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The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined
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Nevertheless NME did expand the chart pass 30. As it featured in the early Number One Magazines.
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Originally posted by Splodj View PostBut why is it important to have a Top 50, rather than a Top 30, for the 50s and 60s?
I realise there were a lot of good records that peaked in the 31-50 range from the mid-60s on, but before then there were a lot of forgettable entries which I wouldn't consider worthy 'hits' using the sales or quality (admittedly subjective) criteria.
More to the point, the lower end of RRs chart was so unreliable that it was almost a lottery what made it into that range and what was left out.
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In 1978, the NME stated that they had never increased their chart above a Top 30 because it would be too easy to chart-hype, i.e. record companies buying records from chart-return shops. One difference with the NME chart, certainly in the mid-70s, was that they didn't use actual sales figures, but phoned each shop and asked them to give their own ranked best-sellers list, from which the paper compiled a chart on a points basis. This was revealed by the NME editor in a BBC Radio London phone-in with Charlie Gillett around 1975 or 1976.
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Another solution would be to use the chart with the most store samples for the top positions, then add extra records from the next most sampled chart, then the next, then the next. For the 60s, the MM Top 50 would be used for what, 5+ years? Then as a Top 30 when it shrank. Then append to that the extra records from NME, then Disc, and lastly RR. Thus you have the most accurate charts at the top, and you have the most records. It's too logical...
Or you can do the Brian method for the Top 50+...
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But why is it important to have a Top 50, rather than a Top 30, for the 50s and 60s?
I realise there were a lot of good records that peaked in the 31-50 range from the mid-60s on, but before then there were a lot of forgettable entries which I wouldn't consider worthy 'hits' using the sales or quality (admittedly subjective) criteria.
More to the point, the lower end of RRs chart was so unreliable that it was almost a lottery what made it into that range and what was left out.
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However whilst doing the Real Charts for 1967 Record Retailer's positions improve. The odd one out is Melody Maker's chart, very slow compared to NME and RR and to me less on the ball then it was in 1965 and 1966.
I think however that if Melody Maker hadn't reduced it's chart to just a 30 in 1967 then it might have got Official status. I think the original compilers of the Guinness Book would have gone with that chart, knowing how bad RR was and how it was not really the chart of the 60's. But the fact it was chopped down at times meant there would have been far less hits in the chart book. They could have used all the charts, but the book would have been much bigger and probably very confusing to readers. They only way would be to colour code it, or split the results into several sections for each of the charts. The colour coding would have made the book more expensive though, the sections would have caused disputes with chart fans, plus after 1969 would all the other charts stop being used?
In the end I think what decided the outcome was that RR was a top 50 and more importantly became the same paper that carried the new BMRB chart.
What would have been more interesting to have seen is the NME going to a top 50 in 1960. That would have caused a big dilemma in 1969, wouldn't it, with the compilers of the first Guinness book!
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Brian, as the weeks go by, you're piling up more and more evidence that RR has no business being the OCC 'official' chart of the 60s. And there's much more evidence to come. Rock on !!!
Edit: and RR is odd man out on the above chart for 21 of the 30 positions, crazy...Last edited by RokinRobinOfLocksley; Thu August 27, 2020, 01:07.
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Just checked the Real Chart for the above week and those RR records in the top 30 and not in other charts, are not even top 40 on the Real Chart. The best is 45 for Bob Dylan. The Kinks was at 82!
Missing from the top 30 however are The Walker Brothers - Sun Aint... (18) Al Martino - Spanish Eyes (16) Miracles - Going To A Go-Go (27) And Andy Williams - May Each Day (25)
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Greetings Pop Pickers !
This is the chart I mentioned a short time back. Look at RR, as well as denying The Rolling Stones the No 1 slot, their chart has 9 records in the top thirty that don't appear in any other of the three charts !!!
Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending 19th February 1966.
