The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined

[Splodj]

I started listening to POTP in 1962 and never noticed the references to the contributory music papers. As far as I knew it was simply the chart.

In 1965 the lady who gave me a lift to school left out the Daily Sketch for me read and I was grateful to be able to see the NME chart in advance of POTP. But one week the Sketch said 'For Your Love' was number one and I was then surprised to see that TOTP said it was 'Concrete And Clay'. (My memory is that it was outright number one in the Sketch's NME chart, not tied atop as in the NME publication itself that week.) This started me wondering how the BBC chart was compiled and if there was a better way of doing it. I've been waiting a long time for this thread!

[braindeadpj]

Yes we are almost there with just 5 charts to go but it will last a few charts longer because like I promised I will then post all the applicable end of year 'bridging' charts where one was not compiled to give a more definitive UAE.

Yeah this project has been a Herculean task like you say, 2 years of daily pouring over music paper charts, deliberating, correcting errors and inconsisties, compiling them and checking them before daily postings.
But, it has been such a pleasure to undertake and Im so glad I did. The experience was made all the better by having 24+ guys following my chart child from birth in the mid fifties to 1969 every day of its life.

I believe I leave something unique and hope you agree.

Hear Hear. Your achievement will go down in chart afficionado history (or at least it should!).

A better representation of the music scene than was previously available from any single chart between 1955 to 1969 making the most of the (limited) available data and of course all the 'rules' are evident from the outset.

[MrTibbs]

Hear Hear. Your achievement will go down in chart afficionado history (or at least it should!).

A better representation of the music scene than was previously available from any single chart between 1955 to 1969 making the most of the (limited) available data and of course all the 'rules' are evident from the outset.

Peace .. that elusive word, ever spoken, never enacted.

I had planned on going to London next week to collect the remaining RM dealer charts for the next big project to get my teeth into but need to hold off a bit. When I was in London briefly two weeks ago for the ABBA show I flew down with BA Saturday morning and was flying back Sunday night. Late on Friday night BA cancelled the return flight at short notice and I spent an hour and managed to get a flight back with Easy Jet for the Sunday night. So all was well, not, at 3.30 Sunday morning Easy Jet cancelled their flight too. So I had to hot foot it to Euston and scramble to get a remaining train seat home.

On top of that we now of course have the rail dispute and strikes. So as both flights and rail is unreliable at present, at best, I need to hold off. I want to know I can reliably get there and back as arranged without last minute cancellations. This is what we have come to in this country.

But rest assured soon as I will be down to get the data for a RM Top 50, 75, maybe even a hundred. So be patient with me

[MrTibbs]

