The Complete Book Of The British Charts – Singles and Albums

Respected broadcaster Paul Gambaccini, in conjunction with fellow DJ Mike Read and lyricist Tim Rice, came up with the Guinness Book Of Hit Singles idea in 1975 (although the first edition was not published until 1977), which would be re-printed every two years thereafter with updated facts and figures charting the careers of every artist and band who ever graced the UK Singles Charts. It also spawned an Album version following the same format, which was likewise updated every few years (initially every two as with the Singles edition, but strangely there hasn’t been one since 1996).

Unfortunately, the more recent Hit Singles books have been pretty poor. There was a change in compiler personnel (the reason for this is unclear, though Gambaccini was outspoken in his criticism of last year’s error-strewn 12th Edition), and the established layout was continually meddled with. A reference book with mistakes is, of course, a truly worthless thing. Enter, then, The Complete Book Of The British Charts.

Tony Brown is – according to Gambo – “a chartologist par excellence” and “our (Gambaccini, Read and Rice’s) natural successor……..the future of chartology”. High praise indeed. He graduated to the post of their assistant on the Hit Singles and Albums series, after a chance encounter in 1983.

It should be pointed out that this book is not merely the two Guinness titles combined. There is an attention to detail, and a user-friendliness, throughout the 1250 pages. Concise yet always accurate background information is an impressive added touch within the A-Z listings of hits by thousands of acts. Helpful yet not overly anal snippets such as the reasons for a particular song being a hit (from a film, to celebrate some occasion, and so on) is something previous chart books of this kind never thought to include.

Furthermore, it is not designed to be a critique or an overview of pop music’s history. The numbers simply do the talking. The Beatles are treated just the same as Boney M. If it made the Top 75 of either the Singles or Albums weekly listings, you’ll find it in here.

There are four sections : the A-Z of Chart Artists, all the Number One singles and albums since 1952, and a Title Index of Chart Entries, while the ubiquitous Various Artists have their own area as well. The format is clear and easy to use, the print neccessarily on the small side but still perfectly legible.

The A-Z lists have the act’s name, total number of hits and total number of weeks on the chart as a header. Chart entry dates, highest positions, record label, and weeks on chart for each title are then listed chronologically beneath. If the act in question has appeared on both Singles and Albums listings, then there will be two sections under the main header.

The Number Ones section is a chronological breakdown – by year, rather than split into two separate lists – of every chart topper since the respective charts began, with the number of weeks spent at the top given in brackets.

All releases credited to Various Artists, meanwhile, are handily collected together. It comes as no surprise that there are 50 pages of them, listed by Record Companies, Films, Musicals, Christmas, Live concerts & festivals, and Television among others.

The final chapter of a mightily impressive – and, it has to be said, mightily heavy (almost unwieldly) – reference tool is dedicated to separate index listings for every entry in the Artist sections, with a year of entry and highest position for them all. If you know the title, but not who recorded it, this is the place to look.

Now that the once-essential Guinness tomes are clearly more interested in gimmicks and appearance than the accuracy of their content, The Complete Book Of The British Charts has arrived at the perfect time. It is unquestionably THE chart book par excellence, as Gambo himself might say.