The Weekly update - Real Chart Music

The Real Chart 

The Only Accurate Sales Chart in the UK

The Chart Not Hyped or Adjusted by The Music Industry

Real Chart Blog News.

15 December 2024

The 1964 charts continue with the 29 November, with the new number one from The Beatles. We are getting close to the end of the year and Woolworth's will pull the plug on the Embassy Label singles, removing them all, or at least a level that means they can't sell enough to make the 100. In 1965 they switched to EP's only on the label, abandoning the double sided 45. So watch out for the dramatic falls of those single records!   The 1989 continue with the 20 August with the new number one from Black Box Meanwhile the Gallup Chart keeps Jive Bunny top.  The 1971 charts continue with the 17 January with the new number one for T-Rex, which does not top the BMRB/BBC chart, which still has Clive Dunn top.  The other week a full updated PDF of the 1970 chart was issued. 

 Saturday saw one 1979 chart, for the 27 May. With the number one for Blondie, who were also top on the BBC chart. The Sid Vicious entry at 55 is a French import! 

I have finished the 1976 charts and I have upload version two of the PDF. There was quite a few alterations to complete, since some were already in the 1975 charts, which I didn't think they were. Plus of course the altered sales figures and titles. Altogether 12 charts had to be changed. The best sellers was also altered, but only in respect of the status from 1975, with some going green and some turning black from green. The actual positions stayed the same. Some highest position numbers also changed. Also the Best Sellers for 1975 and the full PDF, including the rest of Best Sellers and there were 284 of them was uploaded last week.

I've added two pictures of the workstation I use for making the charts. They were taken recently. So you can compare them with the ones taken ages ago. 

I have added a lot of my videos to the 1990 to 1999 Number One page. These are all the videos under 70mb that I have. I will add the 70+ to 100mb later. There's not many as the rest are much bigger files and would need to be converted and reduced in size, before they can be uploaded to here. These are not videos that have been edited, or have dates added.       

 This week I upload three chart books: I, S and Z. With all the 1975 charts done and the leftovers leaving in 1976 removed. I have a backlog of the leftovers. So what I have decided to do is rather than clear them in one session, I am going to add them to the books I upload each week. So the three current ones have all the 1975 records in them.  All the "Chart Books" do contain all the 1969 hits, plus all of the left over tracks from 1969 that ran into 1970. All chart books contain all the 1977 and 1974 fall outs too, The last of the 1978 records dropped out, on the 18 March 1979, so Chart Books dated 17 October and later will contain all the hits Plus, 13 June books and after will contain all the 1963 hits. Chart books dated 08 August and after contain all the 1988 drop outs. 

 The Chart Book issue. I have ceased to use PDF archive. You can still access the PDF Archive site ones, without messing around signing in. Unlike previous chart books that got deleted when the new ones were replaced, the old files will be still on on PDF Archive. Which you could find, but these are out of date and any errors will not have been corrected.   New ones will of course go on PDF Host.  I should point that I have not got around to deleting any old PDF Host files, so they will be all available on the site if you were to do a search. Only the ones below are however up to date.  

A blog post was added about making catch points from broken old points. Thus saving a lot of money buying new Peco Catch Points. Which cost around £15 (and more in some places) plus postage if you buy online.  

1988 Best Sellers

It wasn't a good year to sell big that year with only Kylie Minogue debut single I Should Be So Lucky selling one million copies (1,058). And we thought 1987 was bad with just two million sellers! Kylie wasn't top on the Gallup listings were they had Yazz (No 2) top. The two big Christmas sellers make five and six for Cliff and Kylie and Jason. And the Buster movie proved a big hit for Phil Collins at three. Gloria Estefan was the lowest chart position, but biggest seller at 13. While the reverse of that has Tiffany at just 92, despite hitting the top! Altogether 214 records sold 250K or more. Compared with 238 in 1987. So sales were down that year!   

The 1963 charts are complete, with the final chart updated and the Best Sellers list of the year and of course the PDF of the year. I did make an error on the Best Sellers and left the key off. This is also included on the the PDF and the PDF final chart does not have the dropping out indicated. The full best sellers is available on the PDF and 251 records past 250,000 sales. Plus 31 achieved million seller status that year. The Beatles had five of the top ten that year including the top three singles! 

There was a slight edition to the Desktop Publishing Page added the other week. Including a code that lets you get the Serif software to work on your operating system. 

I have done away with the chart commentaries as these take up a lot of time to do and only last one week. The day I normally did them was Friday, so instead on that day I doing the 1979 charts.  The drop out records will be added to the chart books the following week. So the chart books uploaded will contain them. 

Technical issues saw the creation of two number one pages instead of the just one on the 2000 to 2020 page section. I have split them into two parts instead of the one. The reason for this was due to YouTube videos slowing down the page loading. I thought this might solve the problem, but unfortunately it didn't. The new 2000 to 2010 page was still taking to long to load in even on my new computer!  The only solution was to remove some of the YouTube videos to get it to load, but even then it's not fast!  It's entirely down to the YouTube embeds, the blog site videos install before even one YouTube video appears. I assume it's down to the size of the videos, how much MB they have. You are restricted to 100MB on blogger, presumably the others are allowed to be bigger! 

I think the solution is to upload the videos for the blog, rather than embed YouTube ones, at least on the number one sections.  Plus replace YouTube with blog videos instead. Of course it's a bit slow this way. So I will not be able to do a whole year in one night, like I did with the YouTube videos. For the time being page loading is a bit slower. I find it's best to wait while the left hand corner of the screen Blogger icon stops swirling around before going down the page. 

The addition of the most popular blog post to each page also happened. This means that you can go to them direct rather than search the blog.     

 

You will also see that there is a newish post which is about the transfer from the old computer to new one. 

A brief explanation of the charts compilation of the other charts that compete with the the Real Charts for 1964, 1975 and 1989 has been kept below, this helps with references. You can see what TV effects theses charts by looking at the TV Pop Diaries website (link in menu). Remember to use the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, etc.., to Saturday days, before the date of each chart. A section has been added for the 1979 charts too.   

 

 I added several YouTube videos' of good versions to the 1950's Number One page. If you spot more let me know and I will add them too. Several un-worked videos to the 1948 to 1949 number one page were added the week before. One by Doris Day has a long spoken intro to it, which I will edit out and repost at some point when I get the time.  I also added a few more videos on the 1960's Number Ones' from years not covered yet. 

YouTube add blocker saga

YouTube last week hit me with the three video warning before it stopped working due to the controversy of the use of advertisement blockers on the site. Apparently this has backfired on YouTube, because a great deal of the people who watch YouTube never did use add blockers. But these people now know! The block on videos by YouTube is so far very easy to around. I got around it by removing the blocker from Chrome, then I reinstalled a different one, called Addblocker Plus. That solved the problem. I haven't been effected on the Firefox browser so far. Other ways around it are sign out from YouTube, or use private browsing. Other browsers and Add Blockers are good at getting around the problem.    

