The British Hit Parade 1959-62

The music business was transformed in the middle years of the 1950s by the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll as not only a powerful and increasingly evident element in the record sales charts, but a catalyst for huge social change as the teenage baby-boomers asserted themselves as an economic force. Acrobat has a long-established, popular and successful series called The British Hit Parade which features, for the years 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962 every record which appeared in the UK Top 30 and then Top 50 during those years, comprising 2 4-CD sets for 1959, and then 3 4-CD sets for each of the other years – a total of around 1500 records across the four years. This great-value 40-track 2-CD set comprises a distillation of some of the biggest hits across those three cataclysmic years after the American rock ‘n’ roll legends made inroads into the established order of middle-of-the-road 50s pop, and then Britain developed its own rock 'n' roll and teen stars to match the new generation of US idols, and instrumental hits also made their mark. The pop landscape evolved as rock ‘n’ roll’s first thrusts abated, and Tin Pan Alley took over once more, with the arrival of new stars in the early ‘60s giving the charts a varied look, with the new musical upheaval that would be marked by arrival of The Beatles and the beat era still unheralded, but not far away. Every single one of the records in this collection was a No.1 in the charts, so these are hits that many people who were growing up through those years will remember as key landmarks in a teenage rite of passage, from novelty hits and big ballads to out-and-out rock ‘n’ roll, and songs of teen angst to guitar instrumentals. It makes for evocative and hugely entertaining listening.