Greetings Pop Pickers

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending November 28th 1959

Here are all '' the uppers, the downers, the just hanging 'arounders

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending November 28th 1959								NME	MM	DISC	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey					75	35	45	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart				BBC			TOP	30	Scored
1	1	Travellin' Light - Cliff Richard					1	1	1	1	1	6450
4	2	What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For - Emile Ford and The Checkmates					2	2	2	2	2	6235
3	3	Red River Rock - Johnny and The Hurricanes					3	4	5	3	3	5875
2	4	Mack The Knife - Bobby Darin					4	3	4	4	5	5820
8	5	Oh Carol - Neil Sedaka					5	5	3	6	6	5555
6	6	('Til) I Kissed You - The Everly Brothers					6	5	6	11	8	5105
7	7	Put Your Head On My Shoulder - Paul Anka					7	7	8	9	7	5035
21	8	What Do You Want - Adam Faith					8=	8	7	13	4	4995
5	9	Sea Of Love - Marty Wilde					8=	9	9	5	9	4910
15	10	Teen Beat - Sandy Nelson *					14	11	11	15	10	4180
9	11	Makin' Love - Floyd Robinson					11	12	18	7	18	3740
11	12	Mr Blue - Mike Preston					10	20	10	8	12	3735
19	13	Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat - The Avons					12	13	17	16	11	3715
13	14	Broken- Hearted Melody - Sarah Vaughan					13	10	15	18	15	3680
14	15	Snow Coach - Russ Conway					15	14	20	14	13	3505
18	16	Poison Ivy - The Coasters					17	17	12	19	16	3155
10	17	The Three Bells - The Browns					16	15	13	12		2685
16	18	One More Sunrise (Morgen) - Dickie Valentine					18	17		10		1995
12	19	High Hopes - Frank Sinatra						16		20		1620
17	20	Living Doll - Cliff Richard						24	19	17		1575
23	21	More And More Party Pops - Russ Conway					19	27			14	1320
NEW	22	Piano Party - Winifred Atwell						22	16			1200
NEW	23	Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat - Paul Evans and The Curls						25			19	1170
20	24	Rawhide - Frankie Laine						19				900
NEW	25	Little White Bull - Tommy Steele									17	840
NEW	26	The Best Of Everything - Johnny Mathis						30			19	795
29	27	Little Donkey - Gracie Fields						21				750
25	28	Little Donkey - The Beverley Sisters						23				600
NEW	29	Deck Of Cards - Wink Martindale					20		14			595
NEW	30	Heartaches By The Number - Guy Mitchell						26				375
22		Here Comes Summer - Jerry Keller						28				225
30		Nashville Boogie - Bert Weedon						29				150
24		Always - Sammy Rurner
26		Mr Blue - David Macbeth
27		Mona Lisa - Conway Twitty
28		The Village Of St. Bernadette - Anne Shelton
		* Record Mirror made a mistake this week and omitted Sandy Nelson Teen Beat which should have been #10. I have corrected this placing Sandy at #10 and pushed all other previous records from The Avons down one place. The BBC did not include the missing Teen Beat in their calculation.

[kjell]

Been away one and a half week on Norways southern shore having a preholiday with grandkids. Since the cabin is offline it’s on arrival home today I’m able to catch up with you Brian, and indeed it’s quite an enjoyment to return to. The quality, magnitude and design of your work is really amazing.
I’ll enjoy your Christmas week extra charts while waiting for the RM extended which will make extremely interesting weekly charts and even more interesting chartruns.
The problem with creating the extra charts is of course that the sales differences between the lowest positions are less than higher up and we don’t have these sales figures. That means that the in between averages will include an element of insecurity, but I’m certain that your experience from doing the UAC has made you extremely well qualified to continue to handle these challenges.

[MrTibbs]

Been away one and a half week on Norways southern shore having a preholiday with grandkids. Since the cabin is offline it’s on arrival home today I’m able to catch up with you Brian, and indeed it’s quite an enjoyment to return to. The quality, magnitude and design of your work is really amazing.
I’ll enjoy your Christmas week extra charts while waiting for the RM extended which will make extremely interesting weekly charts and even more interesting chartruns.
The problem with creating the extra charts is of course that the sales differences between the lowest positions are less than higher up and we don’t have these sales figures.

Firstly many thanks to you and all the guys above for both the likes and supportive comments you have made on this project thus far. These really are much appreciated coming from my peers.

Secondly I really am anxious now to get the RM extended chart underway and as soon as some travel stability is reinstated I will be up and running.

It's gonna be a much bigger project of course in terms of using raw data and inputing to a larger chart. The UAC at most used 5 charts. The extended RM chart will be using around 60 charts requiring to be input, analysed, and in some cases even tweaked a bit, like when one song is listed at a position by combined artists, so hugely labour intensive.

But what an outcome lies in store. Currently only the NME has an extended chart for this period of 30 places. My RM chart will considerably surpass that limit, at least a Top 50 initially and probably well beyond that as the decade progresses. I'm already excited at the thought of all the new hits that will be given credit for the first time with a chart place, and acts we thought never charted appearing on the roll of honour at last.

The chart length will vary week on week because I intend to give every record the right to chart down to even
1 point from 60 stores. Every record that made those 60 or so charts. What a feast.

Naturally there will be lots of ties at the bottom end of the chart especially but I don't think this will bother you too much.

