Official UK Singles Charts Celebrates 60 Years: Who Was No.1 In 1952?

Official UK Singles Charts Celebrates 60 Years: Who Was No.1 In 1952?

Happy 60^th birthday, the UK Singles Chart! Yes, today (November 14, 2012) marks six decades since music publication the NME published the first ever chart of the biggest selling tracks in the country. In 2012 the relevancy of such a chart is becoming increasingly moot, with the advent of iTunes and subsequent integration of digital track sales with physical meaning that any track off an album can feasibly rise to the top of the pile, whilst music piracy and streaming has severely impacted the standalone commercial quality of just one single. Many singles are now used mere promotional tools for the subsequent album, or given a video to boost an act’s profile. Yet with Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ currently the biggest selling single in the UK this year, with over 1.14 million downloads alone, it’s clear that the chart isn’t done as a force just yet.

As the Official Charts site itself writes, one of the founders of the New Musical Express, Percy Dickins, constructed the first chart by phoning 20 record shops up and down the country and tallying up their best-selling singles, the first ever chart seeing American crooner Al Martino going to the head of the pile with his hit ‘Here In My Heart’. The debut single for Martino, it was also to prove as good as it got for him on UK shores, and after 1955’s ‘The Man From Laramie’ he had to wait another five years for another top 50 hit there.

The Official UK Single Chart, Noveber 14, 1952

1. Here In My Heart - Al Martino

2. You Belong To Me - Jo Stafford

3. Somewhere Along The Way - Nat King Cole

4. The Isle Of Innisfree - Bing Crosby

5. Feet Up (Pat Him On The Po-Po) - Guy Mitchell

6. Half As Much - Rosemary Clooney

7= High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me) - Frankie Laine

7= Forget Me Not - Vera Lynn

8= Sugarbush - Doris Day And Frankie Laine

8= Blue Tango - Ray Martin

9. The Homing Waltz - Vera Lynn

10. Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart - Vera Lynn

11. Cowpuncher's Cantata - Max Bygraves

11. Because You're Mine - Mario Lanza

12. Walkin' My Baby Back Home - Johnnie Ray