Here in the UK there have been five complete decades of chart history, from the 1960s through to the 2000s. The first official singles chart was in 1952, so the 1950s are incomplete. So is the current decade, the 2010s, at least until December. A few months ago I was preoccupied with the concept of… Continue reading Stuck at 2: every complete decade of the UK singles chart (1960-2010)
You will be familiar with the work of Ed Sheeran, a staggeringly successful singer-songwriter. His world tour last year grossed more money than any other live tour, $432m according to this piece in the Guardian. Yes, you read that right: four hundred and thirty two million dollars, paid out by people all over the world… Continue reading Sometimes the formula doesn’t work
Yesterday, Paul Gambaccini’s “Pick of the Pops” show on BBC Radio 2 featured the charts from this week in 1971 and 1988. Can you recall the Christmas #1s from those years? The answers appear below. It’s the kind of information that people of my generation (those of us who followed the charts closely) might retain… Continue reading Christmas #1s, and biting the dust at 52
Last week, on his BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show, Chris Evans played “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” by The Beatles, a German-language version of their 1963 #1 “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. I remember enough of my O Level German to know that the title is not a direct translation. “Komm, Gib Mir Deine… Continue reading “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand”
For the third time this month I have posted a list containing a decade’s worth of “Stuck at 2” songs on the Trivia Menu. These are songs that almost made it to #1 in the UK chart but missed out by one place. Today’s list, which you can see here, is for the whole of… Continue reading Stuck at 2: the whole of the 1990s
The concept of “Stuck at 2” (songs that almost made it to #1 in the UK chart but missed out by one place) continues to preoccupy me. This piece from last week looked at the whole of the 1970s, with a link to this list on the Trivia Menu. Today’s piece looks at the whole… Continue reading Stuck at 2: the whole of the 1980s
Since posting a couple of “Stuck at 2” pieces last month (about songs that almost made it to #1 in the UK chart but missed out by one place) I have got rather carried away. After this piece (about the songs that were stuck at 2 in 1967 and 1983), and this follow-up (covering the… Continue reading Stuck at 2: the whole of the 1970s
Last weekend, in this piece, I returned to the idea of “Stuck at 2”, singles that reached #2 in the UK charts but didn’t make it all the way to the top. It listed the songs from 1967 and 1983 that just missed out on a #1 place, and those that kept them off the… Continue reading Stuck at 2: 1970, 1971, 1972
Paul Gambaccini’s “Pick of the Pops” show earlier today on BBC Radio 2 featured a couple of charts that are well worth a listen. That’s true most weeks, but occasionally there’s a horror-show from the 1990s or some year earlier in this century that I do not need to revisit. You can hear today’s programme… Continue reading Stuck at 2: 1967, 1983
In 2011 BBC4 started to screen repeats of the old BBC1 music show “Top of the Pops”. On Friday 1 April that year they showed the episode that was first broadcast exactly 35 years earlier. Brotherhood of Man were at #1 with “Save your kisses for me”. As the year progressed they continued to show… Continue reading 10 years of “Top of the Pops”
The Compartments 