Lastly and I hope you don't mind but although way back I compiled the 54/55 RM years this was pretty basic and simple using just a notebook and a calculator and a chart cut off point of 20 and 30 positions. These were posted in a thread here.
I'm going back to the beginning again to re-visit these by using a spreadsheet and fully expanding these charts too to cover every record that made all the dealer charts. This re-visit makes sense as it will deliver a consistent extended RM chart all presented together in the same format, properly checked to cover the years 54 to 61.

So the immediate good news for you is this. While I wait a couple of months or so realistically to get to London again, transport willing (sooner if fate allows), I can actually start this exercise in a couple of weeks once the UAC project is complete and I have a few days to prepare. Once I start to post these starting again in late 1954 I will ask Lonnie if the original thread can hopefully be removed from here to prevent confusion and allow the new postings to take precedence.

What a chart this will be for the future. RM in all its glory. The way it was meant to be compiled.

Is this how you fellow chart enthusiasts see my ideas on this as the way forward too ?

[Splodj]

That sounds a great idea. I am wondering though whether it would be better to maintain the existing Top 30 and present the additional records in a separate section below labelled 'Next 20' or however many there are. This may be just a presentational nicety, but I like the integrity of the existing 30 and think this can best be maintained if separated from the low scores and ties that are likely to occur below. I suppose you cannot decide on something like this until you see how the reworked calculations look, but thought I would mention it as a possibility.

One other thought. It would be good to include a column for NME positions from the beginning rather than only from 4-Dec-54.

Once I start to post these starting again in late 1954 I will ask Lonnie if the original thread can hopefully be removed from here to prevent confusion and allow the new postings to take precedence.

There are some interesting comments on that thread it would be a pity to lose. Might it be better to keep it and attach a link on there to the new thread?

[Robbie]

I agree with Splodj that I'd prefer to see a fixed chart size (a top 30) unless extending it to a top 50 didn't include a number of tied positions with records on a very low amount of points. If records at the lower end of the top 50 were charting on a small number of points then there could be a lot of instability in the very lower reaches with wild chart movements for some records.

As Splodj has also posted, it is something that you might not be able to decide on until you see how the reworked calculations look. A top 50 could be perfectly fine.

[kingofskiffle]

I’m happy to leave the original as that - the original. It seemed a purpose and is a historical record.

I’d also make the first four or five charts and then decide on depth. After all we are saying that below XX position it might be unstable. Until it’s started you don’t know and we could all be wrong. It might be hugely stable down to 75 or terrible beyond 20

I think we agree with your judgement as it’s always logical and reasoned.

[MrTibbs]

Guys I have to say I am liking what I am hearing from you thus far. As I had expected, excellent feedback above already on this topic and all your points to my mind are valid ones and so helpful to me as I formulate how I am going to approach this to make it spot on as a major innovative project. Thanks for this early feedback.

If any other guys also wish to offer their thoughts on this too it will be gratefully received allowing me to fine tune this project and let you know before it starts on how I have incorporated all your input towards the final draft for compiling and posting.

[kjell]

I’m fascinated by the possibilities that are ahead. It would be wrong to fix a number of positions first. The outcome of the material will prove what is sensible and I trust Brian to be the best judge of that. I expect that as with the Music Echo it may be necessary to change the number of positions between 54 and 61, perhaps even several times when the market changes. We may expect stable periods with relatively few hits and periods with competing trends where many hits get few points. It may even be weeks around Christmas when it would be interesting with a few weeks extra prolonged chart. Ranking also with relatively few points will give better information than a whole lot of B for breakers below each weeks chart. A big thank you Brian for doing this profoundly interesting project.

[kingofskiffle]

I’m fascinated by the possibilities that are ahead. It would be wrong to fix a number of positions first. The outcome of the material will prove what is sensible and I trust Brian to be the best judge of that. I expect that as with the Music Echo it may be necessary to change the number of positions between 54 and 61, perhaps even several times when the market changes. We may expect stable periods with relatively few hits and periods with competing trends where many hits get few points. It may even be weeks around Christmas when it would be interesting with a few weeks extra prolonged chart. Ranking also with relatively few points will give better information than a whole lot of B for breakers below each weeks chart. A big thank you Brian for doing this profoundly interesting project.

