The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined

[Woz1234]

When I try to recreate the BBC chart I get 6 records in different positions:

11 Big Dee Irwin (46 points) BBC-13
12 Adam Faith (47 points) BBC-11
13 Manfred Mann (50 points) BBC-12

16 Fourmost (67 points) BBC-17
17 Merseybeats (71 points) BBC-18
18 Presley (76 points) BBC-16

This could have been caused by only two mistakes - demoting Irwin and promoting Presley.

You have BBC chart positions right,

https://www.mixcloud.com/peteseaton/...reeman-020264/

Starts off with Manfred Mann at #12 & then Merseybeat at #18

[Splodj]

Great to hear.

Whoever recorded it has skipped Dusty Springfield at number 7!

[Splodj]

A couple more apparent mistakes in previous BBC charts ...

- 18th January : Maria Elena got 73 points and should have tied at number 16 with Gerry and Brenda, not been at 18.

- 25th January : The Beatles got 45 points and should have tied with Brenda at number 10, not tied with Billy at 13.

[MrTibbs]

Yeah the fact that the BBC made quite a few errors some already known some yet to be discovered like yours above was the initial driving force behind my goal to re-compile these charts but with the addition of store returns factored in to make them much more robust and balanced.

[Splodj]

Important to bear in mind that the BBC presented their chart as a Top 20. On the recording above, Alan Freeman back announces 54321 at number 12 as a new entry, not a climber from 21.

By calculating 21-30 they avoided the distortions in the Top 20 that would have occurred by allocating 21 points to the 'others'. The 'others' to which they allocated 31 points are almost always outside the 20.

[MrTibbs]

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending February 8th 1964							BBC	NME	RM	MM	Disc	RR
Last	This						Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart
Week	Week	Title and Artist						Total Chart Positions				30
1	1	Needles And Pins - The Searchers					1	1		1	1	1
4	2	I'm The One - Gerry and The Pacemakers					2	2		2	2	2
2	3	Hippy Hippy Shake - The Swinging Blue Jeans					3	3		3	3	3
3	4	Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five					4	5		4	4	4
10	5	As Usual - Brenda Lee					5	7		5	5	5
5	6	Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa - Gene Pitney					6	8		6	6	6
13	7	5 4 3 2 1 - Manfred Mann					7	6		8	7	9
19	8	Diane - The Bachelors					8	4		11	8	8
9	9	Don't Blame Me - Frank Ifield					9	9		7	9	10
6	10	I Want To Hold Your Hand - The Beatles					10	10		9	11	7
8	11	Stay - The Hollies					11	11		10	10	12
7	12	I Only Want To Be With You - Dusty Springfield					12	13		12	13	11
17	13	I Think Of You - The Merseybeats					13	12		13	12	15
21	14	Baby I Love You - The Ronettes					14	16		14	14	13
16	15	I'm In Love - The Fourmost					15	15		15	15	17
12	16	We Are In Love - Adam Faith					16	21		17	17	18
11	17	Swinging On A Star - Big Dee Irwin					17	23		16	18	16
30	18	Candy Man - Brian Poole and The Tremeloes					19	17		19	19	22
15	19	Do You Really Love Me Too - Billy Fury					18	22		18	20	14
NEW	20	I'm The Lonely One - Cliff Richard					20	14		26	16	23
26	21	For You - Rick Nelson					21	25		21	23	21
22	22	The Rolling Stones (EP) - The Rolling Stones					22	24		23	21
14	23	She Loves You - The Beatles					23	29		22	25	19
25	24	Louie Louie - The Kingsmen					26=	18		27	26
27	25	Whispering - Nino Tempo and April Stevens					24=			20	28	20
NEW	26	Anyone Who Had A Heart - Cilla Black					24=	18			22	28
20	27	I Wanna Be Your Man - The Rolling Stones					26=	27		24	27	24
NEW	28	All My Loving (EP) - The Beatles					28	18			24
18	29	Kiss Me Quick - Elvis Presley					29	28		25		25
NEW	30	My Baby Left Me - Dave Berry					30=	26
		Maria Elena - Los Indios Tabajaras								28
		You Were Made For Me - Freddie and The Dreamers								29		30
		If I Ruled The World - Harry Secombe					30=					26
		Eight By Ten - Ken Dodd						30			29
		Boys Cry - Eden Kane								30	30
		Secret Love - Kathy Kirby										27
		Dominique - The Singing Nun										29

