The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined

[RokinRobinOfLocksley]

Brian, so what did the NME midpoint chart look like for Dec 29? To compare against the actual NME Dec 29 chart, and versus the MM and RM Dec 29 midpoint charts? Inquiring minds need to know, ha...

[kjell]

There must be about half a dozen LPs in some singles chart over time, mostly in NME, most notably by the Beatles. I can look for them in my archive. When it comes to EPs the number over the years includes so many that I don’t have the guts to do that research in addition to my other projects.

[kingofskiffle]

I did wonder myself actually looking at it all. I think I was thinking of some EP’s around the same sort of time…

[MrTibbs]

I think so. Possible Sinatra?

Nope, I don't believe Frank scored with a hit EP and Elvis didn't either with a hit LP on the singles chart so that is a unique 'record' for Lonnie to hold.

[kingofskiffle]

I think so. Possible Sinatra?

[Splodj]

Is Donegan the only act to get an EP and an LP into the 'official' singles chart?

[MrTibbs]

Please revisit the chart for 29th December. I initially entered just the points each record achieved on the MM and RM chart once averaged over the two week period just to exemplify the methodology used to achieve points allocated for each record.
I have today returned to that chart and converted the points allocated in descending order to allocate appropriate chart positions to each record based on these points so you now have an actual likely Top 20 for the 29th December for MM and RM.

As a result a few records below the Top 10 had their placement changed a little from the original order just based on points. I think the chart now has greater clarity as a result. I have already amended any affected last week positions in the chart for 5th January.

[MrTibbs]

... and so into 1957 we go as Donegan and Presley both attempt to dominate the UK music scene for supremacy.

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending January 5th 1957

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

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending January 5th 1957							NME	MM	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey			Stores	65	25	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart					TOP	30	Scored
2	1	Singing The Blues - Guy Mitchell					1	2	1	4475
1	2	Just Walking In The Rain - Johnnie Ray					2	1	2	4375
3	3	Green Door - Frankie Vaughan					3	3	3	4200
4	4	St. Therese Of The Roses - Malcolm Vaughan					4	5	4	4025
13	5	Singing The Blues - Tommy Steele					6	6	4	3870
5	6	Cindy Oh Cindy - Eddie Fisher					5	4	7	3805
6	7	True Love - Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly					7	7	7	3600
7	8	Rip It Up - Bill Haley and His Comets					9	7	6	3530
11	9	Hound Dog - Elvis Presley					8	10	9	3340
10	10	A Woman In Love - Frankie Laine					10	13	11	3015
12	11	Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley					11	17	12	2790
8	12	My Prayer - The Platters					16	9	10	2785
9	13	Make It A Party - Winifred Atwell					14	16	17	2320
20	14	Rocking Through The Rye - Bill Haley and His Comets					19	13	14	2250
15	15	Blue Moon - Elvis Presley (A)					22	11	13	2165
24	16	Friendly Persuasion - Pat Boone					16	20	19	1970
18	17	Blueberry Hill - Fats Domino					21	19	18	1730
23	18	A House With Love In It - Vera Lynn					19	20	20	1715
17	19	When Mexico Gave Up The Rumba - Mitchell Torok					12	13		1685
19	20	Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley and His Comets					25		14	1410
14	21	More - Jimmy Young					15	18		1365
22	22	Two Different Worlds - Ronnie Hilton					18	12		1320
21	23	Moonlight Gambler - Frankie Laine					13			1170
26	24	Sing With Shand - Jimmy Shand							16	900
27	25	Cindy Oh Cindy - Tony Brent					23			520
16	25	Christmas Island - Dickie Valentine					23			520
RE	27	Rudy's Rock - Bill Haley and His Comets					27			260
RE	28	A Letter To A Soldier - Barbara Lyon					28			195
NEW	29	Friendly Persuasion - The Four Aces					29			130
30	30	I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine - Elvis Presley (B)					30			65
		Lonnie Donegan Showcase (LP) - Lonnie Donegan					26
25		The Green Door - Jim Lowe
28		Christmas And You - Dave King
29		Join In And Sing No 3 - The Johnston Brothers

[Graham76man]

I can't resist saying here to go off topic for a moment, I can't comprehend how the record buying public in 1956 bought and charted Patience and Prudence's horrendous record and blatantly ignored the wonderful, harmonic, mind blowing Oh What A Night by The Dells straight out of The Platters mould. Now there is a record fit for the very chart summit.That sax break in the middle makes me 'smoke'.

