HOW TO USE THE DATABASE

The Chartwatch TopTen database includes details of every single and album to have made the UK Top 10 since record sales charts began in 1952. For every act that has reached the UK Top 10 there is an ActCard document, listing all that act's hit singles in the order in which they charted. The information collected for an act includes the following in the header of each ActCard:

Country of origin of the act.
City or town of origin of the act.
Date a group was formed.
Notes about the act. For a solo performer this includes the artist's real name and other alias, date and place of birth, date of and cause of death, relationships to any other chart acts, including membership of a group.

Coloured banners across the ActCard include information for the following:

Record label(s).
Group members or other musicians.
Producer(s).
Songwriter(s).

A banner is shown only when the relevant information changes. For example, between the first appearance of the group members banner and its second appearance, the group members for all the intervening singles will be the same.

For each single the following information is collected:

Title of single.
Date of entry into the UK chart.
Complete chart run for singles that charted between 1952 and 2005.
Notes about the single or song, including original performers and date of release, appearence of the single or song in stage musicals or films, UK sales where known, and the album on which the track was included.

For each album the following information is collected:

Title of album.
Date of entry into the UK chart.
Complete chart run for albums that charted between 1952 and 2005.
Notes about the album, including date of release and UK sales

Much of the information is still to be collated. Songwriters are essentially complete (there are a few exceptions, including some recent hits featuring multiple samples where Music Week listed the songwriters as "various" because of lack of space). Producers are almost complete from 1967-1977 and from 1983 onwards.

In the future, we hope to gradually to extend coverage to all charting records.