CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

The Olympic Games have always been a big deal in Australia, with the nation stopping for certain medal events and taking particular pride...

Some artists are lucky to have a hit at all, while others visit the top 50 multiple times. And sometimes, a performer will be successful...

Sometimes even the most floundering of careers can get right back on track with one hit single — all it takes is the right song at the...

Sometimes a great soundtrack single can do wonders for an average film — especially in the '80s when movie songs were big business and...

As much as I love pure pop, synthpop, R&B and dance music, I also have plenty of time for pop/rock groups. That was especially the case...

Plenty of music acts gain a devoted following — in recent years, everyone from One Direction to Beyoncé has had a fanbase with a cute...

We've reached the halfway point of our look back at the Australian singles chart of 1980. And to mark the occasion... a pretty dull chart...

A couple of months earlier, disco seemed to be on its last legs, but it's not over until the fat lady sings. Or a group of six men in fancy dress costumes. Nobody could stop Village People getting to number 1 in 1980 This week in 1980, two major disco records burst onto the Australian singles chart on their way to number 1. Genre resurgence or last hurrah? Rocky Burnette enjoyed a last hurrah at number 1 this week at number 1 as "Tired Of Toein' The Line" spent its second wee

Australia had plenty of successful rock bands in 1980, but with the rise of synthpop and new wave, a new breed of local groups started to hit the charts. Flowers had a big future ahead of them... mostly under another name This week in 1980, the band that became Australia's most consistently successful new wave band arrived on the top 50 with their debut single — the first of six top 10 hits they would score over the next few years. Australia's favourite imported new wave band

From Dragon and Mi-Sex to Sharon O'Neill and Jenny Morris, many bands and singers from New Zealand have made their way across the Tasman...

There are some acts you wish would be more successful, and others where it's a blessing they haven't had more hits. This week in 1980,...

It had to happen eventually. After weeks of seeing loads of classic tracks debut on the Australian singles top 50 from 1980, we've...

So far in our trip back to the Australian singles chart of 1980, we've seen one-hit wonders Player [1] and Fiddler's Dram — two acts...

I recently posted a video of my favourite Australian bands of the 1980s on the Chart Beats Facebook page, and someone noted the absence of AC/DC and The Angels. With some odd exceptions, my musical taste has always veered away from the harder end of the rock spectrum — thus, the subtitle of this blog: A Journey Through Pop. Give me US soul groups over pub rock any day Nothing illustrates that better than the three top 50 new entries (and some of the songs that missed the char

It's hard to think of a genre in music as divisive as disco. How many other types of music have had calls for it to be killed off? By...

When is a one-hit wonder not a one-hit wonder? When they actually had a second huge hit that often gets forgetten about. This week in...

As much as I've always tried to keep on top of what's going on in music, it wasn't easy in the 1980s, especially when I was very young....

In my 1995 flashbacks, we recently saw that despite going on to become one of this country's defining musical moments, Christine Anu's cover of "Island Home" failed to make much of an impression on the ARIA chart. Fifteen years earlier, another song that is inextricably linked with Australia's self-identity flopped just as monumentally. This Peter Allen song didn't find a home in very many Australians' record collections Whereas Christine Anu was an emerging artist, the man

Unless you happen to perform with your significant other (Sonny & Cher, Captain & Tennille) or record songs with them (Kylie Minogue and...

Every so often, a band comes along that is unlike any other. Like this week in 1980, when a new wave group from the US broke into the...