UK Music Charts

UK MUSIC CHARTS
 
 
The UK Music Charts  are a collection of charts that reflect the music buying habits of people within the United Kingdom.  The majority of them are produced by the Official Charts Company.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Heart of Glass” might have been Blondie’s #1 hit song, but as the follow-up, “Hanging on the Telephone” reached #5 in the UK
 
(April 2010)
 
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The first single by the Piltdown Men was Brontosaurus Stomp b/w Mac Donald’s Cave, and the band had the good fortune to release the song just as America’s first prime-time animated television show, The Flintstones was being launched, almost exactly 50 years ago today.  Brontosaurus Stomp made it to #75 on the U.S. charts, and Mac Donald’s Cave did even better in Britain, reaching #14, despite having competition from a Top 20 version of “Ol’ Mac Donald” in a completely different style that was recorded by Frank Sinatra, of all people. 
 
Bubbles in the Tar” and Goodnight, Mrs. Flintstone by the Piltdown Men were both Top 20 hits in the U.K. 
 
(October 2010) 
 
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Buddy Holly’s death had a profound effect in the United Kingdom; Buddy’s final single, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” rose to #1 on the charts following his death.  In 1961, the ground-breaking record producer Joe Meek, working with singer Mike Berry created “Tribute To Buddy Holly” that seemed like the man himself singing from beyond the grave.  Joe Meek apparently never got over the loss, and he committed suicide in 1967 on the anniversary of the airplane crash.  

 

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Keith Richards once said of Buddy Holly that he had “an influence on everybody”.  Richards heard Buddy perform Not Fade Away in concert; as only their third single, the Rolling Stones hit #3 on the UK charts with “Not Fade Away” (performed in the Bo Diddley style that was the genesis of the song in the first place) – and that song is my very favorite Rolling Stones cover song. 

 

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By 1959Little Richard was starting to make gospel recordings and had minor sales success with some of them; “He Got What He Wanted” made the Top 40 in the U.K.  His childhood hero Mahalia Jackson acknowledged his gospel efforts positively; after working with Little Richard on his 1962 album King of the Gospel SingersQuincy Jones said in 1984 that he was more impressed with those performances than those of anyone he had worked with. 

 

(June 2013/1)
 
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Brian Wilson was none too happy that Pet Sounds wasn’t a bigger hit; though the album peaked at #10 in the American album charts (and #2 in the U.K.), “Good Vibrations” was #1 with a bullet in the U.S. and U.K. alike.  Thus, in August 1966Wilson began working feverishly on another album that would be called SMiLE to prove beyond doubt that Americans could outdo the English

 

(June 2013/2)

 

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All I knew about Vera Lynn, an enormously popular English singer during World War II was the reference to her in the song “Vera” from the 1979 Pink Floyd album, The Wall.  Thus, I was astounded (along with the rest of the world, I think including Vera Lynn herself) when a retrospective of her work that was released in 2009We’ll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn reached the top of the British charts.  At age 92, she is the oldest person ever to achieve that feat in Great Britain

 

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The Goldie and the Gingerbreads 1964 recording of “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” made it to #25 in the UK.  Here in this country, Herman’s Hermits released Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat two weeks earlier; the heavy promotion of that song cut them out of the U.S. charts.  

 

(October 2013)

 

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The lead single “Fast Car” was a Top 10 hit in both the U.S. and the U.K.; and Tracy Chapman won a clutch of Grammies in 1989 also.  Remarkably, Michael Collings, a contestant on the television series Britain’s Got Talent performed the song in April 2011; and Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car re-entered the U.K. charts and attained the same #4 peak as it had in 1988

 

(January 2014)

 

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The flamboyant look of Fuzzbox and their savvy meld of new wave and punk a la the Go-Go’s with fuzztone made the British band indie rock darlings for a time.  Allmusic gripes that, if anything, they don’t use their fuzzbox enough; but I was always satisfied.  We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It includes mostly cool original songs but also a cover of the fuzz classic “Spirit in the Sky”; the song was originally released by Norman Greenbaum in late 1969, reaching #1 on the British charts, and was a #1 hit in the UK by another British band Doctor and the Medics in 1986

 

(February 2014)

 

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Status Quo is known in America only for their 1967 psychedelic hit Pictures of Matchstick Men; but over the course of their career, they have released 60 songs that charted in the U.K. (the most recent in 2010) – more than any other rock group – and 23 of these were Top 10 hits.  

 

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Woodstock” was written by Joni Mitchell based on what Graham Nash told her about the festival – Matthews’ Southern Comfort had a Number 1 hit in the U.K. with “Woodstock

 

(April 2014)

 

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For a change, no attempt was made to market a different album in the U.S. from the one that was released in England, and Americans responded by driving the album to #4 on the Billboard album charts, even better than the #5 showing that Cream’s Disraeli Gears reached in the U.K. 

