It’s been a busy few months as I’ve launched the online database and the new album series. I’m relatively pleased with how the online database is progressing but if you do want to sign up and check it out then you can do so here. https://melodychartsonline.co.uk
The Album series is a companion to the UK 70 Years Of The Singles charts which ended a few years ago and the similar Billboard Series charting 85 Years of their charts. So far 1956-1959 have been issued with the 1960 volume out on Monday (if you read this as I post otherwise it was issued on 24 August 2026 to those reading in the future). The 1960’s will continue more or less weekly.
The 1970’s to 2020’s will be bi-weekly and we have a treat for readers of the 1973-1979 volumes as we have sales data! Not much but it’s about all that seems to still exist for the period. The data is from the weekly Top 100 that BMRB compiled at the time and from 1977-79 it’s the monthly Top 500 album charts. More on this in the various volumes.
We don’t have data for the Gallup era, as we did for the Singles. Largely this seems to be because Singles are more important to most when given the opportunity to gather the data and so that’s prioritised. It does seem that the BBC may hold copies going right the way back to 1969 in their written archive but as the BBC Written Archive is currently closed to non BBC people or closed to those without a specific book or commercial request for which their is a fee I believe it means that this is not a viable proposition to obtain. All that said when I launched the Singles series we did not have the Gallup data and then it appeared so one lives in hopes! Sales data was sent to many record labels and so it would exist somewhere in their archives unless they had a clear out. If they did somebody may have borrowed it. If you have it then do let me know!
The new series has gone well so far and I’m plotting which charts to add to later issues.
If you have not yet subscribed then please do but either way do check out the sample. All the details are here
https://www.thechartbook.co.uk/70-years-of-the-uk-album-chart/
Any queries or questions then do let me know!