Originally posted by Splodj
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What I do know is the ones falling down on these top 50 are always in the Real Chart 100 somewhere.
The Real Chart can be done retrospectively because every part of human life is recorded, they same way many of us recorded the songs on the top 40 shows. Just using technology that we just don't have - yet.
If I was to do a Marty McFly and travel back to 1966 and present each week the Real Chart to the public (all) then only the current week, I went there would be correct. As soon as the public saw the top 100, buying patterns would change. And the next chart would become incorrect, getting worse each week, especially if TOTP used the chart.
However I am not time travelling.
What I do know is that as the BMRB chart takes over, that should effect it's own chart. But in reality it doesn't. Especially when the shops start to layout the entire top 50 in the shops. But then not all shops laid out the full chart. Some went for as little as 20 or 10, places, especially when 12 Singles came along. With the public tending to pick up what is the charts as laid out in store. So that if the Official chart places a record outside the shops chart - be it a 30, 20 or 10 layout, that record will fall like a stone the following week. And in the the 30 and 20 and not on TV, climb fast! My findings however reveal that this is not the case. And the top 50 becomes a law onto itself. They only reason that would explain this would be the rules and the way the chart is made up. Again to represent a full NATIONAL chart when not ALL shops are taking part is to sample them. You take 10 shops to represent 50 for example. And weight the sales from 10 to turn them into 50. But the shops are not selling tins of baked beans or bread. It's entirely subjective. One out of the 10 might have been affected by bad weather. But 25 of the 50 might have been too. So overestimated sales and underestimated sales play a part. It's known regional sales and football records (unless it was a National team thing) were ignored by the National chart, regardless of how much they sell.
The point I am making is that the rules any chart uses, including Brian's chart, affect how that chart looks. And unless Brian can locate the weekly sales books of over 8,000 shops and add them up (I will settle for any week any year) then even Brian's chart is flawed and as bad as though 60's charts it's based on. By the way the more I read about these 60's chart compilations the number of shops listed as taking part is not as precise as the figures Brian's uses. And I have read that Record Retailer arrived too late to make up the BBC's own chart. So adding it's 85 shops seems to be retrospective anyway.
Don't get me wrong Brian. As I have said these charts you are doing are better than the BBC's charts at the time. But they are a creation of charts done after the events using methods and system of calculations you have invented to do the job. And they will have hyped records. Michael Cable in his 1977 book makes it clear that the papers and record companies openly negotiated with each other for placements in the charts for advertising space. At the end of the day Brian just because several of these charts have the same record at 19 doesn't mean that record sold lots of copies. It simply means that a number of record shops reported it as selling well. NOT 200 of them either perhaps 50, less in some charts.
As for the sameness, well the BBC finally gave up when the sameness gave a different number one in each chart. Hence the creation of the BMRB chart.
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