My schedule for creating charts is Monday - 1964, Tuesday -1971 and Wednesday 1989. Thursday is when the charts drop outs are added to the chart books and charts upload at the night. Friday is now 1979 chart day.  

A post was started some time ago. It's really a request for help from for anybody who knows anything about enlarging a map and scaling it to a very big size and then printing it off. As there's no urgency with it it can stay up a long time. If you can help contact me using the message system below the post. I have found a program called Templot which allows you to scale maps from the National Library of Scotland. Thanks to the helpful people on the Templot forum I have loaded that map into it. I am was right it was not set up to do that scale map, but they can be loaded in. I have altered the post to show the new scaled maps, as mentioned above.  

  I know that the Charts are uploaded Thursday, but the videos below are not done while Sunday, but I find that just easier to do at the moment. 

I posted a post called "Am I That Good Looking?" which is about my recent experiences with dating sites. The title coming from the fact that over 140 woman "liked" my profile picture. However things were not all they seem!  Since that encounter I have started to get e-mails for Google Ads with an invite to join. These are however links to the Datagen, which takes you to the same dating sites. So if you get them don't except the invitation and mark them as spam. Other annoying ones are Google Classroom, but these are general ones and not related to the dating sites. The "class" on them contains some kind of sexual reference and so if you get them delete them. The latest ones I get are from people telling me about hotels!  Also keep your eyes out for e-mails about the UK TV license and not being able to get direct debate payments. These are fake, I got two and I am not the person in my house for them and as my dad is 95 he's free anyway!  There's some weird e-mails too. I had about 15 spams of them at one point. They don't seem to be dating site messages. The only thing on them is the words TELETEXT and then loads of numbers. No links or nothing else! The only way to stop them seems to block the sender in e-mail. Which seems to have worked!  I still do get spam messages that sign you up. To get out of these you have to go to the "help" section and it's marked there. You have to give a reason, but once done that's it! I sometimes get the message that I have signed up several days after the event. So when I go there there are loads of messages from women. These sites only allow one message before you have to pay, so I can't do anything about them wanting to know why I haven't responded. Strangely enough most seem to always come from Rotherham. I wonder if I went to Rotherham I would get mobbed by loads of women!! I also came upon several interesting sites which automatically sign you up again, yet are different. The first thing is that they will not give you a location of the women. Not until you have paid, but allow you so many free chats first. Although the site appears to be stand alone, most of the women appear on all the sites. The same profiles in each case. The names of the sites are all different, but the head office appears to be based in Cyprus. Some of the women use porn star pictures. But I came upon one woman who uses this profile picture who shows up everytime. 

She has the user name Ladystar.  However I managed to get her to reveal her name. Well almost the first time. She said it started with "T". The next time I spoke she said she her name was "Ruby". As she visited me every time, I mentioned her name and this time she said she was "Brianna".  I confronted her saying that at least three people then are using your profile, but she passed it off saying I was mistaken! 

I haven't kept a count on how many sites she's and the rest are on, but it could be as much as ten! And if they are paid up up members must have spent a fortune on signing up for them all. I never pay to join the site and when I run out of free chats, I close the account down. Always under the "help" setting. But you can have some fun with them!  

          

 

My Health

My depression attack has subsided.  Nevertheless they could start again. Some things that can contribute to it are bugging me. So if anything doesn't appear you can put it down to that.   

I am staying away from controversial forums (such as UKMIX) due to the negative attitude towards me. I can't do with people calling me names at the moment. Last time I checked rumours were that I was dead! The people spreading rumours like that clearly don't bother to search the internet. I do sometimes visit UKMIX and odd times make a comment. But it's rare for me to comment. They had an update to the site, which makes it look pale and is all white! Not really the colour for a music site! 

E-Bay purchase

You might be interested to know that I bought an edition of Record Retailer from E-Bay. The issue is dated December 8th 1960. It is complete and in good condition. It should be possible to make a PDF of the issue, but I won't be posting on here. But I will send it to the American Radio website, then post a link to it here when they upload it. Getting hold of these early issues is difficult and mine cost £12! So if you have some you are sitting on some money!  

Missing number one recording

I have purchased on E-Bay the 78rpm of Bill Johnson We'll Keep A Welcome. I was beginning to think that the record was not released!! I have been after the record or a recording of it for years and had a dedicated search for Bill Johnson on E-Bay. But nothing turned up till today (15 September 2022).  It has arrived and is in good condition visually. I am pleased to say that I have got the recording done and I uploaded it to YouTube and it is now present on the number one page of the 40's.  

There's no performance video of any type for the number one from Frank Ifield Wayward Wind on the 1963 chart Number Ones. I don't add the still picture type to the blog for the number one hits from YouTube. From the Pop Diaries site he was on TV singing the song at the time. So a recording might be out there.  The 1988 Number One Cliff Richard is one of mine without dates added. Unfortunately it is also a very unedited video form a VHS machine. As I was recording it the Hi-Fi audio dropped out, but rather than stop the tape and start again, I just reversed it back, which you can see! The recording then continues again till the end.  The 1989 from Black Box is one of mine, without dates. She's not the actual singer of the song!  All videos will now be my blog uploads and not YouTube ones, except the short term ones below.  The 1964 Number Ones has the chart topper from Beatles, which is without dates.  The Herman's Hermits video is again from that infamous film. It had Saville on the end, so I took it into a software called Power Director, which is free to use. It did the job, however when it came to outputting the video it watermarked it with a large logo of the company! To get rid of it you have to pay around £100 for a version, that doesn't look much better than the Magix version! Or pay monthly for a better version that has the latest AI tech, including one effect that turns real people to cartoons. Impressive though that is, it's not for me. Though the software has a lot of the stuff that YouTube users have on their videos, so is clearly popular with them. So in order to disguise the watermark, I put the finished video into Magix and placed one of my Number One logos over the watermark! Needless to say the Power Director software was removed! The Dionne Warwick topper is missing as yet. I have a version of the record, but it requires a great deal of work to get it stereo. I did have two new video editors, now only one, so I will see if it can do the job.  On the Honeycombs topper is another from the movie, like the Four Pennies topper, the video I uploaded of it I had to edit due to it having Saville introducing it. It was from a film, which features many great sixties acts and in colour. Sadly due to that man, the film is very rare and it's unlikely to get reissued in any format. The Millie video is also from it and the Animals too. 

The 1971 number ones will get suitable videos added as the top spot changes. Unfortunately Clive Dunn videos have only poor quality versions of TOTP performances, so for now he's absent.   