The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending February 19th 1966 NME MM DISC RR Total Last This The Sound Survey Stores 200 250 100 85 Points Week Week The Top 30 Singles Chart BBC TOP 30 Scored 4 1 19th Nervous Breakdown - The Rolling Stones 1 1 1 1 2 18965 1 2 These Boots Are Made For Walkin' - Nancy Sinatra 2 2 2 2 1 18500 2 3 You Were On My Mind - Crispian St Peters 3 3 4 3 3 17530 6 4 A Groovy Kind Of Love - The Mindbenders 4 4 3 4 6 17225 3 5 Michelle - The Overlanders 5 7 5 5 5 16110 5 6 Love's Just A Broken Heart - Cilla Black 6 6 6 6 7 15790 7 7 Spanish Flea - Herb Alpert 7 9 7 9 4 14895 19 8 My Love - Petula Clark 8 5 8 7 15 14710 9 9 Mirror Mirror - Pinkerton's Assorted Colours 9 8 9 8 10 14185 11 10 Tomorrow - Sandie Shaw 10 10 10 10 9 13420 13 11 Second Hand Rose - Barbra Streisand 11 14 13 14 14 11045 15 12 Little By Little - Dusty Springfield 13= 17 11 12 17 10890 25 13 Sha La La La Lee - The Small Faces 13= 12 16 11 18 10655 8 14 Keep On Running - The Spencer Davis Group 12 16 15 16 8 10455 10 15 Like A Baby - Len Barry 15 22 12 17 13 9480 16 16 Girl - The St Louis Union 16 20 14 19 12 9265 NEW 17 Inside Looking Out - The Animals 18 11 17 15 9100 22 18 Uptight - Stevie Wonder 17 13 18 13 26 9075 NEW 19 Barbara Ann - The Beach Boys 19 15 21 18 7000 21 20 Girl - The Truth 20 18 19 21 6600 24 21 Think - Chris Farlowe 23 19 22 25 5250 18 22 Have Pity On The Boy - Paul and Barry Ryan 21 30 20 20 19 5070 NEW 23 Make The World Go Away - Eddy Arnold 25 24 23 22 4300 12 24 A Must To Avoid - Herman's Hermits 22 30 24 11 3650 14 25 My Girl - Otis Redding 24 28 25 29 16 3575 28 26 Get Out Of My Life Woman - Lee Dorsey 26 23 27 23 29 3570 29 27 The Hard Way - The Nashville Teens 29 24 26 27 3050 NEW 28 You've Come Back - P J Proby 27 21 30 24 2950 NEW 29 This Golden Ring - The Fortunes 28 24 29 26 2400 NEW 30 Backstage - Gene Pitney 27 28 1100 Don't Make Me Over - The Swinging Blue Jeans 30 28 30 1050 Michelle - David and Jonathan 30 20 935 Let's Hang On - The Four Seasons 21 850 Breaking Up Is Breaking My Heart - Roy Orbison 22 765 Take Me To Your Heart Again - Vince Hill 23 680 Tchaikovsky One - The Second City Sound 24 595 Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window - Bob Dylan 25 510 Jenny Take A Ride - Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels 29 400 Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out - The Beatles 27 340 Till The End Of The Day - The Kinks 28 255 Wind Me Up - Cliff Richard 30 85
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Greetings Pop Pickers !
Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending 12th February 1966.
The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending February 12th 1966 NME MM DISC RR Total Last This The Sound Survey Stores 200 250 100 85 Points Week Week The Top 30 Singles Chart BBC TOP 30 Scored 7 1 These Boots Are Made For Walkin' - Nancy Sinatra 1 1 1 1 4 18795 5 2 You Were On My Mind - Crispian St Peters 2 3 2 2 2 18215 1 3 Michelle - The Overlanders 3 4 3 3 1 17750 NEW 4 19th Nervous Breakdown - The Rolling Stones 6 2 4 4 14 16695 2 5 Love's Just A Broken Heart - Cilla Black 4 5 5 5 5 16510 8 6 A Groovy Kind Of Love - The Mindbenders 7 6 6 7 7 15690 4 7 Spanish Flea - Herb Alpert 5 7 7 6 3 15680 3 8 Keep On Running - The Spencer Davis Group 8 8 8 8 6 14775 15 9 Mirror Mirror - Pinkerton's Assorted Colours 9 10 11 10 9 13170 11 10 Like A Baby - Len Barry 10 17 9 9 10 12285 21 11 Tomorrow - Sandie Shaw 12 11 10 12 19 12170 6 12 A Must To Avoid - Herman's Hermits 11 13 13 11 8 12055 19 13 Second Hand Rose - Barbra Streisand 14 9 14 14 26 10775 12 14 My Girl - Otis Redding 13 14 16 16 12 10265 24 15 Little By Little - Dusty Springfield 15 16 12 18 21 9900 20 16 Girl - The St Louis Union 17 19 15 25 11 8700 9 17 Let's Hang On - The Four Seasons 16 18 19 19 15 8160 26 18 Have Pity On The Boy - Paul and Barry Ryan 18 22 17 17 18 7805 NEW 19 My Love - Petula Clark 20 12 25 15 6900 10 20 Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out - The Beatles 19 27 18 21 13 6580 27 21 Girl - The Truth 