1950s in music in the UK |
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Singles are a type of music release that typically have fewer tracks than an extended play or album; during the 1950s, sales of singles in the United Kingdom were compiled by the magazine New Musical Express (NME), and published weekly as a record chart. The singles chart was founded in 1952 by Percy Dickins of the NME, who wanted to imitate the hit parade that featured in the American magazine Billboard; before this, the popularity of a song had been measured by its sales of sheet music. [1] Dickins sampled twenty shops, asking which their ten biggest-selling singles were. His aggregated list of sales was then published in the NME on 14 November 1952 as a Top 12 chart. [1] The NME's chart is considered by the Official Charts Company (OCC) to be the canonical UK Singles Chart during the 1950s; [2] it was expanded to a Top 20 on 1 October 1954. [3]
Sales of records significantly increased in the mid-fifties, following the birth of rock and roll. As a result, the top ten biggest-selling singles of the 1950s were all released in the latter half of the decade. [4] The biggest-selling single of this period was " Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets, which became the first single ever to sell more than a million copies in the UK. [5]
No. | Single | Artist | Record label [a] | Year [a] | Sales | Chart peak [a] |
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1 | " Rock Around the Clock" | Bill Haley & His Comets | Brunswick | 1955 | 1,390,000 | 1 |
2 | " Diana" | Paul Anka | Columbia | 1957 | 1,240,000 | 1 |
3 | " Mary's Boy Child" | Harry Belafonte | RCA | 1957 | 1,170,000 | 1 |
4 | " What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?" | Emile Ford & The Checkmates | Pye | 1959 | 920,000 | 1 |
5 | " Jailhouse Rock" | Elvis Presley | RCA | 1958 | 880,000 | 1 |
6 | " What Do You Want?" | Adam Faith | Parlophone | 1959 | 820,000 | 1 |
7 | " Living Doll" | Cliff Richard & The Drifters | Columbia | 1959 | 770,000 | 1 |
8 | " All Shook Up" | Elvis Presley | HMV | 1957 | 740,000 | 1 |
9 | " Love Letters in the Sand" | Pat Boone | London | 1957 | 710,000 | 2 |
10 | " It Doesn't Matter Anymore" | Buddy Holly | Coral | 1959 | 680,000 | 1 |