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CLICK BELOW TO DISPLAY SECTIONS FOR 1956:
The year end charts as published by Billboard each year were necessarily limited. In order to publish the chart the last week of December, the magazine stopped including rankings effectively the final week of November. In some cases, this caused records whose popularity crossed over from one year to another to be underrated. In some cases, these records ended up on the year end chart for two different years. In some cases, the records were not included in either chart in spite of significant popularity. The “Elvis Era Power Ranking” is an effort to correct this oversight by including all the weeks a record was on the charts, not just the weeks of a particular year. The rating is based on the record's performance in the top twenty: 20 points for being #1, 19 for #2, etc. In the case of the “cross-over” records, whether a record is included in the chart for the year it first entered or the year it last charted, the record was assigned the year in which it enjoyed its highest popularity. In some cases, there were records that were so closely split that they were included on two year end charts.
Click on the buttons below to access details about each particular set of rankings:
The biggest difference between the 1956 Billboard end of year chart and the EE chart is the record at #1. "The Green Door" was Billboard's #19 for 1956 and #44 for 1957. With its combined record, that extended from 10/6/1956 to 2/23/1957, Jim Lowe's "The Green Door" made the #1 rank for 1956.
There are sixteen records that are included in the EE 1956 Top 100 that debuted in 1955. One of those, “I Hear You Knocking” by Gale Storm, actually peaked at #2 on December 17, 1955, but remained in the top twenty for the first seven weeks of 1956. Storm’s recording was ranked #20 on the 1955 year end “Top Singles” chart by Billboard but was absent from the 1956 list. “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford did much better on the EE chart as it had entered the top ten on November 12th, 1955 and had actually been the #1 song the final six weeks of 1955. It continued to hold the top position for the first two weeks of 1956 and achieved the #3 rank by EE as opposed to the #22 rank it was awarded by Billboard in 1956 and the #13 it achieved in 1955. “Love and Marriage” was ignored by the 1956 Billboard year end chart. Frank Sinatra’s recording was in the top twenty for the final nine weeks of 1955, peaking at #5 on December 31st. After dropping to #8 on January 7th, it bounced back to the #5 spot on January 14th and didn’t leave the top twenty until February 18th. This stretch of popularity produced a #33 ranking on the EE chart.
Two records had significant popularity in 1956, but actually peaked in 1957. “True Love” by Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly achieved its highest ranking in 1957 after beginning success on the chart in 1956. Debuting on November 13th, it was in the top twenty for eleven weeks. It peaked at #4 the first week of 1957 and spent seven more weeks in the top twenty, earning a #21 year end ranking by EE as opposed to its #44 Billboard position. Guy Mitchell’s #1 song, “Singing the Blues" was recognized by Billboard as #40 in 1956 and would rank it #7 in 1957. The split is quite justified as “Singing the Blues” was in the top twenty for ten weeks in 1956 and for eleven weeks in 1957. It reached #1 initially on December 1st, 1956 and held the top spot for the first six weeks of 1957. It will be included in the 1957 EE ranking.
Another record that improves significantly in the 1956 EE rankings is “Blueberry Hill” by Fats Domino. It reached #4 on the Billboard Top 100 on December 12th, its ninth week in the top twenty. It remained in the top twenty for the first eight weeks of 1957. The dual success produced Billboard rankings of 41 for 1956 and 48 for 1957. When the entire record of the song’s success is calculated, it ends up as the #16 song for 1956. The inclusion in 1956 is somewhat arbitrary as “Blueberry Hill”’s chart success was nearly evenly split between ’56 and ’57. Being a “cross-over” record also hurt its ranking by Cashbox (#39 for both ’56 and ’57) and Gilbert & Theroux (totally ignored both years).
The chart below is sortable by clicking on the column header.