September 18th, 2008
I've been thinking about a spin-off project from chartstats for quite some time. I'm happy that this site serves a purpose in it's current form but I am often asked about the availability of other chart information and the openness of chart data. There are also several flaws in the database design of this site that create issues for releases with featured artists and re-releases. In response to all this I am proposing a new site which is more open and has more user interaction, the site is only in the early stages of planning and I would like as much user input at possible before I start work. I would also appreciate offers of help from other coders and web developers. I have begun to thrash out some ideas on a wiki but would appreciate if interested parties could add their thoughts and opinions.

September 15th, 2008
The site has now had over 10,000 covers uploaded by visitors! I would like to offer my sincere thanks to people who have uploaded covers and helped to make this site more interesting and informative. However, there are still 22,718 singles without a cover and 7,394 albums without a cover - plenty more to do still!

July 24th, 2008
I have finally completed the monumental milestone of having a gap-free chart archive for UK albums and singles from the present day back to the 1950s! The final batch of album chart data was graciously provided by Andy Diamond and I have spent the last week or so integrating the data with what I already have. The updates may take a while to propagate through the site as the caches are gradually updated, its likely there will be duplicates that I missed and these can be reported in the usual way - through the guestbook or contact page. Now that this major task is completed I will first work on ironing out errors and omissions in the newly added data, there are also many weeks in the archive that are missing odd positions and these need correcting. Over a thousand new albums have been added to the site in the latest update and these present a new opportunity for people to upload cover art. Once the archive is fully complete I have plenty of other tasks to move onto, not least the new site design that I have been planning for the last 3 or 4 years! I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of those people who have helped in the compilation of this chart archive by providing data, covers or notification of errors - you're support is warmly appreciated!

July 13th, 2008
I have added a substantial chunk of additional data to the album chart archive. The archive is now complete from 1956-1991 there is then a gap until the current block of 1998-2008. I am hoping to find the charts for this missing period soon, in the mean time there are now quite a few more albums that need cover art. If you spot any problems please don't hesitate to let me know.

July 12th, 2008
I accidently updated the charts for this week with last weeks data. Sorry about that, it is now fixed. I have changed the chart run pages to now include small versions of the cover art where they are available. There are a couple of downsides to this, first it highlights where there are large numbers of missing covers (but should hopefully encourage users to upload them!) and secondly it will lead to longer page load times for dialup users. I hope you appreciate the change, please give feedback through the contact page and guestbook.

April 29th, 2008
I have finally finished extending the album chart back a bit further and filled all the gaps as far back as June 1998. I will work on filling this small gap next and then continue working back. If you spot any errors please let me know.

March 27th, 2008
I've added some RSS feeds to the site which can keep you notified of website news and let you know when the latest chart data has been added to the site. Let me know if you have any problems using them.

March 25th, 2008
I have imported a further 3,726 album chart positions to the archive from the early 2000's, these have extended the chart runs from top 40's to top 75's. There may be some gaps in the data still as I am having some trouble aligning some of the weeks. If you spot any duplicate albums or inaccuracies then use the contact page to let me know. Thanks to αcharts for providing the data.

March 24th, 2008
Following a few complaints from users, and after spotting a better system I have replaced the CAPTCHA on the guestbook and contact pages. The aim of the CAPTCHA is to prevent automatic programs from spamming the guestbook or flooding my inbox by asking a user to enter a word that has been displayed to them in an obfuscated form.

The system I am now using has taken the idea of a CAPTCHA and done something rather clever with it, they have collaborated with the internet archive to assist them with converting books from a physical form into digital form. The CAPTCHAs provided to users are words that could not successfully be read by the computer and so therefore should not be able to be read by an automatic script. In doing this the benefit from a CAPTCHA is two-fold, spam is reduced and users to the site are helping to permanently archive historic books in a digital form. The system is also more advanced than the old system I was using an allows users to request a new CAPTCHA if they can't understand it, or provides and audio route for the partially sighted and blind. If you want to read more about the system or install it on your own website (it's very easy and a fantastic idea!) then just visit the reCAPTCHA website.

March 5th, 2008
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the individuals who have been uploading cover art to the website. So far over 4,600 covers have been uploaded and these have dramatically improved the quality of the website. The site stats show that there are now covers for 20% of the singles listed and almost 40% of the albums listed.