[MrTibbs]

The big disadvantage as you probably already know with that system though Splodj was that by using the 21 points for a record outside a Top 20, and later 31 for outside the Top 30 this awarded equal points to all such records irregardless of what position they would have held outside the chart so this in effect let to fundamental inaccuracy.

[Splodj]

The inverse method also gives the same score to those records - just that it is zero instead of 31. That is why I say there is no inherent difference between the two methods.

But the point I was making is that the BBC avoided this distortion in any case by presenting to the public only the Top 20. The records for which they allocated 31 points were invariably in the 21-30 section which they calculated only for their private use.

[MrTibbs]

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending February 15th 1964							BBC	NME	RM	MM	Disc	RR
Last	This						Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart
Week	Week	Title and Artist						Total Chart Positions				30
1	1	Needles And Pins - The Searchers					1	1		1	1	1
2	2	I'm The One - Gerry and The Pacemakers					2	2		2	2	2
8	3	Diane - The Bachelors					3	3		3	3	3
7	4	5 4 3 2 1 - Manfred Mann					4	4		4	4	5
3	5	Hippy Hippy Shake - The Swinging Blue Jeans					5	5		5	5	4
5	6	As Usual - Brenda Lee					7	8		6	7	7
26	7	Anyone Who Had A Heart - Cilla Black					8	5		8	6	10
4	8	Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five					6	7		7	8	6
13	9	I Think Of You - The Merseybeats					9	9		9	9	9
18	10	Candy Man - Brian Poole and The Tremeloes					10	11		11	10	13
9	11	Don't Blame Me - Frank Ifield					11	14		10	14	8
20	12	I'm The Lonely One - Cliff Richard					12	10		13	11	14
14	13	Baby I Love You - The Ronettes					13	13		12	12	12
6	14	Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa - Gene Pitney					14	12		15	13	11
10	15	I Want To Hold Your Hand - The Beatles					15	16		14	15	15
11	16	Stay - The Hollies					17	18		17	16	19
28	17	All My Loving (EP) - The Beatles					16	15		20	17
15	18	I'm In Love - The Fourmost					18	19		16	20	18
21	19	For You - Rick Nelson					19	22		19	19	16
12	20	I Only Want To Be With You - Dusty Springfield					20	23		18	21	17
17	21	Swinging On A Star - Big Dee Irwin					22	21		23	26	20
22	22	The Rolling Stones (EP) - The Rolling Stones					21	20		27	18
24	23	Louie Louie - The Kingsmen					23	16		28	22	26
16	24	We Are In Love - Adam Faith					24	25		21	23	25
19	25	Do You Really Love Me Too - Billy Fury					25	28		22	24	22
NEW	26	Boys Cry - Eden Kane					26	26		25	25	24
25	27	Whispering - Nino Tempo and April Stevens					27			24	28	23
23	28	She Loves You - The Beatles					28			26	29	21
NEW	29	Eight By Ten - Ken Dodd					29	24		29	27
30	30	My Baby Left Me - Dave Berry					30=	27
		Top Six No 1 (EP) - Various Artists						29
		I Wanna Be Your Man - The Rolling Stones					30=					27
		Kiss Me Quick - Elvis Presley								30		30
		Nadine - Chuck Berry						30			30
		If I Ruled The World - Harry Secombe										28
		Um Um Um Um Um Um - Major Lance						30
		Maria Elena - Los Indios Tabajaras										29

[Splodj]

In those last couple, there were tied scores not reflected by tied positions in the BBC chart.

