The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined

[braindeadpj]

Given we will never have sales info for that period points are the best we have brain. I think your assumption about the advanced orders is a correct one. Can I ask though what u mean by 'flawed' evidence im not sure what u mean by that. Invariably difficult decisions have to be made sometimes and this is one of them. To be fair and transparent a system needs to be in place and consistently applied. I think my outcome is correct as it does also agree with the BBC average.

By flawed evidence I was just referring to the charts themselves. The variation between them clearly shows that they are flawed, but they are all we have to work with. The benefit of your chart is it 'averages out' the flaws, thus reducing their impact, making your chart a highly valuable endeavor.

[Splodj]

I must admit to preferring Marianne Fairhfull's version. Loved it then. Love it now.

To be honest I just bought it to show off. But I regard it as a collectors item now because Mike Leander's arrangement for 'Con Le Mie Lacrime' varies from the one he did for the Stones English version.

[Splodj]

I suggest there is a parallel with MM having 'Day Tripper' enter at number 3. They knew this would be controversial, after a run of Beatles singles entering at 1, yet they robustly defended their placings and I found their openness persuasive.

So I believe that on both occasions MM accurately and honestly calculated the returns they had.

[Metalweb]

I was thinking the same thing when I saw it... Is it the 1st football song to chart? Also did Spurs win (presumably the FA cup or was it for the League)?

Spurs won the League / FA Cup double in the 60/61 season - presumably the record was made in honour of that feat...

[MrTibbs]

I suggest there is a parallel with MM having 'Day Tripper' enter at number 3. They knew this would be controversial, after a run of Beatles singles entering at 1, yet they robustly defended their placings and I found their openness persuasive.

So I believe that on both occasions MM accurately and honestly calculated the returns they had.

Alan Smith and I have to agree once stated that MM had the most accurate chart from July 1960. He based this on the fact that MM wanted to have the best chart service and invested heavily in this so from July 1960 they indeed did increase their weekly poll to 110 and theirs was the only chart to include stores from Northern Ireland.

I set huge store on Alan's comprehensive research. He had many contacts inside the music papers and record business so was well placed to be an authority on chart compilation and methodology.

That is why I use his figures for store numbers used by music papers. They are as close as it is possible to get.

[MrTibbs]

By flawed evidence I was just referring to the charts themselves. The variation between them clearly shows that they are flawed, but they are all we have to work with. The benefit of your chart is it 'averages out' the flaws, thus reducing their impact, making your chart a highly valuable endeavor.

It has always been a dilemma for me brain since I started this project but a so worthwhile one. What charts to use. What methodology to use. It is entirely possible, and credible I have to say, to compile a dozen permutations of a chart and each one in its own way could be right.

I have to say the biggest headache for me was do I use RR at all. It was so out of step and had the smallest sample so biggest margin of error. I actually considered not using it until August 1967 when Disc dropped out of the picture and by that time RR was a bit better.

I went with it in the end because I wanted The Ultimate chart to be all encompassing. I could see the criticisms that lay ahead in not including 'The Official Chart', I nearly choked typing that. So on balance we have an averaged chart that is at least all encompassing and therefore fair and wholly reflective of the time warts and all.

[MrTibbs]

Spurs won the League / FA Cup double in the 60/61 season - presumably the record was made in honour of that feat...

I must be honest and say i have yet to hear a decent football anthem to make the chart and that includes the worst of them all I'm ashamed to admit, the cringeworthy embarrassing Ally's Tartan Army in 1978.

Even worse than our football performance that year.

[Robbie]

I must be honest and say i have yet to hear a decent football anthem to make the chart and that includes the worst of them all I'm ashamed to admit, the cringeworthy embarrassing Ally's Tartan Army in 1978.

Even worse than our football performance that year.

When we reach the Argentine we're really gonna show
The world a brand of football that they could never know
We're representing Britain; we've got to do or die
For England cannae dae it 'cause they didnae qualify

Pure poetry... not!

[Metalweb]

'We Have A Dream' from '82 wasn't too bad....

[MrTibbs]

When we reach the Argentine we're really gonna show
The world a brand of football that they could never know
We're representing Britain; we've got to do or die
For England cannae dae it 'cause they didnae qualify

Pure poetry... not!