23 22 20 22 5450 NEW 22 Uptight - Stevie Wonder 21 15 13 5000 14 23 Michelle - David and Jonathan 22 28 22 27 16 4525 30 24 Think - Chris Farlowe 24= 21 24 24 4450 NEW 25 Sha La La La Lee - The Small Faces 24= 20 30 20 30 3635 18 26 The River - Ken Dodd 27 21 26 24 3595 16 27 England Swings - Roger Miller 26 23 28 23 2980 NEW 28 Get Out Of My Life Woman - Lee Dorsey 28 24 23 2200 NEW 29 The Hard Way - The Nashville Teens 25 29 29 1900 28 30 Tchaikovsky One - The Second City Sound 30 27 22 1765 Bye Bye Blues - Bert Kaempfert 28 25 1260 Don't Make Me Over - The Swinging Blue Jeans 26 1250 My Ship Is Coming In - The Walker Brothers 29 17 1190 Make The World Go Away - Eddy Arnold 26 30 1100 Can you Please Crawl Out Your Window - Bob Dylan 28 27 940 Till The End Of The Day - The Kinks 20 935 Wind Me Up - Cliff Richard 28 255 Take Me To Your Heart Again - Vince Hill 30 200 The Carnival Is Over - The Seekers 29 170
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Thanks a lot for those words of support and encouragement kjell. Feedback such as yours motivates me and reminds me that lots of guys are still enjoying this site.
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Hi Brian!
You’re really disclosing the inaccuracies of the charts of the 60ies. I did expect differences caused by the use of rankings instead of sales figures, but not that they were that big in the upper 30ies with the higher sales of the second half of the 60ies. This also shows the problems that arise from Driscolls try to make his breakers bubblers for all charts and not for RM alone. With such big differences and the fever positions of the fifties one really need multiple charts to get a broad enough view of the music market of that era. Keep up the good work, this project deserves a bigger audience.
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Greetings Pop Pickers !
Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending 5th February 1966.
The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending February 5th 1966 NME MM DISC RR Total Last This The Sound Survey Stores 200 250 100 85 Points Week Week The Top 30 Singles Chart BBC TOP 30 Scored 1 1 Michelle - The Overlanders 1 1 1 1 1 19050 6 2 Love's Just A Broken Heart - Cilla Black 2= 3 2 2 5 17960 2 3 Keep On Running - The Spencer Davis Group 2= 2 5 3 2 17565 3 4 Spanish Flea - Herb Alpert 4 4 3 4 3 17480 10 5 You Were On My Mind - Crispian St Peters 5 6 4 5 4 16645 5 6 A Must To Avoid - Herman's Hermits 6 8 7 7 6 15125 21 7 These Boots Are Made For Walkin' - Nancy Sinatra 7 5 6 6 18 15055 17 8 A Groovy Kind Of Love - The Mindbenders 9 11 8 9 14 13395 7 9 Let's Hang On - The Four Seasons 10 10 12 12 8 12805 4 10 Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out - The Beatles 8 17 9 8 7 12640 16 11 Like A Baby - Len Barry 12 12 10 10 16 12425 13 12 My Girl - Otis Redding 11 7 14 13 13 12380 9 13 My Ship Is Coming In - The Walker Brothers 14 15 15 16 9 10570 12 14 Michelle - David and Jonathan 13 16 16 11 11 10450 18 15 Mirror Mirror - Pinkerton's Assorted Colours 17 13 18 17 21 9100 15 16 England Swings - Roger Miller 18 24 13 15 17 8690 11 17 Til The End Of The Day - The Kinks 15 18 19 19 10 8585 8 18 The River - Ken Dodd 16 11 14 12 8315 26 19 Second Hand Rose - Barbra Streisand 20 9 22 20 29 7920 22 20 Girl - The St Louis Union 19 21 17 22 19 7420 NEW 21 Tomorrow - Sandie Shaw 22 14 23 18 6700 14 22 The Carnival Is Over - The Seekers 21 25 20 21 15 6310 27 23 Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window - Bob Dylan 23 19 26 24 23 5030 NEW 24 Little By Little - Dusty Springfield 25 20 24 23 4750 23 25 Bye Bye Blues - Bert Kaempfert 24 27 21 25 24 4495 NEW 26 Have Pity On The Boy - Paul and Barry Ryan 26 22 25 28 3600 NEW 27 Girl - The Truth 28 23 27 2600 NEW 28 Tchaikovsky One - The Second City Sound 29 28 27 27 1490 20 29 Wind Me Up - Cliff Richard 27 30 30 20 1285 NEW 30 Think - Chris Farlowe 26 1000 A Hard Day's Night - Peter Sellers 22 765 Don't Make Me Over - The Swinging Blue Jeans 29 29 700 Take Me To Your Heart Again - Vince Hill 30 26 625 Cryin' Time - Ray Charles 28 600 Uptight - Stevie Wonder 28 600 Tears - Ken Dodd 30 25 510 Breaking Up Is Breaking My Heart - Roy Orbison 26 500 Take Me For What I'm Worth - The Searchers 28 255 Get Out Of My Life Woman - Lee Dorsey 30 200 The Very Thought Of You - Tony Bennett 30 85 Last edited by MrTibbs; Tue August 25, 2020, 20:39.
