The UK Albums Chart is a record chart based on weekly album sales; during the 1950s, a total of 17 different albums reached number one. The longest run at number one was the original soundtrack of the movie South Pacific, which held on to the top spot for 60 consecutive weeks in the 1950s, and went on to attain another 55 weeks in 1960 and 1961, totalling a record of 115 weeks at number-one in the UK. It was number-one for the entire year in 1959.
The UK Albums Chart canon was modified when chart fans Alan Smith and Keith Badman discovered that charts of albums in the UK dated back to 28 July 1956, not 8 November 1958 as previously thought.[1] The first album chart was a Top 5 published in Record Mirror.[2] The album at number one on this chart was Songs for Swingin' Lovers! by Frank Sinatra. From 8 November 1958, a Top 10 album chart was compiled by Melody Maker.[2] Although the Record Mirror chart continued to run after this date, Melody Maker is taken as the canonical source as it had a larger sample.[3] In 1959, from June to August a newspaper strike prevented the album chart from being published and the previous chart was duplicated in these weeks.[2] Nevertheless, the South Pacificsoundtrack was number one for the entire duration of 1959.
In the UK, Christmas number-one albums are those that are at the top of the UK Albums Chart on Christmas Day. Typically, this will refer to the album that was announced as number one on the Sunday before 25 December—when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday itself, the official number one is considered by the OCC to be the one announced on that day's chart.[9] During the 1950s, the following albums were Christmas number ones.[10]
From 8 November 1958, Melody Maker is regarded as the canonical source. Record Mirror continued to compile an album chart with the following differences:[3]
^ abBoth Original soundtracks for The King and I and High Society were classified jointly as number one on 16 February 1957. In the weeks before and after The King and I held the number-one spot outright.[7]
^ abBoth the Original soundtrack for The King and I and Nat 'King' Cole's Love Is the Thing were classified jointly as number one on 8 June 1957. The King and I was in the number-one spot the previous week, and the following week the Oklahoma! soundtrack took the top spot.[7]
Warwick, Neil; Kutner, Jon; Brown, Tony (2004). The Complete Book of the British Charts: Singles and Albums (3rd ed.). London: Omnibus Press. ISBN1-84449-058-0.