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Guinness Book Of British Hit SinglesThe Guinness Book of British Hit Singles is a music reference book, published in the United Kingdom, and generally considered to be the authoritative reference source for the UK Singles Chart since its inception in 1952. It lists all singles ever to have made the UK Singles Chart in alphabetical order by both artist and song title, with date of chart entry, highest position, catalogue number, and number of weeks on the chart. Its sources are the New Musical Express chart from November 1952 to March 1960, and the Record Retailer (later Music Week) chart thereafter. Many observers have argued that this division is misleading, since the Record Retailer chart was little-known until it was adopted by the BBC in 1969, and that by adopting this chart as its standard from the earliest opportunity, the editors were effectively "re-writing" chart history. An example often given is the case of The Beatles' second single "Please Please Me" which was recognised as a number one hit by every other publically-available chart but not by Record Retailer, and therefore not by British Hit Singles. Other records to which this applies include "19th Nervous Breakdown" by The Rolling Stones and the Eurovision Song Contest entry "Are You Sure" by The Allisons. Co-founder Jo Rice has defended the book's choice of source material on the grounds that Record Retailer was the only chart to consistently publish a Top 50 from 1960 onwards (as opposed to other charts which published either a shorter listing, such as the NME, or a listing that shrunk over time, such as Melody Maker). The first edition was published in July 1977 and it is currently on its seventeenth edition (2004). The founding editors were were Paul Gambaccini, Tim Rice, Jonathan Rice, and Mike Read. Read left the team in the early 1990s, and the other editors resigned in 1996. The current editor is David Roberts and the head writer is Dave McAleer. For the first time, the seventeenth edition merges with The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums to form a single volume, containing all entries in both the UK Singles and Album charts. External Link Official Site
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