I have also added some more of the 1978 Number One Videos. Not all of them, as Blogger only allows videos up to 100mb to be uploaded. The ones uploaded all fall into the above bracket. The missing ones have a greater size and would need to be converted to a smaller size to upload, which takes some time to do.  I have also done the same with some 1980s and 1990's Number One videos.     

  

YouTube deleted the Beatles Get Back due to copyright reasons. There's a very expensive DVD out at the moment that has the track on it, so clearly the record company didn't want any distractions from selling it. A similar thing happened when a Simon and Garfunkel album came out and YouTube deleted my video of Bridge Over Troubled Waters, which had been up for ages, the record company quite happy to make money from it. I have since uploaded the same to my blog, where YouTube cannot remove it. I do have the Beatles Number One DVD, which does have the deleted track. But I will have to extract it and that takes time. Oddly enough the audio videos are still on YouTube, so it must simply be the video that the record company objects too. Interesting enough YouTube also removed the 1974 Eurovision performance of ABBA singing Waterloo. It is of course the anniversary this year of the win, so the record company wanted to make money out of it. Hence the removal on copyright grounds. They however have not removed the original music video of the song.    

 

All the performance videos from my collection or YouTube of any of the Number One records from  1964, 1971 and 1989 are on the Number One Chart Pages of the blog, not down below.  These are the videos of those charts that are being updated. I couldn't find some of the acts performing, or the performance was too different to the song people were buying at the time. So there are no videos for them. They run till the week till current charts are uploaded then updated to reflect the update. This way I can change them with a new number one is revealed and at the same check (look) at the others for videos removed by YouTube.  I noticed that a lot of the YouTube videos' on the blog's other pages did vanish. So it's a good idea if you have a blog and using YouTube videos, to download the video using one of the free downloaders, then install into the blog using the blogger method. This way YouTube can't remove the video.  In fact so many videos seem to be removed by YouTube, that I have decided to upload the ones that were already downloaded from YouTube by me. This way I know that the video will be there! 

Often a video can be up a long time before somebody objects to it on copyright grounds. For example  the Edison Lighthouse on the 1970 page went blank with a message that it has been banned in the UK! I discovered that the likely reason for this was the record was selling again, it might be on an advertisement, so the record company didn't want the stereo version cutting sales. As the advert is probably UK only it doesn't matter that other countries can still see it as they were not buying the record. The video was replaced by one of my blog videos. 

Adding the videos does slow down the page loading times, but there's nothing I can do about that. It's annoying to me too!  However I have split split the number ones unto three separate pages, so now all the 60's number ones are on one page and the same with the 70's and 80's. So each page should load faster! 

I completed the uploading to the blog videos of any Number One videos that I have remastered for the blog and you can find them on the number one pages. 1975 has a full set of my videos for example and so has 1966. I will upload more when I have time to do them.  

 

 

The 45 Cat site has introduced a way of having more results than 50 when you do a search. You do however have to subscribe, which is about £30 for the year, but that includes all the sites under the belt, plus extra features. The results become 250, more than enough for my needs. I also noted this week (28 August 2022) that the 45 Worlds site has added more features to the search options that apply to all (not just subscribers). The main one being the most collected. Which means you can know see the most popular 78's on the site, just like the 45 Cat site.  

New charts are uploaded Thursday night or Friday each week and the number one videos added at the same time.

The following is a list of the going ons when the Real Charts that are currently being updated, where on the go and the source of other charts. 

1989 Charts 

As far as the published charts were concerned there were two main charts compiled. The Official Chart now compiled by Gallup which was a top 75 chart with a "next" 25 section. This was used by Top of The Pops, Radio One and Music Week. And the MRIB chart a top 75 used by Independent Local Radio. The top 30 was broadcast on Sunday on ILR. The following week the top 75 was published in the Pop magazine Number One. Since it was compiled later in the week it was faster than the BBC's top 40, which was still being made available the previous Tuesday.  That meant that most people saw the chart first time on Top of The Pops or could see it in Record Mirror and so when Sunday came around you knew what would be in the BBC top 40. Whereas the MRIB chart on the ILR at the same time was completely new to listeners. Just a quick word on the Gallup sales figures. The only sales that Gallup actually recorded were those in the "panel" of shops they used. Due to it's small size these were never massive. So to get a "national" figure they multiplied each of these figures by 17.  So if the number one sold 6,145 in the panel of shops. It was multiplied by 17 to give 104,465 sales. You can see the problem with the system straight away. It doesn't take in distribution factors or regional sales being greater or lesser than the sample in Gallup used shops. I'm not clear where the 17 figure comes from, indeed their is speculation that was sometimes altered. Ideally the figure should have come by calculating the total remaining shops selling singles. And that too depends on how well the coverage on the panel covered all types of shops. For example it would only need on supermarket chain not to be on the sample to throw figures out by a great deal. So I would take the multiplied figures with a pinch of salt! Which means that the Gallup Charts are based only on the sales of 300 to 400 shops. The main thing that changed that year starting in January was "The Chart Show", which had been on Channel Four in 1988, was now broadcast on Saturday on ITV. This had an effect on Saturday afternoon sales, from people watching the show then going to record shops afterwards. For ITV it was also easy money as the videos were "promos" and therefore they were not paying copyright fees. Nor too was the BBC on Top of The Pops either for the promos they used. The record industry was a bit slow to catch on to this. But they did eventually!  Another effect on the charts was the Wogan Show. Terry Wogan had been given his own chat show on the BBC and he often had musicians on the show performing their latest single, often a first airing.     

1971 Charts 

At this point the Official Charts were still using a sample of 300 shops and BMRB still in charge, but it's postal system suffered a major problem when the Post Office went on strike, so BMRB had to reduce the chart down to a top 40 for a time. Most of the big retailers were not sending any sales to the BMRB, including Woolworth, Smiths and Boots.  The BMRB used a system of diaries which shops would fill out. The shop put all the records it sold for the week in the diary and posted it off after the closure of the shop on Saturday. The BMRB spent the next few days adding them up and checking them. Ready to publish the chart on Tuesday. This meant it wasn't broadcast on Radio One in full till the following Sunday.  Whereas when Gallup took over they could have the chart ready for the Sunday after the shops had shut Saturday night. Of course the Real Chart was always up to date and as result gets records at the top earlier than the BMRB chart and Thursday TOTP has an effect straight away. The BMRB chart was only a top 50 at this time, but it did have a breakers list of around 10 records. These were sometimes called "The Star Breakers" in Record Mirror which printed the top 50 charts, except on Bank Holidays. Of course there was no breakers during the post strike period. TV shows featuring pop acts were limited. With only TOTP having a major effect. Acts sometimes appeared on TV shows such as Rolf Harris, Basil Brush and Crakerjack. Radio had only Radio One and Luxemburg playing pop.  