Yes a big thank you to Brian for a) almost finishing this one off and b) contemplating the new one. I’ve been quite quiet the last few weeks (first wife then me with Covid and only just feeling myself again today) it I love that we have this project here and can’t wait to see the next one

[MrTibbs]

In the meantime we are into the last month of actual UAC as we reach December 1959.

Greetings Pop Pickers

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending December 5th 1959

Here are all '' the uppers, the downers, the just hanging 'arounders

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending December 5th 1959								NME	MM	DISC	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey					75	35	45	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart				BBC			TOP	30	Scored
2	1	What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For - Emile Ford and The Checkmates					1	2	1	1	2	6315
8	2	What Do You Want - Adam Faith					2	1	3	3	1	6290
1	3	Travellin' Light - Cliff Richard					3	3	2	2	3	6100
5	4	Oh Carol - Neil Sedaka					4	4	4	4	4	5805
3	5	Red River Rock - Johnny and The Hurricanes					5	5	5	5	5	5590
4	6	Mack The Knife - Bobby Darin					6	6	6	6	6	5375
7	7	Put Your Head On My Shoulder - Paul Anka					7=	7	7	9	8	5010
13	8	Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat - The Avons					7=	8	8	8	7	5005
6	9	('Til) I Kissed You - The Everly Brothers					9	9	9	11	10	4580
10	10	Teen Beat - Sandy Nelson					11	10	11	13	8	4465
9	11	Sea Of Love - Marty Wilde					10	11	10	7	13	4395
15	12	Snow Coach - Russ Conway					12	12	17	12	11	3970
24	13	Rawhide - Frankie Laine					13	13	13	19	14	3540
12	14	Mr Blue - Mike Preston					14	25	12	10	20	2720
22	15	Piano Party - Winifred Atwell					16	14	16		19	2520
16	16	Poison Ivy - The Coasters					15	15	15	18		2345
18	17	One More Sunrise (Morgen) - Dickie Valentine					17=	16	20	15		2230
25	18	Little White Bull - Tommy Steele					17=	18			12	2115
29	19	Deck Of Cards - Wink Martindale					19	22	14	17		1900
21	20	More And More Party Pops - Russ Conway					20	28	18		15	1640
11	21	Makin' Love - Floyd Robinson						21		14		1515
30	22	Heartaches By The Number - Guy Mitchell						30		20	17	1410
14	23	Broken-Hearted Melody - Sarah Vaughan						17				1050
28	24	Little Donkey - The Beverley Sisters						24	19			945
NEW	25	San Miguel - Lonnie Donegan						19				900
NEW	25	Bad Boy - Marty Wilde									16	900
NEW	27	Among My Souvenirs - Connie Francis						20				825
NEW	28	Ivy Will Cling - Arnold Strang									18	780
17	29	The Three Bells - The Browns						30		16		750
27	30	Little Donkey - Gracie Fields						23				600
		I'll Never Fall In Love Again - Johnnie Ray						26				375
19		High Hopes - Frank Sinatra						26				375
		San Miguel - The Kingston Trio						29				150
		If You Were The Only Boy In The World - Stevie Marsh						30				75
20		Living Doll - Cliff Richard
23		Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat - Paul Evans and The Curls
26		The Best Of Everything - Johnny Mathis

[MrTibbs]

Yes a big thank you to Brian for a) almost finishing this one off and b) contemplating the new one. I’ve been quite quiet the last few weeks (first wife then me with Covid and only just feeling myself again today) it I love that we have this project here and can’t wait to see the next one

I escaped it for nearly two years Lonnie then because I'm a nurse working in the environment of people with it caught it in January of this year. If I didn't get tested weekly as a nurse I wouldn't have known I had it, I didn't have any symptoms at all luckily but I have seen others like yourself get thoroughly miserable with it (and worse) so I'm glad you and your wife have come through it ok and are feeling better now.

