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The Wildhearts

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The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for albums . Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming . It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts Company (OCC) on Fridays (previously Sundays). It is broadcast on BBC Radio 1 (top 5) and found on the OCC website as a Top 100 or on UKChartsPlus as a Top 200, with positions continuing until all sales have been tracked in data only available to industry insiders. However, even though number 100 was classed as a hit album (as in the case of The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums ) in the 1980s until January 1989, since the compilations were removed, this definition was changed to Top 75 with follow-up books such as The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums only including this data. As of 2021, Since 1983, the OCC generally provides a public charts for hits and weeks up to the Top 100. Business customers can require additional chart placings.

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174-648: The Wildhearts are an English rock band, formed in 1989 in Newcastle upon Tyne . The band's sound is a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music , often described in the music press as combining influences as diverse as the Beatles and 1980s-era Metallica . The Wildhearts achieved several top 20 singles and two top 10 albums in Britain, though they also faced difficulties with record companies and many internal problems often relating to drugs and depression. Much of

348-584: A Top 10 new entry one week, followed by a dramatic decline the next, with most of these releases exiting the Top 75 completely. The majority of these acts would be indie and rock bands like the Wombats , Sea Power and Maxïmo Park , who would market their album to the type of people who would want to own the release via a physical format rather than streaming it. The first number one on the UK Albums Chart

522-514: A certain degree doesn't care if it's popular. — Bill Wyman in Vulture (2016) The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was also greatly influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists. The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered jazz music in

696-456: A consecutive run of 70 weeks from November 1958 to March 1960, and had further runs at the top in 1960 and 1961, making a non-consecutive total of 115 weeks. The youngest artist to top the chart is Neil Reid , whose debut album topped the chart in 1972 when he was only 12 years old, while the youngest female artist is Billie Eilish who was 17 years old when she debuted at the top with When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? . The record for

870-519: A fondness for a good beat, a meaningful lyric with some wit, and the theme of youth, which holds an "eternal attraction" so objective "that all youth music partakes of sociology and the field report ." Writing in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), he said this sensibility is evident in the music of folk singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked , rapper LL Cool J , and synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys —"all kids working out their identities"—as much as it

1044-481: A foundation of simple syncopated rhythms in a 4 meter , with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies often originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian , as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s, and particularly from

1218-628: A frequent addition to the established rock format of guitars, bass, and drums in subsequent progressive rock. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy and science fiction. The Pretty Things ' SF Sorrow (1968), the Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), and the Who 's Tommy (1969) introduced

1392-575: A key feature of psychedelia. Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , including the controversial track " Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ", the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request , and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at

1566-573: A loud amplified sound, often centered on the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues , particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated . The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream , combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis. The other key focus for British blues

1740-587: A mainstream audience with hits including " Blowin' in the Wind " (1963) and " Masters of War " (1963), which brought " protest songs " to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences. Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals' " House of the Rising Sun " (1964), which

1914-495: A major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had moved away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia . By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple , and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible", as bands began recording rock-style albums. The genre

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2088-429: A major influence on subsequent electronic rock . With the advent of punk rock and technological changes in the late 1970s, progressive rock was increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown. Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored top ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours. Some bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and

2262-458: A male artist and solo act to do so. The first female solo artist to have the UK's year-end best seller was Barbra Streisand in 1982, with Love Songs . The first studio album and non-soundtrack or cast recording album to top the decade-end chart was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles in the 1960s – they became the first group to achieve this. James Blunt 's Back to Bedlam , in

2436-410: A more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly blues, country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock. In 1966 Bob Dylan went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde . This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, such as Nashville Skyline , have been seen as creating the genre of country folk ,

2610-486: A multibillion-dollar industry and doubling its market while, as Christgau noted, suffering a significant "loss of cultural prestige". "Maybe the Bee Gees became more popular than the Beatles, but they were never more popular than Jesus ", he said. "Insofar as the music retained any mythic power, the myth was self-referential – there were lots of songs about the rock and roll life but very few about how rock could change

2784-589: A national phenomenon. It is often argued that the surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964, because most surf music hits were recorded and released between 1960 and 1965. By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like the Beatles , Gerry & the Pacemakers and

2958-477: A new chart record for the most weeks spent inside the top 40 of the UK Albums Chart for a girl group album. As of 2022, it had spent 69 weeks in the Top 40. To date, Little Mix are the girl group with the most Top 5 albums, with seven as of 2021. In July 2021, ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits was officially recognised by the Official Charts Company as the first album to spend over 1000 weeks on

3132-588: A one-off appearance in December. The Wildhearts' songs " Geordie in Wonderland " and "Dreaming in A" appeared in the 2012 UK feature film Life Just Is . On 10 December 2012, it was announced that Scott Sorry had left the Wildhearts due to family commitments. He was replaced by former bassist Jon Poole for the December 2012 reunion show. The band went on to play a number of shows in early 2013 to celebrate

3306-459: A preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an end. Rock quickly spread out from its origins in the US, associated with the rapid Americanization that

3480-444: A prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, heralding the era of pomp or arena rock , which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festivals as major live venues in the 1990s. The instrumental strand of the genre resulted in albums like Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells (1973),

3654-577: A proposed single album. Midway through the recording sessions, Ginger fired guitarist C.J., and some of the album's tracks were recorded without a second guitarist. For the 1994 European tours, the band were joined by Devin Townsend as second guitarist/harmony singer, having met him during a previous tour supporting the Steve Vai band. Earth vs. The Wildhearts was reissued in late 1994 with "Caffeine Bomb" tacked on as an extra track. In December 1994,

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3828-446: A rigidly delineated musical definition." In the opinion of music journalist Robert Christgau , "the best rock jolts folk-art virtues—directness, utility, natural audience—into the present with shots of modern technology and modernist dissociation ". Rock and roll was conceived as an outlet for adolescent yearnings ... To make rock and roll is also an ideal way to explore intersections of sex, love, violence, and fun, to broadcast

