You are probably familiar with the concept of “Six Degrees of Separation”, the idea that you are within six steps, or “six handshakes”, of everyone else on earth. When I first came across the idea I realized that my quickest route to the 7.9 billion other people on the planet is through the church hierarchy.… Continue reading Musical degrees of separation
11 November 2023: The Beatles at #1 in the UK singles chart with their final release “Now and Then”. The last time they were #1 here was in 1969, over 54 years ago, with “The Ballad of John and Yoko”. In the UK, until now, the Beatles had all of their chart-toppers in the 1960s.… Continue reading The Beatles at #1
On 11 August 1979 I went to the Royal Albert Hall for the first time, for a “Promenade Concert”, or Prom. A schoolfriend invited me. His father was a senior management figure at a local brewery. The brewery, or their parent company, had a box at the Albert Hall, so that was where we sat.… Continue reading A box at the Royal Albert Hall, 1979
The story behind the song: “I Remember You”. Frank Ifield’s recording of “I Remember You” was the best-selling single of 1962 in the UK. It was #1 for 7 weeks, from late July until mid-September. The song was written over 20 years earlier, in 1941, by Victor Scherzinger and Johnny Mercer. Mercer wrote the words… Continue reading The story behind the song: “I Remember You”
I was at a funeral the week before last. It was in Harlesden, a place I had not visited for over 20 years. The deceased was the sister of an old college friend. I had invited him to something last month but he couldn’t make it. His sister was very ill, and she died at… Continue reading A funeral changes everything
Last year, in this piece, I listed all the Double A Sided singles that made it to the top of the UK chart. There were 47 different releases in the list, the last of them in 2007. There are unlikely to be any more now that the singles charts are based primarily on streaming. Double… Continue reading The 4 EPs that made it to #1
The Album Charts here in the UK are not what they used to be. This page on the Official Chart Company website, “All The Number 1 Albums”, lists every chart-topping album going back to the first official chart in 1956. It shows how things have changed in the intervening decades. In the early years there… Continue reading The Album Charts are not what they used to be
An earlier piece on this Blog (“Double A Sides at #1”) reflected on changes in how the UK charts are compiled. The Double A Sided single played a big part in chart history. In recent years, with the figures based mainly on digital downloads and streaming, Double A Sides have rarely featured in the Top… Continue reading 15 questions about Double A Sided #1s
My daughter is taking her Mock GCSE exams this month. When she started senior school she did well enough in her initial assessments to be selected for Mandarin classes. She was in the “MEP” (Mandarin Excellence Programme), a pathway that offered extra tuition in the language and the prospect of an extended trip to China… Continue reading Word of the week: Milord
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… Continue reading Double A Sides at #1
The Compartments 