1979 Charts 

The Official Charts were still using BMRB though the chart was now a top 75.  This did away with the breakers list. But there was competition now from the Record Business Magazine chart, which for the first time in the 70's was a Top 100! However the chart had a flaw as it used "airplay" from radio stations to effect the chart. This had been used by most American charts for ages, it worked better over there due to the massive amount of radio stations. But in the UK it was so restricted in stations, that for most of the time, it wouldn't have given a workable chart. But with the introduction of commercial radio in the 70s, by this time there were enough to use the system. These stations also broadcast at least the top 40 of Record Business.  Gallup were also compiling a full chart at this time too. Though at this time they were not linked to the BBC and their charts. I don't to what extent the chart (a full sales chart) was used. But at the time I had never heard of it.  Lastly the NME were still producing their own chart. But that was largely restricted to the paper itself.  TOTP was still strong, but loads of different music shows were also out there. Even though the BBC used the top 40 of the BMRB, they rarely if ever mentioned the top 41 to 75 part of the chart. You had to either get Record Mirror or see the Music Week chart, posted often in the windows of many record shops to see it. Radio One on Sunday only broadcast the top 20 at that time.   

1964 Charts

 Unlike the many other charts of the time the Real Chart is a top 100. Most of the rest stopped at 50. It was also compiled different to them for it took record sales from ALL the shops. The others didn't even take sales from record shops. Instead they used a system of points from record stores and only a fraction of them. Each shop simply supplied a list of their best selling records that week. Not the actual numbers, just a list. The music papers would simply apply the same points to each list. So if it was a list of 30 records the number 1 got 30 points and the 30 1 point. The problem with this system it does not tell you how many each record sold. And shops are not the same size. So a small shop had the same points as one that sold ten or twenty times more records than the small shop did. But it has recently come out that the shops when asked for more information, like how many each record sold, didn't like that and clearly thought it was prying into their commercial interests. All companies selling things through shops clearly want to know the sales figures, but of course the shops don't want to tell them. The BMRB chart had the same problems with retailers refusing to give them sales figures in the 1970's. Some of the charts also listed the same record in the chart twice. One side in one position and the other in another position. The Real Chart doesn't do that.  The lists of shops were well known to the record companies and you could buy up songs in a few shops and get into a chart that way. Some shops never took part. Such as Woolworths. But at that time they were only selling records on the Embassy Label and none of the other companies. Their records were often covers of hit records, but they were cheaper than others and some people were just wanting the song rather than a specific singer.  Top of The Pops started in January 1964 and of course has a massive impact on the chart. There was also show on ITV called Thank Your Lucky Stars. As well as Ready Steady Go. So getting on TV with Pop became easier. Sadly the recordings of all these shows have rarely survived. 

One thing you might notice if you compare the various other charts with the Real Chart from this period is that records that have reached the highest positions fall much quicker on the Real Chart than they do the others. This is simply because the Real Chart uses all sales and therefore things like distribution problems quickly show up. Also the stores do not like to keep stocks up of records that are falling down the charts. Because they have to pay for the stock and if it is not sold, because the buzz on the record has died, they finish up with making a loss on the records. Again this quickly shows up with the Real Chart.

  

The top ten videos have been replaced with a selection of songs from the current old charts that I change each week. I will try and find obscure ones or ones that sell well on the Real Chart yet do poorly on the main or Official Charts. These videos will be from 1963 and 1975 and the 1988 charts.   

1952 Charts

We have reached the end of 1952. And the full top 100 best sellers of the year sees a much increased sales even at the bottom of the 100, up a few thousand on last year. The top does even better as last year's best seller would have only got around 8 or 9 this year! Five of the records in the top ten are still also in the chart and there's even one in that was issued in 1951 from Nat 'King' Cole. Two of the records never made the number one spot also in the top ten. And of course we have Al Martino the best seller over 250,000 copies ahead of the runner up from Rosemary Clooney, at 805,000! As he is still selling well and we know he stays in the NME chart for a good while in 1953 I think we could well see him top the million seller mark the first record to do so in the UK. 

You can download the 1952 PDF on the top of the 50's page now. As I get ready to do the 1953 charts. This will not be an easy task as though I have the NME charts, which of course starts to play a part in what the Real Chart will look like. I do not have full copies of any music papers from that period. Currently only three full NME papers have been upload to the USA Music paper archive and that hasn't changed for ages. This makes it difficult to know what was actually released any month for 1953. It was still like the old system of new records issued in the first two weeks of each month, with most in the first week. The NME charts can help pin them down. Since any record entering it's chart at any week in the month was either issued at the start of the month, or before. Having said that the NME for 1952, was mostly showing up records that had been around for ages as new hits, so let's hope this improves in 1953! Otherwise it's up to 45 Worlds, which is not the best judging by the past and using the Missing Charts as a guide. It was often a month early with new records! 

The 1951 charts that were on the 50's page were removed to speed up page loading times. But the full charts are available via the PDF links as are the 1950 charts. 

I try to update the artist detail facts (if they are missing) each time they have a record join the list of hits. This often takes the longest time, especially on names of bands that use common words. Other times even though you can find the act, there's no clues to who they are or even what country they come from. Sometimes I even have trouble finding the record. For example on the 2000 chart, one record I believe the artist name is "Clone" and the title "Down To Earth".  But I can't find anything on any act called Clone having that record. It could have been that the artist name is Down To Earth, with the title called "Clone" however that didn't produce any results either. So if anyone can account for this record which entered on the 23 January 2000 lasting to the 6 February. Please comment below.   
Bing's Sales
As you probably are aware Bing Crosby's version of White Christmas is one of the biggest sellers ever. However because the record came out before even the Real Chart started it's sales have not been sufficient to put it in the million sellers list. Till now! Thanks to the 1974 reissue of the record it's sales has now put it into the bestseller lists at 501 (1,193,000). It has never got higher than number three.  
  
I have added a link to my Pinterest homepage. This picture sharing site has several sections.  I added  more sections to it recently. One for images connected with the Reflected People series of articles on this blog. Including many new images not featured in any of the articles.  The other section there is A Way To Live material. This includes some of the very visual effects that the car has on people's bodies. Another recently added section is one about beautiful women. This features pictures of women from the past and present that have either been considered beautiful, by society or by many people. Or ones that I deem merit the tag. I will only add them if I know the name of the woman. All races will be included, but the under representation of none "white" women is not my doing. Simply the product of society and the shortfall in images of in that category.  
Sections already added include showing all the what I believe to be the most accurate images of Queen Elizabeth the 1st, which readers of this blog will know about. Plus other newer categories, such as Sheffield Park and Manor. Plus the Manor Estate where I was born. My plans to model Sheffield Victoria Station in 4mm scale. Plus a new one showing Sheffield in colour up to 1980.