4002-625: A rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s " classic rock " period, a few distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock , folk rock , country rock , Southern rock , raga rock , and jazz rock , which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock , influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene . New genres that emerged included progressive rock , which extended artistic elements, heavy metal , which emphasized an aggressive thick sound, and glam rock , which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In

4176-721: A route pursued by a number of largely acoustic folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group the Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival , both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder , Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George , and influenced

4350-616: A selection of popular tracks performed by session artists in the style of a recent hit (and unconnected with the BBC series of Top of the Pops albums, which would follow in the 1990s). This decision was soon overturned, with these anonymous cover albums being taken out the chart again. On the Official Albums Chart Top 50 for the week ending 18 August 1973, all the compilations listed as 'various artists' albums were taken out of

4524-481: A slogan one only began to hear in 1972 or so, mobilized all those eager to believe that idealism had become passe, and once they were mobilized, it had. In popular music, embracing the '70s meant both an elitist withdrawal from the messy concert and counterculture scene and a profiteering pursuit of the lowest common denominator in FM radio and album rock . Rock saw greater commodification during this decade, turning into

4698-467: A solo artist of any gender) with 23 weeks, 11 of which were consecutive (which is also a record for a female artist). The first studio album and non-soundtrack or cast recording album to top the year-end chart was With the Beatles by The Beatles in 1963 – they became the first group to achieve this feat. Elton John 's Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player in 1973, marks the first album by

4872-427: A total of 66 weeks and most top ten albums by any artist, charting 53 releases. Until this same month, he also held the record for the most number one albums by a solo artist in a tie with Robbie Williams , however when Williams' XXV album reached the top on 16 September 2022, the former Take That star broke this record with 14 number ones albums to Presley's 13 chart toppers, with Williams moving into second place in

5046-685: A tour, mostly as the support band for their ex-support band, the Darkness . In early 2005, Ginger dissolved the Wildhearts again to briefly join the Brides of Destruction before setting out on his own as a full-time solo artist. Ginger then reformed the Wildhearts once again for a one-off gig at Scarborough Castle (Rock in the Castle) in September 2005. The 1994–1995 line-up of Ginger, C.J., McCormack, and Ritch Battersby played at this gig. Once again,

5220-464: A variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock . However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song, and concepts of "authenticity". Psychedelic music's LSD -inspired vibe began in

5394-529: A variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music , and rhythm and blues . Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more generally, noise ." The predominance of white, male, and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted, and rock has been seen as an appropriation of Black musical forms for

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5568-501: A young, white and largely male audience. As a result, it has also been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has usually been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it

5742-423: Is centered on the electric guitar , usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar , drums , and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4 time signature using a verse–chorus form , but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music , lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock

5916-540: Is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. Four years later, Bill Haley 's " Rock Around the Clock " (1954) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry , Bo Diddley , Fats Domino , Little Richard , Jerry Lee Lewis , and Gene Vincent . Soon rock and roll

6090-403: Is divided by 1000 and added to the pure sales of the album. This calculation was designed to ensure that the chart rundown continues to reflect the popularity of the albums themselves, rather than just the performance of one or two smash hit singles. The final number one album on the UK Albums Chart to be based purely on sales alone was Smoke + Mirrors by Imagine Dragons . On 1 March 2015, In

6264-472: Is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft . New styles had evolved to replace garage rock. Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts,

6438-618: Is in the music of Chuck Berry , the Ramones , and the Replacements . The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music , with country and western . Debate surrounds

6612-411: Is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development. According to Simon Frith , rock was "something more than pop, something more than rock and roll" and "[r]ock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with

6786-399: Is termed as a rock band or a rock group. Furthermore, it typically consists of between three (the power trio ) and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer, and often keyboard player or another instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on

6960-521: Is the Band." UK Albums Chart To qualify for the Official Albums Chart, the album must be the correct length and price. It must be more than three tracks or 20 minutes long and not be classed as a budget album. A budget album costs between £0.50 and £3.75. Full details of the rules can be found on the OCC website. According to the canon of the OCC, the official British albums chart

7134-535: The Billboard Hot 100 . The British Invasion greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to adopt a British influence, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the United States and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It

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7308-492: The Earth vs the Wildhearts album, in which the album would be played in full at each shows. The lineup for this tour included Ginger, C.J., Danny McCormack, and Ritch Battersby. In early January 2019, the band announced the recording of a new album had been completed with mixing to follow. The album Renaissance Men was released on 3 May 2019. The album 21st Century Love Songs was released on 3 September 2021. Six months after

7482-524: The American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, using traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics . In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach

7656-525: The Download Festival on 12 June 2010. Ginger also performed as a solo act at the festival. Only Wildhearts songs were performed, as was the case for the Ginger & Friends December 2010 tour of the UK. The Michael Monroe album Sensory Overdrive , featuring Ginger, was released in 2011. In December 2010, Ginger stated that he was unsure if the Wildhearts would ever reform. It would appear that

7830-500: The Now That's What I Call Music series was launched by EMI/Virgin, followed by CBS/WEA's rival Hits Album series a year later and Chrysalis/MCA's Out Now! in 1985. From this point in the 1980s, every regular edition of Now That's What I Call Music topped the albums chart (apart from Now 4 which was kept of the number one spot by the first ever Hits Album ), with these albums from the three major-label joint-ventures joined in

8004-557: The Shitty Fuckin' Stupid Tracks bootleg. These rare tracks were officially released by East West in 1998 as part of the Landmines and Pantomimes rarities compilation. In 1997 the band signed to Mushroom Records, and set about making another album. In November 1997, shortly before the release of Endless, Nameless , Ginger decided to split the band. The band toured Japan but cancelled a scheduled British tour. Starting in 1997

8178-422: The garage rock / post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. Rock has also embodied and served as

8352-417: The protest song , rock music has been associated with political activism , as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex, and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity . At the same time, it has been commercially highly successful, leading to accusations of selling out . A good definition of rock, in fact, is that it's popular music that to