- 8th Feb : 73 points apiece for Adam Faith and Irwin - implying joint 16th;

- 15th Feb : 28 points apiece for DC5 and Brenda Lee - implying joint 6th.

Either mistakes or the application of some type of tiebreaker methodology.

[trebor]

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending February 8th 1964

BBC

NME

RM

MM

Disc

RR

Last

This

Chart

Chart

Chart

Chart

Chart

Chart

Week

Week

Title and Artist

Total Chart Positions

30

22

22

The Rolling Stones (EP) - The Beatles

22

24

23

21

Brian: Small slip there!

[MrTibbs]

Well spotted Trebor and thanks for picking up on that, somehow I missed that on the check . I've corrected it now .

[Splodj]

The record I most remember being played on the radio at this time was the Harry Secombe one lurking around the bottom - a sort of Light Programme 'turntable hit'. I don't think the more raunchy records like Hippy Hippy Shake got much airplay.

The following month Radio Caroline would arrive and herald the start of radio playlists more directly related to the charts.

[MrTibbs]

It has been a busy day for me today guys but will have another couple of charts on the thread tomorrow.

[MrTibbs]

Here is the next chart for February 22nd 1964.
When you look at the comparison table between Music Paper Chart positions you can really see how out of touch RR was in comparison to the other three charts. Yet again the BBC chart had a number of ties but these are successfully split by the factoring in of the number of music paper returns to give a much more robust and representative chart.

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending February 22nd 1964							BBC	NME	MM	Disc	RR
Last	This						Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart
Week	Week	Title and Artist						Total Chart Positions			30
7	1	Anyone Who Had A Heart - Cilla Black					1	1	1	1	2
1	2	Needles And Pins - The Searchers					2	2	2	2	3
3	3	Diane - The Bachelors					3	3	3	3	1
2	4	I'm The One - Gerry and The Pacemakers					4	4	4	4	4
4	5	5 4 3 2 1 - Manfred Mann					5	5	5	5	5
9	6	I Think Of You - The Merseybeats					6	6	6	6	9
10	7	Candy Man - Brian Poole and The Tremeloes					7=	8	7	7	11
6	8	As Usual - Brenda Lee					7=	9	8	9	7
5	9	Hippy Hippy Shake - The Swinging Blue Jeans					9	10	9	8	6
12	10	I'm The Lonely One - Cliff Richard					10	11	10	11	8
NEW	11	Bits And Pieces - The Dave Clark Five					12=	7	14	10	19
8	12	Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five					11	12	12	13	10
13	13	Baby I Love You - The Ronettes					12=	14	11	12	13
17	14	All My Loving (EP) - The Beatles					14	13	13	14
11	15	Don't Blame Me - Frank Ifield					15	16	16	15	12
14	16	Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa - Gene Pitney					16	17	17	16	16
15	17	I Want To Hold Your Hand - The Beatles					18	20	15	17	15
19	18	For You - Rick Nelson					17	17	18	18	14
22	19	The Rolling Stones (EP) - The Rolling Stones					19	15	20	19
26	20	Boys Cry - Eden Kane					20	22	19	20	18
18	21	I'm In Love - The Fourmost					21	27	21	21	20
16	22	Stay - The Hollies					23	25	22	23	21
23	23	Louie Louie - The Kingsmen					24=	19	26	22	29
NEW	24	Stay Awhile - Dusty Springfield					22	21	25	24	30
20	25	I Only Want To Be With You - Dusty Springfield					24=		23	25	17
29	26	Eight By Ten - Ken Dodd					26		24	27	22
28	27	She Loves You - The Beatles					27		27	30	23
NEW	28	Over You - Freddie and The Dreamers						23
NEW	29	Top Six No 1 (EP) - Various Artists						24
NEW	30	Let Me Go Lover - Kathy Kirby					30=	26		28
		Whispering - Nino Tempo and April Stevens					28		28		25
		We Are In Love - Adam Faith					30=		30		24
		Nadine - Chuck Berry					28			26	27
		Borne On The Wind - Roy Orbison						28		29
		Do You Really Love Me Too - Billy Fury							29		28
		Swinging On A Star - Big Dee Irwin						30			26
		You Were There - Heinz						29

