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Following recent discussion in the MM/NME chart archives thread, this will be a newspaper-by-newspaper guide to how charts from the music magazines were used in the UK national press between 1956 and 1969.
Daily papers will be covered first, broadly in circulation order, then on to the Sundays.
Most importantly, this will include the date ranges when particular charts were used by the newspaper, and notes on whether this chart was:
(a) exactly as published in the corresponding magazine.
(b) a “provisional” chart, typically released to the press on Mondays, with some variances from the corresponding magazine, usually in the lower places. A perfect example of a Monday chart release came on November 16th 1964 when we saw the first newspaper coverage of “Little Red Rooster” as NME No 1, prompting one of the great chart controversies of all time.
(c) an updated “Stop Press” weekend chart. Most significantly, from December 1964, the Sunday Mirror had a specially-compiled NME chart that reportedly incorporated sales up to and including the previous day. Previously, the Sunday Mirror ran a special weekend chart prepared by Melody Maker.
To keep the project manageable, I don’t intend to tabulate every chart position for every record where variances from the magazine occur, but will highlight any major anomalies that come to light.
I expect the project will take some months to complete, and it’s only when all the main newspapers are logged that we can accurately tabulate the relative strength of the various charts in the mainstream press at any given point. It’s sure to be an NME win in the fifties, and Melody Maker for much of the sixties, but this data should give us really clear numbers for any point in time.
Much of this information hasn’t been fully chronicled before, so I hope it proves useful, and cast new light on the exact date on which, for millions of newspaper readers, a new No 1 was announced.
I'll kick things off shortly with the Daily Mirror, the best-selling daily paper in the UK throughout the period.
Daily papers will be covered first, broadly in circulation order, then on to the Sundays.
Most importantly, this will include the date ranges when particular charts were used by the newspaper, and notes on whether this chart was:
(a) exactly as published in the corresponding magazine.
(b) a “provisional” chart, typically released to the press on Mondays, with some variances from the corresponding magazine, usually in the lower places. A perfect example of a Monday chart release came on November 16th 1964 when we saw the first newspaper coverage of “Little Red Rooster” as NME No 1, prompting one of the great chart controversies of all time.
(c) an updated “Stop Press” weekend chart. Most significantly, from December 1964, the Sunday Mirror had a specially-compiled NME chart that reportedly incorporated sales up to and including the previous day. Previously, the Sunday Mirror ran a special weekend chart prepared by Melody Maker.
To keep the project manageable, I don’t intend to tabulate every chart position for every record where variances from the magazine occur, but will highlight any major anomalies that come to light.
I expect the project will take some months to complete, and it’s only when all the main newspapers are logged that we can accurately tabulate the relative strength of the various charts in the mainstream press at any given point. It’s sure to be an NME win in the fifties, and Melody Maker for much of the sixties, but this data should give us really clear numbers for any point in time.
Much of this information hasn’t been fully chronicled before, so I hope it proves useful, and cast new light on the exact date on which, for millions of newspaper readers, a new No 1 was announced.
I'll kick things off shortly with the Daily Mirror, the best-selling daily paper in the UK throughout the period.
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