8526-454: The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray , and Scotty Moore . The use of distortion , pioneered by Western swing guitarists such as Junior Barnard and Eldon Shamblin was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s. The use of power chords , pioneered by Francisco Tárrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos in

8700-792: The 1970s the new album chart was revealed at 12:45 pm on Thursdays on BBC Radio 1 , and then moved to 6:05 pm (later 6:30 pm) on Wednesday evenings during the Peter Powell and Bruno Brookes shows. In October 1987 it moved to Monday lunchtimes, during the Gary Davies show, and from April to October 1993 it briefly had its show from 7:00–8:00 pm on Sunday evenings, introduced by Lynn Parsons . Since October 1993 it has been included in The Official Chart show from 4:00–5:45 pm on Fridays (previously from 4:00–7:00 pm on Sundays). A weekly 'Album Chart' show

8874-467: The 19th century and later on by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s. Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become

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9048-404: The 2000s, marks the first album by a male artist and solo act to do it. Blunt was the only performer in history to top the decade chart with a debut album. The first female solo artist to achieve this feat was Adele in the 2010s, with 21 . Dua Lipa 's Future Nostalgia holds the record for having the lowest one-week sales while at the top of the chart in the modern era, when it was number one

9222-505: The 20th anniversary of the release of Earth vs the Wildhearts . Such was the anniversary tour's success that a second leg took place in June of the same year. The Nottingham Rock City performance would subsequently be released as the 2014 live album Rock City vs The Wildhearts . Another UK tour took place in April 2014, this time with Scott Sorry back on bass. 2015 saw the 20th Anniversary of

9396-404: The 3,889 downloaded copies it sold out of 51,510 sales. Also on 16 September 2022, Columbia became the first record label to take the Top 3 chart positions with three different acts with releases by Robbie Williams, Ozzy Osbourne and Harry Styles occupying number 1, 2 and 3 (with parent company Sony Music also having the number 4 with a re-issue of Manic Street Preachers' Know Your Enemy ). In

9570-462: The Albums Chart, but this total does not include 2014's Gold – 40th Anniversary Edition (which like Queen's The Platinum Collection is a 3-CD set also including More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits and The Golden B-sides ) or additional weeks inside the Top 100 missing from the OCC's database before February 1994 (as with the singles chart, Music Week only published the Top 75 as this

9744-603: The B-sides for the single "Just in Lust". Keds rejoined Senseless Things, and the band hired Jef Streatfield as a replacement. In early 1996, the Wildhearts recorded more material. Only some of the songs saw the light of day on the Fishing for More Luckies album, a revamped version of Fishing for Luckies with eight new tracks. An additional album of new material was never quite finished, although leaked copies were distributed as

9918-477: The Banshees , Ultravox , and Simple Minds , showed the influence of progressive rock, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences. In the late 1960s, jazz-rock emerged as a distinct subgenre out of the blues-rock, psychedelic, and progressive rock scenes, mixing the power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational elements of jazz. AllMusic states that the term jazz-rock "may refer to

10092-628: The Beatles, demonstrating "to the rock generation in general that an album could be a major standalone statement without hit singles", such as on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like the Mamas & the Papas and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including

10266-405: The British album charts than any other musical act, followed by the Beatles , Elvis Presley , U2 and ABBA . By most weeks at number one, the Beatles lead with a total of 176 weeks, and the most number one albums of all with 16, followed by The Rolling Stones and Robbie Williams with 14 number ones each. Similar to the situation regarding Elvis Presley's record-breaking tally of number ones on

10440-617: The Byrds ' shift from folk to folk rock from 1965. The psychedelic lifestyle, which revolved around hallucinogenic drugs, had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were Big Brother and the Holding Company , the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane . The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's lead guitarist, Jimi Hendrix did extended distorted, feedback-filled jams which became

10614-431: The Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which became a major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage of many folk purists, with his " Like a Rolling Stone " becoming a US hit single. According to Ritchie Unterberger , Dylan (even before his adoption of electric instruments) influenced rock musicians like

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10788-594: The Dominos , followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues rock into the mainstream. Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie , formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac , who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre. In the late 1960s Jeff Beck , also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band,

10962-507: The Gates of Dawn . Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Doors ' self-titled debut album . These trends peaked in the 1969 Woodstock festival , which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts. Sgt. Pepper was later regarded as the greatest album of all time and a starting point for the album era , during which rock music transitioned from

11136-471: The Jeff Beck Group . The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page , who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin . Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs. In America, blues rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack , but the genre began to take off in

11310-506: The Joint " (1949), also covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952; and " Rocket 88 " by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm ), recorded by Sam Phillips for Chess Records in 1951. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music (then termed " race music ") for a multi-racial audience, and

11484-671: The Lonely Hour by Sam Smith became the first album to top the new streaming-incorporated Official Albums Chart. The weekly Top 75 UK Albums Chart (albums described as hits in the case of British Hit Singles & Albums or The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums) were published in Music Week magazine until 2021. In 2018 Future (publisher of 'Louder Sound' publications such as Metal Hammer and Classic Rock ) acquired Music Week publisher NewBay Media. Future decided that

11658-503: The Lovin' Spoonful and Simon and Garfunkel , with the latter's acoustic " The Sounds of Silence " (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits. These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention . In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments. This British folk-rock

11832-586: The Pops with Wolfsbane's Jeff Hateley, painted in Toon Army colours, on mandolin. The second Wildhearts album proper, P.H.U.Q. , was released in May 1995 and reached number 6 in the UK Albums Chart , making it the band's most successful album. Shortly after the album's release, Mark Keds of Senseless Things was drafted as second guitarist, but lasted just one recording session, in which he appeared on

12006-476: The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds , were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music. Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in

12180-588: The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers , Herman's Hermits and the Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including 1950s rock and roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and surf music, initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like the Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast , and particularly those from London like

12354-672: The Seeds ) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers , the Remains , and the Fifth Estate ). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound. The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by