[Splodj]

I can't help wondering if RR used some returns from the previous week. New Entries appear lower and climb more slowly. If the low number of returns was the only reason for RRs outlier positions you would expect some records to rise faster and others slower - not all slower.

The BBC should have realised that the only reason for their ties at 7 and 12 was the significant drag effect of RR (placing the upcoming record 4 and 7 places lower respectively) and untied accordingly.

[eurofandave]

Loving this thread Brian! Excellent work!! :-)

[MrTibbs]

Thanks for your feedback guys. Yeah seeing all the charts side by side really shows up variations between them and thus far the RR inadequacies are displayed and laid bare.

[MrTibbs]

Here is the chart for February 29th 1964 guys.

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending February 29th 1964							BBC	NME	MM	Disc	RR
Last	This						Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart
Week	Week	Title and Artist						Total Chart Positions			30
1	1	Anyone Who Had A Heart - Cilla Black					1	1	1	1	1
3	2	Diane - The Bachelors					2	2	2	2	2
11	3	Bits And Pieces - The Dave Clark Five					3	3	3	3	4
6	4	I Think Of You - The Merseybeats					4	5	4	4	5
2	5	Needles And Pins - The Searchers					5	4	5	6	3
4	6	I'm The One - Gerry and The Pacemakers					6	6	7	5	6
7	7	Candy Man - Brian Poole and The Tremeloes					8	8	6	8	8
5	8	5 4 3 2 1 - Manfred Mann					7	7	8	7	7
8	9	As Usual - Brenda Lee					9	9	9	10	9
10	10	I'm The Lonely One - Cliff Richard					10	10	10	9	10
9	11	Hippy Hippy Shake - The Swinging Blue Jeans					11	12	11	12	12
13	12	Baby I Love You - The Ronettes					12	17	13	15	11
20	13	Boys Cry - Eden Kane					13	16	14	14	13
14	14	All My Loving (EP) - The Beatles					14	21	12	11
28	15	Over You - Freddie and The Dreamers					15	13	15	16	20
18	16	For You - Rick Nelson					16	15	18	20	16
24	17	Stay Awhile - Dusty Springfield					18	14	19	21	18
NEW	18	Not Fade Away - The Rolling Stones					19	10	22	13	29
12	19	Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five					17	22	16	19	14
19	20	The Rolling Stones (EP) - The Rolling Stones					20	18	23	18
15	21	Don't Blame Me - Frank Ifield					21	29	17	25	15
17	22	I Want To Hold Your Hand - The Beatles					22	24	20	26	17
30	23	Let Me Go Lover - Kathy Kirby					24	18	26	23	24
16	24	Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa - Gene Pitney					25	26	21	27	19
NEW	25	Borne On The Wind - Roy Orbison					23	23	29	17	21
NEW	26	I Love You Because - Jim Reeves					26	20	28	22	26
26	27	Eight By Ten - Ken Dodd					27		24	24	22
21	28	I'm In Love - The Fourmost					28		25		23
NEW	29	Nadine - Chuck Berry					29	29	27	30	27
NEW	30	You Were There - Heinz					30=	25
		Little Children - Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas					30=	27		29
		Louie Louie - The Kingsmen						29	30		30
		That Girl Belongs To Yesterday - Gene Pitney						28
		I Only Want To Be With You - Dusty Springfield					30=				25
		Just One Look - The Hollies								28
		She Loves You - The Beatles									28

[Splodj]

Brian,

On the BBC 22-Feb chart you don't have equals signs for the two 24s, and the entries thereabouts might be worth checking as I make them:

22 Hollies (91 points)
23= Kingsmen (96 points)
23= Dusty 'I only...' (96 points)
25 Dusty 'Stay awhile' (100 points)

I would like to think they did promote Dusty's new entry - to resist the RR drag effect!