Wonderful stuff

The answer to that question is simple. The public in the UK couldn't get hold of The Dells track as it wasn't released in the UK till 1969!
According to the 45 worlds and 45 Cat site. The Dells only issued records in the USA in the 1950's and they only started releasing records in the UK in 1963.

[MrTibbs]

I am liking what I hear from you guys. I too am both surprised and heartened by the outcome because it does look both relevant and consistent for the missing week fitting in well. You are right Lonnie, the 'experimental' NME chart for the missing week will be interesting but not alike point for point as obviously the system used is different. I also think Robbie and Graham make a good point that it is likely NME used a reduced panel for this end of year week.

I can't resist saying here to go off topic for a moment, I can't comprehend how the record buying public in 1956 bought and charted Patience and Prudence's horrendous record and blatantly ignored the wonderful, harmonic, mind blowing Oh What A Night by The Dells straight out of The Platters mould. Now there is a record fit for the very chart summit.That sax break in the middle makes me 'smoke'.

Wonderful stuff

[kingofskiffle]

This is a very interesting development. I am a fan of statistics and what's happening is essentially averaging the chart out to look at patterns. If a song was 1-2-BLANK CHART-12 then we can, with some confidence, say it was between 3 and 11 in that missing week, and what this does is try and give some sort of idea as to where that record might be. I like the results and, actually, the positions do match with the NME chart as well as other weeks have.

I to like the suggestion to try it for NME and see what we get. It will, of course, not match properly - but that's not the point as this is a proof of concept. For charts based on points I think this is relatively good. We are, after all, applying modern methods to a process that was not very rigorous at the start - let's be honest, scoring each record as points and then adding them up is not a good method to be totally accurate and true sales figures are the way forward. But, we have none of those original sales figures. So this does seem really good!

[MrTibbs]

That's a most interesting exercise there Brian. Just for the heck of it, I'd also do a midpoint chart of NME for 22 Dec and 5 Jan, and see how that compares to the actual NME for 29 Jan, and versus the MM and RM missing midpoint charts. Just 'cause I'm a math nut, ha...

As in if the NME midpoint chart is extremely close to the actual NME chart, then that would give some kind of confidence to the MM and RM midpoint charts.

You could also rank the midpoint chart positions from 1 to 20 (or whatever) just to smooth them out and not have to deal with half points.

But I do like this concept. The question is (as I've asked before), which would be the more 'correct' thing to do with a skipped week chart? To leave it as 'no chart', to freeze the previous week, to back-freeze with the following week, or to do a midpoint chart? I think a midpoint chart is closest to the 'truth'.

Interesting! Interesting! Interesting !

I like those suggestions .. A Lot !

In the next few days I will do that one for the NME as a comparison because it would be interesting to see.

I called this an experimental chart because depending on the outcome I intend to replicate the process for all end of year charts where one or more was not compiled at the end of the year right up to the end of 1968. If so, that would mean going back and making some corrections to each of those charts affected to give a true UAC all the way from 1956 to 1968 to include all charts.
I am thus far impressed with the outcome on this experimental chart and if the NME comparison gives a result not far away from the actual then we may well be on to a winner.

The reason I did not break down the points to chart position numbers for the MM and RM averages above on the 29th December chart was to demonstrate openly how I reached the decision for each record.

[RokinRobinOfLocksley]

That's a most interesting exercise there Brian. Just for the heck of it, I'd also do a midpoint chart of NME for 22 Dec and 5 Jan, and see how that compares to the actual NME for 29 Jan, and versus the MM and RM missing midpoint charts. Just 'cause I'm a math nut, ha...

As in if the NME midpoint chart is extremely close to the actual NME chart, then that would give some kind of confidence to the MM and RM midpoint charts.

You could also rank the midpoint chart positions from 1 to 20 (or whatever) just to smooth them out and not have to deal with half points.

But I do like this concept. The question is (as I've asked before), which would be the more 'correct' thing to do with a skipped week chart? To leave it as 'no chart', to freeze the previous week, to back-freeze with the following week, or to do a midpoint chart? I think a midpoint chart is closest to the 'truth'.

[MrTibbs]

As a method of compiling a one-off chart, it is fine. The NME chart seems like an outlier in some way despite it being the only chart compiled that week.

At first glance maybe Robbie, but in the Top 20 where also MM and RM feature, 11 of the UAC positions are either the same position or only one place out from the NME position whilst another 4 are only two places out, so 15 records, 75% of the Top 20 is approximately within the same ball park.
On the week before, the 22nd December, where all 3 charts were compiled 16 records met the same standard so not that far out really by comparison.