Yip the singing aside that's the most cringeworthy bit

[MrTibbs]

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending June 3rd 1961

[MrTibbs]

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending June 3rd 1961								NME	RM	MM	DISC	RR	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey				Stores	80	60	110	50	30	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart				BBC				TOP	30	Scored
4	1	Surrender - Elvis Presley					1	1	1	1	1	1	9900
1	2	Runaway - Del Shannon					2	2	2	2	2	2	9570
3	3	The Frightened City - The Shadows					3	3	4	3	3	3	9180
7	4	More Than I Can Say - Bobby Vee					4	4	3	5	4	4	8860
2	5	Blue Moon - The Marcels					5	8	5	4	5	5	8450
5	6	On The Rebound - Floyd Cramer					6=	5	6	7	8	6	8120
9	7	You'll Never Know - Shirley Bassey					6=	6	7	9	7	8	7750
10	8	What'd I Say - Jerry Lee Lewis					8	9	8	10	6	10	7330
6	9	You're Driving Me Crazy - The Temperance Seven					9	10	13	6	11	9	7170
8	10	Don't Treat Me Like A Child - Helen Shapiro					11	13	10	8	9	7	7050
12	11	But I Do - Clarence 'Frogman' Henry					10	7	9	12	10	11	6980
19	12	Have A Drink On Me - Lonnie Donegan					12=	11	11	13	12	12	6300
16	13	Little Devil - Neil Sedaka					12=	12	12	11	13	18	6150
13	14	Easy Going Me - Adam Faith					14	14	16	15	15	14	5330
11	15	Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley					15=	18	15	14	16	16	5070
25	16	Halfway To Paradise - Billy Fury					15=	15	20	19	19	23	4100
26	17	Hello Mary Lou / Travellin' Man - Ricky Nelson					17	16	14	17			3760
18	18	Warpaint - The Brook Brothers					18	22		16	18	13	3560
29	19	I've Told Every Little Star - Linda Scott					19=	19		20	17	25	3050
14	20	Theme From Dixie - Duane Eddy						20		18		17	2730
23	21	Running Scared - Roy Orbison						21	19		20	27	2190
27	22	I Still Love You All - Kenny Ball						17	18			30	1930
20	23	African Waltz - Johnny Dankworth						24	17			19	1760
17	24	Gee Whiz It's You - Cliff Richard					19=	30			14	15	1410
24	25	Exodus - Ferrante and Teicher						23				20	970
21	26	Little Boy Sad - Johnny Burnette						25				22	750
NEW	27	Why Not Now - Matt Monro						26				24	610
15	28	A Hundred Pounds Of Clay - Craig Douglas						29				21	460
NEW	29	Well I Ask You - Eden Kane						27					320
NEW	30	She She Little Sheila - Gene Vincent						28					240
		How Wonderful To Know - Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson										26	150
		Where The Boys Are - Connie Francis										28	90
		A Scottish Soldier - Andy Stewart										29	60

[Splodj]

I imagine 'including pre-orders' meant getting an advance figure from the record company and doing an override to put that record at number one.

The logic from NME's perspective was that if they knew there were going to be enough sales for that record to be number one, to maintain their reputation for being ah

[Splodj]

ahead, they did not want to have the record at the lower position indicated by their tally of only 2 days sales.

Clearly there were difficulties with this. The main one being that they could not know how many sales would make number one. Another being fed false info by the record company. The Sun showed that they were wrong to put Little Red Rooster in at the top.

Also it would mean that there was bound to be some double accounting, as they were giving points to records already credited for sales.

[MrTibbs]

Yeah no doubt about it, NME had three big disadvantages in the sixties, continuing, to split sides, taking advance orders into consideration, and including albums in the singles chart.

That is why NME could never be considered as the best chart of the sixties. MM, with their biggest store sample and not indulging in the three disadvantages above was surely the superior music paper chart.

[Gambo]

100% right MrT and it always annoys me when some people seek to argue that NME was the preferred chart of the period - usually based on the fact that they remember the more prominent chart of that era was NME's and probably followed it themselves assuming it was pretty accurate. Okay, it may not be hard to put a case for it still being superior by many important measures to the RR chart, which was retrospectively and unwisely given 'official' canonised status. But the fact is no other singular chart compiled contemporaneously offered a completely untainted and preferable alternative - which of course is the engine driving what you have done with the UAC.