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Hi all..I have amended the chart for 29th January due to the erroneously typed in chart position, see above.
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The reason why the charts are accurate or appear to be, is due to the fact that they all had top 50's or near to it. And all of these charts were on display in either music papers or the shops themselves. Indeed many shops laid out stock in the top 50 or whatever. Unfortunately the public are not very original in what they choose. So buy what was in the top charts. Hence the surveys will look the same. The difference is in new entry records mostly. There they tend to be all over the place. Add what was going on TV each week and you can get a reasonable chart as does RR from up to 100 shops.
The main difference on what was actually selling, would be things like distribution or records. The weather. In the UK one part of the country can have a fine day and in a larger part chucking it down. People stay at home if it's raining and go shopping when it's fine.
Record Shops have to buy records in and then sell them on to us. They like to buy well known acts that will sell. They also get told what will sell by record company reps. The reps are not always right. So the shops get stuck with stock that won't sell. These all effect any charts.
All the shops that took part in these surveys were known to the record companies. So would have been well supplied mostly. They were all targeted by the record companies to put records in the charts.
Lastly the BBC restricted the chart size due to the known fiddling of the charts. By the top 20, records would have been selling in large numbers by the public. There was also a lot of pressure on the BBC not to become a top 40 USA style station. There was a lot of resistance on being to Yank.
One of the DJ's on Radio One was that "Americanised" that when the news came on the newscaster came on and said "here is the news - in ENGLISH".
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Hmmmmm. I'll fix that tonight when I get in from work guys. Thanks.
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The Jan. 29th, 1966 chart's 'Disc' column has two records at 20, but none at 30.
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Hi camdwntownjohn. Between them, NME, MM, RR, Disc, there were over 600 shops surveyed. That is why I included all their shop surveys in my Ultimate Averaged Chart calculations. The sum of them all gives a much more representative chart than any individual one can offer.
In the seventies BMRB never came anywhere close to this number of store returns by way of their diaries. Many were never received by the cut off date and others were flawed so couldn't be used. In fact BMRB never got anywhere near the 300 you mention.
I believe The BBC compiled a Top 30 from October 1962 but continued to use only the Top Twenty for Pick Of The Pops and Top Of The Pops until September 1967, but then afterwards for some strange reason fell back to using the Top Twenty again.
I got my copies of the BBC charts way back from a user of the site who is no longer around. He had inside contacts at the BBC.
If you are interested message me and I will email them to you.
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The comparison between these charts is interesting. Apart from the occasional outlier, the similarity between the charts does suggest that they were fairly accurate. In fact it seems more shops in total were being surveyed in the 60s than in the 70s, when BMRB were using, I think, 300 while Melody Maker and NME had reduced their surveys to about 50 (and Disc used the MM chart). MM then used to report a lot of tied positions.
