Why are the names of songs and artists changed in these list?

The names used to refer to particular acts and songs vary from one chart to another. Some charts, for example the Billboard ones, have a policy of maintaining two distinct names, one that is an exact copy of the name on the original 45 (with spelling mistakes and all) and another that provides a link to other entries. Unfortunately this level of dedication is rare, and of course can only work when there is a single original. When we are looking at sheet music, vinyl, tapes, CDs and digital sources for countries all over the world there is little hope that the names will all match.

The purpose of these charts is to show connections, so the bias has to be to consolidate entries under a single name when there is doubt. Anyone that is interested in a certain entry, for example a particular musician, can use other resources to identify the entries here that are inconsistent. As an example it is worth looking at the singer Johnnie Ray who was popular in the 1950s, one of our correspondents, Maurice from Canada, pointed out that the final entry in his discography was not by the same Johnnie Ray but by a different singer sometimes called by the same name. Our only real option was to keep the entry and add a note to explain.

Computers are, of course, not very good at seeing the similarities between names. If the names are not exactly the same then the processing software won't see the link between entries. For this reason each time the complete set of chart data is processed to generate the web pages and data files a set of test data is also created.

Site Generation Process

This test data rearranges the chart entries to simplify the task of locating inconsistencies in the charts. The reviewers then regularly select parts of this information and use it to identify fixes that need to be made to the source data. A typical review session would expect to review 50-300 entries per minute, which is quite a rate, but the 503,653 items ensures this effort will keep us busy for some time.

At the moment about 0.75% of the entries will need to be investigated, that is the name of the artist or song while correct for each chart is not consistent between charts. This proportion increases when a new chart is incorporated, often a new chart will reveal issues with the previously existing data. Each of these issues has to be investigated, for example if we find that the same song has two entries, one for "Garnet Mimms" and the other for "Garnet Mimms & The Enchanters" then we have to check which is the most widely used name. Once all these corrections are made the next time the web site and data files are generated there will be a different list of artists and hits from them, so all the charts and profiles have to be completely regenerated from scratch.

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Comments

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30 Nov 2015

#46

Artist Name is = Hervé Vilard

Your attempt to give the "correct" name shows the problem. You need to read the FAQ "Why are the names of songs and artists changed in these list?"

2 Aug 2015

Ernest Hare

Hi, Not quite sure but the title "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It's Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight)" is also known as "Does Your Spearmint Lose It's Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight)"

cheers Walter

You need to read the FAQ about song titles. Remember the goal of this site is to help readers find connections even when names used are slightly different, so many of the names are not strictly the ones used in a particular place, we show the name that was most widely applied. In this case Lonnie Donegan's version was a hit in 9 charts while Ernest Hare & Billy Jones' version was a hit in just one

There are other sites that focus on the exact text that happens to have been written on the US single, we don't think that is as important as discovering connections.

29 Mar 2013

magic

fantastic submit, very informative. I'm wondering why the other specialists of this sector don't realize this. You should proceed your writing. I am sure, you've a huge readers' base already! magic

19 Oct 2010

Ray Charles Singers.

On Wikipedia it says that "The Ray Charles Singers", got a 1964 hit with the song "Love me with all of your heart".

Thx for a fantastic site, and your big-big effort.

Yours Sensimilla.

You are correct, the songs listed on this site as being by Ray Charles were originally credited to "Ray Charles", "The Ray Charles Trio", "Ray Charles & the Raelettes" or "The Ray Charles Singers". In some cases they were listed differently in different countries.

On this site we have consolidated all these together under "Ray Charles" since, for most users, it is more interesting to see his complete career in one place rather than having to search for the various combinations of names he happened to use. We feel is is easy enough to use Wikipedia and other sources to identify the actual artist name credited in an individual song in an individual country. Our role is to allow the user to identify other hits by the same artist and other locations where the same song was a hit, even if credited to a slightly different name.

There is, of course, no absolutely right answer here. Our position is to err on the side of too much consolidation, since we see our unique contribution in the wide range of countries and years that we cover. We assume that sources that focus on single countries, artists or short time periods can differentiate between the songs by "Ray Charles", "The Ray Charles Trio" and "Ray Charles & the Raelettes"

4 Oct 2010

help please !

ii can not find this song from the late 1980's its drivin me mad ii listened 2it millions but for the life of me ii cant find it ; ii cant remember the name or anything jus remember part of the video ; she had blonde long bushy hair ; my mom said it came out the year my great nan died and that was jan 1988 ii doubt you can help but ii dont knoo where it is ; ive tried everythin :(

if youu know anythin it would be a great help thank youu x

A late 1980s video of a woman with bushy blond hair? The obvious candidate would be Bonnie Tyler, but there are so many that without further details its impossible to narrow them down.

21 Jul 2010

Credits

In those days of way back when I started listening to Radio Luxemburg late in the evening. So I recall all these songs at the threshold of British music invasion. Some titles I recall different from your list, as there are:

# 16 Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs # 48 Brian Poole & The Tremeloes # 71 Ruby & The Romantics # 95 Barbara Lewis & The Dells.

# 58 is spelled "Rote Lippen soll man Kuessen".

# 28 and # 52 are the same record.

Thanks for your fantastic work!

Let us start at the end, you suggest that "Devil In Disguise" and "(You're The) Devil in Disguise" are the same song, you are of course entirely correct. The data has been changed, thanks for the input.

Of course the issue here is that different source charts decided to pick either variation, neither could really said to be "wrong". However when we bring the data together we have to pick just one name for the song, so that all its chart entries can be listed.

Well we have the same issue with group names, except here of course we don't just have a single song, we have a whole career to deal with. So for example you are correct that the song "Do You Love Me?" was credited to "Brian Poole & the Tremeloes" in most locations, however they have more songs credited to "The Tremeloes". So in order to ensure that we associate all their material together we have to use the "wrong" name for that one song. We have added a note on to their page to outline some of this.

With "Ruby & The Romatics" we have the additional complication that some of their songs were credited to "The Romatics" and there was also a completely different group called the same name 20 years later.

Even working within these constraints you have identified some entries that need to be further corrected. We've tried to do that for the groups you mentioned, thanks again for the input.

Your knowledge of German is clearly much greater than ours so we have changed the spelling of Cliff Richard's song.

As I am sure you can imagine identifying these types of inconsistencies between our 150 input charts is a continual challenge. Your suggestions are appriciated.

25 Nov 2009

duets song

Hi, I'm looking for a duet called "I am sorry" from 1980

Linda from Denmark

We cannot find any hits with that title from 1980.

There are plenty of hits called "I'm Sorry", from a duet with Ada Jones & Billy Murray in 1907 to Roxette's version in 1995. They are listed on the page dealing with that song title. But none of them were hits in 1980.

Here are the songs we can find that sound similar and are from the right era:

John Denver - "I'm Sorry" from 1975; Chicago - "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" from 1982; REM - "South Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" from 1984; Grace Jones - "Sorry" from 1977; Mike Rondell - "I'm Sorry Sir" from 1975; Peter Koelewijn & De Rockets - "Veronica Sorry" from 1974; Hot Chocolate - "I'm Sorry" from 1983; Joey Heatherton - "I'm Sorry" from 1972; The Hothouse Flowers - "I'm Sorry" from 1988;