List of UK top-ten singles in 1966

1960s in music in the UK
Events
Tom Jones (pictured in 2018) had the best-selling single of 1966 with "Green, Green Grass of Home". The song spent seven weeks at number-one and thirteen weeks in the top 10 in total. It also went on to be ranked as the 10th biggest-selling song of the 1960s.
In September of this year, two years after he was killed in a plane crash, Jim Reeves posthumously achieved his only UK number-one single with "Distant Drums", which spent five weeks at the top spot.
1966 proved to be a very successful year for The Beach Boys, who achieved four consecutive UK top 10 entries, all making the top three. The most successful of these was "Good Vibrations", which reached number-one for two weeks in November.

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 1966, as well as singles which peaked in 1965 and 1967 but were in the top 10 in 1966. 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).

One-hundred and nineteen singles were in the top ten in 1966. Ten singles from 1965 remained in the top 10 for several weeks at the beginning of the year, while "Save Me" by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan and "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" by Jimmy Ruffin were all released in 1966 but did not reach their peak until 1967. "Let's Hang On!" by The Four Seasons featuring Frankie Valli, and "My Ship Is Comin' In" by The Walker Brothers were the singles from 1965 to reach their peak in 1966. Twenty-eight artists scored multiple entries in the top 10 in 1966. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, Four Tops, Ike & Tina Turner, Nancy Sinatra, Small Faces and The Spencer Davis Group were among the many artists who achieved their first UK charting top 10 single in 1966.

The 1965 Christmas number-one, "Day Tripper"/"We Can Work It Out" by The Beatles, remained at number one for the first three weeks of 1966. The first new number-one single of the year was "Keep On Running" by The Spencer Davis Group. Overall, twenty different singles peaked at number-one in 1966, with The Spencer Davis Group and The Beatles (2) having the joint 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.