12528-825: The Top 100 albums chart and given their own Top 20 chart (found in Music Week and Record Mirror ), with the main albums chart reformatted as a top 75 (as far as hit albums are concerned) to equal the singles chart. As of 2022, the OCC publishes the Official Compilations Chart Top 100 on their website, which as well as listing the chart places of all the various Now That's What I Call Music! , Hits Albums and Ministry of Sound Annuals that have been released, now include Motion Picture Cast Recordings such as The Greatest Showman or A Star Is Born and Original Broadway/West End cast albums such as Hamilton , all three of which were included in

12702-427: The UK. In February 2015, it was announced that due to the falling sales of albums and rise in popularity of audio streaming, the Official Albums Chart would begin including streaming data from March 2015. Under the revised methodology, the Official Charts Company takes the 12 most streamed tracks from one album, with the top-two songs being down-weighted in line with the average of the rest. The total of these streams

12876-676: The US was becoming dominated by lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances were developing a style more strongly influenced by blues-rock pioneers, and were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts; this influence would go on to shape the future of rock music through the British Invasion . The first four years of the 1960s has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible. While early rock and roll, particularly through

13050-619: The USSR and South Africa from 1955 to 1957, influencing the globalisation of rock. Johnny O'Keefe 's 1958 record " Wild One " was one of the earliest Australian rock and roll hits. By the late 1950s, as well as in the American-influenced Western world, rock was popular in communist states such as Yugoslavia, and the USSR, as well as in regions such as South America. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, American blues music and blues rock artists, who had been surpassed by

13224-534: The United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues , rhythm and blues , and country music . Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk , and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock

13398-751: The Wailers and " Louie Louie " by the Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen (Minneapolis) and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached

13572-538: The Wildhearts began to release multiple formats of singles.The band released the two singles from the album Endless, Nameless in multiple formats, including two CD singles with two B-sides on each, and a 7" single with one B-side, with all the songs from the "Anthem" single being cover versions. The band have continued to multi-format since 1997, in particular with " Top of the World " in 2003, consisting of three CD singles, two with two B-sides and one with one B-side and

13746-456: The Wildhearts issued six of the more eclectic tracks from the incomplete double album sessions with C.J. on a fan club-only release entitled Fishing for Luckies . The mini-album included " Geordie In Wonderland ", a song which Ginger had offered to Kevin Keegan and Newcastle United F.C. as a potential team anthem, although he had been graciously turned down. The track was performed on Top of

13920-601: The Wildhearts reformed in December 2006 and played a single live show at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. This line-up saw Ginger joined by C.J., Ritch Battersby and a new bassist, Scott Sorry (ex-Amen). In January 2007, the band spent a week in Tutbury Castle recording vocals and finishing their new self-titled album The Wildhearts . The album was released on 23 April, preceded two weeks earlier by

14094-527: The advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era, the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared entirely from music at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the various dance crazes of the early 1960s, started by Chubby Checker 's record " The Twist " (1960). Some music historians have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including

14268-420: The album Be Here Now by Oasis is a controversial second place, this is due to the fact its release date was irregular, being released on a Thursday instead of the usual Monday. The record was released on 21 August 1997 and sold around 813,000 in its first seven days, which surpasses the current claimant to the title, though this topic is still highly contested. In September 2020, The Rolling Stones became

14442-416: The album's release on 11 March 2022, the Wildhearts announced via social media that they were taking another hiatus due to "ongoing issues within the band". In May 2023 bassist Danny McCormack released his autobiography I Danny McCormack, Once a Wildheart, Always a Wildheart . Written with journalist Guy Shankland, the book was self-published and printed by B&B Press. The book's release was delayed due to

14616-556: The all-time number 1 album record holders just two behind The Beatles. As of October 2023, The Rolling Stones join Williams in joint second place for overall artists with most number ones when they released their 14th No.1 album Hackney Diamonds . With Williams and Presley, the record was broken on a technicality, as many Presley's albums have been kept off the top spot by movie soundtracks, while with Williams such albums are now in their own chart. Taylor Swift and Madonna tie for

14790-489: The band convened occasionally for various anniversary tours. A 2018 anniversary tour by the band's 1995 lineup led to a return to the studio. They released a new album in 2019 after a ten-year hiatus. Their most recent album, 21st Century Love Songs , was released in September 2021. The Wildhearts formed in late 1989, after Ginger was fired from the Quireboys . Throughout the band's career, Ginger has written almost all

14964-408: The band's early career was affected by bitter feuds with their record company, East West . Throughout the band's history, members have regularly been replaced, with the only constant member being the band's founder, singer and guitarist Ginger . Several band members have appeared in the line-up more than once. The band has also been split up or placed on hiatus by Ginger multiple times. In the 2010s,

15138-400: The band's tenth number one album, Voyage . With that album, ABBA also became the artist with the longest gap between number one studio albums, with 40 years (since The Visitors in 1981). The longest number one by a group is Simon and Garfunkel 's Bridge Over Troubled Water which was number one for 33 weeks (13 of which were consecutive). The longest consecutive number one by a group

15312-412: The best-selling studio album in UK chart history. Queen's Greatest Hits has sold over 7 million copies (including downloads and equivalent streams) as of July 2022. ABBA's Gold has sold over 6 million, and Sgt. Pepper has sold in excess of 5.4 million copies. The longest-running number one album, both consecutively and non-consecutively, is the soundtrack of the film South Pacific . It had

15486-585: The biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands. During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with Peter and Gordon , the Animals, Manfred Mann , Petula Clark , Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders , Herman's Hermits, the Rolling Stones, the Troggs , and Donovan all having one or more number one singles. Other major acts that were part of

15660-542: The chart, but those billed as 'official soundtracks' (to films such as A Clockwork Orange and Cabaret ) were kept in. As the Ronco-released tie-in to the 1973 film That'll Be the Day was listed as a various artist album and not as a soundtrack, it disappeared from the chart after its seventh week at number one alongside EMI's former number one Pure Gold and Phillip's 20 Original Chart Hits . In 1983,

