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British Hit Singles & Albums (originally known as The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums) was a music reference book originally published in the United Kingdom by the publishing arm of the Guinness breweries, Guinness Superlatives. Later editions were published by HiT Entertainment (who had bought the Guinness World Records brand). It listed all the singles and albums featured in the Top 75 pop charts in the UK. In 2004 the book became an amalgamation of two earlier Guinness publications, originally known as British Hit Singles and British Hit Albums. The publication of this amalgamation ceased in 2006, with Guinness World Records being sold to The Jim Pattison Group, owner of Ripley's Believe It or Not!. At this point, the Official UK Charts Company teamed up with Random House/Ebury Publishing to release a new version of the book under the Virgin Books brand. Entitled The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles, it was first published in November 2008 with a separate albums book and second edition being published over the next couple of years.

The first ten editions of The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles were compiled by Paul Gambaccini, Mike Read and brothers Tim Rice and Jonathan (Jo) Rice (known as GRRR). Read left the team in the mid-1980s (with the book copyright now belonging to GRR Publications Ltd) and the other editors resigned in 1996. Chart editor for many editions was David Roberts.

Content

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British Hit Singles & Albums was generally considered to be the authoritative reference (and only) source for both the UK Singles Chart (since its inception in 1952) and the UK Albums Chart. It listed all the singles and albums ever to have been in the UK charts since 1952 (albums since 1958), listing them in alphabetical order and by both artist and song title. The entries also included the date of chart entry, highest position, catalogue number and number of weeks in the chart. Short biographical notes accompanied many of the artists' chart details.

The book's sources are the New Musical Express (NME) chart from November 1952 to March 1960, and the Record Retailer (later Music Week) chart thereafter. It could be said that this division is misleading, since the Record Retailer chart was little known until it was adopted by the BBC in 1969 and that by adopting this chart as its standard, the editors had a non-consensual view. An example often given is the case of The Beatles' second single "Please Please Me" which was recognised as a number one hit by every other publicly available chart of the time, but not by Record Retailer and therefore not by British Hit Singles. Other records to which this applies include "19th Nervous Breakdown" by The Rolling Stones, "Stranger on the Shore" by Acker Bilk and the Eurovision Song Contest entry "Are You Sure?" by The Allisons.

Even after February 1969 the BBC-approved chart, as used by the Book of British Hit Singles, suffered from errors. Reasons for these include low, late, unusable, or even complete lack of returns from record shops used to compile the chart. Typically only around 10% of stores sent in properly detailed sales information on time. The other major problem was "chart hyping". There were two main forms of this. The first was for record companies, or artists' management, to simply buy positions for their records in the Hit Parade. The second was, knowing that only 10% of sampled stores reliably sent in sales info, to find out which stores those were, and then send in "customers" to buy out all the stock of a particular record in those specific stores in a particular week, thus artificially giving that record a high chart placing. As such, even through the 70s and 80s many books on British chart history referred to the New Musical Express and/or Melody Maker chart.

Co-founder Jo Rice has defended the book's choice of source material on the grounds that Record Retailer was the only chart to consistently publish a Top 50 from 1960 onwards. This can be substantiated by the fact that charts published in the NME were of a shorter format and other chart listings such as those in Melody Maker, became less and less informative although they were probably more accurate. Subsequent research has shown that during the "disputed" period of the 1960s, the samples sizes of the Record Retailer chart were considerably inferior to those of the other charts: around 30 shops in 1963 in comparison to more than 100 used by Melody Maker, and later around 80 in comparison to NME's 150 and Melody Maker's 200. As a result, the placings in that chart were more open to error and manipulation – a situation further worsened by the larger number of records listed in the chart.

History

1977–96 original editors

The first edition was published as The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles in November 1977. It was not the first Guinness music reference publication, as the previous year a book called The Guinness Book of Music Facts & Feats had been published. It also contained feats from the world of classical music.

The first edition was issued to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the first UK singles sales chart, which was published in November 1952, by the New Musical Express. Subsequently, a new edition was published every two years, adding a few hundred titles to each edition.

Keeping in line with the book's parent publication The Guinness Book of Records, each edition of British Hit Singles also contained a 'facts and feats' section, which included various lists of remarkable chart feats such as 'most hits', 'most no. 1 hits', 'most weeks on chart' or 'Least successful chart artist'. Also included in the books were photographs (often with captions) and introductions written by the four authors. They also wrote a bi-annual lookback on the major developments in the UK charts in the two preceding years.

The series was soon regarded as the number one source for music and chart reference, thanks to the commercial success of the books and its various sister publications (see below).

The series' 10th edition, published in June 1995, was the last to feature its original authors Rice, Rice and Gambaccini. From the 11th edition onwards, the book was compiled by in-house editors at Guinness Publishing and, later, by David Roberts who had already been a chart editor and designer for the original team.

