CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

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About Chart Beats

Chart Beats: A Journey Through Pop has been looking back at music from the '80s, '90s, 2000s and 2010s since 2012. Run by freelance journalist and content creator Gavin Scott in Sydney, Australia.

Dec 27, 2020
7 min

This Week In 1980: December 28, 1980

There are few music acts that can legitimately claim to have the word "mania" tacked onto the end of the name. The Beatles are one. And...

Dec 21, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: December 21, 1980

In 1990, Tina Arena and Dannii Minogue both reached the top 5 of the ARIA singles chart, but (unless I'm forgetting someone) you have to...

Dec 14, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: December 14, 1980

Sometimes all it takes is a little patience. Twenty-two years' worth of patience. That's the amount of time between number 1 hits for the...

Dec 7, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: December 7, 1980

We've reached the final month of my look back at the Australian singles chart from 1980. I'll be announcing my plans to cover 1981 (and...

Nov 30, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: November 30, 1980

It was a major source of frustration for me how behind the times Australia was in the 1980s, with it routinely taking ages for overseas...

Nov 23, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: November 23, 1980

As we've seen in our trips back to 1980, the first year of the decade was notable for many musical milestones and events. Then, in the...

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: November 16, 1980

While some singers can wear out their welcome on the top 50, others' careers take a different approach as they land less frequent hits —...

Nov 9, 2020
5 min

This Week In 1980: November 9, 1980

To paraphrase the number 18 song on the Australian singles chart from this week in 1980: everybody's got to start somewhere. And in the...

Nov 2, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: November 2, 1980

Australia was living in a time warp this week in 1980, with two of the three new entries on the top 50 at least a year old. In one case,...

Oct 26, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: October 26, 1980

Some artists stick to their sound through thick and thin, pumping out album after album of the same type of material. Other acts mix...

Oct 19, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: October 19, 1980

After they dominated the music scene in the late '70s, it made sense for Bee Gees to take more of a backseat approach to the music...

Oct 12, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: October 12, 1980

Having never really paid that much attention to the Australian charts of the 1960s and '70s, I'm often surprised when I do look back...

Oct 5, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: October 5, 1980

Girl groups (as opposed to girl bands) were thin on the ground in the early '80s — after having been a major part of music in the '60s...

Sep 28, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: September 28, 1980

I tend to favour female singers over male singers, especially in more recent decades. But there were a number of great male performers in...

Sep 21, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: September 21, 1980

The year had already seen some big musical movies in the form of Can't Stop The Music and Xanadu, and this week in 1980, another film...

Sep 14, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: September 14, 1980

From Gundegai to Kokomo, and New York to London, locations have provided the inspiration for hit singles for... as long as there have...

Sep 7, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: September 7, 1980

It's always surprising how some music legends haven't actually had that many hits in Australia. In terms of American female superstars, a...

Aug 31, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: August 31, 1980

Sometimes a record company has got to do whatever it takes to turn a song into a hit, even if that means misrepresenting the artist in...

Aug 23, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: August 24, 1980

Despite being only five years old at the time, I have some clear memories from 1980, one of which was starting school. I also remember...

Aug 16, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: August 17, 1980

Standing out from a famous family can be tricky, especially when one of your brothers is the most famous pop star in the world. But this...

Chart Beats has launched its first podcast: A Journey Through Stock Aitken Waterman, which is working its way through every single produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman in chronological order. Each episode, hosts Gavin Scott and Matthew Denby cover a handful of tracks, discussing the stories behind them, debating whether they were as big as they deserved and speaking to some of the talent involved.

Chart Beats subscribers have access to exclusive content, including extended interviews and extra discussion we can't fit in the regular episodes. Click here for more info.