Welcome to the official home page of James Masterton, author of an alarmingly long-running weekly analysis of the UK singles and albums charts.
I've been writing about the British charts online since 1992, my weekly column dedicated to telling the story behind each hit, putting chart moves and records in their full context. Across many different publications this has been essential reading for music fans since the very earliest days of the internet. Each week I've tried to tell the full story behind this week's UK charts. Who is Number One, and why? What are this week's biggest new entries? And who is this Drake guy anyway?
You can also read here the archives of my past work, a library of columns dating back to October 1992.
But here you can also read some of my other writings, from retrospective pieces on old chart countdowns through to memories of favourite songs and other more in-depth looks at issues relating to the British music charts. Updates to these tend to be rather more sporadic than I would sometimes wish, but the latest articles can be found on the feed below, or in a more structured form by clicking on the blog link above.
Latest Blog Posts
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An Official Transformation
Official Charts online has a brand new look - and new research to determine once and for all just what everyone thinks of them. Newsflash - it is really good.
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Heaven
The Psychedelic Furs' other hit. The one that took them into the Top 40 for the first time, and which has been the subject of some quite extraordinary covers. But you still probably don't know it. For shame.
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Official Charts Goes 70 Up!
The full list of celebratory activities planned for the 70th anniversary of the British charts in November 2022. And believe me, there are plenty.
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Number One Very Best In The World
The decision of Sainsbury's to pull out of music retailing raises some gloomy questions over the future of the compilation album. Given that supermarkets are where most people go to buy them these days. Is it time they stopped needing their own chart at all?
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Mama Told Me
The story of the greatest disco record you've never heard of - yet which for people of a certain age is embedded in their memory.
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Shadowing Taylor
69 years. That's how much chart history we have to play with. That history gives us almost endless statistics, longevity records, productivity records and "greatest ever" records. But with so much data to play with and with the records covering such a long period of the history of popular culture there is also room for debate on certain areas. Such as when a record might not be a record. As is the case with Taylor Swift this week.
