When I was growing up it was easy to understand how the UK singles chart was compiled. It was based on the sale of vinyl records. There were stories about how the charts could be manipulated because sales figures came from a sample of record shops and these shops could be targeted by pluggers or record companies to produce distorted figures. Irrespective of how much of a difference this made, the charts were still based on sales of vinyl.

As time passed, other formats contributed towards sales figures (cassette singles, CD singles). In the last 20 years digital downloads (since 2005) and streaming (since 2014) have been included in chart calculations. These changes mean the demise of a common feature of the charts during their first 60 years: the Double A Side.

In recognition of this I offer here a list of the 49 times that the UK #1 was a Double A Side. There are 47 different releases here. Elvis Presley’s “One Night” / “I Got Stung” made it to #1 in 1959 and again in 2005. “Under the Bridge” / “Lady Marmalade” by All Saints had two non-consecutive weeks at the top in 1998. Some of the releases listed here featured different artists on each side, like the 1988 charity single that combined Billy Bragg’s version of “She’s Leaving Home” with Wet Wet Wet’s “With a little help from my friends”.

The last three items in this list are all releases by McFly. This gives them the honour of being the last act to have a Double A Sided chart-topper in the UK. Unless the rules for calculating the charts change dramatically, “Baby’s Coming Back” / “Transylvania” will remain as the last Double A Side to make it to #1.