The 1951 charts had the top 100 best sellers of the year and the PDF of the full charts added. The PDF also contains the rest of the top 200 best sellers, plus every single sale down to the smallest seller of the year that of course made the top 40. What's interesting about the top 100 best sellers is when you compare them to the 1950 best sellers. What seems to have happened in 1951 is that there was a decline in sales of 78's, the only format that most people could purchase. Roughly half of the sales of 1950. Even at the top of the chart!! In fact 1951 big seller Mockin' Bird Hill only managed 372,000, compared to Teresea Brewer's 1950 best seller on 655,000! What is worse the 1951 record would have landed seven places below her in a combined chart!! The bottom of the 100 is down from 45,000 to just 26,000. 
  

2000 Charts

The final batch of 2000 charts have been added for December. The best sellers and  PDF, have also been added thus completing the 2000 charts.   I don't think I will continue with 2001. The 2001+ are at least on paper!  

You can see how the 2000 charts were written out on the card that I used, since I have posted a scan of the top 40 part of the chart.
It's interesting to compare the Official Top 75 charts with these top 100 charts. A lot of the new entries below 40 in the 75 Charts fail to make a dint on the top 100. The turnover rate in the 40 is very high too. With records lucky to last six weeks. You will also notice some records coming in a week before they were released. Although sometimes caused by an import version, more often than not it was caused because the shops HAD the copies to sell a week before! The Official Chart, with it's rules ignored any records selling before. Or at least that's what I think happened. But I did several times see records in store that were not supposed to be there. I remember seeing a David Bowie single being heavily promoted at HMV in Sheffield. So on the Sunday Chart, which covered the same week I expected to see it in the top 40 on Radio One. It did not appear, but entered the following week, inline with it's release date. But it was being sold by HMV a good five days before that date. It also entered the Real Chart a week early!  

  

Added below is a PDF link for the full set of Real Chart Number Ones. These of course can be found on the blog, but the file is complete and not split up. Going from year one (1948) to end of 2019. It consists of 39 pages set in landscape mode. So set your printer to landscape for printing on A4 paper. It's marked version one because some of the artist credits and titles, when I have been doing the charts,  have changed and on this file they are still the same as those originally set on the blog pages. 

When records were released update

Three PDF files have been added to this section. All new release sheets issued in the following years: 1965, 1966, 1978. 
Despite the change on the 45 Cat sites now allowing 250 results rather than just 50 results. There will be no further work done by me on getting the other years done.  
          

 A Way To Live Update

London featured in a post showing how to stop it's population growing and needing a massive spending bill of £200 Billion just to keep people moving around it. It's got too big already with a population greater than Scotland and Wales and needs cutting down to size. Especially as most of it's functions do NOT need to be there in one area. As we have seen already it's needing massive investment in transport to keep it grinding to a halt. Plus is now a dangerous place to live, since the reason epidemic has demonstrated. So far in Way To Live ignored London, but this has been dealt with now. 
Awhile ago I added more information to the Way To Live page. This time dealing with security issues and how things like crime and drugs could be reduced by adopting this system of living. Which if you don't know if achievable right now if we wish to do so. It will help to solve many of the issues we now face on the environment of this planet. It requires no special requirements, no new technology and for many only a small change in their lifestyle. For the vast majority it would vastly improve their lifestyle, without making anyone less well off than before. Even rich people. It's just an alternative to a world that relies too much on the car to get around.  I am working on doing a series of videos to demonstrate the concept of a Way To Live. These will show the problems of the car. And the concept of the living complex.  They will be uploaded to YouTube and pasted to the blog when complete.  So check that page out.   

The full PDF of the year 2019 has now replaced the previous months. It also includes the Best Sellers, Records that failed to make the 100, plus a full list of what each track achieved in positions and weeks and of course the sales symbols.
By the way I'm also currently transferring the 1990 charts from card to computer file. Since all the charts are sorted out, it's just a question of shuffling the records around and adding the new ones on the file itself. I won't be posting them just yet. I will eventually post the PDF file when they are complete.

I have now managed to sort out the 1986 Best Sellers and the PDF file and the top 100 Best Sellers for the year are now available on the Classic Charts page. 

    
Chart Tracks

The following videos all feature on charts that are currently being uploaded to this site. Featuring the years 1964, 1971 and 1989. They will be mainly rare tracks that either didn't get high in the other charts, but do on the Real Chart as well as some well known. 

The videos will be added or changed on Sunday.  

Sometimes people on YouTube will upload a video that was NOT authorised by the record company. These can be deleted by YouTube without telling anyone that has linked them to the blog site. So if you see a blank video anywhere it's down to YouTube removing it is not a fault on this blog. For those into YouTube, if you can't listen to one of these or my other tracks featured on YouTube, because you live in another country, then just go the link below. This will allow you to see them by changing your IP address to a country that can see them. I'm not into censorship, especially by profit making business! Scroll to the bottom of the page nearly to find out more of the dodgy dealings of YouTube!
YouTube viewer

1964 Number 69

1964 Number 81

1964 Number 39

1964 Number 12

1964 Number 33

1964 Number 61

1964 Number 62 

1964 Number 63

1964 Number 71

1971 Number 11

1971 Number 62

1971 Number 18

1971 Number 27

1971 Number 28

1971 Number 31

1971 Number 20 

1989 Number 33

1989 Number 60 

1989 Number 05

1989 Number 69

1989 Number 37 

1989 Number 34

1989 Number 06

1989 Number 58 

1989 Number 40

Download Links for the Real Chart
You can still download the full top 100 chart texts for 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 right here.  Also the current charts. These are updated every Sunday. PS let me know if the links doesn't produce a PDF file! For instance it says you don't have permission! By the way PDF readers are free, just search the web to install one. The full charts are only updated each month. The latest month added will be shown, but it will include all previous months. After a new month is added, all previous weekly PDF files are removed. I have added the first Real Charts that were done on computer for the first time. These date from 2006. These charts though not for the full year, do include the top 100 best selling singles for the full year. They were scanned at only 300DPI from the original printed charts. So the quality is not to clever. Unfortunately at the time of their construction I didn't save the original DTP files. So scanning them is the only way. Despite it's claim to convert PDF files to text, Serif Page Plus X7 can only import the scanned PDF file as an image file. So editing is not possible. It seems it can only edit a PDF file if it was converted straight from a document file.  At some later date I will scan them at around 400DPI. The charts for 2008 to 2010 will also be done at some later date. 

Real Chart 8 October to 24 December 2006
REAL CHART 2011 Full year.pdf
Real Chart-2012 Full List including Best Sellers

Real Chart 2013 Full update plus best sellers and drop outs

Real Chart 2014 Full update plus best sellers and drop outs

Real Chart 2015 Full Update - Plus best sellers and drop outs 

Real Chart 2016 Full Update plus best sellers and drop outs 
Real Chart 2017 
Real Chart 2018 
Real Chart 2019  
Real Chart Number Ones 1948 to 2020 Version 1 

Other News
The Chart Books have been updated to included all the 2019 records.

