We hope you enjoyed hearing the Top 200 from our All Time Chart this year. Each year, it’s much talked about – and it delivers our highest ever audiences.  This year was no exception!

Thanks too for voting this year – we received more votes than ever.

Here’s this year’s rundown.

As is the case with Boom Radio itself, the chart was dominated by music from the 1960s and 1970s. The Beatles were the most popular artists with 23 titles in the Top 200 and Elvis was also well represented with 7 of his songs in the chart this year. 

The oldest record was True Love Ways by Buddy Holly - first released almost 70 years ago in 1956.  The most recent entry was Love Is All Around by Wet Wet Wet from 1994, as featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral, which had been a UK Number One for 15 weeks on its release.

This year's highest climber was Rockin' All Over The World by Status Quo - up by a massive 154 places to 41.  Our highest new entry was Billie Jean by Michael Jackson at 32 and Dusty was once again the highest placed female artist with Goin' Back at 35. 

There were six Motown songs in this chart - including two by Marvin Gaye and Baby Love was a new entry for Diana Ross & The Supremes at 89. 

Boom favourite Clifford T. Ward – Worcestershire's highly acclaimed, yet much underrated, singer-songwriter and former West Midlands teacher - again scores well with Home Thoughts from Abroad and Gaye. 

Listeners have also voted for a number of album tracks, including Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones from Let It Bleed and Queen's Love Of My Life from A Night At The Opera. 

As ever, we received lots of feedback. Whilst most loved tuning-in, a few remain perplexed by Whiter Shade of Pale being the enduring Number One. But the track was self-evidently hugely popular and a clear winner – maybe no surprise for one of the most commercially successful singles of all time – released in 1967, a year we know to be much-loved by our audience for its music.

Boom listener Graham Duke from Edlesborough in Buckinghamshire has been reflecting on his own careful records of all of our charts since 2021!

Graham writes:

There have been 358 different songs in the Top 200 since 2021, 10 were released in the 1950s, 171 in the 1960s, 142 in the 1970s and 35 in the 1980s.

217 artists have been featured  - predominantly males. 82 by solo males, 92 by male groups, 23 by solo females, 5 by female groups and 15 by mixed groups.

Over the five years, the artists with the most chart entries are The Beatles with 25 songs, followed by Elvis Presley with 9, but only one of his has managed to get in the top ten, The Rolling Stones with 6 and Cliff Richard and Dusty Springfield each with 5, but 4 of her hits haven't charted since 2022.

Despite their dominance, the average chart position of any Beatles song is number 89 and only two of the songs have got into the top ten. At the other end of the spectrum, 64 artists have had just one song with only one chart entry in total in the five years.

It's interesting that some of the best-selling artists of all time hardly feature in the charts at all; Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' has only charted twice, Elton John has had only one song in the charts, 'Your Song' and the highest that achieved was 63 last year, ABBA have had only three songs in the charts, the highest being 'Dancing Queen' at number 37 in 2022 and both Celine Dion and Madonna have failed to trouble the scorers at all.

Overall, the trends do not look promising for anyone looking for radical changes to the top of the chart with the top ten remaining largely unchanged over the years, the top three has remained almost completely unchanged for the past three years. However, the chart is constantly changing in the lower reaches. There were 78 new entries in 2022, 37 in 2023 and 20 in 2024 and 2025. Over the years, the chart has seen many songs leave one year and re-enter in a later year, there were 15 this year.

Some curious chart positions have appeared over the years, notably House Of Rising Sun by The Animals which got to numbers 15, 10, 14 and 15 but only 144 in 2023. Elvis Presley's If I Can Dream was at number 4 in 2023 but then dropped 70 places the next year. Leapy Lee had a song called It's All Happening mysteriously make just one appearance at number 55 in 2022, despite not many people ever hearing it before. The song which surprised most people this year was Mull Of Kintyre by Wings which failed to chart for the first two years and only got to numbers 61 and 85 the last two years but leaped up to number 9 this year.

The chart generally reflects the varying tastes of the many people who vote. We are all different and if we all liked the same thing, it wouldn't be very interesting each year but there are always enough changes to keep most of us happy and satisfied, so long may it continue.

Graham Duke

Read here more about how the Chart is produced.