The Charts They Are a-Changin’

For chart enthusiasts it was all change on Tuesdays from October 1987. Tuning into Radio 1 at lunchtime – listening to Johnnie Walker, Paul Burnett, DLT or Gary Davies depending on your era – and noting down the chart positions ready for Sunday. Come Sunday you’d be there, finger poised over the pause button, waiting to record the latest chart entries. Admit it, we all did it!

“This show is going to kick everything else into touch,” boasted Bruno Brookes, bagging himself a Radio Times cover to boot. From now on chart release day was shifted from Tuesday to Sunday, requiring even more of a trigger finger for home tapers.

Broadcast the chart on the same day it’s compiled? Surely not!  When we now have chart shows that are updated to reflect sales and downloads during the programme it all sounds very quaint. Back in 1987 the chart manager at Gallup, Godfrey Rust, explained all to the Radio Times.

Of the 4,300 record shops Gallup selected a representative panel based on size of outlet, type of shop (chains like HMV, multiples like Boots or independents) and region. For the new chart this panel was upped from 250 to 500 shops.

Each of the panel shops has a little Epson data-gatherer and sales assistants key in each record’s catalogue number at the time of sale. The machine is connected to a telephone line and four times a week Gallup’s computer downloads the data. After the last update in the early hours of Sunday the chart is compiled.

The computer is able to compensate for incorrectly punched catalogue numbers, typically the first letter is missed. About 10 to 20 per cent of the information is rejected as “incomplete or unrepresentative.” For security a back-up system was maintained at Thame in Oxfordshire.
 

Anticipating the new chart and new show on Sunday 4 October 1987 Bruno said: “The Top 40 is already Europe’s most listened-to radio show. Now all of the music industry as well will have to be listening to find out where their records are. I can imagine executives and promoters jumping about making urgent telephone calls as I read out the positions, I like anything with a sense of excitement and this show tops the lot.”

And this is how it all sounded.
 

Here’s Paul Burnett with a Tuesday lunchtime chart rundown from September 1978. I can’t claim to have recorded this one; it comes from the pages of Radio Rewind.
 

From my own collection is this clip of Gary Davies, with his “Bit in the Middle”, and a chart from July 1984.
 

Christmas Countdown – 18 December – The Chart Shows

In 2011 there was a Christmas Day chart so strictly the Christmas No 1 wasn’t announced, on the radio at least, until just before 7 pm on the big day. The question was whether the X Factor winner was going to make No. 1, or would there be a concerted attempt to back an outsider. In fact the number one hit announced on the 18th differed depending on your source. The Official Chart with Reggie Yates on Radio 1 did indeed see Little Mix make the top spot.

The Official Chart_181211

Over on commercial radio the Vodafone Big Top 40 with Rich Clarke and Kat Shoob had the Military Wives Choir. In the event it was the Choir that made the official Christmas number one. Had the X Factor winning song been released a week too early?  

As you’ll hear the X Factor acts (Rebecca Ferguson, One Direction, The Finalists, Leona Lewis and Olly Murs) and some old seasonal favourites made up the bulk of the chart.
 

The Big Top 40_181211

Tomorrow some mellow jazz.

Carry On Up the Charts

I suspect that many of you reading this post will, in your teenage years, have spent Sunday afternoons with your finger poised over the pause button as you taped the chart hits of the day. A pastime denied todays download generation.  

This month sixty years ago the New Musical Express published the first weekly 'Record Hit Parade' chart based on record sales – 78 r.p.m. discs at the time of course – with Al Martino’s Here in My Heart being the first chart-topper.

Chart shows based on sheet music sales had been broadcast on Radio Luxembourg since 1948. On the BBC Pick of the Pops was still three years off, and it didn’t feature the hit parade until 1958.

Celebrating all things chart-related is this BBC Radio 2 documentary, Carry On Up the Charts, presented by the king of the countdown Alan Freeman. It was broadcast on 19 August 2000 and also features Paul Gambaccini, Dr Fox, Pete Murray, Johnny Beerling, Andy Parfitt, Billboard journalist Fred Bronson and David Roberts, the editor of the now defunct Guinness British Hit Singles book. (I've edited out most of the music).  

This Saturday (10th) and next (17th) Tony Blackburn will be counting down the best-selling songs of each year from 1952 to 2012 on Pick of the Pops.

BBC Four is showing the documentary Pop Charts Britannia: 60 Years of the Top 10 on Friday 16 November. The following Friday you can see The Joy of the Single.