I'm surprised to see that the BBC compiled a Top 30, as Top of the Pops and Pick of the Pops only used the Top 20. Radio One when it started used to just talk about the Top 20, and only changed to Top 30 in 1973. Out of interest, where were these 60s BBC charts obtained from? I only ever heard them used in the 'Double Top Ten Show' / 'Old Record Club' programmes in the 70s.
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You are spot on Robbie, and Girl by The Truth is just about to enter as well. Yeah sometimes the difference really stands out between RR and the other three charts and that is a prime example.
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The B side of 'Love's Just A Broken Heart' by Cilla Black was a cover of The Beatles 'Yesterday' which means The Beatles were involved, one way or another, with numbers 1, 4, 6, 12, 22 and 29 (have I missed any?). Strangely on Record Retailer Cilla's single is lagging well behind how it is performing on the other charts. Even allowing for the fact that RR sometimes lagged behind the others, in this instance it is well out of step.
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Greetings Pop Pickers !
Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending 29th January 1966.
The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending January 29th 1966 NME MM DISC RR Total Last This The Sound Survey Stores 200 250 100 85 Points Week Week The Top 30 Singles Chart BBC TOP 30 Scored 4 1 Michelle - The Overlanders 1 2 1 1 1 18850 1 2 Keep On Running - The Spencer Davis Group 2 1 2 2 2 18615 3 3 Spanish Flea - Herb Alpert 3 3 3 3 3 17780 2 4 Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out - The Beatles 4 5 4 5 4 16845 6 5 A Must To Avoid - Herman's Hermits 5 7 5 4 6 16125 19 6 Love's Just A Broken Heart - Cilla Black 6 4 6 6 15 15510 8 7 Let's Hang On - The Four Seasons 7 6 8 12 5 14860 7 8 The River - Ken Dodd 10 13 7 10 9 13570 5 9 My Ship Is Coming In - The Walker Brothers 8 12 9 9 7 13540 20 10 You Were On My Mind - Crispian St Peters 9 10 10 8 10 13535 10 11 Till The End Of The Day - The Kinks 11 10 11 11 8 13155 16 12 Michelle - David and Jonathan 12 9 13 7 12 12915 11 13 My Girl - Otis Redding 13 8 14 13 11 12350 9 14 The Carnival Is Over - The Seekers 14 14 12 14 14 11295 15 15 England Swings - Roger Miller 15 18 15 15 13 9730 23 16 Like A Baby - Len Barry 17 17 16 20 21 8500 29 17 A Groovy Kind Of Love - The Mindbenders 16 19 18 16 18 8255 26 18 Mirror Mirror - Pinkerton's Assorted Colours 19 19 19 19 28 6855 13 19 Tears - Ken Dodd 21 21 17 19 6520 12 20 Wind Me Up - Cliff Richard 18 23 20 23 16 6425 NEW 21 These Boots Are Made For Walkin' - Nancy Sinatra 20 16 23 18 6300 NEW 22 Girl - St Louis Union 22 25 24 17 24 4945 24 23 Bye Bye Blues - Bert Kaempfert 24 26 21 25 25 4610 27 24 Take Me To Your Heart Again - Vince Hill 23 22 26 26 22 4315 14 25 Rescue me - Fontella Bass 26 28 22 22 29 3920 30 26 Second Hand Rose - Barbra Streisand 27 15 24 3900 NEW 27 Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window - Bob Dylan 25 30 21 17 2390 28 28 The Very Thought Of You - Tony Bennett 29 25 30 23 2280 18 29 A Hard Day;s Night - Peter Sellers 28 27 28 20 2235 RE 30 You Make It Move - Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich 30 24 26 1825 Midnight To Six Man - The Pretty Things 26 1000 To Whom It Concerns - Chris Andrews 28 750 Thunderball - Tom Jones 29 500 Recovery - Fontella Bass 29 400 Breaking Up Is Breaking My Heart - Roy Orbison 27 400 Take Me For What I'm Worth - The Searchers 27 340 Tchaikovsky One - The Second City Sound 30 250 Cryin' Time - Ray Charles 30 200 Don't Make Me Over - The Swinging Blue Jeans 29 200 1 2 3 - Len Barry 30 85 Last edited by MrTibbs; Tue August 25, 2020, 20:19.
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Thanks Robbie. Yeah those posts you mention do clarify what I posted above, and yeah Dave's info was usually spot on but he must have missed that one.
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