A new book subscription series In 1952 Percy Dickins, who died in 2002, launched the first chart specifically looking at music sales in the United Kingdom. 1952, 70 years ago, was the start of a new Elizabethan era and a feeling of newness as the dark days of the War (both of them), still fresh in …
Author archives: Lonnie
All is quiet… but something this way comes
I’ve been quiet for a while. Quite because I’ve been plotting. And planning. What does one do when they have suddenly and unexpectedly got some time on their hands? Well in my case I have begun to go and amend the artist credits in my database. Not an easy task and it has led to …
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Melody Maker Albums
For many years, Melody Maker were credited as starting the Album chart listing (before the Record Mirror charts where remembered). After 1960 though, when Record Retailer began their chart, the Melody Maker albums where forgotten despite being more accurate. In the mid 2000’s though, they where resurrected for an 8 week period in 1971 when …
New Book Added!
Today I have launched a new book, this time covering the NME charts for the 1970’s. It’s been a while since I have updated a book, as I have bene focusing on amending how the database works as well as adding lots of new data to the database so that a lot more books can …
The Missing Charts – 4 missing albums (Part 2)
This is a series of posts looking at four missing weeks in the UK Album charts from the 1960’s. This week, the second error in 1969 and how this came to be found after fifty years. Through The Past Darkly An adaptation of UK Album Chart History, in light of some new evidence. Written, researched and …
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The Missing Charts – 4 missing albums (Part 1)
This is the start of a series of posts looking at the four missing weeks of UK album charts from the 1960’s. this first edition will look at two missing from 1960 and whether they will ever be located. Record Retailer April and May 1960 I need to set the scene before showing exactly which …
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Verifying Data – Collecting The True Account
It’s always hard to work out exactly what is the true account, particularly after so many years have elapsed – and thats a statement that is true largely regardless of the field being researched. It’s more true with charts as it is almost always impossible to locate the original data sources. Let me explain… How …
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New Book! And how they are put together
I issued a new book on Saturday for the Billboard Best Sellers In Stores Chart. (If your interested then a link to check out the page is here) and I thought I’d go through the process of putting it together. My last post talked about gathering the data I nave, so this one will talk …
Where It All Began
After relaunching the website a few weeks ago I’ve been concentrating on updating the database that creates the ChartBookWeekly and the associated books and that’s what I want to talk about now. When I began to collect the UK charts (and it was the UK as I didn’t know about Billboard back then) it was …
Chart Errors
Chart errors. Some are genuine mistakes and so can be fixed easily. Some are more annoying as they can’t. I’m going to pick out a one in particular, of the annoying variety, and talk about that, but really there are hundreds over the years. March 1969 The UK Album Charts are the second class citizen …