The Official Charts Company have launched their new portal, which (if you dig about a bit), offers week-by-week archived charts going back to 1960 with links to buy where such a thing is possible.
The centrepiece of the portal though is of course the charts themselves. All thirty-three of them. Yes, THIRTY-THREE. The OCC do an awful lot of work it seems and I suspect go mostly unthanked for it. So when you’re asked “Who’s at Number One?” you could happily answer any of the following:
Diana Vickers (Singles, Singles Downloads)
AC/DC (Albums, Rock And Metal Albums, Scottish Albums)
Various Artists (err Compilations and indeed Classical Compilations with THE BEST HYMNS IN THE WORLD EVER! And Dance Albums)
Plan B (Albums Downloads, R&B Albums)
Ida Corr vs Fedde Le Grand (Subscription Plays)
Andre Rieu (Classical, Specialist Classical)
Paramore (Rock And Metal Singles)
WELLER (VH1 Rock Singles, Coalition Albums)
Futureheads (Independent Singles)
The XX (Independent Albums)
All Time Low (Independent Singles Breakers)
John Grant (Independent Albums Breakers)
Biffy Clyro (NME Singles – this chart is currently broken, in that it is suggesting that Ian Brown has been in the NME chart for the last 32,767 weeks. OR IS IT BROKEN)
Bat For Lashes (Coalition Singles)
Snow Patrol ft Martha Wainwright (Catalogue Singles)
Scouting For Girls (Catalogue Albums)
Usher Ft Will I Am (RnB Singles)
Chipmunk ft Esmee Denters (1Xtra Singles, VH1 Urban)
Kelis (Dance Singles)
Taylor Swift (Country Albums)*
Johnny Cash (Country Compilation Albums)
Chieftains (World Albums)*
Panjabi By Nature (Asian Download)
and to round us off Tina Turner who is topping the Scottish Singles chart with her contemporary hit waxing “The Best”.
Haven’t they all done well!
*there are no Country or World Singles charts, sadly.