[Robbie]

As a method of compiling a one-off chart, it is fine. The NME chart seems like an outlier in some way despite it being the only chart compiled that week. However, the NME chart itself was (as Graham has mentioned) probably compiled from fewer returns than usual to get the chart compiled in time for publication and so it may not as be as robust as usual.

[Graham76man]

The first advantage that springs out is that the tie at 3 is broken, and in a convincing way. The differences below that are greater than I would have expected, particularly as this is the slow-moving time of year. Perhaps the MM and RM weightings should be halved to produce a fairer picture.

I admire the way that every year NME produced a chart in Christmas week, while the other charts compilers were partying!

I think you are going on those week ending dates. They confuse a lot of people. That chart for the 29 December was for the week 23 December and was for the sales week previous when buyers were rushing out to buy last minute records for presents. So it shouldn't have been a slow week sales wise. It was good that NME did that week and the others didn't due to the sales period. However we don't know if they got around doing the chart in the Christmas week by simply cutting the shops phoned down to 20 or whatever to get it done faster.

[Splodj]

The first advantage that springs out is that the tie at 3 is broken, and in a convincing way. The differences below that are greater than I would have expected, particularly as this is the slow-moving time of year. Perhaps the MM and RM weightings should be halved to produce a fairer picture.

I admire the way that every year NME produced a chart in Christmas week, while the other charts compilers were partying!

[MrTibbs]

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending December 29th 1956							NME	MM	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey			Stores	65	20	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart					TOP	30	Scored
1	1	Just Walking In The Rain - Johnnie Ray					1	1	1	4350
3	2	Singing The Blues - Guy Mitchell					2	2	1	4265
2	3	Green Door - Frankie Vaughan					3	3	3	4060
4	4	St. Therese Of The Roses - Malcolm Vaughan					3	4	4	3980
5	5	Cindy Oh Cindy - Eddie Fisher					6	4	6	3665
8	6	True Love - Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly					5	8	7	3590
6	7	Rip It Up - Bill Haley and His Comets					9	7	5	3470
7	8	My Prayer - The Platters					10	6	8	3245
11	9	Make It A Party - Winifred Atwell					7	14	14	2920
10	10	A Woman In Love - Frankie Laine					12	11	10	2895
9	11	Hound Dog - Elvis Presley (A)					16	8	8	2815
12	12	Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley					11	13	12	2800
16	13	Singing The Blues - Tommy Steele					17	10	10	2590
13	14	More - Jimmy Young					13	16	17	2310
15	15	Blue Moon - Elvis Presley					22	14	13	2005
17	16	Christmas Island - Dickie Valentine					8			1495
14	17	When Mexico Gave Up The Rumba - Mitchell Torok					15	12		1420
30	18	Blueberry Hill - Fats Domino					25	20	20	1270
18	19	Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley and His Comets						18	15	1220
23	20	Rocking Through The Rye - Bill Haley and His Comets						16	16	1200
NEW	21	Moonlight Gambler - Frankie Laine					14			1105
20	22	Two Different Worlds - Ronnie Hilton					21	19		890
24	23	A House With Love In It - Vera Lynn					18			845
24	24	Friendly Persuasion - Pat Boone					19			780
19	25	The Green Door - Jim Lowe							18	780
RE	26	Sing With Shand - Jimmy Shand							19	720
21	27	Cindy Oh Cindy - Tony Brent					20			715
27	28	Christmas And You - Dave King					23			520
NEW	29	Join In And Sing No 3 - The Johnston Brothers					24			455
26	30	I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine - Elvis Presley (B)					26			325
22		Love Me As Though There Were No Tomorrow - Nat King Cole					30	20		285
29		A Letter To A Soldier - Barbara Lyon					27			260
		All Of You - Sammy Davis Jnr.					28			195
		Lonnie Donegan Showcase (LP) - Lonnie Donegan					29			130
28		Rudy's Rock - Bill Haley and His Comets					30			65
		MM and RM did not compile a chart this week so an average position was taken of likely chart position for this non compiled week by taking a mid point position between the chart for 22nd December and the chart for 5th January 1957 for both charts in order to compile an experimental Ultimate Averaged Chart.

[MrTibbs]

Here is the surprise Ultimate Averaged Chart I have been hinting at a couple of times over the past few weeks. I have compiled an UAC for the 29th December 1956 where only NME compiled a chart and MM and RM did not, a first for the UAC where non compiled weeks are present by music papers. I will be interested to hear your feedback on this experimental UAC so feel free to offer your comments.

