Singles are a type of music release that typically have fewer tracks than an extended play or album; during the 1950s, sales of singles in the United Kingdom were compiled by the magazine New Musical Express (NME), and published weekly as a record chart. The singles chart was founded in 1952 by Percy Dickins of the NME, who wanted to imitate the hit parade that featured in the American magazine Billboard; before this, the popularity of a song had been measured by its sales of sheet music.[1] Dickins sampled twenty shops, asking which their ten biggest-selling singles were. His aggregated list of sales was then published in the NME on 14 November 1952 as a Top 12 chart.[1] The NME
Sales of records significantly increased in the mid-fifties, following the birth of rock and roll. As a result, the top ten biggest-selling singles of the 1950s were all released in the latter half of the decade.[4] The biggest-selling single of this period was "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets, which became the first single ever to sell more than a million copies in the UK.[5]
| Single | scope=col | Artist | scope=col | Record label | scope=col | Year | scope=col | Sales | scope=col | Chart peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 1 | "Rock Around the Clock" | Brunswick | 1955 | 1,390,000 | 1 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2 | "Diana" | Columbia | 1957 | 1,240,000 | 1 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 3 | "Mary's Boy Child" | RCA | 1957 | 1,170,000 | 1 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 4 | "What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?" | Pye | 1959 | 920,000 | 1 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 5 | "Jailhouse Rock" | RCA | 1958 | 880,000 | 1 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 6 | "What Do You Want?" | Parlophone | 1959 | 820,000 | 1 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 7 | "Living Doll" | Columbia | 1959 | 770,000 | 1 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 8 | "All Shook Up" | HMV | 1957 | 740,000 | 1 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 9 | "Love Letters in the Sand" | London | 1957 | 710,000 | 2 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 10 | "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" | Coral | 1959 | 680,000 | 1 |