At the end of this thread when all the remaining charts and 'bridging' charts are posted I'm gonna particularly thank all my supporters here and especially those who have helped to contribute to the success of the thread. Like I said earlier this was never a one man show and it would never have come to fruition without many guys here assisting, advising, correcting, and supporting. The end result is actually a team effort.

[RokinRobinOfLocksley]

Wow, I'm getting jazzed for these upcoming RM expanded charts 1954-61, Brian. What you'll be doing is basically what the book Hits That Missed should have done, recompiled the whole RM charts, not just the uncharted bubblers, though that was a most excellent book in itself.

I think we've discussed this before: should you (a) recompile the entire RM charts top to bottom, or (b) do all your compiling, but then keep the published RM chart as is for the upper part, and then add all the lower positions afterwards. Just something to think about.

I am all for posting ALL chart positions each week, however many there are. This is history !! We need to see each record that appeared on any dealer chart, and give it its historical recognition. There is precedent for this already. If yall will recall, the BMRB album chart varied pretty much each week over 1970: first as a Top 20, but then total chaos, ha: as a Top 58+/-, then 47, 59, 60+/-, then 70+/-, back down to a 57+/-, before settling on a Top 50 in Jan 1971. Eventually expanding more in the years to come.

But I do appreciate those who prefer a nice and tidy fixed number of positions each week. So for those that prefer a constant Top 50 (or whatever) each week, just pretend that's what you're looking at, ha. Lop off the lower positions in your mind, or, perhaps Brian can just separate the Top 50 from the all lower positions, a 2 part chart. This will satisfy everyone's needs, and keep all of history alive.

From the little work I did on this years ago, there will be many ties at the low end. If Brian is dealing with 60 dealer charts, it's possible that 1/4 of the charts or more could have 1 record each that did not appear on any of the other charts. Thus these records will appear at the bottom of Brian's compiled RM chart, tied with many others in the same situation. But again, this is history, it needs to be recorded.

Also glad that Brian will redo the 1954/55 charts as well. Expand expand expand !!

I am also in favor of KEEPING the original RM 54/55 thread, and letting Brian create a new thread for 54/61. Even though Brian is producing better expanded charts, there are so many important comments and questions and history in that original thread that will be lost. Do any of you think it's OK to delete an old Alan Smith or Dave Taylor thread? Absolutely not, these comments and knowledge provided by so many others is vital to our chart understandings. It's better to re-title the old thread to distinguish it from the upcoming new thread than to delete it from our history.

As whether to add NME positions in an extra side column (and possibly others as they appear in history?), that would be super groovy, if Brian wanted to swing that, and it's not too much extra work for him.

Thanks again for all you're doing Brian, this is monumental historical stuff !!!

[MrTibbs]

Oh lots more interesting stuff from Robin in there to add to what I already have from you other guys to help me shape these RM historical dealer charts. This is shaping up nicely folks. Thanks again.

[braindeadpj]

Just wondered what track was originally at 20 in the published RM chart for November 28th (as it would've been used for the BBC chart calculations though it doesn't appear to be affecting the results as adjusting the known numbers gives the same result)?

If the BBC had taken into account Tean Beat - Sandy Nelson, then it would have been:
10 Teen Beat - Sandy Nelson
11 Mr. Blue - Mike Preston
12 Makin' Love - Floyd Robinson
13 Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat - The Avons
14 Broken- Hearted Melody - Sarah Vaughan
15 Snow Coach - Russ Conway
15 The Three Bells - The Browns
17 Poison Ivy - The Coasters
18 One More Sunrise (Morgen) - Dickie Valentine
19 More And More Party Pops - Russ Conway
19 Deck Of Cards - Wink Martindale

[braindeadpj]

As Robin says, it may be best to list all of the records. The readers can edit the listings as they see fit if they want to make it a specific number but you'll be assigning a position to records that others may not have known existed.
I'd rank the records as you calculate them rather than using the RM chart and building off that.
I look forward to this new project/expansion of a prior project (and agree that the old thread should be kept) and completely understand that it will take time to get the data as things are currently.