Looking at these statistics it occured to me that this was not representative of the whole chart since there were some singles and albums that have recieved a larger share of chart attention than others. It seemed to me that these albums were of a higher priority for cover art and I decided to investigate what proportion of chart appearances have a cover associated with them. In the singles chart database there are currently 184,870 chart appearances recorded of which 52,047 have a cover, this works out to be about 28.2%. For albums there are 83,876 chart appearances and 45,891 of these have covers, this works out at 54.7% of appearances.

It has now occured to me that as these figures increase, more and more covers will be required to increase the percentage by one point as each album or single will have fewer chart appearances. I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank those who have submitted covers and encourage them and others to continue adding to the site.

February 5th, 2008
Many thanks to αcharts for providing top 75 chart runs back to 2003. I'm very busy at the moment but will be adding the data when I get the time. In the mean time you can find the information at their site or check out their international charts.

January 11th, 2008
I have some confusion surrounding the album chart for the week 01/07/2006, clearly this chart is a duplication of the previous weeks run, but for which week is this the relevant chart, and where have I missed out a week? If anyone can spot where the problem is I'd love to here it. Contact me using the contact form. Thanks.

January 2nd, 2008
I have filled some gaps in the album chart where weeks were missing, I have also extended the album chart to a top 100 for the remainder of 1982. If you find any errors please let me know via the contact page.

December 22nd, 2007
Sorry for the delay in posting the chart for this week, I was away snowboarding and unable to access the internet to update the site. Should be on track to post the Christmas chart tomorrow.

October 19th, 2007
The site has been quietly ticking along as usual, I've made a few changes in recent weeks, the number one's page now includes at least partial data for all decades except the albums of the 1990's. My thanks go out to the anonymous users who have been uploading cover art to the site, I've recieved over 1,000 image uploads now, not all have been up to my standards but the vast majority have been very useful. Please do continue to upload and make the site more colourful and informative! Please keep contacting me with suggestions and any inaccuracies you may find in my data, I'm currently fixing on average a couple of errors per week (as and when I get around to them!). Hope you continue to enjoy the site and find it useful and interesting!

August 14th, 2007
I have spent some time sorting out duplicated artists and songs today, if anyone spots any I have missed they can inform me via the contact page. I also updated the chart for the 4th of August 2007 to a complete top 100 where it was previously only a top 40.

July 31st, 2007
The artist summary pages now list singles and albums chronologically from when they first entered the chart. I have updated the album chart as far as the middle of 1980 but have come to a dead end for now. I hope to add more as and when I can get hold of the data. Please continue to upload cover art as it makes the site look a lot more attractive!

July 22nd, 2007
I have continued adding to the album chart archive, it's now up to the end of 1977. Hopefully I'll get a chance to add more soon. The chart for this week has not yet been published but I'll add it as soon as it has.

July 18th, 2007
I have finally got around to making a thumbnail generator for covers so now all covers on single, album and artist pages are resized and linked to the full size version (which for many is the same size). There are now smaller versions of covers on artist pages to (where covers are available) and on the number 1's page. I'm very greatful to whoever has been uploading loads of cover art for me, it's very much appreciated!

July 13th, 2007
I've continued importing the album chart which now contains the chart up until the end of 1973. I'll continue adding more when I have time. If you see any errors in the data please let me know through the guestbook or contact forms.

July 7th, 2007
Serious issue. I stupidly managed to delete my album chart database table. I know. I have restored from a backup but it's not very recent and has undone all my work from importing historic data and is missing the last few months of recent data too. I'm working on sorting this out but for the moment I'm pretty stuffed :( UPDATE:Thanks to the awesome web host that I have (DreamHost) I have managed to obtain a backup of yesterdays data! This means I've lost the data I put in today (the early 1970's) but at least it's not all of it! Phew!

July 6th, 2007
I have now found a source for historic album chart data and have started importing it. The data starts on the 28th of July 1956 and so far I have imported data up until the end of 1965. I will add more data as and when I have time. Please feel free to submit cover art for anything that doesn't currently have any as the submissions I have had so far have been very good.

June 20th, 2007
I have added a few more years of album chart data to my archive. The archive now goes back to mid 2001, however there are a couple of gaps, one for a few weeks and one for about 6 months. I hope to eventually fill these gaps and get more than just the top 20. I am also planning on adding album data from the 1950's up to the present day but this will be a gradual process. If you see any errors in the the data please contact me so I can correct them.

May 22nd, 2007
I have now added a facility for users to upload cover art for missing items. Since I extended the archive back many of the songs are missing pictures and it's going to take me an aweful long time to get pictures for all of them. If you want to see the site brightened up then why not lend a hand!