15834-461: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become

16008-404: The charts by many albums from all the regular compilation specialists like K-Tel, Telstar and Stylus. As the amount of compilations in the chart were keeping out artists from reaching number one or charting at all, it was decided that all the various artist albums would be removed from the Official Albums Chart Top 100. In January 1989, all the various artist compilation albums were removed from

16182-465: The comeback tour Toshi (from support band AntiProduct) stood in as bassist. By 2002 McCormack was once again clean and the band started recording a new mini-album and also toured the UK. The tracks intended for the album were released in the UK in late 2002 across three formats of the " Vanilla Radio " single, and as the mini-album Riff After Riff After Motherfucking Riff in Japan. "Vanilla Radio" reached

16356-424: The delights and limitations of the regional , and to deal with the depredations and benefits of mass culture itself. — Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, sex, rebellion against " The Establishment ", social concerns, and life styles. These themes were inherited from

16530-453: The departure of Scott Sorry and retirement of Ritch Battersby led to the hiatus. Following this particularly with his renewed solo career, Ginger publicly stated a number of times on Formspring that he had absolutely no desire to revisit the Wildhearts and considered that period of his life over. Despite this, Ginger announced in August 2012 that the most recent Wildhearts line-up will reform for

16704-454: The download-only single "The Sweetest Song". The album received favorable reviews in the British rock press, with the Sun newspaper giving it 5 out of 5 ("probably the rock album of the year") and Rocksound magazine also giving it full marks (10 out of 10). The band performed in New York, and toured the UK in April and May. "The New Flesh" was released as a single on 1 October 2007. The video for

16878-455: The early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts. The vibrant Canterbury scene saw acts following Soft Machine from psychedelia, through jazz influences, toward more expansive hard rock, including Caravan , Hatfield and the North , Gong , and National Health . The French group Magma around drummer Christian Vander almost single-handedly created

17052-460: The early 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): The decade is, of course, an arbitrary schema itself—time doesn't just execute a neat turn toward the future every ten years. But like a lot of artificial concepts—money, say—the category does take on a reality of its own once people figure out how to put it to work. "The '60s are over,"

17226-407: The early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies. By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts. " I Want to Hold Your Hand " was the Beatles' first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 , spending seven weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on

17400-519: The electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek , and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector . The instrumental rock and roll of performers such as Duane Eddy , Link Wray and the Ventures was further developed by Dick Dale , who added distinctive "wet" reverb , rapid alternate picking, and Middle Eastern and Mexican influences. He produced

17574-581: The example set by the Beatles ' 1965 LP Rubber Soul in particular, other British rock acts released rock albums intended as artistic statements in 1966, including the Rolling Stones ' Aftermath , the Beatles' own Revolver , and the Who 's A Quick One , as well as American acts in the Beach Boys ( Pet Sounds ) and Bob Dylan ( Blonde on Blonde ). Garage rock was a raw form of rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in

17748-495: The first British female solo artist to have a number-one album in the UK with Never for Ever , as well as being the first album by any female solo artist to enter the chart at number 1. In August 2014 she became the first female artist to have eight albums in the Official UK Top 40 Albums Chart simultaneously, (altogether she had eleven albums in the Top 50 in one week). She is currently in fourth place for artists having

17922-548: The first act to have reached number one in the album chart during six different decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2010s and 2020s). For solo artists, Elvis Presley was the first artist to score UK number-one albums in five different decades (the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 2000s and 2010s). In 2020, Bruce Springsteen became the first solo artist to score UK number-one albums in five consecutive decades (the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s) with his twelfth number-one album Letter to You . Just two weeks later, Kylie Minogue became

18096-467: The first artist to chart with an album released in a NFT format when Close to Home debuted at number 2 (with Steps beating the rapper to number one and becoming the first mixed-gender British act to get chart topping albums in four consecutive decades). A week later, Will of the People by Muse became the first NFT-listed album to top the charts, with the limited edition NFT listed as part of

18270-456: The first female solo artist to have UK number-one albums in five different decades (all consecutively, the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s), with her eighth UK number-one album Disco . In November 2021, ABBA became the third group (after The Rolling Stones and The Beatles) to score a UK number one album in five different decades (in ABBA's case, the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2020s) with

18444-498: The first record, and worldwide hit, for the Virgin Records label, which became a mainstay of the genre. Instrumental rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk , Tangerine Dream , Can , Focus (band) and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy " krautrock ", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music ), would be

18618-455: The folk scene. The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas. The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to audiences in this period, such as guitar feedback , the Indian sitar and backmasking sound effects . Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed

18792-513: The format of rock operas and opened the door to concept albums , often telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme. King Crimson 's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King , which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron , with jazz and symphonic music , is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in

18966-458: The impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues , including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds . British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early 1960s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly , who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson . Increasingly they adopted

19140-467: The invasion included the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five . The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols , that had dominated the American charts in

19314-517: The label were R&B oriented white rock bands that made use of jazzy horn sections, like Electric Flag , Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago , to become some of the most commercially successful acts of the later 1960s and the early 1970s. British acts to emerge in the same period from the blues scene, to make use of the tonal and improvisational aspects of jazz, included Nucleus and the Graham Bond and John Mayall spin-off Colosseum . From

19488-446: The late 1950s and 1960s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino and Chubby Checker and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters. Following

19662-410: The loudest, wildest, most electrified fusion bands from the jazz camp, but most often it describes performers coming from the rock side of the equation." Jazz-rock "...generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late '60s and early '70s", including the singer-songwriter movement. Many early US rock and roll musicians had begun in jazz and carried some of these elements into

19836-549: The main album chart or excluded. In August 1971, the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) allowed low-priced budget albums to chart as well as standard compilations. This decision gave a number one to Music For Pleasure's Hot Hits 6 , which went straight in at the top of the chart and was joined at number 6 by a new entry for Hallmark's Top of the Pops Volume 18 , another album featuring