 

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The Derek and the Dominos album includes of course their massive hit Layla, but the album was not a big seller right away – in fact, Layla and Other Love Songs didn’t make the record charts in England until 2011 (for one week).  However, Layla was included on an album called The History of Eric Clapton and was released by Atlantic Records as a single in 1972; the song then made the Top Ten in both the U.S. and the U.K.  

 

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February 19, 1965 marked the appearance of the third single (on Pye) by the Soul AgentsDon’t Break it Up b/w Gospel Train.  The British songwriting team of Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley wrote Don’t Break it Up”; they are probably best known for the U.K. Number One hit (and U.S. #5) by the Honeycombs, “Have I the Right”.  

 

(May 2014)

 

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Manfred Mann was one of the original British Invasion bands; they had a major hit in America (it was #1 in the U.K.) with a bizarre Bob Dylan song, “Quinn the Eskimo (Mighty Quinn)”, along with an earlier hit song called “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”. 

 

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In the summer of 1980Joy Division finally began to find commercial success when the re-release of their magnificent signature song “Love Will Tear Us Apart” went to #13 on the U.K. charts.  Just two days before Joy Division was to begin its U.S. tour, lead singer and lyricist Ian Curtis was found dead. 

 

When a long overdue retrospective of Joy Division called Substance finally came out in 1988, one of the songs, “Atmosphere” got to #34 on the British charts, and the Spartan music video that played on the MTV program 120 Minutes made a deep impression on me as well.  

 

(June 2014)

 

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After releasing her third album in 1979Simple Little WordsUnited Artists Records balked at Cristy Lane’s plans to release a remake of One Day at a Time, even though Lena Martell had a No. 1 hit in Great Britain with her version of “One Day at a Time” in 1979

 

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Spirit in the Sky” by Jewish-American singer-songwriter Norman Greenbaum is one of the biggest Christian-themed songs in music.  Spirit in the Sky sold 2,000,000 copies and reached the top of the charts in the U.K.Australia, IrelandCanada, and Germany; it went to #3 in the U.S.  

 

Doctor and the Medics also reached #1 on the U.K. charts with “Spirit in the Sky” (Gareth Gates is yet a third artist who reached Number One in the U.K. with “Spirit in the Sky”).  

 

(July 2014)

 

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The hit song from the George Harrison triple album All Things Must Pass is My Sweet Lord; it was the first #1 hit by an ex-Beatle and was also the biggest selling single in the UK in 1971.   
 
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Ringo Starr arguably has had the most successful post-Beatles career.  His first solo album, Sentimental Journey is a collection of pre-rock standards; made mainly to please his parents, he is one of the first rock musicians to attempt to cover these earlier styles of music.  After a country collection called Beaucoups of BluesRingo Starr settled back into rock music and made a series of excellent albums that spawned nearly as many major hit songs as his three better-known bandmates combined:  two #1 singles, “Photograph” and “You’re Sixteen” plus “It Don’t Come Easy”, “Back Off Boogaloo”, “Oh My My”, “Only You”, and “No No Song”. 
 
(September 2014)
 
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Move It” by Cliff Richard and the Shadowswent to #2 on the UK charts in 1958 and is widely regarded as the first authentic British rock and roll song.   

 

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As Wikipedia notes:  “Over a career spanning more than 50 years, [Cliff] Richard has become a fixture of the British entertainment world, amassing many gold and platinum discs and awards, including three Brit Awards and two Ivor Novello Awards.  He has had more than 130 singles, albums and EPs make the UK Top 20, more than any other artist, and holds the record (with Elvis Presley) as the only act to make the UK singles charts in all of its first six decades (1950’s – 2000’s).  He has achieved 14 UK No. 1 singles (or 18, depending on the counting methodology) and is the only singer to have had a No. 1 single in the UK in 5 consecutive decades:  the 1950’s through to the 1990’s.” 

 

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The Depeche Mode album Songs of Faith and Devotion topped the album charts in the US and the UK

 

(November 2014)

 

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The Chantays instrumental song Pipeline made #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1963 and #16 on the UK charts.  

 

(December 2014)

 

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Kim Fowley was the songwriter and record producer for “Nut Rocker”, an adaptation of a section of The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky; the artist was given as B. Bumble and the Stingers.  The record was a #1 hit in the UK in May 1962 and hit #23 in the US
 
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As recounted in Greg Shaw’s liner notes for the English Freakbeat, Volume 2 CDKim Fowley connected with another American expatriate, P. J. Proby.  After several failed singles in this country, Proby had a series of UK Top 20 hits that included his cover of a Lennon/McCartney song, “That Means a Lot” that the Beatles were never able to record to their own satisfaction. 

