''British Hit Singles & Albums'' (originally known as ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles'' and ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums'') was a music

reference book A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually ''referred'' to ...

originally published in the United Kingdom by the publishing arm of the

Guinness Guinness () is an Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in 1759. It is one of the most successful alcohol brands worldwide, brewed in almost 50 countries, and available in ov ...

breweries, Guinness Superlatives. Later editions were published by

HiT Entertainment HIT Entertainment Limited (commonly written as HiT) was a British-American entertainment company founded in 1982 as Henson International Television, the international distribution arm of The Jim Henson Company, by Jim Henson, Peter Orton, and Sop ...

(who had bought the Guinness World Records brand). It listed all the singles and albums featured in the Top 75 pop charts in the UK. In 2004 the book became an amalgamation of two earlier Guinness publications, originally known as ''British Hit Singles'' and ''British Hit Albums''. The publication of this amalgamation ceased in 2006, with Guinness World Records being sold to The Jim Pattison Group, owner of ''

Ripley's Believe It or Not! ''Ripley's Believe It or Not!'' is an American franchise founded by Robert Ripley, which deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims. Originally a newspaper panel, the ''Believe It or Not'' fea ...

''. At this point, the Official UK Charts Company teamed up with

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

Ebury Publishing Ebury Publishing is a division of Penguin Random House, and is a publisher of general non-fiction books in the UK. Ebury was founded in 1961 as a division of Nat Mags and was originally located on Ebury Street in London. It was sold to Cent ...

to release a new version of the book under the

Virgin Books Virgin Books is a British book publisher 90% owned by the publishing group Random House, and 10% owned by Virgin Group, the company originally set up by Richard Branson as a record company. History Virgin established its book publishing ...

brand. Entitled '' The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles'', it was first published in November 2008 with a separate albums book and second editionThe Virgin Book of British Hit Singles, Volume 2 by Dave McAleer, Andy Gregory and Matthew White (Virgin Books/Ebury Publishing/Random House/Official Charts Company ) being published over the next couple of years. The first ten editions of ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles'' were compiled by

Paul Gambaccini Paul Matthew Gambaccini (born April 2, 1949) is an American-British radio and television presenter and author in the United Kingdom. He has dual United States and British nationality, having become a British citizen in 2005. Known as "The Grea ...

, Mike Read and brothers

Tim Rice Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice (born 10 November 1944) is an English lyricist and author. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote, among other shows, ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'', ...

and Jonathan (Jo) Rice (known as GRRR). Read left the team in the mid-1980s (with the book copyright now belonging to GRR Publications Ltd) and the other editors resigned in 1996. Chart editor for many editions was David Roberts.

Content

''British Hit Singles & Albums'' was generally considered to be the authoritative reference (and only) source for both the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

(since its inception in 1952) and the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

. It listed all the singles and albums ever to have been in the UK charts since 1952 (albums since 1958), listing them in alphabetical order and by both artist and song title. The entries also included the date of chart entry, highest position, catalogue number and number of weeks in the chart. Short biographical notes accompanied many of the artists' chart details. The book's sources are the ''

New Musical Express ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' ('' NME'') chart from November 1952 to March 1960, and the ''

Record Retailer ''Record Retailer'' was the only music trade newspaper for the UK record industry. It was founded in August 1959 as a monthly newspaper covering both labels and dealers. Its founding editor was Roy Parker (who died on 27 December 1964). The titl ...

'' (later ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as '' Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music W ...

'') chart thereafter. It could be said that this division is misleading, since the ''Record Retailer'' chart was little known until it was adopted by the BBC in 1969 and that by adopting this chart as its standard, the editors had a non-consensual view. An example often given is the case of

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

' second single " Please Please Me" which was recognised as a number one hit by every other publicly available chart of the time, but not by ''Record Retailer'' and therefore not by ''British Hit Singles''. Other records to which this applies include "

19th Nervous Breakdown "19th Nervous Breakdown" is a song recorded by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was recorded in late 1965 and released as a single in February 1966. It reached number 2 on both the US ''Bil ...

" by

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically dr ...

, " Stranger on the Shore" by

Acker Bilk Bernard Stanley "Acker" Bilk, (28 January 1929 – 2 November 2014) was a British clarinetist and vocalist known for his breathy, vibrato-rich, lower-register style, and distinctive appearance – of goatee, bowler hat and striped waistc ...

and the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

entry " Are You Sure?" by

The Allisons The Allisons were an English pop duo consisting of Bob Day (born Bernard Colin Day; 2 February 1941 – 25 November 2013) and John Alford (born Brian Henry John Alford, 31 December 1939). They were marketed as being brothers, using the surname o ...