20010-486: The main artist albums chart before 2020. In addition to the main Compilations chart, all the 'Motion Picture Cast Recordings' and cast albums get their own Official Soundtrack Albums Chart Top 50, but are still classed as artist albums as far as the singles chart is concerned with, for example, only three tracks from early 2022 chart topper Encanto (a Disney soundtrack which sold 13,855 units to be at number one for

20184-476: The many recordings which have been suggested as "the first rock and roll record ". Contenders include " Strange Things Happening Every Day " by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1944); " That's All Right " by Arthur Crudup (1946), which was later covered by Elvis Presley in 1954; " The House of Blue Lights " by Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack (1946); Wynonie Harris ' " Good Rocking Tonight " (1948); Goree Carter 's "Rock Awhile" (1949); Jimmy Preston 's " Rock

20358-674: The mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins , Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley . Hispanic and Latino American movements in rock and roll, which would eventually lead to the success of Latin rock and Chicano rock within the US, began to rise in the Southwest ; with rock and roll standard musician Ritchie Valens and even those within other heritage genres, such as Al Hurricane along with his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby as they began combining rock and roll with country- western within traditional New Mexico music . In addition,

20532-609: The mid-1960s the Left Banke , the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords , wind , and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum 's " A Whiter Shade of Pale " (1967), with its Bach -inspired introduction. The Moody Blues used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed (1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesizers. Classical orchestration, keyboards, and synthesizers were

20706-479: The mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in the suburban family garage. Garage rock songs often revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" and unfair social circumstances being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery tended to be more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. They ranged from crude one-chord music (like

20880-435: The mid-1960s as acts developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield (whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat , the early Jefferson Airplane , Janis Joplin , Johnny Winter , the J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix with his power trios , the Jimi Hendrix Experience (which included two British members, and

21054-401: The mid-1960s onwards, rock music often used the verse–chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to

21228-561: The most number one albums by a female artist in the UK, with 12 each, though in Madonna's case this includes the Evita film soundtrack which was a cast recording and not strictly a Madonna album as she does not perform on every track (of the album's 31 tracks, she performs on 22 songs but only on 8 songs by herself). Swift also holds the record for the most consecutive number one albums by a female artist with 9, just one behind Eminem who holds

21402-528: The most simultaneous UK Top 40 albums, behind Elvis Presley and David Bowie who both tie for the most simultaneous Top 40 albums (twelve each, both immediately following their deaths in 1977 and 2016 respectively), and The Beatles who had eleven in 2009 when remastered versions of their albums were released. The fastest selling album (first chart week sales) is 25 by Adele . Released in November 2015, it sold over 800,000 copies in its first week. However,

21576-465: The new music genre zeuhl with their first albums in the early 1970s. Greater commercial success was enjoyed by Pink Floyd, who also moved away from psychedelia after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), seen as a masterpiece of the genre, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. There was an emphasis on instrumental virtuosity, with Yes showcasing

21750-608: The new music. In Britain the subgenre of blues rock, and many of its leading figures, like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Eric Clapton -fronted band Cream , had emerged from the British jazz scene. Often highlighted as the first true jazz-rock recording is the only album by the relatively obscure New York–based the Free Spirits with Out of Sight and Sound (1966). The first group of bands to self-consciously use

21924-471: The new record in its entirety, followed by an encore of older songs. Around the same time as the release of Chutzpah! , they won the award for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Kerrang! Awards, as well as playing on the Bohemia stage during the very first UK Sonisphere Festival ; a four-day music festival designed by those formerly behind the Download Festival . On 25 November 2009 the Wildhearts announced

22098-543: The oldest artist to top the charts is Vera Lynn , who was 92 years old when she was at number one with We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn , released in 2009 (though the album only contains material she recorded between 1936 and 1959). Lynn, who died in 2020 at the age of 103, also leads the list for the oldest artist to have a chart album, when the 2017 release of Vera Lynn 100 , released to mark her 100th birthday (though again, this only contains material she recorded decades earlier), peaked at number 3. Currently,

22272-447: The oldest living male artist to have the topped the UK albums chart is Tom Jones , who reached the top in 2021 with new studio album Surrounded By Time at the age of 80, while 95 year old Tony Bennett charted at number 6 on the chart of 8–14 October 2021 with his Lady Gaga duets album Love For Sale , becoming recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest person to release an album of new material. In 1980, Kate Bush became

22446-407: The previous 66 years of the chart, this occurrence where one label has had the Top 3 has only happened twice before with Parlophone taking the Top 3 positions in 1964 with two albums by The Beatles and Stay With The Hollies and K-Tel having three TV-advertised compilations at number 1, 2 and 3 on the chart of 31 December 1972. The fastest-selling debut albums (first-week sales): Sam Smith holds

22620-471: The psychedelic rock and the Canterbury scenes came Soft Machine, who, it has been suggested, produced one of the artistically successfully fusions of the two genres. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed fusion came from the jazz side of the equation, with Miles Davis , particularly influenced by the work of Hendrix, incorporating rock instrumentation into his sound for the album Bitches Brew (1970). It

22794-407: The publication would go monthly from March 2021, and so a bespoke monthly Official Albums Chart Top 75 (similar to album charts used by Top of the Pops in the early 1990s and Absolute 80s on Sundays) started to be published from this date alongside monthly singles charts and specialist/genre charts. By 2022, the weekly album chart had started to regularly feature a pattern of acts getting

22968-429: The record for most weeks spent in the Top 10 by a debut album with In the Lonely Hour , with 76, surpassing a record previously held by Emeli Sandé . Over more than sixty years of compiling album sales, the various chart compiling firms have had a problem with the success of multi-artist compilation albums, with these albums (mostly TV-advertised collections featuring a number of hits) either being allowed to chart in

23142-411: The record for the most consecutive number one albums in Official Albums Chart history with 10. Adele is the female solo artist with the most weeks at number one, with a total of 37 weeks. Spice Girls are the female group with the most weeks at number one, with a total of 18 weeks (15 of which were for their debut album Spice ). In March 2018, Little Mix 's fourth studio album Glory Days , set