The 1991 charts are sorted now and the PDF is on the 1990's page.  The 1991 charts are not fully complete, but they have the correct sales figures (some of the highest and lowest the chart has had) and the last week figures on many. Generally the weeks are left out, plus I have not totalled up all the figures, also the highest positions will be mostly missing. But you could fill them in yourselves. If any reader has any version of Page Plus, then I can let them have the original files, to fill in. This explains the other page, which when completely will take you through the details needed to construct or edit chart pages and documents, as well as providing a guide in using Page Plus.
The 1950's charts has a page for them. Since they are only 40 records it should be quicker than doing a whole 100 chart! I am pleased to say that 1950 charts are now complete, included is the top 100 best sellers for 1950 too. A PDF of the full charts and a full list of best sellers is now on the blog too.  

I have uploaded all the Music Echo top 100 charts for 1964, 1965 and the rest of the charts (top 50) for 1966. You can check them out on the Record Business Chart post.

Also down below you will find the latest All Time Best Seller list.   

Music Video Editing

I have added a page showing how I edit and produce the number one videos featured on this blog. I will explain on it what equipment I use and all the technical details of editing the videos, such as what software I use and the problems I have encountered in making them. It will be illustrated with software screen shots and some of the videos. The page is not yet complete, but you can check out some of the information now.   

More 1948 and 1949 charts!

The 1948 charts are complete.  The 1949 charts are also complete and the full list of charts have been uploaded to the blog, including the sales list for 1949.  

More charts have been added to the Record Business section of the blog. These include PDF files of Chart Runs of the 1960's of Music Echo - a top 100 chart! - and some Local Independent Radio top 40 charts for the 70's.  

I have had to set the comment boxes to use the puzzle device as the blog was having about 20 fake comments a week being posted all going to the spam box, mostly of the type saying what a great read it is and then a bad link to a game site!  I hate the Capitcha thing myself, but it does stop the robot machines from posting, I just hope it doesn't stop anyone else commenting.      

                 

Odd items...

If you are looking for the explanation of the streaming none use by the Real Chart, it's now been moved to What Is The Real Chart section of this blog.

If you ever had problems, or having problems with Album Art on MP3 files, check out the end section of the Technical help page. I am allowing comments from companies offering repair services on that section only. If anyone has an issue with one of these companies, such as virus or con merchants people. Please let me know and the comment will go.

Check out the stories of the Beatles keeping the Rolling Stones of the top of the chart in 1963 and a Melody Maker from 2000 moaning about the fact that Boy Bands and Dance acts have taken over the charts at the expense of Real Music. And they hadn't heard of One Direction and David Guetta back then!!!

                 

OTHER NEWS

The Real  Charts are now done on the Page Plus DTP software (X7). It was at one time done using Pressworks. But that withdrawn and no longer works with modern OS.  I suggested some improvements for the next edition of Page Plus on their community web forum thing. What I got back was a load of tosh from somebody who doesn't even work for Serif! He was the top poster there and finished up saying I should read the manual!! With help like that I have blocked any more e-mails from Serif. The cheek I ask you... Apparently the Page Plus system has been withdrawn and they are not making any improvements to it! I recently picked up the X9 version on Amazon for under £20. I am still evaluating it, so the charts are still done on X7.       

         

           

CHART BOOKS
The Chart Book are records that show how far a record got and how long they lasted. It's split into 26 sections one for each artist names starting with A through to Z. I am in the process of making a slight change to all the Chart Books, including information about the artists. This can help in some cases to spot the difference between acts with the same names. A special symbol indicates that it was still in the chart when the last chart was done (all dated to 2020). The first page of the file is an explanation page, explaining the sales system and other facts. The new dates on the Chart Books will cover any sorted out charts from 1964 and 1971, 1989. So any charts uploaded to the blog after that date shown on the file will not have the drop outs included. As the new holding site (PDF Host) for the files is open to all, unless you make the files private, anyone can edit or delete the files. If you can't find the file or it looks odd in some way, then please let me know in the comment box below.      
Chart Books so far
These are now available. All chart books contain January 1995 to 2000  And then patchy details and information for the other years. They do not included ALL the acts and records that have made the Real Chart since it's inception in 1948, since many of these charts are not sorted out yet. But I think any chart person will find them interesting all the same.  Others will follow as an artist in the missing categories' drop out of the 100. 

They are now being updated again every Sunday two at a time. Again these updated charts will contain all the 1964, 1971, 1979 and 1989 drop outs till the dates shown in the file names. Drop outs are added the week after the charts posted as new here.  The word "new" in red will be added to the latest additions.  

I have updated and revised the M Chart book. I found it very confusing adding new entries to this section because of the use of the Scottish form of "Mac" surname, plus it's shortened form "Mc". So what I have now done is put them all in alphabetical order, like the other chart books. With the "Mc" not together with the "Mac" as before. It was a major editing task and required the movement of texts nearly 30 pages along from where they were. It's possible layout errors might have happened. If so I will correct these when I notice them.  

I have made a note of the last upload dates on these files so that the oldest ones get replaced first before newer ones, though of course some files come up more common than others as I sort out the 1964, 1971, 1979, and 1989 fall outs from the charts. 

C Chart had an alteration to it. An act that was called Cavern in early editions has been checked to reveal they were actually called "The Cabinet". The record they had a hit with in January 1984 was Language And Words the "and" replacing "in".  There's not much about the band, so if anyone can fill in gaps like who they are and where they come from, it would help. 

I tend to update any artists information when I add new drop outs to that page. But if you see a persistent gap on an artist information, especially when the artists around it have all the information about them. It probably means I can't find any details about them. So if you know of any information please comment below. And I will add it.      

A Chart 21 November 2024 

B Chart 21 November 2024 

C Chart 05 December 2024 

D Chart 05 December 2024 

E Chart 07 November 2024 
F Chart 03 October 2024 

G Chart 31 October 2024 

H Chart 24 October 2024 
I Chart 12 December 2024 New
J Chart 28 November 2024 

K Chart 14 November 2024 
L Chart 14 November 2024 

M Chart 07 November 2024 

N Chart 17 October 2024 

O Chart 28 November 2024 
P Chart 03 October 2024 
Q Chart 17 October 2024 
R Chart 28 November 2024 
S Chart 12 December 2024 New

T Chart 05 December 2024 
U Chart 10 October 2024 
V Chart 14 November 2024 

W Chart 31 October 2024 

X Chart 27 June 2024 

Y Chart 10 October 2024 

Z Chart 12 December 2024 New

Other Site News
The colour scheme of the blog site was changed after somebody commented that they couldn't see the text on the black background. Though they requested black text, I didn't like the idea of just a black and white page. So the green text is staying. The yellow text has been replaced for general text. An A4 scanner has been purchased (Canon LIDE220) and it is much quicker and better at producing images and PDF's. It's small enough to sit on top of the A3 scanner (see photo below). It is now used on the whole of the charts. I scanned a whole Number One Magazine with it, to show readers what the paper was like. That can be seen as a PDF on the Record Business page of this blog.  

