UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is currently compiled by "The Official UK Charts Company". on behalf of the British record industry. The chart week runs from Sunday to Saturday, with the chart being compiled on Sunday afternoon. Most UK singles are released in record shops on a Monday.

Charts and the music industry

The record industry places a fair amount of importance on the UK singles chart. Music singles are mostly sold as a way of promoting the artist's album - the singles themselves usually make a loss. A single that charts in a high position, or makes it to number 1, is therefore good advertising for the album. Sometimes stickers are even placed on the album mentioning the popular singles.

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Because the record industry is mostly interested in the highest position which a single reaches, there is usually a wave of promotion of the single before it comes out, in the hope that people rush out to buy the single in its first week of release. This means that most singles enter the charts at a certain position, and then fall down the chart in subsequent weeks. Singles that climb the charts and spend a number of weeks at a high position are now rare, and usually denote 'super' singles, which manage to enter the public consciousness and appeal to a wide range of people. However until at least the late nineteen eighties, the situation was very different. At that time singles usually took several weeks to climb to a high position in the charts, and it was rare and remarkable for a single to go straight in at number 1.

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An effect of this competition for high chart positions is that a number of high-profile "battles" have taken place in which singles released on the same day have become the focus of media attention concerning which will sell the most copies in their first week and therefore enter the chart higher. The first and most famous example was in August 1995 when the Britpop groups Oasis and Blur released their respective singles "Roll With It" and "Country House" on the same day. The outcome was that "Country House" entered the chart at number one, and "Roll With It" at number 2, and the rivalry was widely reported in the mainstream news media. Another high-profile battle occurred exactly 5 years later in August 2000, when "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" by Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor beat "Out Of Your Mind" by Truesteppers featuring Dane Bowers and Victoria Beckham to the number one position. On this occasion the main media interest was in the supposed rivalry between the featured female vocalists on the two records. On both occasions, the press and TV coverage is generally believed to have increased sales for all parties.

Related Topics:
Britpop - Oasis - Blur - Mainstream - Spiller - Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Truesteppers - Dane Bowers - Victoria Beckham

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