FEATURE:
A Selections of the Best-Selling U.K. Singles 1952-2022
ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Vecteezy
Seventy Years of the Official Singles Chart
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I like doing anniversary features…
PHOTO CREDIT: mindfulness_com
whether that refers to an album, single, moment or music event. I think one pretty major anniversary occurs on 14th November. On that date in 1952, the first UK Single Chart was published in NME. To mark the upcoming seventieth anniversary, I have compiled a playlist featuring many of the best and biggest-selling U.K. singles between 1952 and this year. Before getting there, this feature revisits tracks featured in the very first Official Singles Chart in November 1952:
“In the US, Billboard had been compiling a weekly chart based on record sales since 1940, but here in the UK a song’s popularity was measured not by its physical sales, but by sales of the accompanying sheet music.
In 1952, Percy Dickins, one of the founders of the New Musical Express (which later became the NME) decided to produce a chart based on UK record sales. Dickins compiled the chart by telephoning 20 record shops up and down the country every week and tallying up their biggest-selling singles. The first ever Top 12 (which was actually a Top 15 given that sales of the Number 7, Number 8, and Number 11 singles were tied) was published in the New Musical Express on November 14, 1952.
American crooner Al Martino took the inaugural Official Singles Chart Number 1 with his track Here In My Heart. He would hold onto the top spot for nine consecutive weeks, a feat which has only been beaten by David Whitfield’s Cara Mia (10 consecutive weeks), Rihanna’s Umbrella (10 consecutive weeks), Frankie Laine’s I Believe (11), Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around (15) and Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (16).
Jo Stafford, who would go on the become the Official Singles Chart’s first female chart topper, debuted at Number 2 with You Belong To Me, while Nat King Cole’s Somewhere Along The Way entered at Number 3. Bing Crosby’s The Isle of Innisfree entered at Number 4, and Guy Mitchell’s Feet Up (Pat Him On The Po Po) completed the first ever Top 5.
Further down the chart, Frankie Laine’s High Noon and Vera Lynn’s Forget Me Not were tied for Number 7. Doris Day And Frankie Laine’s Sugarbush and Ray Martin’s Blue Tango were joint Number 8, and Max Bygraves' Cowpuncher’s Cantata and Mario Lanza’s Because You’re Mine were joint Number 11”.
It is amazing to think that it has been nearly seventy years since the Official Singles Chart started life. Even though the musical landscape has altered drastically since 1952, the importance of the chart has not really waned. Even today, artists celebrate getting a number one. It is such an achievement to be in the chart - especially as there are so many artists and songs around today. With physical singles replaced with digital ones, that is perhaps the biggest change. Aside from that, the Official Single Chart has remained eclectic and exciting. To show which songs ruled the charts in the years between 1952 and today, below is a selection of wonderful songs…
THAT will stand the test of time.