[Splodj]

Just wondered what track was originally at 20 in the published RM chart for November 28th

Two new entries tied for the original number 20: Heartaches By The Number (Guy Mitchell) and Little Donkey (Beverly Sisters). The former is now 17, as you can see, and the latter fell away then reappeared on their 26-Dec chart.

Personally I think that when a (what turns out to be) 21 position has been published it might as well be included in a composite, as all information is useful. But we had this discussion last time it happened, and of course it doesn't make much difference.

[Blondini]

I am all for posting ALL chart positions each week, however many there are. This is history !! We need to see each record that appeared on any dealer chart, and give it its historical recognition. There is precedent for this already. If yall will recall, the BMRB album chart varied pretty much each week over 1970: first as a Top 20, but then total chaos, ha: as a Top 58+/-, then 47, 59, 60+/-, then 70+/-, back down to a 57+/-, before settling on a Top 50 in Jan 1971. Eventually expanding more in the years to come.

But I do appreciate those who prefer a nice and tidy fixed number of positions each week. So for those that prefer a constant Top 50 (or whatever) each week, just pretend that's what you're looking at, ha. Lop off the lower positions in your mind, or, perhaps Brian can just separate the Top 50 from the all lower positions, a 2 part chart. This will satisfy everyone's needs, and keep all of history alive.

I'd agree with this.

[braindeadpj]

Two new entries tied for the original number 20: Heartaches By The Number (Guy Mitchell) and Little Donkey (Beverly Sisters). The former is now 17, as you can see, and the latter fell away then reappeared on their 26-Dec chart.

Personally I think that when a (what turns out to be) 21 position has been published it might as well be included in a composite, as all information is useful. But we had this discussion last time it happened, and of course it doesn't make much difference.

Thanks Splodj for confirming the originally posted number 20 positions. Assigning them both a position of 21 for RM would have placed Little Donkey on 1200 at 23 (instead of 28) and Heartaches By The Number on 975 at 25 (instead of 30).

[setg1]

The performer of "Ivy Will Cling" is Arnold Stang. I couldn't find a copy of the Record Mirror chart, but the record label had his name spelled correctly, at least. He was most famous for voicing Top Cat on the cartoon of the same name.

[MrTibbs]

Thanks Splodj for confirming the originally posted number 20 positions. Assigning them both a position of 21 for RM would have placed Little Donkey on 1200 at 23 (instead of 28) and Heartaches By The Number on 975 at 25 (instead of 30).

But. Just because the omission demonstrated that RM had two records downgraded to #21 doesn't mean they should be included for knowing this position. It would be unfair to Disc and MM to amend the chart rule for one week to accommodate this.All three need to be treated equally. No record below 20 was considered for them at this time as #21 didnt exist for RM, MM, Disc and consistency is important.

[braindeadpj]

But. Just because the omission demonstrated that RM had two records downgraded to #21 doesn't mean they should be included for knowing this position. It would be unfair to Disc and MM to amend the chart rule for one week to accommodate this.All three need to be treated equally. No record below 20 was considered for them at this time as #21 didnt exist for RM, MM, Disc at this time so consistency is important.

Agreed. I was just providing an indication of what it would've have looked like if it had been included. I don't think you should include any outliers that become apparent due to publishing errors. Consistency is important as you state.

[Splodj]

I believe it would be consistent to include 21s as it would be applied equally to any chart when they revealed it, and last time was applicable to Disc, but that is just my opinion and I can understand the other point of view.

According to Discogs 'Ivy Will Cling' by Arnold Stang was the B-side, so I wonder if it was flipped.

This is an interesting week at the top because the MM and Disc number one prevails, despite their lower weighting. Looks like.we are in for an epic battle between two songs, the title of one being the first four words of the other!