It's interesting that the point Splodj makes about NME trying to somehow reflect over-the-counter sales yet to come after only two days' retail before the new chart was prepared strikes chords with the conundrum presented to the OCC in the mid-2010s when (rightly or wrongly) Friday was alighted upon as the preferred day of the week for global new music releases. They had the option of simply continuing the way they had for decades and sticking with a Sunday-to-Saturday survey week (which more-or-less tallied with the actual calendar week and so made sense to most chart followers), but having only two days' sales of new releases before it ended, or, break massively with tradition (and the conventional calendar) and re-align the survey frame to Friday-to-Thursday to take account of a full seven days' sales for titles new to the market. As we know, they opted for the latter, despite the onward consequences (chief among them forcing Radio 1 to move its long-established Sunday chart broadcast to an unappealing Friday early evening slot) as they obviously felt it somehow might make them seem behind the times to continue issuing a chart on a Sunday where new material may not yet have reached its full potential. Okay, popular releases would post a big climb the following week, but arguably may not attain as high a peak as they would've with a whole week's consumption behind them. To me this seemed a secondary concern as by the latter half of the '10s 'front-loading' and even paid-for sales themselves had become rather outmoded concepts (at least for singles) and so did it really matter if a peak chart position was one or two beneath what it could've been if first-week sales/streams weren't split between two survey weeks? It's not as if that hadn't been the norm in the pre-front-loaded era where singles were issued predominantly on Fridays and their initial potential chart appearance would be only two days later. But it strikes me that NME in the 1960s - not even shackled by commitments to a weekly national broadcast like OCC were in 2015 - could simply just have adjusted their survey week to Friday-to-Thursday to allow the full might of seven days' sales for new releases make their greatest impact on their first 'week' in their chart. As far as I know, they never considered that and stuck to calendrical convention. Maybe it wouldn't have worked with whatever day of the week the mag actually hit the shops? Or retailers in their sample just wouldn't have gone for reporting to them on a different day to any other publication? I imagine there would've been downsides to such a move. But if they were so het-up about ensuring they didn't seem behind the times when only a couple of days' sales had elapsed at the point of compiling their rankings, it surely should've been a potentially preferable solution to second-guessing how actual sales would pan out in the remaining five days by betting on and including whatever the label's reported pre-order shipment was?

Oh well, all lost in the mists of time I suppose, and few readers of NME at the time would've given two hoots even if they'd known about it, any more than current chart followers do about the inconsistencies and manipulations of the modern official charts. Yet it does show that some issues in the world of music and charts that check its commercial impact endure across the decades and arguably never satisfactorily get resolved, even after half a century.

[kjell]

To me it has always been the song and the performance of it that has been most important, and there have been double A sides out there which were both worth listening to despite often being quite unlike. In fact some record companies did speculate in having singles with one ballad and one rocky side in the hope of catching sales to both segments.
I see that the double positions of NME make a problem that can’t be easily solved in the era prior to sales figures charts. I completely agree with Brian on the two other counts.

[MrTibbs]

Funnily enough kjell both Cliff and Elvis back then often had a ballad side and a rocker side on their discs so yeah, double appeal.

[Splodj]

In 1964/5 I used to go round to my grandparents to watch TOTP. Initially they were not pop music enthusiasts, but they got caught up in the 'soap opera' aspect of the charts. They would discuss with their friends what had come in, gone up, made number one etc. They knew nothing about NME or RR. To them and millions of others the charts were the BBC ones.

[MrTibbs]

I can entirely relate to that Splodj, my father hated TOTP so I too had to go to my grandparents to watch it every week from 64 too. My grandfather said it kept him young and 'in the know' but added it was the best laugh he had in the week.

[Splodj]

Yeah those charts at the beginning of this thread prompted very fond memories of my visits.

I hope your granny acted with more decorum than mine when Tom Jones appeared!

[RokinRobinOfLocksley]

Just a comment on NME and advance orders. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was never under the impression that NME used information from record labels to count as advance order sales. I had always assumed that each NME reporting shop was tabulating its own in-shop chart based on (a) actual sales + (b) advance orders not yet purchased (record fan had ordered the record but hadn't yet dropped by the shop to pick it up and pay for it) + possibly in some cases (c) unfulfilled advance order sales due to label not delivering enough copies to satisfy demand.

Situation 1. Let's say EMI delivered 300 copies of record 'X' to an NME reporting shop. There were 200 advance orders. The shop sold 100 copies to advance order-ers who came by the shop on release day, sold 100 copies to to those who walked in off the street, and held back the remaining 100 copies for the other advance order-ers who hadn't yet stopped by the shop. How many sold records should this shop use in calculating its in-shop chart for NME? The 200 actual sales, or 300 which includes the other 100 advance orders not yet purchased?

Situation 2. Let's say EMI delivered 300 copies of record 'X' to an NME reporting shop. But there were 500 advance orders! (obviously a new Beatle record, ha.) The shop sold its 300 copies to those advance order-ers who showed up on release day, and told the other 200 they would get their copies as soon as EMI made another delivery, which might be the next week. How many records should this shop use in calculating its in-shop chart for NME? The 300 actual sales, or 500 which includes the 200 record label delivery shortfall which would arrive next week?