May 21st, 2007
I've added an image verification code to the contact form and guestbook. I was getting annoyed with dealing with all the spam filling up my guestbook/inbox. Sorry if this causes problems for people trying to contact me, I'm sure if you're really determined you'll get through :D

May 8th, 2007
I have updated the Number 1's page to be broken down into decades and include a "most weeks" listing for each decade. It also should it easier to find the year in question and reduce loading times. Any comments can be posted on the guestbook or contact me form. I have also been adding some pictures for more singles and have found a way of obtaining more images through iTunes. I've also been looking on the website AllCDCovers.com, they do have some good, high quality covers but are lacking in the singles department - any help given to them would be great!

April 24th, 2007
I'm aware the chart has not been updated for this week, I'm waiting for the data to become available at my usual source. As soon as I get the data I'll put the chart up - sorry for the inconvenience!

April 19th, 2007
This is the first post on the news system, hopefully there should be no visible difference. I have also created a news archive as the front page was full of all the news going all the way back to the start of the site in 2004. I have also created a guestbook for users of the site to post messages, this is to replace the forums which aren't being used by anyone except spammers. All messages will be moderated before they are displayed.

April 7th, 2007
I finally got around to fixing the missing week that had been skewing all my charts for a good while. I've also done more tweaking on page caching, fixed the overall stats page and made numerous other small changes here and there. Work on the site is ongoing behind the scenes as always and yes, I am still here!

February 2nd, 2007
You now have to register on the forums in order to post messages, the guest posting feature was being abused by spammers. Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope having to sign up won't distract people from posting.

December 23rd, 2006
I was snowboarding in France so the site didn't get updated, my apologies to all who came to the site and expected to find the information.

November 20th, 2006
I haven't posted any news on the front page for a while but everything's been running fairly smoothly, I've been doing a bit more tweaking of the caching system but ideally the whole site needs a bit of work on the back-end. One of those jobs to do on a rainy day!

July 30th, 2006
Unfortunately the Yahoo! Launch site doesn't seem to be being updated so I'm back to a top 40 chart until I can find another source of the data. If anyone can help don't hesitate to contact me. EDIT: Correction, the Yahoo site is now working again, I've got the top 75 singles from last week and the top 75 singles and albums from this week. Unfortunately only the top 40 albums for last week, anyone know where I can get the 75?

July 26th, 2006
There has been a delay in aquiring chart data for the past week's chart. For some reason the Yahoo! Launch site that lists the UK top 75 singles and albums has not been updated. For the moment I have got the top 40 data from the BBC, if and when the Yahoo! site is updated I will get the data.

July 19th, 2006
I've changed the caching a bit, it's still not exactly how I'd like it but it should work a lot better now.

July 11th, 2006
Since the site now contains a LOT of data it was begining to become VERY slow to navigate as there was such a massive data set to search through. I've now implemented caching on most of the site, most pages are rebuilt every hour but I may extend this for pages who's data doesn't change very often or even implement a completely different system for building pages...

June 25th, 2006
All the data is now imported, I think I've ironed out most of the bugs and now I'm off on a field trip for a few days. If you see any problems then drop me a line on the contact page and I'll try and sort them out. I think there's a few "orphaned" songs that I need to weed out but I'll sort that out in a few days when I get back.

June 20th, 2006
I am in the process of moving stuff around in the database. This could cause all kinds of errors to appear, however I will probably be aware of them and will be fixing them as I go.

June 19th, 2006
I'm going to need to do some changes to the database structure to take in all this new data I've aquired. I've also started getting the top 75 each week for both singles and albums, again I need to make a few changes before this data is visible on the site. Hopefully I should get it all up and running within the next week or so.

June 14th, 2006
I've recently begun aquiring historic chart data from PolyHex.com which has singles charts right back to 1952. It's going to take me a while to get it sorted out and working but hopefully I can get it all integrated with my existing data. Thanks so much to Colin from PolyHex.com for all the help he's provided!

May 25th, 2006
If you are viewing this then you have successfully accessed the website on it's new server. Hopefully everything should be working fine and you haven't noticed anything is different at all! If there is any problems you can contact me on the contact form or post in the forums and I'll sort it out.

May 15th, 2006
I'm now back at uni with a working PC which is a great help for keeping the site up and running. I'm considering working on a new design for the site since this is the same design that's been around ever since the site opened over two years ago. Any suggestions welcome in the forums!