But first an explanation as to what you are seeing in the columns for MM and RM. To try and establish a likely chart for both papers for non compiled 29th December I took a mid-point average between the record position each paper allocated on their chart for each record for the weeks of 22nd December and 5th January 1957. So for example, if a record was #1 on both of those weeks it would have a mid-point average of 1, if it was #1 on 29th December but #2 on 5th January the mid-point average would be 1.5, if #2 then #4 mid-point average would be 3, and so on for every record and chart position. Where MM and RM columns are blank this means the record placed on NME for that week did not feature on MM or RM for either week.

As some records would leave the chart after 29th, and some entered on 5th January thus missing out on a week it would disadvantage such records as each would likely still place on the UAC Top 30, so, for the purpose of this chart such records were granted the luxury of points of #21 on the chart in order to establish a fair average for the missing week of 29th December.

I have to say I was surprised to see the outcome as the result produced what looks like a chart that fits well into this non compiled week. For the purists among you though you have the compiled NME chart to go on for this week.

[Robbie]

Oops. the eye deceives! I've just realised I've posted about a Tommy Steele showcase album when MrTibbs had typed Lonnie Donegan. That will explain why I couldn't find it at discogs.com...

[MrTibbs]

I think you're right Robbie. If I remember correctly the original Guy Mitchell Showcase that my mother had was 10'' and a few years later it was reissued as a 12'' with a couple more tracks.

[Robbie]

As well as the Guy Mitchell Showcase album I linked to last week, my mother also owned the Tommy Steele Showcase album too. Surprisingly the album isn't listed at discogs.com nor on his discography page at wikipedia. I think the album may have been a 10" album rather than 12". It's possible the Guy Mitchell album was also 10"

[MrTibbs]

This week Lonnie Donegan becomes one of the few elite artists to place an LP on one of the music paper singles charts.

Next week's chart is the surprise I mentioned a week or so back. Your thoughts and feedback on this surprise when it comes probably on Wednesday will be interesting

[MrTibbs]

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending December 22nd 1956

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

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending December 22nd 1956							NME	MM	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey			Stores	65	20	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart					TOP	30	Scored
1	1	Just Walking In The Rain - Johnnie Ray					1	1	1	4350
2	2	Green Door - Frankie Vaughan					2	3	3	4125
5	3	Singing The Blues - Guy Mitchell					4	2	2	4075
3	4	St. Therese Of The Roses - Malcolm Vaughan					3	4	4	3980
7	5	Cindy Oh Cindy - Eddie Fisher					5	5	6	3710
4	6	Rip It Up - Bill Haley and The Comets					6	8	5	3645
6	7	My Prayer - The Platters					8	5	7	3455
10	8	True Love - Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly					7	10	9	3300
9	9	Hound Dog - Elvis Presley					11	7	8	3160
8	10	A Woman In Love - Frankie Laine					10	9	10	3065
12	11	Make It A Party - Winifred Atwell					9	13	11	2990
16	12	Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley					14	11	12	2645
13	13	More - Jimmy Young					14	16	13	2485
14	14	When Mexico Gave Up The Rumba - Mitchell Torok					13	12	19	2270
11	15	Blue Moon - Elvis Presley (A)					17	18	14	2190
19	16	Singing The Blues - Tommy Steele					19	14	17	1960
20	17	Christmas Island - Dickie Valentine					12		20	1895
25	18	Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley and His Comets					25	14	16	1630
18	19	The Green Door - Jim Lowe					29	20	15	1310
15	20	Two Different Worlds - Ronnie Hilton					18	16		1145
21	21	Cindy Oh Cindy - Tony Brent					16			975
24	22	Love Me As Though There Were No Tomorrow - Nat Ki ng Cole					22	19		825
17	23	Rocking Through The Rye - Bill Haley and His Comets							18	780
22	24	A House With Love In It - Vera Lynn					20			715
26	24	Friendly Persuasion - Pat Boone					20			715
RE	26	I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine - Elvis Presley (B)					23			520
NEW	27	Christmas And You - Dave King					24			455
30	28	Rudy's Rock - Bill Haley and The Comets					26			325
NEW	29	A Letter To A Soldier - Barbara Lyon					27			260
RE	30	Blueberry Hill Fats Domino					30			65
		Lonnie Donegan Showcase (LP) - Lonnie Donegan					28
23		Only You - The Platters
27		Cindy Oh Cindy - Vince Martin
28		Green Door - Glen Mason
28		Don't Be Cruel - Elvis Presley

[braindeadpj]

At least we can say the rules of the UAC are clear and transparent even if the rules of the charts at the time were not!