23316-463: The record for the steepest drop from number one when their album Anxiety Replacement Therapy fell out of the Top 200 altogether with second week sales of 880 copies. This occurrence of number one albums dropping out of the top 100 in their second week of release prompted an article in The Guardian newspaper wondering whether the UK album chart was broken. On 26 August 2022, Aitch became

23490-653: The regional hit " Let's Go Trippin ' " in 1961 and launched the surf music craze, following up with songs like " Misirlou " (1962). Like Dale and his Del-Tones , most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs , the Challengers , and Eddie & the Showmen . The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with " Pipeline " in 1963 and probably the best-known surf tune

23664-410: The release of P.H.U.Q. and another tour, this time with Jon Poole on bass duties. Prior to their Christmas tour in 2016, Ginger stated in an interview that the band would be recording a new album in 2017. Proceeds from the album went towards assisting McCormack's recuperation after the amputation of his lower right leg. In August 2018, the band announced it would be touring to celebrate 25 years of

23838-537: The release of ¡Chutzpah! Jnr. , a mini-album composed of tracks recorded during the Chutzpah sessions that were either unreleased or only appeared as bonus tracks on the Japanese version of ¡Chutzpah! . The eight-track CD was publicized as only being available at concerts during the coming "Merry Xmess 2009" tour. In 2010, Ginger joined as the guitarist for former Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe , who played

24012-400: The rise of rock and roll in the US, found new popularity in the UK, visiting with successful tours. Lonnie Donegan 's 1955 hit " Rock Island Line " was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon 's Quarrymen (later the Beatles ), moved on to play rock and roll. While former rock and roll market in

24186-475: The romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere". In the new millennium, the term rock has occasionally been used as a blanket term including forms like pop music, reggae music , soul music , and even hip hop , which it has been influenced with but often contrasted through much of its history. Christgau has used the term broadly to refer to popular and semipopular music that caters to his sensibility as "a rock-and-roller", including

24360-522: The same era, and by percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ , and the synthesizer. The basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation (prominent lead guitar, second chordal instrument, bass, and drums). A group of musicians performing rock music

24534-555: The second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave , post-punk and eventually alternative rock . From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge , Britpop , and indie rock . Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk , electronic rock , rap rock , and rap metal . Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including

24708-421: The single " Caffeine Bomb ", a UK chart hit at the beginning of 1994, helped by a memorable video in which Ginger appeared to vomit into C.J.'s face. The band appeared on Top of the Pops with Ginger wearing green welding goggles. The Wildhearts next planned a double album, but East West vetoed this plan during the recording sessions. The band stockpiled existing tracks and continued writing and recording for

24882-484: The singles chart , The Official Charts Company has classed re-issues of The Beatles' Abbey Road , and The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street and Goats Head Soup , as brand new hits/number 1s due to the amount of bonus material available, formats released and the fact that the issuing record label had changed. As of September 2022, Elvis Presley is still the male solo artist with the most weeks at number one with

25056-546: The singles format to albums and achieved cultural legitimacy in the mainstream. Led by the Beatles in the mid-1960s, rock musicians advanced the LP as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, initiating a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. Progressive rock, a term sometimes used interchangeably with art rock , moved beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From

25230-413: The skills of both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Rick Wakeman , while Emerson, Lake & Palmer were a supergroup who produced some of the genre's most technically demanding work. Jethro Tull and Genesis both pursued very different, but distinctly English, brands of music. Renaissance , formed in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, evolved into a high-concept band featuring

25404-444: The song was shot in black and white and featured a number of children, including Ginger's own son Jake. The band released "Destroy All Monsters" as their next single. On 19 May 2008 the Wildhearts released the all-covers album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before, Vol 1. . The first version of the album was a download-only collection of 12 tracks, followed by a full release with 15 tracks. In mid-2008, Rhino Records also released

25578-642: The songs himself. Initially called the Wild Hearts, the band originally included singers Snake (ex-Tobruk) and Dunken F. Mullett (ex- Mournblade ), who both joined for short periods. After many early personnel changes, the line-up solidified around Ginger on guitar and vocals, C.J. (Christopher Jagdhar) on guitar and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Dogs D'Amour drummer Bam. The Ginger/C.J./McCormack/Bam line-up released two EPs in 1992, Mondo Akimbo a-Go-Go and Don't Be Happy...Just Worry , after which drummer Bam returned to Dogs D'Amour and

25752-414: The threat of legal action from one of McCormack's former bandmates. In early 2024, Ginger announced another new line up of the Wildhearts with returning bassist Jon Poole , guitarist Ben Marsden, and drummer Pontus Snibb; with a world tour scheduled for mid-year. Current members Former members Rock music Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in

25926-409: The three-CD compilation The Works . Described by the band as "licensed but unofficial", the compilation consists of album tracks and B-sides from the 1992–1996 era at East West Records. The band traveled to Denmark to record their ninth studio album, ¡Chutzpah! , which was released on 31 August 2009, followed by a tour of the United Kingdom in September and October. At these shows, the band played

26100-615: The three-octave voice of Annie Haslam . Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market. The American brand of progressive rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa , Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears , to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston , Foreigner , Kansas , Journey , and Styx . These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO , all demonstrated

26274-489: The top 30 in the UK singles chart, and in early 2003 work began on a full-length album. However, during recording, McCormack checked himself into a rehabilitation center to deal with an alcohol problem, leaving Ginger to play the bass parts on the songs that were newly recorded for the album. McCormack's place in the live band was filled by "Random" Jon Poole , who had already worked with Ginger on his Silver Ginger 5 side project. The album The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed ,

26448-409: The vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the U.K., the hippie movement and the wider Western counterculture movement that spread out from San Francisco in the U.S. in the 1960s, the latter of which continues to this day. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the goth , punk, and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of

