Official Top 40 best-selling singles of 1996

Yes strange they mention one of George Michael's no.1s that year hit the top 40 but no mention of the Prodogys 2 No.1s which were both in the top 40.

Strange indeed, considering his 2nd #1 isn't on the list? (I don't see it, only Fast Love at 25). Both Prodigy #1s are higher than that. And the classic case of getting banned on TV for Channel 4 to show the video. Special year for me - the first year I started collecting music and listened to the chart every week. Spice Girls started my collection with my own money (earlier ones were from parents or presents).

Yes, my immediate thought was "Wait a minute, was his Number One hit Jesus To A Child really outsold across 1996 by Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll?" I mean, I know it topped the chart near the start of the year when overall sales are always lower, but even so... To quote OMC (another who outsold it, indeed), how bizarre.

Random observation, re the Woolpackers, OMC, etc: there were four No.3 hits on the year-end list, and only two No.4s – yet no fewer than six No.5 hits made it in, including both of those songs.

I remember many of those #5s sticking around for months!
Don't be surprised to see Gala Freed From Desire above some of the #1s in 1997's chart, but 1997 saw an unusually high amount of million sellers. Including a VERY big hit ;-)

You're thinking of that epochal musical goalpost-shifter and all-round cultural touchstone from a piece of "event TV" that gripped the nation, aren't you? By which I mean Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh, if course.

In a normal year, Teletubbies (seliing a million) would be considered a big hit. I meant Candle In The Wind, but I suspect you knew that. Remember the day well. It wasn't a good one - they took the chart show off the radio!
And that was in the days before you could look it up online the next day. Even Teletext didn't have it (only doing a top 10).

Hah, yes the ambiguity was deliberate but I was being facetious, in case it wasn't entirely clear...

I'd forgotten about that Top 10 only on Teletext! I'd forgotten also about the chart show not being broadcast that day. What did they do instead?

Just play tributes and news articles about Diana on every radio and TV station available for the whole day. It was unbearable. Particularly as I'd already heard about the crash and she was critical before I went to bed (hadn't died yet).

Sorry, I realise now I was unintentionally ambiguous in my phrasing there! I well remember the wall-to-wall coverage and nothing on the airwaves but a rotating playlist of suitably bland weepy music for a couple of days at least.

What I meant though was what did they do about putting the chart out. Did that Top 40 never get aired on radio at all? Did we the public just have to work it out ourselves from going to find the printed chart stuck up in, say, Virgin Megastores? As an avid listener to Radio 1's chart show every week at the time I'm surprised I don't remember that little anomaly.

I'm not aware that they ever played the chart at all, let alone in full as scheduled. It was a pain. You could work out a lot of from the hits that stayed on chart and had "last week" positions published but those that spent their last or only week on chart that week would not be documented. I'm not even sure if papers published them as 1) I don't normally read papers anyway and 2) they were all full tributes too with no other stories in them at all from what I could see. Like radio, they were not doing their normal news.

I don't remember when I first found out that top 40 (or 75). It may have been a retrospective on Launch (the predecessor to OCC which only had the current week's chart)- where James Masterson's commentry was published. Even then I'm not sure.

Something as simple as the current chart was hard to find online then. There was no legal archive. The ones there were, were not comprehensive covering every position of every week. e.g. Everyhit,com

Music Week probably published it as normal, but was a hard publication to simply buy off the shelf as it's a media journal more than a consumer magazine.

Ah thanks David, that's some interesting insight!

Looking up the actual chart now, I realise why I was surprised – I was thinking that weekend was the one the Verve's The Drugs Don't Work hit #1, before being swept aside by Dianamania the next week, and I'm certain I was aware at the time of it topping the chart. Now I've reminded myself, though, the Verve went to Number One the weekend after Diana's death, while Elton's single was released the week after that.

So on the day itself it was 'just' the fourth and last week at the summit for Will Smith's Men In Black that we missed hearing a Radio 1 rundown for. Thinking about it further, I know that on the fateful day I was staying at my grandad's, where I probably wouldn't have listened to the Top 40 broadcast anyway like I would have at home – so I guess I was simply never consciously aware until now that it never went out at all!

It's funny though, looking at it now: that's the week for instance where All Saints made their chart debut at #4 with I Know Where It's At and Radiohead's Karma Police went in at #8, plus there's Ginuwine's cover of When Doves Cry entering at #10, and even Bentley Rhythm Ace going in at #17 – all things I could swear I remember hearing happening. I guess I must've done what you say and either spied a Top 10 in a
newspaper or magazine or else pieced it together retrospectively from
the next week's countdown.

Or, as I say, perhaps went to Virgin and peered at the one on their wall: I think it was the Music Week one they used to have, the placings were printed on a sort of yellow background if I remember correctly? Certainly it was 'official' as it was the full Top 75, which was always a thrilling and somehow slightly illicit thing to read for a chart nerd as you simply couldn't see or hear about the lower 35 anywhere otherwise except for in the then-biennial Guinness British Hit Singles books...

I know I wasn't online at the time, but went off to university just a couple of weeks later... and swiftly discovered James Masterton's chart commentaries on Launch/dotmusic/whatever soon after that! I've always cherished the fact that he's kept them going all this time since.

Hehe, actually, looking back through this thread I've twigged that most likely I just looked it up on Teletext!

I was on holiday that week too. I bought the All Saints record on the hype that they were the 'next Spice Girls' in Plymouth Woolworths (a huge 2-storey branch with it's own cafe) compared to my village convenience branch that did the top 20 if you were lucky, but I was back home for the weekend of what would have been the announcement. One-week hits at #30? Better get those in the week of release or they're gone! Despite being top 40 in the 2nd week of sale. I bought both copies, remember that grey stickered digipak well :-)

I remember only one of Our Price, Virgin, HMV and Woolworths did the 'proper' top 75 chart in the sop, the others did their own completely different (wrong) chart. Might have been Our Price that did the proper one? With an actual copy of Music Week chart page displayed as their chart. I know what you mean by seeing the bottom 35. I still have my old Guinness books. Editions 12-19. My copies of 12 and 13 both literally fell apart I read them so much! So I bought them again.

I heard (or read) that James Masterson has a personal tape collection of every official chart since he started collecting and writing in 1990. Could be an interesting archive. I hever had the equipment to make such a record. I was typing it out on my 2nd hand 10-year old Amstrad that couldn't connect to the internet and printed on dot matrix.
May even be possible to contact him to see if our memories are right. I don't think they even announced that the chart show (or Dance Anthems) was cancelled, just carried on with the tributes as if you wouldn't notice.

Hahaha, when the readers has to show the OCC its error's its time to take the charts as a huge joke.

I think the old data was best sellers IN 1996. This new data athe best sellers of all-time FROM 1996. 3 of the top 5, that's some dominance, but being a December release, I'm pretty sure 2 Become 1 sold it's millionth copy in 1997.

Also, Mysterious Girl wasn't #1 until it got reissued in 2004. This 1996 re-issue was #2 after the original failed to make the top 50 in 1995.

NO. The OCC are now using DUS figures instead of the original Panel Sales. Robbie explained this in his comment on the 1994 best selling songs.

This new list is still just the best sellers within 1996. If it was all time sales, then 2 Become 1 (certified 2xPlatinum) would be higher than Say You'll Be There (Platinum)