Bibliofemme's Coffee Table
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Collins Complete British Hit Albums by Graham Betts  
(Published by Collins)
For many people, this sort of book is either coffee table fodder or tripping them up in bookshops due to being piled high on the ground aisles gathering dust. Not so me. For years my Dad has been collecting each new edition of The Guinness British Hit Singles and Albums (they used to be published separately but now with less singles being released, they're combined in one bumper edition). My Dad is a music trivia Goliath and you'd be hard pushed to catch him out - whereby he'd produce one of these music tomes and bombard you with details of the answer he'd just given you.
The UK charts have been running since 1958 and this book charts every entry and exit since its original inception as a Top 10. It swelled to a Top 20 in the 1960s, a Top 50 in the early 1970s and by 1981, a Top 100. As the popularity of compilations (we're looking at you Now 59) and soundtracks increased, the chart was split into a Top 75 artist chart and a Top 20 compilation chart. This book has them all.
A staggering 11,300 hit albums and 3,500 soundtracks and compilation are catalogued here. Each entry includes an artist biography, details of sales, US number ones and BRIT and Grammy award winners. The less interesting stuff like weeks on the chart, highest position and record label/catalogue numbers are included for the serious muso. More than all that - and what distinguishes from its Guinness predecessor - is that it contains a picture of every album cover. This in itself is a fascinating slice of popular culture and musical history, as entire books have been devoted to the history of album covers alone. (I know, I own one).
If you're interested in music or have more than a handful of music biographies on your bookshelf, this is the book for you. Think of how impressed your friends will be when you can tell them - after years of agonising curiosity no doubt - what album was Number One on the day they were born. It's honestly that addictive, and you'll be a big dinner party hit or a music table-quiz shark in no time.
Score: 4 out of 5
February 2005
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