List of UK top-ten singles in 1956

1950s in music in the UK
Events
←1949
Pat Boone (pictured in 1960) had the best-selling single of 1956 with "I'll Be Home", which topped the charts for five weeks and spent seventeen weeks in the top 10.
Doris Day achieved her second and final UK number-one single this year with the Academy Award-winning song from the film The Man Who Knew Too Much, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)".
In November 1956, Johnnie Ray scored the second of his three UK number-one singles with "Just Walkin' in the Rain", which topped the chart for seven weeks and also became the year's Christmas number-one.
Dean Martin achieved his only UK number-one single in February of this year with "Memories Are Made of This", which spent four weeks at the top of the chart.

The UK Singles Chart is one of many music charts compiled by the Official Charts Company that calculates the best-selling singles of the week in the United Kingdom.[1] Before 2004, the chart was only based on the sales of physical singles.[2][3] This list shows singles that peaked in the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart during 1956, as well as singles which peaked in 1955 and 1957 but were in the top 10 in 1956. The entry date is when the single appeared in the top 10 for the first time (week ending, as published by the Official Charts Company, which is six days after the chart is announced).

Eighty-four singles were in the top ten in 1956. Eight singles from 1955 remained in the top 10 for several weeks at the beginning of the year, while "Make It a Party" by Winifred Atwell, "Singing the Blues" by Guy Mitchell and "True Love" by Bing Crosby & Grace Kelly were all released in 1956 but did not reach their peak until 1957. "Meet Me on the Corner" by Max Bygraves, "Suddenly There's a Valley" by Petula Clark and "Twenty Tiny Fingers" by The Stargazers were the singles from 1955 to reach their peak in 1956. Eighteen artists scored multiple entries in the top 10 in 1956. Elvis Presley, Frankie Vaughan and Lonnie Donegan were among the many artists who achieved their first UK charting top 10 single in 1956.

The 1955 Christmas number-one, "Christmas Alphabet" by Dickie Valentine, remained at number-one for the first week of 1956. The first new number-one single of the year was "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Overall, eleven different singles peaked at number-one in 1956, with eleven unique artists having the most singles hit that position.

  1. ^ "The Official UK Charts Company". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
  2. ^ Roberts, David (2005). Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles and Albums (18th edition). Guinness World Records Limited. p. 14. ISBN 1-904994-00-8.
  3. ^ "New singles formats to save the charts". BBC News. 16 October 2003. Retrieved 21 February 2010.