Today is the 70th birthday of the UK Singles Chart. The first ever chart was a Top 12 with 15 songs due to some records jointly holding positions. The number one single was "Here In My Heart" by Al Martino.
The standard chart for most of it's existence has been the Top 40, but it was never a Top 40 in its entirity. It went from a Top 30 to a Top 50 in 1960.
On a personal level I don't really remember learning about the Top 40 as such, it was just always there. As a kid I remember listening to the countdown on a Sunday night, reading it in the local newspaper the following day and of course Top of the Pops.
My interest notched up a gear when I got the 8th edition of the British Hit Singles book. It was a great history lesson in music I'd largely never heard before and much of it remained unheard until the internet made it easier to access.
Even in the days when I would regularly watch the music channels and still listen to Radio 1, the Top 40 would still produce new entries I'd never heard of and had no way of hearing.
Once YouTube became an established source for music it made it possible to listen to the entire Top 40 at your own leisure. Unfortunately this coincided with the time I started to lose interest to the point that for the first time in living memory I had no idea who was number one.
In recent years for me it's come full circle. I check the charts every week but generally have no idea what the music itself is and don't really have the desire to listen to it because I'm certain it will be dreadful.
Historically though it's a great tool for discovering older music. Around 23,000 records have charted in the Top 40 at the time of writing. That's a lot of music to explore and I've found a number of hidden gems that way.
I'll leave you with the first ever number one, "Here In My Heart" by Al Martino.
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