Yes I appreciate the difficulties in tracking the early hits. How can I or anyone else claim that Billy Murray had 38 numbers ones? Does this figure, exactly the same as Bing Crosby, make him just as popular, or in the media conscious Bing Crosby era, did the latter just appear more popular. Even more dubious statistics are that Henry Burr had 30 number two singles, two more than Billy Murray. It is impossible to verify these facts. Actually, they are not strictly true. Pre 1940 in the USA there were no official charts, positions are merely guesswork and even these reasonable guesses are based on outrageous claims by salesmen of record companies. I use these statistics as facts, simply because there is no other way of documenting and categorising these early hits. Post 1940, Billboard published a weekly listing of the charts based on sales figures.  There are some who do not believe that the current number one singles of 2005 are the best sellers of that particular week and that it is more likely to be record company manipulation. One can be cynical about chart positions, but after all, they are merely a guide to the best selling records in a week and should not be taken too seriously. Sometimes the best music fails to make the charts at all. 

Why stop at the listing of the number one hits however? There are so many great records that nearly made it (quite a few terrible ones as well), only to be kept off the top by the hot record of the moment. Many of the records that "only" reached number two, sold in larger quantities than some of the chart toppers. They were unfortunately a victim of the timing of the release coming up against a lesser track that just happened to sell more during that one week.  Have a look at the listing of the number twos and wonder why some all time great songs that have passed into pop history didn't quite make it. 

A brief explantion about the page of statistics. The total quantity of hits and weeks at number one for each artist includes all the details for their hits as members of groups, solo artists and parts of duets whether they are with one other artist or many. Charity records (predominately in the 1980s) are only counted towards an artists total if they are actually mentioned in the credit for the hit. Artist totals of number one hits and weeks at the top are counted from hits achieved as solo acts, as part of groups or as credited duets. Artists only feature if they have been credited with solo number ones (hence three named Beatles at the top of the list of UK number ones, but no room "yet" for Ringo Starr).

It's simpler now than it used to be, there's a singles chart and an albums chart both for the UK and the USA, but it wasn't always as straightforward. 

Firstly the UK charts. The first singles chart was published by the New Musical Express on 15th November 1952. This chart like all others since was based on sales of singles through retail outlets, undoubtedly open to complaints of fraud from time to time but nothing that ever needed changes to the basic model. This chart was used through until the 12th March 1960 when Record Retailer (later to be renamed Music Week) began. These official trade charts were used from then on with only changes to the number of entries from time to time and no more changes until 2nd April 2005 when for the first time, sales through retail outlets were joined by allowing downloaded tracks (if also available as a retail single to buy).

The UK album charts began on 28th July 1956, a top 5 only published in Record Mirror. This was replaced on 8th November 1958 by a top 10 published in Melody Maker. This continued until Record Retailer began their album charts on 12th March 1960, although there was a 7 week gap between the 20th June 1959 and 1st August 1959 because of a strike when  no chart was published. The chart of the 13th June is used throughout this period. During the mid to late sixties a new phenomenom was noted which was low price budget albums. These were excluded from the chart which set a minimum price level for entry eligability. On 11th June 1969, the price at which albums became eligable for the chart was set at more than 15/- (75p), any albums selling for below this amount were still excluded.  This only lasted until 11th October 1969 when these mid price albums as well as the budget ones were excluded.

A postal strike affected the chart again on 6th February 1971 and Record Retailer did not publish an album chart until 27th March 1971. During this period, the Melody Maker album charts which were unaffected by the strike are used. On the 7th August 1971, the price distinction was abolished and budget albums of any price (at that time 77p) were allowed in.  As before, this situation only lasted for five months as on 8th January 1972, the minimum price was re-established and the budget albums were again excluded. During the second half of 1972 and the first half of 1973, a new concept in selling albums was established, specialist companies compiling albums and advertising them on TV for short periods of time. Between 3rd June 1972 and 11th August 1973, a total of 63 weeks, these TV compilations held the number one spot for 40 weeks. So on 18th August 1973 these types of albums were also excluded, although they were allowed back in again on 8th November 1975. It seemed their time had gone as it took until 30th October 1976 before another compilation topped the chart. In the meantime the industry had discovered single artist Greatest hits or Best ofs in a big way and these dominated the chart throughout the mid 1970s. 

