Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles (15th edition) -

I received this book as a present for Christmas 2002 and it's absolutely excellent. Whenever I write reviews on Amazon, I try and put a lot of facts into them - not only to prove I know what I'm on about, but because I find it very interesting. In my reviews for records, I write down the release dates (by month) and the highest chart position for the released songs. I know most of them before I review, but now I can refer to this book to double-check. This is where it helps me immensely in searching for chart positions.

The book starts off with "The Very First Top 12." The first Record Hit Parade was published on 14th November 1952 and contained 15 records because some had equal sales figures. In this section, we take a look at each hit. We then move onto "How The Chart Began," an in-depth look at how the British singles chart came about. There are a few more features, such as "Al Martino: The First No.1 Act," "Chart Milestones," and "The Vinyl Revival." Although filling just one page in this book, the "Reader's Top 100" is one of the most interesting features this chart bible has to offer. Over the past year (when this book was published), the makers of this book asked the readers what was their favourite single of all-time. More than 31,000 votes were cast, and Queen's classic "Bohemian Rhapsody" came out on top. It was also great to see some of my personal favourites in the Top 100, such as Madonna's "Like A Prayer" (No.5) and "Vogue" (No. 24), Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time" (No.23), Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" (No.15) and Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" (No.63). We then move onto "The 916 Number One Hits." This section of the book takes a look at all those UK No.1 hits from November 1952 - December 2001. Each No.1 hit indicates how many weeks it spent at the top, if the song went straight in at No.1 or climbed, who wrote the song, who produced it, and if the song went either silver (250,000 from 1973-1988/200,000 from 1989 - 2001), gold (500,000 from 1973-1988/500,000 from 1989-2001) and platinum (1,000,000 from 1973-1988/600,000 from 1989-2001).

We then move onto "2001 Statistics." This feature takes a look at many statistics such as the Top 10 Best Sellers of 2001, the Amount Of New Chart Entries, Biggest Selling Single Of 2001, The Biggest Selling Act In 2001, Most Weeks At No.1, Most Weeks On Chart By Any Single In 2001 and many more. After this, there's "Pop Review Of The Year." This 13-page feature guides us, month by month, through all the music-world happenings in 2001. We then move onto a section called "Lists, Stats and Facts." In this feature, we take a look at The Top 10 Biggest Selling Singles in the UK Ever, Top Producers, Posthumous Chart Toppers, The Top 10 One-hit Wonders, Wedding Top 20, Top 10 Movie Themes, Top 10 Acts Without A Number One Hit and Liverpool: Capital City Of Pop. There's also a "Top 100 Pop Acts" list. This features the top 100 music acts in the British chart, based on total weeks on the chart with all their singles. The top 10 consists of (from No.1-No.10) Elvis Presley (1,173), Cliff Richard (1,145), Shadows (770), Elton John (576), Madonna (568), Diana Ross (560), Michael Jackson (493), Rod Stewart (477), Beatles (456) and David Bowie (447). We then move onto the big one! Every chart act to ever feature in the UK singles chart from 1952-2001 is contained within 452 pages of the most comprehensive guide to singles. The list is called "A-Z By Artist" and features symbols to represent each song such as UK No.1, UK Top 10, Still On Chart, UK Million Seller, UK entry At No.1 and US No.1. It really is quite amazing to flick through the pages to acts such as Elvis Presley, Beatles, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Cliff Richard to see the sheer scale of records they have released. For all those big artists, there's a forenote before the single chart facts which describes the act/artists and their achievements. The next and final section is "A-Z By Song Title." This 123-page guide offers an A-Z look at all 26,691 singles to be released here in the UK. No matter how big or small, you'll find it in here!

All in all, this is by far the most essential chart reference book you will ever find! If you're always wondering what chart position your favourite song got to, or how many copies it sold, or even when it was released, it's all in here! You will love this book if you buy it, even more so than the current Guinness World Records books which has slipped from a decent reference book, into one that is filled with scantily-clad ladies to appeal to pre-pubescent boys! But this British Hit Singles reference book has a whopping 640 pages and seems to have stayed strong, and is all the better for doing so. A must - order your copy now from Amazon.co.uk!

The single most useful chart reference book (19/19 people found this helpful)

This really only applies if you are studying the U.K. charts, but since the late 1970s Guinness have published the definitive encyclopaedia of U.K. Chart hits

This contains a list of all acts to hit the U.K. pop music charts from Al Martino in 1952 to Robbie Williams at the end of the year 2001. The acts are listed alphabetically with chronological lists of each act's hits with number of weeks in the charts and highest chart position. A small amount of additional data is given for some groups, like dates and places of birth, but this is not the purpose of this book and so it is necessarily brief. There is a second section where all the song titles are listed which gives the year, highest position and artist, and this is extremely useful if you can't remember who had a hit with I Only Want To Be With You. A third section gives some chart facts and feats, such as the longest running chart acts, acts with the most hits, etc., and this is interesting and useful for quizzes!

The chart used is that favoured by the BBC, which has changed chart compiler over the years, and strong arguments are made for charts used before the B.B.C. had an official chart on the basis that they must use where possible actual sales data and not record company figures or airplay.

Earlier editions contain better photographs from the likes of Harry Hammond and Dezo Hoffman, but the sheer quantity of chart acts has necessitated the reduction of picture space and the increase in text. There are a few interviews with pop music makers scattered throughout the book, some of which are interesting. The last few editions have been dumbed down in the editorial content, but that doesn't detract from the quality and sheer quantity of the data. This is a must have for any fan of U.K. pop music.

Britain's healthiest looking 25 year old (11/11 people found this helpful)

This new edition brings the book's chart coverage up to December 2001. As it's the 25th Anniversary edition, there's a page for every year from 1977-2001, with an interview from a major chart star of the year, a concise summation of the years' events (1989, for example, details Salman Rushdie getting a fatwah and the Berlin Wall coming down)as well as giving us a single and album of the year. The sections are well laid out, with attractive typefaces and colour schemes, emphasising, the text - being a good backing band. Interspersing features with the main body of the text means this book can be read many times over, for pure enjoyment, as much as to aid completion of the NME crossword. Other new sections in this edition are "Pop Quiz Top Tips", for pub quizmeisters and bored coffee shop staff and "Statistics 2000" which lovingly details who sold the most in 2000.

Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles (15th edition)

Reader Reviews:

No other chart reference book comes close! (12/13 people found this helpful)

The single most useful chart reference book (19/19 people found this helpful)

Britain's healthiest looking 25 year old (11/11 people found this helpful)

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