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| UK singles chart |
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NME (or New Musical Express) was a British weekly pop music newspaper. Record charts in the United Kingdom began life on 14 November 1952 when NME began compiling the first UK-wide sales-based hit parade. Prior to 15 February 1969, when the British Market Research Bureau chart was established, there was no one universally accepted source and many periodicals compiled their own chart. During this time the BBC used aggregated results of charts from the NME and other sources to compile the Pick of the Pops chart. In 1969, Record Retailer and the BBC commissioned the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) to compile the singles chart. [1]
Prior to this, The Official Charts Company and Guinness' British Hit Singles & Albums, consider Record Retailer the canonical source for the British singles chart in the 1960s; [1] Nevertheless, in the 1960s, NME had the biggest circulation of charts in the decade and was more widely followed. [2] [3] After 1969, the joint venture between Record Retailer and the BBC is widely considered as the beginning of the official UK Singles Chart. [2] [3] [4] NME continued compiling its own chart until 14 May 1988. [5]
Significantly, NME had the Sex Pistols' anti-monarchy single "God Save the Queen" at number-one during the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II. [6] [7] The single, released by Virgin Records, was the highest-selling single of the week [8] [9] but had been banned by the BBC and some major retailers. [6] To prevent it from reaching the top of the BMRB chart, for one week compilers "decreed that shops which sold their own records could not have those records represented in the chart", thus sales from Virgin Megastores were not counted. [3] Despite reaching number-two on the official chart, it is sometimes referred to as reaching number one. [10] [11] [12]
| ‡ | The song did not reach number one on the BMRB chart which is considered as the official chart after 12 February 1969. |
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| [nb #] | The song spent a week at number one where it shared the top spot with another song. |
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"God Save the Queen" is a song by the English punk rock band the Sex Pistols. It was released as the band's second single and was later included on their only studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. The song was released during Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977.
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-selling singles in the United Kingdom, based upon physical sales, paid-for downloads and streaming. The Official Chart, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and MTV, is the UK music industry's recognised official measure of singles and albums popularity because it is the most comprehensive research panel of its kind, today surveying over 15,000 retailers and digital services daily, capturing 99.9% of all singles consumed in Britain across the week, and over 98% of albums. To be eligible for the chart, a single is currently defined by the Official Charts Company (OCC) as either a 'single bundle' having no more than four tracks and not lasting longer than 25 minutes or one digital audio track not longer than 15 minutes with a minimum sale price of 40 pence. The rules have changed many times as technology has developed, the most notable being the inclusion of digital downloads in 2005 and streaming in July 2014.
Until 15th February 1969, there was no officially compiled chart.
Rees, Dafydd; Lazell, Barry; Osborne, Roger (1995). Forty Years of "NME" Charts (2nd ed.). Pan Macmillan. ISBN 0-7522-0829-2.