The multi artist compilations time had not gone however and in 1983, the first in the series Now that's what I call music, was released. These and other similar albums were finally removed again on the 14th January 1989 and the chart has remained unchanged since then. 

The USA singles charts between 1890 and 1940 are based on the Phonogram/Phonoscope, the record company catalogues from the time, Hobbies magazine, Talking Machine world, Variety, and Your hit parade, none of which can be considered definitive listings of best sellers for any particular week, but it's all we've got. Finally on 20th July 1940, Billboard began publishing a best selling records, on the 10th February 1944 this was joined by a most played in Juke boxes chart and finally on 18th January 1945, a most played by Disc Jockeys. On the 12th November 1955, a top 100 was published which claimed to be worked out using a formula based on the other three. 

On 4th August 1958, an all encompassing Hot 100 singles chart was published by Billboard. This remained the definitive Singles chart although Billboard also began publishing charts of singles sales and airplay only from 20th October 1984 until 5th December 1998 all the charts were combined once more including singles that only appeared on the airplay charts and were not commercially available. Between 1996-8, some singles which charted only on the airplay chart and were not available as retail purchased products, are listed as hits and six of them are actually listed as number ones.

The US album charts began on 22nd March 1945. This remained a single unified chart until 22nd July 1950 when the chart was split into two, the best selling albums at 33RPM and also the best selling albums at 45RPM which were not neccessarily the same titles each week.

After a gap from August to December 1953 when Billboard experimented with genre charts, one week it was big bands, next week vocal artists, then cast recordings, a unified chart returned on 26th December 1953 and remained a single chart although in 1955 it was produced sporadically. On 21st July 1956, separate charts of retail sales and disc jockey plays were produced until December 1958 when the jockeys chart was dropped. There remained just one unified chart only until 25th May 1959 when Mono and Stereo albums were separated and again two charts were produced. This made sense at the time as the charts were often very different with comedy, easy listening, and folk selling better as mono albums and classical, jazz, soundtracks and cast recordings selling better as stereo albums. On the 4th January 1960 through to 2nd January 1961, the two charts were further split and the Action album charts (both mono and stereo) were separated from the Essential inventory charts (both mono and stereo). Action albums were considered those to have been on the chart for a short period of time, in the case of Mono Action it was less than 40 weeks, Stereo was less than 20 weeks (increasing to 30 weeks on 30th May 1960 - although it was decreased again to less than 20 weeks, just for the week of 1st August 1960). 

On 9th January 1961, the Essential Inventory albums, both mono and stereo were listed by genre without a chart ranking and the Action albums (still two charts) listed in sales order, only albums on the chart for less than 10 weeks. After 10 weeks they were placed in the Inventory section. This only lasted until 3rd April 1961 when all albums were allowed back into the main chart listings. On 17th August 1963, the mono and stereo charts were combined and one standard album chart was produced from then on. 

In the number one listings sections, particularly affecting the US albums between 1950-1953 and 1959-1963, the total weeks at no.1 refers to the total number of weeks spent at the top, whether or not the run was interrupted (as most were). Each week is counted once toward the total whether the album was no.1 in the mono charts, stereo charts or both. This means that if an album were to spend 4 weeks on top of the mono charts and then a further 11 weeks on top of both charts, and then finally one further week on top of the combined chart, the total would be counted as 16 weeks (as is the case with Days of wine and roses). This is an example of where 1+1=1 as well as 1+1=2. A record that was no.1 in the mono charts one week and a different week at no.1 on the stereo chart, is counted as having a total of 2 weeks. However if the two weeks at no.1 on different charts were the same week, it only counts as one week. 

Finally a note about the dates listed on this website. In common with the record industry, I have noted the date as the week ending on the Saturday after the publication of the chart. Usually a product is released on a Monday, sells throughout that first week and charts for the first time when the chart is produced on the Sunday (although it wasn't always on Sundays). Assuming the product sells well enough to chart in its first week on sale (which it usually does these days), the date of the chart is therefore 6 days after the product hits the charts and 12 days after the product is released. Why the industry does not change the chart date so that the number one reflects the best seller of the week ending when it was released, I do not know. They did change the album chart date on 13th October 1979 when the chart used to report on sales from a week previously, it used to take a week to gather all the information and they produced two album charts that week, the first reporting on sales between 23rd and 29th September 1979 and the second reporting on sales between 30th September and 6th October 1979.