URGENT HELP REQUIRED OCC / Billboard Chart Question 7 October 1979 - 9 October 1979 - 3 Day Chart

[Germanicus]

Traditionally, when the first Guinness book came out, they took the date that the paper hit the streets, which was a Wednesday, Thursday or a Saturday at various points over the decades until the end of 1969.

When the first albums book came out, Guinness had been doing the Singles chart books for a few years (Singles came out in 1977 and Albums in 1983 and I have both first editions - well first issues, they may be re-prints at the time sourced off eBay for a few pounds years ago.) So they chose to use a standard Saturday date throughout.

Guinness decided quite a lot about how we view the earlier charts....

Re the chart size: I'd imagine that sales were low or unreliable below the Top 15. The early charts include breakers in alphabetical order (See the intro to my Albums book) and I've alway assumed that sales were minimal below the Top 15 or so in the very early days, so they may well have taken the decision to do a alphabetical order to simply remove any errors. Again, Guinness only used the Top 15 and did not mention anything else...

I have seen one albums listing from 1973 with sales attached and it is a Top 100 at that point (With no indication of additional positions) and sales down at 100 where in the 40's, with multiple positions selling the same number of copies. The Mid Price chart is extracted for this Top 100, which is a chart of all sellers. This largely explains why the Top 50, plus 10 position Mid Price plus 7 position breakers is what they are at the time.

I have seen some printings of Sounds that used the full un-edited listing (They printed a Top 30).

Thank you for your input kingofskiffle

In realtion to the above, you state

So they chose to use a standard Saturday date throughout. Saturday would put them in line with Billboard using Saturday for their Chart. Yes?

Guinness decided quite a lot about how we view the earlier charts.... That is most interesting - Is that good thing or a bad thing?

Re the chart size: I'd imagine that sales were low or unreliable below the Top 15. What does this say of the other Charts MM & NME?

Guinness only used the Top 15 and did not mention anything else... Interesting again, considering that BBC
used an average prior to OCC / BMRB being created, why did they not use the BBC Chart rather than the
Record Retailer Chart, as the historical benchmark, considering the resentment to use Record Retailer by
many on this forum? Record Retailer in many ways was less known to the general public.

I have seen some printings of Sounds that used the full un-edited listing (They printed a Top 30) Pity we did not have more of this magazine availble.

Your thoughts please

Most respectfully

Germanicus

[kingofskiffle]

Saturday dates: yes, but again it’s really sales period that matters as you can date a chart how you like - week starting, ending, etc.

I think it’s good in some ways. Joel Whitburn and Record Research set the tone for chart books, as he produced the Hot 100 one first which sold well and so Guinness made the UK one as a result 9either directly or indirectly).

The album sales chart in 1969 was suffering from poor diary returns, meaning your data was not great - does not say anything about the others, just that this chart had compilation issues.

The BMRB chart from 1969 onwards io the industry standard - it’s the first time a proper sales based chart was attempted and for all its flaws it was better than a sampling. If you get a Top 10 listing and add up points you arrive at a rough approximation, but if you get the full sales data and add those up you’re more accurate. The more Top 10’s you add up the more accurate, the more sales based charts you add up the more accurate, so the BMRB chart was a huge step forward over what had gone before - for also it’s early flaws over lack of data.

I get the feeling that Guinness used BMRB because - in 1975 when they decided to do the book - it was a well established and accurate chart. NME was the first, so they used that, and they would have to change to something else (either MM, Disc, etc) and so wanted something that would run from whenever they stopped using NME through to 1969. The main choices are keep NME till1969, switch to MM and then to BMRB or switch to RR and then BMRB. I know we have discussed this at length on the forum in the various threads, but the ultimate average chart is a good place to look for all of that - I don’t want to re-tread info here. I’d imagine that if MM had kept a Top 50 through the 1960’s that may well have been chosen… but as they did not and RR kept the same size all the way it made sense. Ignoring of course the flaws in doing so!

[Germanicus]

Saturday dates: yes, but again it’s really sales period that matters as you can date a chart how you like - week starting, ending, etc.

that may well have been chosen… but as they did not and RR kept the same size all the way it made sense. Ignoring of course the flaws in doing so!

Thank you very much kingofskiffle

That helps me a great deal

Your response is awesome.

I feel well informed now.

I appreciate you taking the time

Most respectfully

Germanicus

[Splodj]

Interesting that the BBC, as joint publishers, dated the singles charts from the Tuesday they were announced.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/ab56ba11...siv5kk_540.jpg

The album chart (top 10) would have been on the fifth page. I wonder what they dated that.