were they the best charting act. There were two acts that charted better than them, but they did manage to come in as the third greatest charting artist of the 1960s. Their biggest charting hit was "She Loves You" which, oddly enough, also became the third biggest charting hit of the 1960s. Their other biggest hits included "From Me To You" (No. 20), "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (No. 45), "Get Back" (No. 64), "Hey Jude" (No. 89), "Help!" (No. 106), "All You Need Is Love" (No. 111), "A Hard Day's Night" (No. 113) and "Hello Goodbye" (No. 116).

Their biggest rivals in the decade were the Rolling Stones. In the end, the Rolling Stones were comprehensively beaten, becoming the tenth biggest act, with only three top 200 hits: "Honky Tonk Woman" (No. 46), "It's All Over Now" (No. 122) and "Get Off My Cloud" (No. 200). People also look back to the Beach Boys, Herman's Hermits and the Kinks. These landed at Nos. 14, 20 and 21 respectively in the artist chart of the decade, with "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys at 150, "I'm Into Something Good" by Herman's Hermits at 124 and the Kinks not having any entries into the top 200 singles of the decade, with "Sunny Afternoon" stuck down at 216. Other big sixties bands included the Hollies (No. 8) and Manfred Mann (No. 15). Their biggest hits were "I'm Alive" (No. 166) and "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" (No. 133) respectively.

So what else did actually do well? Well, easy listening music was still very popular, with acts such as Jim Reeves and Englebert Humperdinck doing very well. "Gentleman Jim" managed to become the sixth greatest artist of the decade with many huge hits such as "I Love You Because" (No. 5), "Distant Drums" (No. 8), "I Won't Forget You" (No. 14) all well inside the top 20. Englebert didn't quite manage three hits inside the top 20 of the decade, as "There Goes My Everything" made No. 22. However, "The Last Waltz" was at No. 6, and "Release Me" was the second best charting hit of the decade. In the battle of the big Welsh voices, Tom Jones scores best as an overall artist, landing at No. 12, whilst Shirley Bassey is down at No. 19. However, Shirley has the biggest single, with "As Long As He Needs Me" landing at No. 10 just beating Tom's "The Green Green Grass Of Home" (No. 11).

Other big hits from easy listening stars of the 1960s included Frank Ifield's "I Remember You" (No. 4), Hugo Montenegro's "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" (No. 19), Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" (No. 18) and Roy Orbison's "Only The Lonely" (No. 12). Roy was actually the fifth best charting artist of the decade, with hits such as "It's Over" and "Oh Pretty Woman" (Nos. 50 and 51 respectively) supplementing his big hit. The Everly Brothers were the eleventh biggest charters of the decade with hits such as "Cathy's Clown" (No. 29) and "Walk Right Back / Ebony Eyes" (No. 96) Also big in the 1960s were two rock and roll stars, Billy Fury and Adam Faith. They were the seventh and ninth biggest charting artists of the year respectively with hits such as "Halfway To Paradise" (No. 39) and "Last Night Was Made For Love" (No. 316) by Billy Fury; and "Poor Me" (No. 142) and "Someone Else's Baby" (No. 367) by Adam Faith all making major impacts on the charts.

So that covers many different artists of the 1960s. However, there were several songs by artists that are not remember much musically for more than one hit. This was largely down to novelty hits and hits for people better known in other guises. 1962 saw the famous "Telstar" satellite launched, and to commemorate that, a group called the Tornadoes released a hit of the same name. It makes No. 9 on our list, their next biggest hit makes No. 853! Ken Dodd is far better known as a comedian and general owner of Diddymen than as a chart star. His big hit, "Tears" makes No. 7 on our list, his next biggest hit lands at No. 210! Then there's TV hosts. Cilla had a pretty big career in the 1960s, becoming the 25th best charting artist of the year, but with her biggest hit, "You're My World" languishing at No. 140.

Des O'Connor on the other hand has the 27th biggest hit of the year with "I Pretend". He did manage two other top ten singles in the 1960s, but nothing to compare to that massive hit. In the early 1960s, there was a popular TV series about an au-pair girl who worked for a family in Brighton. The show was called "Stranger On The Shore", and believe it or not, the theme tune to this (performed by jazz clarinettist Mr Acker Bilk and the Leon Young String Chorale) was pretty safely the biggest charting single of the 1960s. It was of course an instrumental, and was not the only instrumental hit to do well in the 1960s. Indeed the Shadows became the fourth biggest charting act of the 1960s with hits such as "Apache" (No. 15) and "Wonderful Land" (No. 23).

We have gone through many many stars and hits of the sixties but have failed as of yet to mention who was the best charting artist of the decade. Well, the decade was a massive time in the careers of two people who have had almost twice as many weeks on the chart each as anyone else. These two men are Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard and they were the two greatest charting artists of the 1960s. Elvis had such massive hits as "It's Now Or Never" (No. 13), "Wooden Heart" (No. 22), "Rock-a-Hula Baby / Can't Help Falling In Love" (No. 37), "Good Luck Charm" (No. 44), "A Mess Of Blues" (No. 48), "His Latest Flame / Little Sister" (No. 104), "Surrender" (No. 107), "Return To Sender" (No. 121), "She's Not You" (No. 136) and "Crying In The Chapel" (No. 143). Cliff had such hits as "Please Don't Tease" (No. 26), "The Young Ones" (No. 34), "The Next Time / Bachelor Boy" (No. 55), "Summer Holiday" (No. 103), "I Love You" (No. 115), "Wind Me Up (Let Me Go)" (No. 132), "I'm Looking Out The Window / Do You Wanna Dance" (No. 134), "Fall In Love With You" (No. 194), "A Girl Like You" (No. 284) and "Congratulations" (No. 285).

Both had impressive runs of hits, Elvis managing hits higher up the listings, whilst Cliff managed five more hits than Elvis. The best charting artist of the 1960s was Cliff Richard.

Here are the 40 best charting singles of the 1950s:

Here are the ten most successfully charting artists of 1969: