Surprise (chart placement)

Record World was absolutely considered an official chart, for many years one of the big three national charts in the US, along with Cashbox and Billboard. Billboard is the best known, having published national charts in various forms from 1936 to present. Cash Box published national charts in various forms from 1952 to 1996. Record World began as Music Vendor, publishing its first national chart in 1954. In 1964 it was purchased by two Cash Box employees and renamed Record World, ceasing publication in 1982. 

Joel Whitburn's Record Research books initially focused on the Billboard charts, which remains their main focus to this day, but Whitburn later added books featuring the Cash Box and Record World charts. One of the most interesting Whitburn Record Research books is entitled The Comparison book 1954-1982 which lists the debut date, peak position and weeks charted for every single to have charted on one or more of the Billboard, Cash Box and Music Vendor/Record World charts. In the case of The Beach Boys, there is only one single, Good Vibrations, where the three national charts are totally in sync with the same debut date (10/22/66), same peak position (#1 for one week) and same number of weeks on the chart (14). Do It Again is a good example of a discrepancy between the three national charts, debuting on 7/20/68 on Cash Box and 7/27/68 on Billboard and Record World. The song peaked at #7 on Record World, charting for 14 weeks, #8 on Cash Box, charting for 12 weeks, and only to #20 on Billboard, charting for 10 weeks.

(BTW, it should be noted that the chart dates are based on each magazine's cover date, which for these weekly magazines was the last day the issue was still on the newsstands as the current issue, having hit the newsstands seven days earlier, with the charts compiled at least a few days prior to that, so the charts were typically compiled around 10 or more days earlier.)