Which is closest to the truth in constructing a weekly chart: counting actual sales only, or counting actual sales + advance orders not yet picked up and paid for? Should a record chart reflect actual sales only as limited by the record labels in not delivering enough copies in a given week, or should it reflect actual demand of how many sales there would have been if the label had supplied enough copies? Should a recording artist be penalized for a record label goof in not supplying enough copies to a shop to satisfy a real demand?

Just throwing this out there. One the one hand, I can only guess that advance order reporting didn't come into play that often, only for super hot artists. Cliff, Elvis, Beatles; or when the record label made a serious underestimated goof of anticipated sales. And for some super hot artists, they may have sold so many copies that they would have been at #1 on release week regardless if advance orders were included or not. On the other hand, it doesn't bother me all too much that NME and Disc used advance orders. On the third hand, of course it would have been better and more consistent if all charts treated advance orders the same. But then we wouldn't have anything to talk about, ha !!

[MrTibbs]

All things considered maybe we should just take all those charts and their chart positions at face value and accept them warts and all. I do for compiling the Ultimate Chart. If a paper says this then they are awarded these points and if another says that then they get those points. The chart numbers were good enough at the time and accepted by the record buying public so they should be good enough for us now. Shouldn't they ?

[Splodj]

I had always assumed that each NME reporting shop was tabulating its own in-shop chart based on (a) actual sales + (b) advance orders not yet purchased (record fan had ordered the record but hadn't yet dropped by the shop to pick it up and pay for it) + possibly in some cases (c) unfulfilled advance order sales due to label not delivering enough copies to satisfy demand.

I reckon they would want to keep things simple and just ask for (a). This would include a record paid for and available for collection.

If you ask for (b) or (c) you are falsely recording as a sale something that is just an unpaid expression of interest. Then if it does result in a sale there is the danger of recording it again.

In that MM article justifying Day Tripper entering at 3 there is no mention of advance orders being an explanation for the difference. I suspect it was something that NME (and Disc) claimed to bat off enquiries.

I don't know, but the reasoning above suggests that the dealers simply recorded sales - whether to NME or MM. If so, the advanced order information that NME used must have come from a different source.

[Graham76man]

This what we do know. Each paper asked record shops to provide a list of it's best selling records each week. It was either a top ten or later on a top 50 list.
Some of these papers used a phone call system to the shops to get the list. Others used a paper return direct to the papers.
The papers used a certain amount of shops to compile the charts.
The list of the record stores used by the papers was available (on the fiddle) to ALL record companies. Record Mirror at one time published the charts and the names of the shops it used. They asked the other papers to do so, but none did.
Certainly by the time that all the papers were making a chart record companies were starting to fiddle the charts. There are recorded instances of getting records into the top tens on the fiddle. By 1967 Melody Maker got sick of the fiddling and reduced it's chart to a 30.
None of the papers would know if a record had actually sold one copy. Because they only had the lists from the shops. Which could have been completely made up by whomever made up the list. However unlikely that was.
So far (as far as I can tell personally) all the records had been issued the week the chart covers.
Based on the returns from the shops the papers would NOT be able to tell the amount any record sold.
Dealers paid for records. They sold them back to the public at inflated prices. So if they had 300 customers wanting a record, they would order at least 300 copies. These should have been available to purchase by the day of release.

Now to what we don't know.
We do not know if any of the papers told the shops what not and what to put in the charts.
We do not know if papers removed B sides, LP's from the data they got back to compile the charts. Though it looks like Record Retailer MIGHT have removed EP's.
Any evidence for the papers using advanced orders from an outside source.
If any record shop taking part used advanced orders to produce the return list.

The following we assume to be correct.
Paper returns would come back spoiled. Wrongly filled in, or missing details.
Returns by paper would got lost in the post or delayed especially at holiday periods.
Some dealers put in LP's by mistake in the returns to the papers. Some dealers quoted the wrong side of a record in the same returns.
NME did not correct the above two errors. Perhaps on the grounds they didn't want change how the chart would appear. Or the paper didn't care.
Somebody was supplying information to at least one of the papers on the amount sold. As it produced a system of sales to indicate that a record had passed a certain amount.
We don't know if they asked shops for figures, but it more likely came from distribution by record companies.
I suspect on the phone system gathering they asked a much smaller number from a the pool of stores shown on the list. Especially if the were asking each store for 50 records! As the phone cost of 100 stores would be massive.