Network Charts are uploaded! 
1989 have now been added! And the 1990's one's have started to appear! This set of Network Charts needed the A3 Scanner to digitise them. It's seems to be quicker at scanning them then what the Epson does. However it doesn't seem to compress the files. So you get pretty big PDF files! They were scanned at high quality in two sections. You can see the A3 scanner in the picture below. It's the grey box next to the keyboard. In addition I have been able to add the Record Business charts from 1979, that were not published in Superpop.  I have been having problems with the A3 scanner again. Some research on the web seems to point at the fact that it wasn't meant to work with Windows 7. I think the best advice I have seen suggest getting a new one. However A3 scanners are not cheap, and as that it still works, might mean I have to connect to the old XP machine. Oh well, as Sheldon said in a Big Bang episode "I don't like Windows 7". Yeah.. Me neither!   Windows 10 is a half backed compromise by Microsoft, because they couldn't (after the disaster of Windows 8) get people to fork out for a new computer with a completely new Operating System on it. One specially designed to work with the new OS. As many people were sticking with Windows 7 rather than move to 8, they had to compromise the new OS, by making it work in the same parameters as Windows 7. In fact what most people have downloaded for free is only the first bits of it. The rest still has to be tested out with the suckers who have joined the insider programme of Microsoft. That's why I call it half-baked. Others have been less kinder to Windows 10. One person called it "FACEBOOK on steroids!" The worst part is the updates. You no longer have a choice, they are installed even if they crash your computer. You have to buy Windows 10 Pro for that option to control updates and it's hidden too! Otherwise Windows 10 is simply an advert for Microsoft store. You don't have to use the store, but since anything good on Windows 10 is linked to the store. And the search bar keeps putting up stupid facts and pictures. As I write this it has some balloons flying over a rocky landscape! It like it was designed to keep ten year olds interested. Type something to search on your computer and it takes you to a websearch!   

Real Chart Headquarters!
This is what the workstation looks like.... 

You can see in the first photo the old screen being used on the new computer. I did get another monitor, but it had a lower resolution, so isn't used and has a cover over to protect it. At the side of the keyboard is a large calculator used to add up the sales figures, it can be seen also in the second photo. I have some remote control holders, which are used to store pens in on the wall. The second photo shows the two computer cases, the white one being the new that I use. The old windows ten computer is at the side, not being used. The old silver cased computer has been sent to the loft.  

The following show what it did look like!....

 The case of the new computer can be seen next to the silver coloured old one! ! Two smaller black speakers by Creative replaced the old ones. The printer stand was made to store paper under it!  The not working monitor is actually a TV, thus eliminating the need for a plug for another set of speakers. It's larger than the old screen. Also shown on the top picture is the other side of the room with amps and cassette deck, two VCR's  and record deck on the bench. The only adjustment to that side of the room was the replacement to the power point, with a switch-able sockets! Also on view for the first time is the 500GB external hard drive and the Veho negative film scanner (top photo to the right bottom corner).   Since these pictures were taken the TV monitor has been replaced with a proper monitor made by ASUS. The reason for this being that the image from the TV monitor even using the HDMI output, was very hard to get the correct brightness and contrast for the screen. The ASUS does have an inbuilt sound system, so doesn't need another power plug. In fact it's a better picture all round. Plus shuts down and starts up with the computer! So if you are thinking of using a TV as a monitor, don't!
Now spot the difference in this new picture:

Epson XP-760

I now have a new printer another Epson, but it's much better than the SX218. These days saying that is not common, as getting newer technology can be two steps back. I'm happy to report that this printer is not one of them. It uses six inks for a start which gives it better control of colours. Very like the ones you see on the screen as apposed to a red, that is just slightly off. It has front mounted trays for paper that actually sit inside the printer. In fact the output tray comes out when you are printing and goes back inside when powering down. It has a tray to put CD's on too! It fits on the stand much better and I am not trying to get to the back of the printer to feed the paper tray. As you can see from the photo above the paper tray was at back of the XP computer monitor. This made it more difficult to get too! And yes it uses compatible ink cartridges, so I'm not spending £20+ on one cartridge! I was going to get an Epson XP-625, but though they were only cheap at £89, that was at Curry's. However when you look at the website there is no delivery and you have to pick it up in store. Then I saw it for the same price on E-bay. And guess what it was Curry's selling it!  With of course free delivery! So problem solved!!... Or so I thought.... So I purchased one (it said two left). All was going well - due Thursday!! Then an e-mail said that the one I was being sent have been found to be damaged! So they couldn't send it!! They did offer a replacement, but I asked as the rest of Curry's was still selling them, why they couldn't sell me one. I didn't get a decent answer from them so I cancelled it. Checking around showed that the Epson XP-760 was a better machine, though more expensive. Amazon to the rescue! So it was ordered and within about 3 days I had a new printer! I rather suspect that Curry's were just putting lower prices on products to get customers to use them, but don't have the stocks of the product in stock!  I still don't understand why one branch of Curry's can offer free delivery, but the rest of their branches can not, especially on the same product at the same price. I wouldn't even minded paying the delivery costs, but the main Curry's site doesn't offer this on most printers!  

Real Chart Videos

I have been adding music videos to some of the number one pages. The first is from Nilsson and the 1972 number one Without You. I have knocked this video together myself from bits of film and made it stereo. I've also added Rolf Harris' Two little Boys!! I have also added YouTube videos, the links will be found under the tracks on the number one pages. So check them out!

Sad to say that if you are not from the UK then many of the video's are blocked.

You can also see the very first Real Chart number one from 1948 as a video now, with "Hutch" made to look if he's singing it! Glad to say that most of you should be able to see it as it's one of the few that isn't blocked. For the rest use unblocker above!

Other videos uploaded to YouTube and on the blog is the Strawberry Switchblade track from 1985. Bay City Rollers from 1975 and John Denver Annie's Song (1974). Also available is The Overlanders from 1960's though you might not be able to now see it! Plus many others...   

Stop press...

I have uploaded another number one video this time from 1972. It is by Johnny Pearson Orchestra and it's called Sleepy Shores.

