Top 40 Hits - Not Abba, British, N American, Jamaican or Australasian - Until 2000

[CallMePaul]

Helmut Zacharias und sein Orchester - Tokyo Melody
Joan Armatrading - Show Some Emotion

Gertmany, St Kitts & Nevis - 216

[MrGongGong]

Felix Mendelssohn : "I don't know how to love him" (allegedly ) 1970

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Felix Mendelssohn : "I don't know how to love him" (allegedly ) 1970

Surely you mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbw3o8l8Ms8

[MrGongGong]

Surely you mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbw3o8l8Ms8

That's the one

[Lat-Literal]

They were intuitive suggestions, rather than evidence-based, as I don't know how to check the top 40.

BTW my recollection is that in the 50s and 60s, and maybe later, there was only a top twenty. When did the top 40 start?

I am referring to my copy of "The Complete Book of the British Charts" by Brown, Kutner and Warwick which is more comprehensive than the books issued by Guinness (Gambaccini, Rice etc). This uses the New Musical Express Chart from 15 November 1952 to 5 March 1960 and the chart from Record Retailer/Music Week from 12 March 1960 to 1 January 2000.

NME began in 1952 with a Top 12 and that was expanded on 1 October 1954 to a Top 20. There was also a Top 10 in Record Mirror from 22 January 1955 which became a Top 20 in October of that year. A third Top 20 commenced in Melody Maker on 7 April 1956. NME responded by making its chart a Top 30. Record Retailer became significant in March 1960 when it began compiling an EP (album) chart and a Top 50 singles chart. This quickly became the preferred "definitive" version but it was only ever seen by people in the industry. In March 1962 Record Mirror stopped compiling its own chart and published Record Retailer's instead. Radio Luxembourg took the NME chart for most of the 1960s and during that decade the BBC began using aggregated results of charts from the NME, Melody Maker, Disc and (later) Record Mirror to compile the Pick of the Pops chart. So before 1969 there was no official singles chart. That has occurred with hindsight. Record Retailer and the BBC began commissioning the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) to compile charts on 15 February 1969 not so long after the beginnings of Radio 1. This chart was also published in Record Retailer (rebranded Record & Tape Retailer in 1971 and Music Week in 1972) and Record Mirror.

Radio audiences were mostly provided at this time with a Top 30 but actually it was a Top 50 and it became a Top 75 during May 1978. On 4 January 1983 the chart compilation was assumed by the Gallup Organization, which expanded the chart with a "Next 25" in addition to the Top 75 so here it became a Top 100 but even at this time it was probably the Top 30 which was mostly broadcast. My guess is that it was in October 1987 when Gallup entered into a new arrangement with the BPI that the BBC accentuated the Top 40 although it may have been slightly later as an antidote to the increasing involvement of commercial radio in chart shows. There have been many twists and turns since but that is the gist of it. Of course, the calculations have been made in many different ways along the years but that is another topic. And I have simply been referring to the figures 1-40 in all of my comments.

[kernelbogey]

Thank you Lat.