1952 in British music
| 1950s in music in the UK | |
| Number-one singles | |
| Number-one albums | |
| Best-selling singles | |
| Best-selling albums | |
| Summaries and charts 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 |
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| ←1949 | 1960→ |
| Top 10/12 singles | |
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1952, 1953, 1954 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 |
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| 1960→ | |
This is a summary of 1952 in music in the United Kingdom, including the official charts from that year.
This year was a turning point for music in not only the UK, but all over the world. The first official UK Singles Chart began in November 1952, compiled by the NME. This made the United Kingdom the first country in the world to have an official singles chart and created it in many other countries, with the Billboard Hot 100 era beginning in 1958 in the U.S. The singles chart quickly became a phenomenon and record breaking became a new excitement for the public. Compiled solely on sales; it kept this trend until April 2005, when it was combined with legal downloads.
On the week ending 14 November 1952, NME published the first ever UK Singles Chart. Only a Top 12 at the time, it slowly grew over the years as nowadays sales data is gathered electronically and a Top 200 is compiled weekly for industrial purposes. During the rest of the decade and the early 1960s, there were many different charts formed and the general public and the BBC's Pick Of The Pops (now known as Top Of The Pops) were all confused as to which was the most accurate. The Official Charts Company uses NME until March 1960 and then uses Record Retailer until 1969, when an official sole chart was formed by an alliance between the two most popular charts.
To kick off the brand new chart, American jazz singer Al Martino had the first ever number one single in the UK with "Here in My Heart", which remains his biggest selling single. The song spent nine consecutive weeks at number one, which continued to be the longest consecutive run at number one until mid-1954. In second place was pop singer Jo Stafford with "You Belong to Me", and, with the exception of one week, she stayed just one place behind the top spot for nine weeks, until she finally managed to knock Al Martino off the top in 1953. Another record-achiever went to English traditional pop music singer Vera Lynn, who had three singles within the top 10 at the same time with "Forget Me Not (Vera Lynn song)" (at number 7), "The Homing Waltz" (at number 9), and "Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart" (at number 10).
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