List of instrumental number ones on the UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is a record chart compiled on behalf of the British record industry. Since 1997, the chart has been compiled by the Official Charts Company (formerly The Official UK Charts Company and the Chart Information Network) and until 2005 (when digital downloads were included in the chart compilation), the chart was based entirely on sales of physical singles from retail outlets.^[1][2] The UK Singles Chart originated in 1952, when New Musical Express (NME) published the first chart of singles sales.^[3] The positions of all songs are based on week-end sale totals, from Sunday to Saturday,^[4] but pre-1987 the charts were released on a Tuesday because of the need for manual calculation.^[5]

Since inception there have been nearly 1,200 number ones; of these, instrumental tracks (i.e. those without any lyrics) have topped the chart on 25 occasions for a total of 83 weeks.^[a] The Shadows have had the most instrumental number ones, with five between 1960 and 1963. Three other artists have had more than one instrumental number one: Eddie Calvert (in 1954 and 1955), Winifred Atwell (in 1954 and 1956) and Russ Conway (both in 1959). Calvert's track "O Mein Papa" stayed at the top of the charts for nine weeks, longer than any other instrumental single. The single "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)" has been an instrumental number one for two different artists (Calvert and Perez Prado) in 1955. To date, Martin Garrix is the most recent artist to have an instrumental number one, with "Animals" in November 2013.

Number ones[edit]

Artist	Single	Record label[b]	Reached number one[c]	Weeks at number one[c]	Reference
Mantovani	"The Song from Moulin Rouge"	Decca	14 August 1953	1	[7]
Eddie Calvert	"O Mein Papa"	Columbia	8 January 1954	9	[8]
Winifred Atwell	"Let's Have Another Party"	Philips	3 December 1954	5	[9]
Perez Prado	"Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)"	HMV	29 April 1955	2	[10]
Eddie Calvert	"Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)"	Columbia	27 May 1955	4	[8]
Winifred Atwell	"Poor People of Paris"	Philips	13 April 1956	3	[9]
Lord Rockingham's XI	"Hoots Mon"[a]	Decca	28 November 1958	3	[11]
Russ Conway	"Side Saddle"	Columbia	27 March 1959	4	[12]
Russ Conway	"Roulette"	Columbia	19 June 1959	2	[12]
The Shadows	"Apache"	Columbia	25 August 1960	5	[13][14]
Floyd Cramer	"On the Rebound"	RCA	18 May 1961	1	[15]
The Shadows	"Kon-Tiki"	Columbia	5 October 1961	1	[15]
The Shadows	"Wonderful Land"	Columbia	22 March 1962	8	[14]
B. Bumble and the Stingers	"Nut Rocker"	Top Rank	17 May 1962	2	[16]
The Tornados	"Telstar"	Decca	4 October 1962	5	[14]
The Shadows	"Dance On!"	Columbia	24 January 1963	1	[17]
Jet Harris and Tony Meehan	"Diamonds"	Decca	31 January 1963	3	[13][18]
The Shadows	"Foot Tapper"	Columbia	29 March 1963	1	[17]
Hugo Montenegro	"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"	RCA	13 November 1968	4	[19]
Fleetwood Mac	"Albatross"	Blue Horizon	29 January 1969	1	[14]
Royal Scots Dragoon Guards	"Amazing Grace"	RCA	15 April 1972	5	[14]
Lieutenant Pigeon	"Mouldy Old Dough"	Decca	14 October 1972	4	[14][not in citation given]
Simon Park Orchestra	"Eye Level"	Columbia	29 September 1973	4	[14]
Doop	"Doop"	Citybeat	19 March 1994	3	[20][not in citation given]
Mr. Oizo	"Flat Beat"	F Communications /PIAS	3 April 1999	2	[21]
Martin Garrix	"Animals"	Spinnin	23 November 2013	1	[22]