. Co-founder Jo Rice has defended the book's choice of source material on the grounds that ''Record Retailer'' was the only chart to consistently publish a Top 50 from 1960 onwards. This can be substantiated by the fact that charts published in the ''NME'' were of a shorter format and other chart listings such as those in ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

'', became less and less informative although they were probably more accurate. Subsequent research has shown that during the "disputed" period of the 1960s, the samples sizes of the ''Record Retailer'' chart were considerably inferior to those of the other charts: around 30 shops in 1963 in comparison to more than 100 used by ''Melody Maker'', and later around 80 in comparison to ''NME''s 150 and ''Melody Maker''s 200. As a result, the placings in that chart were more open to error and manipulation – a situation further worsened by the larger number of records listed in the chart.

History

1977–96 original editors

The first edition was published as ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles'' in November 1977. It wasn't the first Guinness music reference publication, as the previous year a book called ''The Guinness Book of Music Facts & Feats'' had been published. It also contained feats from the world of

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

. The first edition was issued to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the first UK singles sales chart, which was published in November 1952, by the ''

''. Subsequently, a new edition was published every two years, adding a few hundred titles to each edition. Keeping in line with the book's parent publication ''The Guinness Book of Records'', each edition of ''British Hit Singles'' also contained a 'facts and feats' section, which included various lists of remarkable chart feats such as 'most hits', 'most no. 1 hits', 'most weeks on chart' or 'Least successful chart artist'. Also included in the books were

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

(often with captions) and introductions written by the four authors. They also wrote a bi-annual lookback on the major developments in the UK charts in the two preceding years. The series was soon regarded as the number one source for music and chart reference, thanks to the commercial success of the books and its various sister publications (see below). The series' 10th edition, published in June 1995, was the last to feature its original authors Rice, Rice and Gambaccini. From the 11th edition onwards, the book was compiled by in-house editors at Guinness Publishing and, later, by David Roberts who had already been a chart editor and designer for the original team.

1997–2006

From the 12th edition onwards (published in 1999), the book was published every year rather than bi-annually. In 2004, the book merged with ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums'' to form ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums''. The eighteenth edition of the book (2005) was billed as a "Special Collector's Edition" as it featured detailed information on the 1,000 Number Ones in the

from

Al Martino Al Martino (born Jasper Cini; October 7, 1927 – October 13, 2009) was an American singer and actor. He had his greatest success as a singer between the early 1950s and mid-1970s, being described as "one of the great Italian American pop croone ...

's "

Here in My Heart "Here in My Heart" is a popular song written by Pat Genaro, Lou Levinson, and Bill Borrelli, first published in 1952. A recording of the song by Italian-American singer Al Martino made history as the first number one hit on the UK Singles Chart, ...

" on 14 November 1952 to

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...

's "One Night / I Got Stung" (Limited Edition Collector's re-issue), 22 January 2005. The 19th edition (2006) was the last in the series. A supposed 20th edition was due to be published in 2007, but apparently the original publishers lost interest in chart reference books after their contract with

The Official Charts Company The Official Charts (legal name: The Official UK Charts Company Limited) is a British inter-professional organization that compiles various "official" record charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. In the United Kingdom, its charts inc ...

expired, which saw that organisation sell the contract to

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

Features in each edition

Associated merchandise

Following the success of the ''Guinness Book of British Hit Singles'' series, the original authors and Guinness quickly turned to other charts-related books and projects. The following books were written by them: * ''The Guinness Book of Hits of the 70s'' (1980) * ''The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits'' (1982) * ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums'' (first issued in 1983, second edition in 1986 with bi-annual updates until 1996) * ''The Guinness Book of Hits of the 60s'' (1984) * ''The Guinness Hits Challenge'' (a pop quiz book) (1984) * ''The Guinness Hits Challenge 2'' (1985) * ''The Guinness Book of Number One Hits (2nd edition)'' (1988) * ''UK Top 1000 Singles'' (1988) * ''Hits of the 80s'' (1990) * ''The Guinness Hits Quiz'' (1990) * ''Guinness Top 40 Charts'' (1992) * ''The Guinness Hits Quiz 2'' (1992) * ''UK Top 1000 Singles 2'' (1993) * ''The Guinness Book of Number One Hits (3rd edition)'' (1994) * ''Guinness Top 40 Charts 2'' (1996) In the late 1990s and 2000s several other merchandise was produced, such as karaoke CDs, a calendar, a DVD quiz (''British Hit Albums and Singles No. 1 Music Quiz'') and a series of themed compilation CDs with original hits from the book.

References and further reading

*Roberts, David. ''Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums''. Guinness World Records Ltd. 18th edition (May 2005). *Roberts, David. ''Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums''. Guinness World Records Ltd. 19th edition (June 2006). *Roach, Martin. ''The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles''. Virgin Books (Nov. 2008). *McAleer, Dave. ''The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles - Volume 2''. Virgin Books (Nov. 2010).

References

External links

Everyhit.comChart Stats''UKChartsPlus''
Official Top 200 Singles & Album charts {{DEFAULTSORT:British Hit Singles and Albums Music guides 1977 non-fiction books 1977 establishments in the United Kingdom 2006 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Guinness World Records World record databases