UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart, previously the UK Albums Chart, is a list of albums ranked by sales and audio streaming[1] in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts Company (OCC) on Fridays (previously Sundays). It is broadcast on BBC Radio 1 (top 5) and found on the OCC website as a Top 100 or on UKChartsPlus as a Top 200,[2] with positions continuing until all sales have been tracked in data only available to industry insiders. However, even though number 100 was classed as a hit album (as in the case of The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums) in the 1980s until January 1989, since the compilations were removed, this definition was changed to Top 75 with follow-up books such as The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums book only including this data. As of 2021,[3] the OCC still only tracks how many UK Top 75s album hits and how many weeks in Top 75 albums chart each artist has achieved.
To qualify for the Official Albums Chart, the album must be the correct length and price. It must be more than three tracks or 20 minutes long and not be classed as a budget album. A budget album costs between £0.50 and £3.75. Full details of the rules can be found on the OCC website.[4]
History[edit]
According to the canon of the OCC, the official British albums chart was the Record Mirror chart from 22 July 1956 to 1 November 1958; the Melody Maker chart from 8 November 1958 to March 1960;[5]
the Record Retailer chart from 1960 to 1969; and the Official Albums Chart from 1969 on. For eight weeks in February and March 1971 no Official Albums Chart was compiled due to a postal strike – for this period, the OCC uses the chart compiled by Melody Maker instead.[6]
In the 1970s the new album chart was revealed at 12:45 pm on Thursdays on BBC Radio 1, and then moved to 6:05 pm (later 6:30 pm) on Wednesday evenings during the Peter Powell and Bruno Brookes shows. In October 1987 it moved to Monday lunchtimes, during the Gary Davies show, and from April to October 1993 it briefly had its show from 7:00–8:00 pm on Sunday evenings, introduced by Lynn Parsons. Since October 1993 it has been included in The Official Chart show from 4:00–5:45 pm on Fridays (previously from 4:00–7:00 pm on Sundays). A weekly 'Album Chart' show was licensed out to BBC Radio 2 and presented by Simon Mayo, until it ended on 2 April 2007.
Though album sales tend to produce more revenue and, over time, act as a greater measure of an artist's success, this chart receives less media attention than the UK Singles Chart, because overall sales of an album are more important than its peak position. 2005 saw a record number of artist album sales with 126.2 million sold in the UK.[7]
In February 2015, it was announced that due to the falling sales of albums and rise in popularity of audio streaming, the Official Albums Chart would begin including streaming data from March 2015.[1] Under the revised methodology, the Official Charts Company takes the 12 most streamed tracks from one album, with the top-two songs being down-weighted in line with the average of the rest. The total of these streams is divided by 1000 and added to the pure sales of the album. This calculation was designed to ensure that the chart rundown continues to reflect the popularity of the albums themselves, rather than just the performance of one or two smash hit singles. The final number one album on the UK Albums Chart to be based purely on sales alone was Smoke + Mirrors by Imagine Dragons. On 1 March 2015, In the Lonely Hour by Sam Smith became the first album to top the new streaming-incorporated Official Albums Chart.[8]
The weekly Top 75 UK Albums Chart (albums described as hits in the case of British Hit Singles & Albums or The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums) were published in Music Week magazine until 2021. In 2018 Future (publisher of 'Louder Sound' publications such as Metal Hammer and Classic Rock)[9][10][11][12] acquired Music Week publisher NewBay Media. Future decided that the publication would go monthly from March 2021, and so a bespoke monthly Official Albums Chart Top 75 (similar to album charts used by Top of the Pops[13] in the early 1990s [13] and Absolute 80s on Sundays)[14][15] started to be published from this date alongside monthly singles charts and specialist/genre charts.
By 2022, the weekly album chart had started to regularly feature a pattern of acts getting a Top 10 new entry one week, followed by a dramatic decline the next, with most of these releases exiting the Top 75 completely. The majority of these acts would be indie and rock bands like the Wombats, Sea Power and Maxïmo Park, who would market their album to the type of people who would want to own the release via a physical format rather than streaming it. This trend became so prevalent that Northern Irish indie band Two Door Cinema Club decided to take a stand and ended up destroying the masters of their latest album Keep On Smiling, so it would not become part of a multi-formatted first week marketing opportunity.[16]
The first number one on the UK Albums Chart was Songs for Swingin' Lovers! by Frank Sinatra for the week ending 22 July 1956. As of the week ending 25 April 2024, the UK Albums Chart has had 1360 different number one albums. The current number one album is Yummy by James.[17]
Official Compilations Chart Top 100[edit]
Over more than sixty years of compiling album sales, the various chart compiling firms have had a problem with the success of multi-artist compilation albums, with these albums (mostly TV-advertised collections featuring a number of hits) either being allowed to chart in the main album chart or excluded.
In August 1971, the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB)[80] allowed low-priced budget albums to chart as well as standard compilations.[81] This decision gave a number one to Music For Pleasure's Hot Hits 6, which went straight in at the top of the chart and was joined at number 6 by a new entry for Hallmark's Top of the Pops Volume 18, another album featuring a selection of popular tracks performed by session artists in the style of a recent hit (and unconnected with the BBC series of Top of the Pops albums, which would follow in the 1990s).
This decision was soon overturned, with these anonymous cover albums being taken out the chart again. On the Official Albums Chart Top 50 for the week ending 18 August 1973, all the compilations listed as 'various artists' albums were taken out of the chart, but those billed as 'official soundtracks' (to films such as A Clockwork Orange and Cabaret) were kept in.[82] As the Ronco-released tie-in to the 1973 film That'll Be the Day was listed as a various artist album and not as a soundtrack, it disappeared from the chart after its seventh week at number one[83][84][85][86][87][88][89] alongside EMI's former number one Pure Gold[90] and Phillip's 20 Original Chart Hits.
In 1983, the Now That's What I Call Music series was launched[91] by EMI/Virgin, followed by CBS/WEA's rival Hits Album series a year later and Chrysalis/MCA's Out Now! in 1985.[92][93] From this point in the 1980s, every regular edition of Now That's What I Call Music topped the albums chart (apart from Now 4[94] which was kept of the number one spot by the first ever Hits Album), with these albums from the three major-label joint-ventures joined in the charts by many albums from all the regular compilation specialists like K-Tel, Telstar and Stylus.[95] As the amount of compilations in the chart were keeping out artists from reaching number one or charting at all, it was decided that all the various artist albums would be removed from the Official Albums Chart Top 100.
In January 1989, all the various artist compilation albums were removed from the Top 100 albums chart and given their own Top 20 chart (found in Music Week and Record Mirror), with the main albums chart reformatted as a top 75 (as far as hit albums are concerned) to equal the singles chart.
As of 2022,[96] the OCC publishes the Official Compilations Chart Top 100 on their website,[97] which as well as listing the chart places of all the various Now That's What I Call Music!, Hits Albums and Ministry of Sound Annuals that have been released, now include Motion Picture Cast Recordings such as The Greatest Showman or A Star Is Born and Original Broadway/West End cast albums such as Hamilton, all three of which were included in the main artist albums chart before 2020.[98][99] In addition to the main Compilations chart, all the 'Motion Picture Cast Recordings' and cast albums get their own Official Soundtrack Albums Chart Top 50,[100] but are still classed as artist albums as far as the singles chart is concerned with, for example, only three tracks from early 2022 chart topper Encanto (a Disney soundtrack which sold 13,855 units to be at number one for the chart of 3 February 2022) being allowed to chart as singles at a time.[101][102][103]
Top 100