1997–2006

From the 12th edition onwards (published in 1999), the book was published every year rather than bi-annually. In 2004, the book merged with The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums to form The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums. The eighteenth edition of the book (2005) was billed as a "Special Collector's Edition" as it featured detailed information on the 1,000 Number Ones in the UK Singles Chart from Al Martino's "Here in My Heart" on 14 November 1952 to Elvis Presley's "One Night / I Got Stung" (Limited Edition Collector's re-issue), 22 January 2005. The 19th edition (2006) was the last in the series. A supposed 20th edition was due to be published in 2007, but apparently the original publishers lost interest in chart reference books after their contract with The Official Charts Company expired, which saw that organisation sell the contract to Virgin.

Features in each edition

Associated merchandise

Following the success of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles series, the original authors and Guinness quickly turned to other charts-related books and projects. The following books were written by them:

• The Guinness Book of Hits of the 70s (1980)
• The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits (1982)
• The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums (first issued in 1983, second edition in 1986 with bi-annual updates until 1996)
• The Guinness Book of Hits of the 60s (1984)
• The Guinness Hits Challenge (a pop quiz book) (1984)
• The Guinness Hits Challenge 2 (1985)
• The Guinness Book of Number One Hits (2nd edition) (1988)
• UK Top 1000 Singles (1988)
• Hits of the 80s (1990)
• The Guinness Hits Quiz (1990)
• Guinness Top 40 Charts (1992)
• The Guinness Hits Quiz 2 (1992)
• UK Top 1000 Singles 2 (1993)
• The Guinness Book of Number One Hits (3rd edition) (1994)
• Guinness Top 40 Charts 2 (1996)

In the late 1990s and 2000s several other merchandise was produced, such as karaoke CDs, a calendar, a DVD quiz (British Hit Albums and Singles No. 1 Music Quiz) and a series of themed compilation CDs with original hits from the book.

See also

• The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles
• Fred Bronson – author of The Billboard Book of USA Number One Hits (in the UK, also published by Guinness Books)
• Joel Whitburn – author of The Billboard Book of USA Top 40 (in the UK, also published by Guinness Books)

References and further reading

• Roberts, David. Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums. Guinness World Records Ltd. 18th edition (May 2005). ISBN 1-904994-00-8
• Roberts, David. Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums. Guinness World Records Ltd. 19th edition (June 2006). ISBN 1-904994-10-5
• Roach, Martin. The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles. Virgin Books (Nov. 2008). ISBN 0-7535-1537-7
• McAleer, Dave. The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles – Volume 2. Virgin Books (Nov. 2010). ISBN 978-0-7535-2245-5

References

1. The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles, Volume 2 by Dave McAleer, Andy Gregory and Matthew White (Virgin Books/Ebury Publishing/Random House/Official Charts Company ISBN 9780753522455)
2. ^ "Guinness Record Book Collecting". Guinness.book-of-records.info. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
3. Guinness Record Book Collecting site, op. cit.

External links

• Everyhit.com
• Chart Stats
• UKChartsPlus Official Top 200 Singles & Album charts

v t e UK music charts
UK singles	Number ones 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s Number one artists Most number ones Christmas Posthumous Scottish One-hit wonders in Scotland List of artists by number of UK Independent Singles Chart number ones Instrumental Simultaneous UK and U.S. Simultaneous with album Top tens 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Most top tens Best-selling 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s (decade) 2010s 1900s 21st century All time Yearly Most-downloaded (2000s) Most streamed Million-sellers Platinum singles (pre-2000) Platinum singles (post-2000) Most weeks on chart One-hit wonders Records and statistics
UK albums	Number ones 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s Most number ones Number-one in most decades Christmas Posthumous Simultaneous UK and U.S. Simultaneous with single Top tens 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Most top tens Best-selling 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s (decade) 2010s 21st century All time Yearly Most weeks on chart One-hit wonders
Genre charts	Number ones Afrobeats Singles Americana Albums Christian & Gospel Albums Classical Artist Albums Country (albums/airplay) Dance (singles/albums) Indie (singles/albums) Indie Breakers (singles/albums) Jazz & Blues Albums R&B (singles/albums) Rock & Metal Singles and Albums Specialist Classical Albums
Other charts	Current Album Downloads Albums Streaming Audio Streaming Compilations Midweeks Progressive Record Store (2010s/2020s) Singles Downloads (2000s/2010s/2020s) List of UK Singles Sales Chart number ones UKHot40 Vinyl Albums Vinyl Singles The Official Big Top 40 Former 1952–1969 1Xtra Classical Singles Number-one EPs Fab 40 Fresh 40 Hit40UK Mersey Beat The Network Chart Show NME Official Subscription Plays Chart Pepsi Chart Pick of the Pops Record Mirror Top Pops
Related	Charts Plus Hit Music Media Research Information Bureau Music Week Official Charts Company The Official Chart Record Business Timeline of chart shows on UK radio UK Video Charts British Hit Singles & Albums The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles UKChartsPlus
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