March 14th, 2006
The site continues to tick on as normal with no major changes. I've just about managed to keep site updates as regular as possible despite a hectic term at University and having no computer of my own! The site now contains 2 years of album and singles chart statistics!

December 25th, 2005
I want to wish all visitors to the site a very Happy Christmas and the best wishes for a prosperous New Year! Congratulations to Shayne Ward for getting christmas number one, even if he did knock my favourite song off the top!

December 21st, 2005
There was a small bug in the calculation of the average position attained by an artist, this has now been fixed. The chart is currently all up to date after my brief holiday. Everything is set for recording the Christmas number 1 for 2005.

December 5th, 2005
Sorry about the lateness of the chart for this week, I completely forgot until just now. Next week I'll be snowboarding in France over the weekend so I won't be able to do the chart update until I get back. This will mean the chart for the 11th may be delayed 'til the 17th or even 18th.

November 24th, 2005
There is now a forum for people to discuss the UK chart and other related (and unrelated) things. Feel free to check it out!

July 24th, 2005
I have added another page that shows all album and song ratings on a single list, this can be sorted by rating or number of votes.

July 11th, 2005
The site continues to motor on with lots of tweaks going on in the background. As usual if you have any ideas or suggestions don't hesitate to contact me!

May 2nd, 2005
In an effort to improve the speed of the site I have removed my custom build visitor tracking and am now using a free service provided by StatCounter.

April 17th, 2005
Apologies for the late update of the chart for the 10th of April, only just completed. I was snowboarding in France and didn't get near a PC for the week.

March 6th, 2005
The site has now been running for a year and has a full 52 weeks of charts under it's belt. Co-incidentally, today's chart marks a major change in the way the chart is calculated, with legal downloads now being counted equally alongside singles sales. In recognition of this the BBC decided to update their chart site, which broke all of my data collection scripts :( Oh well, here's to another year of charts!

February 23rd, 2005
I have revamped the whole of the downloads section so that there is a wider range of data availiable in either a table or csv format. I have also rooted out a couple of dublicate artists and songs. If you spot any I've missed don't hesitate to contact me and point it out!

January 26th, 2005
I have found that search engines have been artificially rating ever song and album on the site to an average of 3 as part of the spidering of the site. I have now prevented them from doing this, and reset the ratings. Please continue to rate albums and singles as before.

December 6th, 2004
I've spent quite a bit of time making the site XHTML and CSS compatible. The rest of the site is motoring on as normal.

September 28th, 2004
Album ratings should now be working, to rate an album simply score it from 1 to 5 on it's info page. 5 is the best rating and 1 is the worst.

September 8th, 2004
I have added an album chart to the site, backdating records to the start of the site. Album data has been added to artist graphs. This will be updated weekly along with the singles chart. There is only a top 20 of albums on this site. I have also moved the layout round a bit to accomodate the new top 10 albums and I've got rid of the shoutbox to give more room.

August 12th, 2004
A ratings system has been added so that you can give you opinion of how good songs are. There is also a top ten ranking of the songs by user ratings.

August 1st, 2004
I have added a composite graph on all artist pages that compares all of their songs by position in relation to weeks since release. I have also added a page showing all the number one singles on record in chronological order

July 29th, 2004
Site updates have been continuing on a weekly basis with odd tweaks of the site happening most weeks. Today I have done some updates to the artist info pages adding more detailed statistics, once again any suggestions just contact me!

June 15th, 2004
The site continues to grow with several new additions in the last few days, I have introduced random pages for artists and songs, also fixed a bug in trying to display images when there are none. I have made some changes to the admin system to make it easy to add songs and images to the site as well. I would be gratefull for any suggestions relating to the site as well please!

April 25th, 2004
The graphs have been given a facelift and now blend in with the site a bit better, give me some feedback in the shouts or contact me with your opinions.

April 19th, 2004
I have added a downloads page where you can download CSV files of the chart including chart rankings, artist listings and song listings. I have also changed the logo.

April 18th, 2004
I have added a couple more pages to the site, including overall stats and artist browsing. Artist pages now include a picture of one of the artists singles if there is no image of the artist availiable. The graphs for new entrys now have a message saying that no data is availiable.

April 10th, 2004
Graphs are now working on song info pages, these show how a song has performed over the weeks.

March 14th, 2004
The site is started with a first entry of this weeks UK chart.