Also that week the Swinging Blue Jeans score the same 33 points as the Tremeloes and Brenda Lee implying all three tie at number 7.

On BBC 29-Feb chart, Searchers and Merseybeats score the same 18 points implying they tie at number 4.

Once again difficult to know if their placings were deliberate or in error.

[MrTibbs]

Splodj I am happy to confirm both were equal 24 as I posted so it is accurate I just obviously missed out the = which are now added.
Remember though you seem to be just using inverse points for your calculations I am factoring in points for the record store returns as well which does change things a bit.
I am using Inverse Points for each chart, 30 points for No 1 down to 1 point for No 30 for each chart then multiplying those points by each music paper's store returns to get a score. 250 for MM, 200 for NME, 100 for Disc, and 85 for RR. So that is why you are getting a different result.

[Splodj]

Sorry, I should have been clearer that the 22-25 positions I calculated were for the BBC chart. When I saw that you had not put in the equals signs for two of them I thought there might be a connection between that omission and their strange positions - but it transpires there wasn't.

[MrTibbs]

It was a good pick up that you made though Splodj. On my copy of the BBC Chart it had both No 24's listed but no = sign so it didn't click in my head when I was typing them in. Hope you are enjoying the Ultimate Averaged chart a step beyond the BBC one.

[MrTibbs]

Here is the Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending 7th March 1964.

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending March 7th 1964							BBC	NME	MM	Disc	RR
Last	This						Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart	Chart
Week	Week	Title and Artist						Total Chart Positions			30
1	1	Anyone Who Had A Heart - Cilla Black					1	1	1	1	1
3	2	Bits And Pieces - The Dave Clark Five					2	2	2	2	2
2	3	Diane - The Bachelors					3	3	3	3	3
4	4	I Think Of You - The Merseybeats					4	4	4	4	5
5	5	Needles And Pins - The Searchers					5	5	6	6	4
18	6	Not Fade Away - The Rolling Stones					6	5	5	7	11
7	7	Candy Man - Brian Poole and The Tremeloes					7	9	7	8	6
NEW	8	Little Children - Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas					8	7	10	5	9
6	9	I'm The One - Gerry and The Pacemakers					9	8	9	11	7
13	10	Boys Cry - Eden Kane					10	10	8	9	12
8	11	5 4 3 2 1 - Manfred Mann					11	11	12	12	8
15	12	Over You - Freddie and The Dreamers					12	12	11	10	13
10	13	I'm The Lonely One - Cliff Richard					13=	14	13	13	14
9	14	As Usual - Brenda Lee					13=	15	14	15	10
17	15	Stay Awhile - Dusty Springfield					15	13	15	16	16
14	16	All My Loving (EP) - The Beatles					16	22	16	14
NEW	17	Just One Look - The Hollies					17=	16	23	17	20
12	18	Baby I Love You - The Ronettes					17=	25	17	19	15
25	19	Borne On The Wind - Roy Orbison					19	21	19	21	17
26	20	I Love You Because - Jim Reeves					21	18	21	23	21
23	21	Let Me Go Lover - Kathy Kirby					20	19	24	20	18
20	22	The Rolling Stones (EP) - The Rolling Stones					22	20	22	24
16	23	For You - Rick Nelson					23	24	20	26	19
11	24	Hippy Hippy Shake - The Swinging Blue Jeans					24=	27	18	22	23
NEW	25	That Girl Belongs To Yesterday - Gene Pitney					24=	17	27	18	28
22	26	I Want To Hold Your Hand - The Beatles					27	28	25	29	25
NEW	27	Theme For Young Lovers - The Shadows					26	23		25
21	28	Don't Blame Me - Frank Ifield					30	30	26		26
27	29	Eight By Ten - Ken Dodd					28		29	27	22
19	30	Glad All Over - The Dave Clark Five					29		28	28	24
		You Were There - Heinz						26			29
		Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa - Gene Pitney							30		27
		King Of Kings - Ezz Reco and The Launchers						29
		Tell Me When - The Applejacks								30
		Nadine - Chuck Berry									30