 

(January 2015/1)

 

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In June 1963the Rolling Stones released their debut single, a cover of a Chuck Berry song called “Come On”, which reached #21 on the UK charts.  The flip side was Willie Dixon’s “I Want to be Loved”.  

 

(January 2015/2)

 

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But solo songwriting is a lonely profession, and success is far from guaranteed.  Bob Dylan’s first album, Bob Dylan did not particularly showcase Dylan’s songwriting talent; there were only two original songs on the album. and the tunes to both had similarities with his mentor Woody Guthrie’s songs.  In fact, says Wikipedia:  “Mitch MillerColumbia [Records]’s chief of A&R at the time, said U.S. sales totaled about 2,500 copies.  Bob Dylan remains Dylan’s only release not to chart at all in the US, though it eventually reached #13 in the UK charts in 1965.  Despite the album’s poor performance, financially it was not disastrous because the album was very cheap to record.”  Bob Dylan was one of the first Dylan albums that I purchased, and I am astounded that this album never made the charts.  

 

(March 2015)

 

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While the album made it to #13 on the British charts, Meet the Supremes didn’t sell well in this country; the two singles from the album, “Your Heart Belongs to Me” and “Let Me Go the Right Way” barely cracked the Billboard Hot 100, although the latter song made it to #26 on the R&B Singles chart.  

 

(April 2015/1)

 

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A wealth of blues and R&B singles in a similar vein were released by the Rolling Stones and numerous other British bands in this time period, but none of them made much of an impression over here.  In fact, Allmusic reports that the Rolling Stones 45 discussed above, Not Fade Away is the only one that did reasonably well on the Billboard charts; while the song reached #3 on the UK charts, it managed #48 in the US.  

 

(May 2015)

 

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The first single that is generally credited to the Beatles is “My Bonnie” b/w “The Saints”; the single was released in 1961 and reached #26 in the US and #48 in the UK.  

 

Like I Wanna be Your Man, which was first recorded by the Rolling StonesHello Little Girl was one of the songs that they gave to others to record.  A little known Liverpool band (at least in this country) called the Fourmost first recorded “Hello Little Girl” in 1963 and made it to #9 on the British charts; Gerry and the Pacemakers also recorded the song in this time period.  

 

Yesterday was included on a four-song EP by the Beatles that topped the British charts, but even the EP was not released until nearly six months later (on March 4, 1966).  Ten years later, on March 8, 1976Yesterday finally came out as a single in the U.K. and reached #8 on the charts.  
 
Barely one year later, in October 1968Joe Cocker released a cover of “With a Little Help from My Friends” – a Number One single in the UK – which gets my vote as the most satisfying Beatles cover of all time. 
 

(June 2015)

 

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Perceived drug references in the lyrics caused a broadcasting ban on Eight Miles High in the U.S. shortly after its release; and largely as a result, the song stalled at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #24 on the UK singles chart

 

Shapes of Things by the Yardbirds is the first song written by the bandmembers that became a hit; it was released on February 25, 1966 and reached #3 on the UK singles chart and #11 on the Billboard Hot 100.   

 

I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) by the Electric Prunes made it to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, while their second hit Get Me to the World on Time was at #27; both songs just missed the Top 40 in the UK.  

 

At about the same time as I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) by the Electric Prunes but on the opposite coast, a Bronx, New York band called Blues Magoos had a hit single with (We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet that reached #5 on the Billboard charts.  Almost immediately after the song’s original release, in February 1967, a British band called the Spectres released their own version of “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet”.  By the end of that year, the band had changed its name to the Status Quo (dropping “the” in 1969 to become Status Quo).  In January 1968, they released a psychedelic single of their own, Pictures of Matchstick Men, which was a #12 hit in the US and a #7 hit in the UK.  

 

(July 2015)

 

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Meri Wilson had recorded a catchy, bawdy novelty song called “Telephone Man” in 1977 that I had heard numerous times – “My heart began a-thumpin’ and my mind began to fly / And I knew I wasn’t dealin’ with no ordinary guy / So while he was a-talking I was thinkin’ up my plan / Then my fingers did the walkin’ on the telephone man” – which made it to #6 on the UK charts and #18 on the US charts.  
 
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Terence Trent d’Arby, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent d’Arby – One song from the album, “If You Let Me Stay” was a major Top 10 hit in the UK that stayed in the top half of the charts for over a year.
 
Shakespear’s SisterHormonally Yours – This album includes their hit song “Stay”, a Top 5 hit on both sides of the Atlantic
 
(December 2015)
 
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Katrina and the Waves continued to have success in Europe, releasing another four albums; their career was given a major boost in 1997 when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with their entry, “Love Shine a Light” that made it to #2 on the British charts.  
 
(March 2016)
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Bob Dylan’s first album of standards, Shadows in the Night (2015) debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, making Dylan the oldest male solo artist to chart at number one in the UK
(June 2017)
Last edited: April 7, 2021