THE GUINNESS BOOK OF HITS AND MISTAKES!

                  2000 ERRORS IN POP MUSIC 'BIBLE'

The new Guinness Book of Hit Singles - the 'bible' of pop fans - contains nearly TWO THOUSAND mistakes. Music lovers have begun bombarding publishers with complaints about the latest edition. Among its more spectacular clangers it has the worlds' biggest selling record, Elton Johns' Candle In the Wind, at Number 64 in its list of top 100 singles of all time.  It FAILS to include two of Abba's greatest hits, WRONGLY states drummer Tony McCarroll is still a member of Oasis and that singer Shania Twain is American - she is Canadian. It CALLS one Paul McCartney song Beautiful Tonight when it should be It Is Beautiful Tonight and a George Michael song I Can Make You Love Me - it should be I Can't Make You Love Me. It OMITS as top 10 hits Halo by Texas and The Corrs What Can I Do. It MIS-SPELLS the surname of Lena Martell, who had the hit One Day At A Time, as Marten. It FAILS to note teenage sensation Billie had two No1 triumphs.... and it LISTS Levi ad tune Inside by Stiltskin as an instrumental No1 when it is a vocal record.

The erros shocked DJ Paul Gambaccini, one of the founding authors of the book before publishers told him they no longer needed his services. He said: "I just looked at the first page and noticed Super Trouper and Chiquitita were missing from Abba's hit list. "You cant get more of an omission than that. They obviously dont know their stuff, listing Shania Twain as an American vocalist. It is a great shame - it was always intended to be the ultimate reference work in the field."

Gambaccini helped to compile the first 10 editions of the book when sales in the mid 1980s reached one million before dramatically falling. He said: "What you get out is what you put in and part of what you put in is tedious - fact checking, but if you love the project and believe in it then you will be committed to accuracy. There is nobody full time doing this now."

DJ Jon Kutner also worked on previous editions. Kutner, 36, who compiles music quizzes, said: "I have gone through the book and found nearly 2000 mistakes, including dates, catalogue errors, all kinds of little mistakes. It took me over eighteen months to find them all. It is shocking there are so many unnecessary errors."

A Guinness Book Of Records spokeswoman said: "We are looking into the mistakes at the moment and they will be changed for the re-print. There are 32,000 hits which we provide information about and there is only a small proportion of errors."

THE TOP 100 SINGLES OF ALL TIME .... possibly! 

  24/03/01