[Splodj]

In a Radio 2 documentary 'Carry on up the charts' in 2000, Paul Gambaccini says this:

“All the pop papers in Britain had their own charts, and competed with claims about which was the true one. New Musical Express was probably the single most important one, although it famously had shall we say some very strange entries in the bottom positions. It was pretty well known that a record could be massaged into the upper twenties of the top 30. And Record Retailer, which was the forerunner of Music Week, was the source that we used for the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles, and it happened to have ‘Please Please Me’ as a number 2. And the BBC used an average of the charts - I would love to have been the mathematician who figured that one out! So if you read the pop papers you would have thought ‘Please Please Me’ was number one, but if you read the Trades and listened to the radio you would have thought it was number two.”

By talking about the Trades he implies that there was more than one trade paper. And he is simply wrong to say that it was number two on the radio.

[RokinRobinOfLocksley]

Splodj, allow me to say Paul Gambaccini is spewing false information. He is simply spouting the company line and historical lie.

Point A, he is American. He was not even in the UK until 1970. He has no idea what was played on the radio or what was in the so-called trades. If you read Alan Smith's UK chart history article, he blows Paul out of the water. The other 3 authors of the Guinness books have publicly stated they chose Record Retailer for the 60s because it had 50 positions each week, and that was it. Never mind that it was the least accurate chart because it sampled so few record shops, only 30 in 1963, vs. NME and Melody Maker at 100, Disc at 70. Those 270 record shops, plus the BBC average of all 4 charts, said Please Please Me was #1, for 2 weeks on all 4 of those charts. Only Record Retailer, sampling only 30 shops, said it peaked at #2. Which is truth?

Point B, Record Retailer started out as a music paper for independent record shops not tied to a record label. They had nothing to do with the rest of the 'industry', they were an anti-industry publication. Eventually around 1966 they got infused with cash from Billboard and became more well known, but they were always in last place in terms of accuracy and importance.

Point C, but regardless if Record Retailer was an 'industry' publication or not, they were no more an 'industry' chart than any other. All the charts were compiled the same way, adding up chart ranking points of their reporting shops. None of them added up actual record sales until BMRB / BARS did so in Feb 1969. There was nothing unique or special about Record Retailer. It was the least known, least followed, least circulated chart of the 60s. And because it sampled the fewest shops, it was the least accurate. It also disagreed the most often with all the other charts, in terms of peaks of #1 records, Top 10 records. And if you look at Brian's weekly ultimate chart columns, Record Retailer is odd man out on most of these positions each week, just take a glance and see. On the above 7 Mar 64 chart, RR positions are the farthest away from the average in 10 of the Top 20 records. Even worse than that, because they sampled so few record shops, they had so many tied positions, which they forced tie-breakers upon, by looking at the previous weeks chart !! How bogus can you get?

Point D, the Guinness books did not claim Record Retailer as "'official" for the 60s, they just said they were using RR "for the purposes of this book." The self-named "official" charts did not declare RR as "official" until after 2001. How's that for revisionist history? There was no "official" chart going forward until Feb 1969, there was no "official" chart going backwards until after 2001 when the "official" charts made it all up.

Read Alan's article, the whole thread, and all will be revealed:

https://www.ukmix.org/forum/chart-di...-chart-history

Paul Gambaccini is historically and factually incorrect, and has helped brainwash UK chart followers with revisionist history for decades. But you knew all that, Splodj...