26622-515: The video for the song. The band released a full-length album consisting only of B-sides, Coupled With . In early 2001 Ginger announced that he was reforming the Earth vs the Wildhearts lineup of the band for a tour later that year. This lineup (consisting of Ginger and C.J. on guitars and vocals, Danny McCormack on bass and vocals, and Stidi on drums) soon ran into difficulty due to McCormack's battle against heroin addiction , and on several dates of

26796-584: The week beginning 15 May 2020 with sales of only 7,317, while in 2021 You Me At Six ( Suckapunch ) and Ben Howard ( Collections from the Whiteout ) became the first artists to have a number one album exit the Top 100 with only one week on the chart (though when The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums did their list of number one albums with the fewest weeks on the chart, it was based on the Top 75 countdown and featured acts such as Little Angels with their 1993 album Jam ). In 2023, The Lottery Winners made

26970-536: The work of the Beach Boys , formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen . The Beach Boys first chart hit, " Surfin ' " in 1961 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze

27144-533: The work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970). Reflecting on this change of trends in rock music over the past few years, Christgau wrote in his June 1970 "Consumer Guide" column that this "new orthodoxy" and "cultural lag" abandoned improvisatory, studio-ornamented productions in favor of an emphasis on "tight, spare instrumentation" and song composition: "Its referents are '50s rock, country music, and rhythm-and-blues, and its key inspiration

27318-404: The world, except as a new brand of painkiller ... In the '70s the powerful took over, as rock industrialists capitalized on the national mood to reduce potent music to an often reactionary species of entertainment—and to transmute rock's popular base from the audience to market." Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from what some saw as the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to

27492-459: Was Songs for Swingin' Lovers! by Frank Sinatra for the week ending 22 July 1956. As of the week ending 21 November 2024, the UK Albums Chart has had 1381 different number one albums. The current number one album is Together at Home by From Zero and Linkin Park . The most successful artists in the charts depend on the criteria used. As of February 2016, Queen albums have spent more time on

27666-582: Was John Mayall ; his band, the Bluesbreakers , included Eric Clapton (after Clapton's departure from the Yardbirds) and later Peter Green . Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States. Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith , and Derek and

27840-681: Was 1963's " Wipe Out ", by the Surfaris , which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965. Surf rock was also popular in Europe during this time, with the British group the Shadows scoring hits in the early 1960s with instrumentals such as " Apache " and " Kon-Tiki ", while Swedish surf group the Spotnicks saw success in both Sweden and Britain. Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal pop music, particularly

28014-473: Was a major influence on subsequent rock-influenced jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock , Chick Corea and Weather Report . The genre began to fade in the late 1970s, as a mellower form of fusion began to take its audience, but acts like Steely Dan , Frank Zappa and Joni Mitchell recorded significant jazz-influenced albums in this period, and it has continued to be a major influence on rock music. Reflecting on developments that occurred in rock music in

28188-424: Was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers , but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock ), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream. By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of

28362-575: Was founded in Britain), and Band of Gypsys , whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues rock bands from the southern states, like the Allman Brothers Band , Lynyrd Skynyrd , and ZZ Top , incorporated country elements into their style to produce the distinctive genre Southern rock . Early blues rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be

28536-503: Was licensed out to BBC Radio 2 and presented by Simon Mayo , until it ended on 2 April 2007. Though album sales tend to produce more revenue and, over time, act as a greater measure of an artist's success, this chart receives less media attention than the UK Singles Chart , because overall sales of an album are more important than its peak position. 2005 saw a record number of artist album sales with 126.2 million sold in

28710-475: Was released in 2003. The band signed a US record deal with Gearhead Records , which released Riff After Riff in 2004, a compilation of songs from the UK post-reformation singles (all of the songs from this release are also found on the Gut Records compilation Coupled With ). Riff After Riff was the Wildhearts' first US release since Earth vs the Wildhearts in 1994. The release was also promoted by

28884-408: Was replaced by Stidi (Andrew Stidolph). To follow up their first two EPs, the Wildhearts recorded demos for their first full-length album, which were released as Earth vs the Wildhearts without re-recording. The singles " Greetings From Shitsville " and " TV Tan " were underground hits in 1993. Stidi left the band shortly afterwards to be replaced by Ritch Battersby, just in time for the recording of

29058-526: Was taken up by bands including Pentangle , Steeleye Span and the Albion Band , which in turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band , Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel , to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s. Folk-rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in

29232-614: Was taking place globally in the aftermath of the Second World War . Cliff Richard is credited with one of the first rock and roll hits outside of North America with " Move It " (1959), effectively ushering in the sound of British rock . Several artists, most prominently Tommy Steele from the UK, found success with covers of major American rock and roll hits before the recordings could spread internationally, often translating them into local languages where appropriate. Steele in particular toured Britain, Scandinavia, Australia,

29406-655: Was the Record Mirror chart from 22 July 1956 to 1 November 1958; the Melody Maker chart from 8 November 1958 to March 1960; the Record Retailer chart from 1960 to 1969; and the Official Albums Chart from 1969 on. For eight weeks in February and March 1971 no Official Albums Chart was compiled due to a postal strike – for this period, the OCC uses the chart compiled by Melody Maker instead. In

29580-406: Was the Beatles' Please Please Me , which held the top spot for a straight 30 weeks. The longest number one by a male solo artist was Elvis Presley with G.I. Blues which stayed at the top for 22 weeks (his Blue Hawaii album was also the longest consecutive number one album for a male artist with 17 weeks). Adele 's album 21 has the most weeks at number one by a female solo artist (and by

29754-499: Was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation and the Beatles " I'm a Loser " (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with the Byrds ' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man " which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the café-based folk scene in Los Angeles,

29928-430: Was the major force in American record sales and crooners , such as Eddie Fisher , Perry Como , and Patti Page , who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed. Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in

30102-455: Was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s. Rock musicians in the mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated

30276-441: Was the public chart for store owners to use in their record shops with the Top 150 Artist Albums Chart being for industry insiders/ChartsPlus subscribers). For many years, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the best-selling album in UK chart history, but is now in third place after being supplanted by Queen's Greatest Hits and then also by ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits . However, Sgt. Pepper still remains

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