The Sixties number one section (1964) has two videos by Cilla Black. Following on from the success of the number of views for David Essex's Hold Me Close, (20,000+) I have uploaded another one of his number ones. This time it's Gonna Make You A Star available now on the number one page (1974) and on YouTube. The sad news on the video front is that I cannot now upload any further music video's to YouTube. The problem is that on the 14 May along with the Johnny Pearson video, I uploaded Alice Cooper School's Out. After it uploaded I get a message from YouTube saying that due to the rules on copyright the Video had been blocked Worldwide. Which meant that only I could see it on there! The odd thing is that the video - a Top of the Pops performance - was actually download in the first place from YouTube and can still be seen on YouTube and several other versions of it can be seen too. They are clearly not blocked worldwide otherwise I couldn't have seen them. Apparently the videos and sound are checked by YouTube's uploading system and any that break infringement rights flagged up. Since anyone uploading a music video to YouTube will automatically infringe these rights, unless they are the record company with the rights. This means that most fan based video's, TV shows etc are breaking the rules. YouTube do have a way around this. If the copyright owner agrees, they get a fee every time the video is played. In fact nearly all the video's I have uploaded are either blocked in some countries or have this fee system in place. But I have never had the complete block before. Apparently the stereo sound I had added wasn't the problem as they had matched that to a fee system. It was the film itself. The company blocking it was Viacom, famous for MTV, but I don't know what they have to do with the BBC and Top of The Pops! I do know that Viacom have been arguing with YouTube for some time and don't appear to accept the backhand payment system! So maybe that's the problem? It would be a lot easier if YouTube accepted a system that before any uploaded video went live the user was told it would break infringement rights. So that the user could then say cancel the upload. But they don't and to make matters worse if you upload a second video that is blocked worldwide you can loose your YouTube channel and rights. Deleting the video that has been blocked, according to YouTube doesn't remove the strike against you. I did of course remove that video! So now you can see my dilemma. If I upload another music video and it gets blocked I can't upload any other videos - even ones which I might make myself. And since I do want to that, it's too risky to upload a music video.  This makes a lot sense to me now. I kept wondering why certain YouTube uploaders stopped putting up music video's. Now I know why!! The ironic thing is that the copyright owners now make money out of users if they except the back of hand payment system. The users themselves get no money for the work they have put in re-mastering the audio and sound of the video's that the copyright owners should have done in the first place!  Since Blogger is owned by Google as is YouTube, I can't use the video uploader from Blogger to put the music video's on the blog. Not that it's any good!   I lost the Simon and Garfunkel number one record from YouTube on 10 June 2015. Apparently after all these years it's been up (2012), Sony Music Entertainment objected to it and it was removed worldwide. Does anyone think the fact that Paul Simon's last album, which features the track could have something to do with it's removal? Were SME frightened that the video would have taken away sales from the album?    

I found out that YouTube had completely muted the sound of the Radio Hallam top 40 video. The record companies seemed happy at first to take a share of the revenue playing the video got. But it seems that some of them objected and the sound was cut out by YouTube. Though they didn't tell me. I found out when I was looking at the comments from people who said the sounds had gone. The YouTube help forum was useless. It mostly consists of people moaning about not being paid for people viewing the video's in the way that you can monetise videos. 

In the end I deleted the video of the Hallam Top 40.      

A Special Chart... 

Below is a list of the All Time Best Sellers that I have so far recorded the sales on. Of course it's not a comprehensive list of all the big sellers that made the Real Chart, but it does give you an idea the scale of the best selling records in the UK.

I'll give you some idea of how much is missing from the data. As you know the Real Chart started in 1948, but the years to the 71-73 are poorly recorded. The 80's added include 85,86,87, 88 and now 89. By no means all the 90's! Though all act names A and W are completed from the 90's. Some of the year 2000 plus tracks are missing too! And some of those records that have added more to the sales are not up to date! So as you can see a lot!!!!  However the problem is getting less and less as the charts are sorted. Large gaps are there from 1954 to 1962, however 1964 is being added. 
To sort of overcome this problem some of the records with official sales of over a million have been added, these are shown in orange with the corresponding sales shown. However even official million sellers rarely exceed two million sales. So there are only a few. You can certainly bet that these sales will be much higher than that, maybe even triple in some cases! A good example of this being the Wings track from 1977 with all Real Chart sales recorded. Yet it only has official sales of 2,061,000 and the 4th biggest! While on the Real Chart survey it's only 38!! 
The Real Chart Sales for the 1991 and 1992 period were some of the highest sales ever, hence why so many records from those years. I don't have a clue why these years were so exceptional and I can't get anything out of the Compilers to explain it. Except "the stated sales are correct." Meanwhile according to official sources single sales for this period are very low. Sales overall official are highest during 1979, which is still to be determined on the Real Charts. 
The Chart below is therefore for information purposes and should not be seen as an authoritative list of the best selling UK records.
However when you compare it with a certain other chart that claims the UK has had only 123 records (2013 figures) that sold a million, that is an even bigger joke chart! For example if you take that figure of 8,000 shops in 1964 and each one of them sold 1 copy of the Record Retailers number 50 record and then increasing by one copy to the number one selling 50 copies in each shop. Then the number one record each week would sell 400,000 records! It was often the case that a record would stay the top for at least 6 weeks. And that same level the record would have past the 2 million mark. But the "Official Chart" despite some very long runs at the top. Has a grand total of "seven" records over 2 million copies!! 

The chart below has been updated last on the 21 November 2024. 

In case you're wondering the current list I have of best sellers is 894 strong.  Some of the estimated sales (of the OCC) being removed as the returning records (for them) needed to be listed separately on the last page of the file which shows the totals of records that might or will have sold a million copies in the Real Chart.  Which currently stands at 89. As soon as any gain or pass the million mark (due to the fact that the charts have been done. They of course enter the full best sellers lists. But having this extra list helps me keep track of potential big sellers!  If you want a full PDF of the best sellers PM using the comments box below. Mark it PRIVATE NOT FOR PUBLICATION and you can include an e-mail address for me to send it to. All Comments are moderated before publication and any so marked will not be aired.

  

If you like looking at old music papers there's a new post added which has some Superpop charts from 1979 to 1980. Well worth looking at as they contain top 100 charts from a rival source to the BBC top 75, they were also used by several Independent Local Radio stations. I have also added some Network Charts from 1985, 1986. All the late 1980's Network Charts have been added too. 

Newish page!!!

The Reflected People page has been updated and chapters have been added to the site. So if your interested in the history of popular music you might want to read them. They are a work in progress so let me know what you think. Just click the rate buttons!!!...

Chapters include how the Beatles became big and the early 60's.

Don't miss the free history book about Queen Elizabeth 1st and Mary Queen of Scots on the Shakespeare page too!

 Also on that page....

 You can now download the PDF of the Shakespeare True Story. I've uncovered why the modern Royal Family look like pictures of William Shakespeare! Chapters of the story are now available. So check them out!