A History of the Charts
1979 saw the greatest volume of singles sold in the UK with over 89 million record sales. Singles released by Blondie occupied the number one spot for the most weeks. The chart career of The Police was invigorated by the re-release of Roxanne. They would go on to have a couple of chart toppers later in the year. Abba singles were in the top 40 for 40 weeks, more than any other act.
Charts have risers and fallers each week. A climber is a single that sees a rise in chart position week on week. Because the chart position is relative to other titles sold in that week, it does not follow that it has to have had more sales over the previous week.
The first UK Chart published was by the NME Magazine on 14th November 1952 and was a Top 12. On 13th April 1956, this was extended to a top 30 'countdown'. The charts were based on reported sales figures from postal returns (or in the case of the NME, a telephone poll). While there have been a few changes over the years, the pop charts, have throughout their history, been based on single sales over the course of a week.
Starting on 15th February 1969, the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) were originally commissioned to produce an official chart, which they compiled from postal returns of sales logs from record shops. The shops were randomly chosen from a pool of candidates.
The charts are now produced by The Official Charts Company and continue to show the most popular songs of the week, although they don't count radio plays. Physical sales only account for a small part of the UK singles market. Downloads are given greater weighting than streams in respect of chart sales. Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles is the most streamed track on the charts.