Fifty years after it first came into existence, the UK pop singles chart is still going strong and celebrates its half century on Thursday.

Created with the launch of music magazine NME, the chart is still adhered to as the indicator of which artists are flavour of the week, in terms of sales.

To mark the creation of what has become a UK institution, events have been taking place over the past few months.

They have included the publication of commemorative books and an exhibition at the British Library.

The latest was NME's chart of the greatest single to date, with Joy Division's 1980 track Love Will Tear Us Apart named number one.

David Bowie is still going strong

The anniversary singles rundown was compiled from the opinion of music writers.

Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit came in second place, followed by Anarchy In The UK by the Sex Pistols.

The Rolling Stones had four singles in the top 100, including number four's entry Paint It Black. David Bowie was at number five with Heroes.

Electronic

The singles chart was the creation of Percy Dickins of NME who thought it would be a fun way to attract readers.

When it first appeared in the then fledgling magazine - on 14 November 1952 - it was only made up of 12 tracks.

The number one song was Al Martino's Here In My Heart.

Mr Dickins compiled the chart using an unsophisticated method of canvassing the opinion of some of his music industry friends.

These days, the singles chart is drawn up electronically by the Official UK Charts Company and is based on sales in 5,000 retail outlets.

The singles chart is increasingly dismissed by some as a measure of an artist's marketing clout rather than the quality of the music produced.

However, it remains a powerful tool for the music industry to gauge opinion and further influence music consumers.

It also acts as a valuable snapshot of the evolution of music tastes of the time.