Talk:Hatful Of Hollow

Hatful charted at number 7 in the main charts the week ending Nov 24, 1984.
That wouldn't be based on 22 day's worth of sales.
That puts it at a later date than Friday 2nd.
Going through every week of Record Mirror, Hatful is next mentioned via chart placement.
PJLM (which I loath relying on) notes the LP and tape came out on different dates - my diary at the time agrees.
Namely:
"UK LP and cassette: 12/16 November 1984"
Monday releases were commonplace.
Not so sure about Friday ones though...
Rogan states it was "rush released" by Rough Trade on the 12th - which is an odd thing to misremember.

Record Mirror:

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This needs discussion rather than reverts like the external wiki.
I think the Record Mirror charting information is possibly a better source than the one referenced??
FWD.

The November 03 edition of the magazine had zero reference to the album or The Smiths
The November 10 edition of the magazine album itself carried a review of the album.
The November 10 edition carried a W.H. Smith's hit list citing Hatful as a "this weeks new releases" - again this is later than the previous Friday.
(saying this week's.. would put it at the 5th, but the magazine was out 6 days later on a Saturday - so is likely to mean the following week?)
The November 17 edition - nothing.
The November 24 edition has the first week in chart info above.
The December 01 edition has the UK charts showing the album had been there 2 weeks and now moved to number 11.

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DT: Thanks for posting the info. I agree the charts line up for the later release date. Record Mirror may not be the best authority for release dates and isn't the end-all reference.

In the Hatful debut chart Duran Duran's "Arena" is released the same week. Looking that up it's stated as November 12, 1984.

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It’s not just the Record Mirror that indicates a non-12th release. Music Week listed HoH in their New Release section of their November 3rd issue. In the late 80s and early 90s an appearance in this New Releases section of Music Week indicated a Monday-after-publication-date (bank holidays excepted). Before the late 80s, though, the U.K. Release day-of-week was fairly well divided between Fridays and Mondays. This is why it’s still reasonable for the New Releases section of the November 3rd issue of Music Week to be referring both to the previous Friday as well as to the following Monday.

While helpful, chart entry data cannot be taken as conclusive proof of anything except that an album had definitely been released by that entry date.

Not that I trust the BPI award site any more than other non-contemporaneous sources, it is curious that they have the release date as November 16 (also a Friday).

As for “this week” my experience has borne out that when Brits wrote “this week” in 80s music magazines, they were talking about the week that had just been—and not about the week to come. Alainsane (talk) 23:57, 14 November 2024 (PST)Alainsane

—— Reviews in 1980s U.K. music magazines have (in my concerted survey of their content for all music in my realm of interest—not just The Smiths) normally followed album releases—not preceded them. fwiw Alainsane (talk) 00:04, 15 November 2024 (PST)