CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

1. Sign up as a site member or log in if you are an existing member

2. Choose a monthly or annual subscription here

Subscribe to
Chart Beats in
two quick steps

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.

Mar 22, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: March 23, 1980

It's always fun discovering that a song you like is a cover version and then going back to listen to the original. Especially when for...

Mar 15, 2020
2 min

This Week In 1980: March 16, 1980

One of the best parts of these weekly trips back to the Australian singles chart of 1980 is seeing artists have their first hits and...

Mar 8, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: March 9, 1980

So far in these flashbacks to the Australian top 50 from 1980, we've seen some of the first big hits of the decade. This week that year,...

Mar 1, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: March 2, 1980

This week in 1980, it was a big week for new entries on the Australian singles chart, with four future top 10 hits debuting. Two of those...

Feb 23, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: February 24, 1980

Who said disco was dead? This week in 1980, the dance genre that was facing a backlash around the world was proving as popular as ever in...

Feb 16, 2020
4 min

This Week In 1980: February 17, 1980

These days, some artists don't even bother with albums, opting to release a series of singles and EPs instead, but back in the 1970s, the...

Feb 9, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: February 10, 1980

In "Paninaro", Pet Shop Boys' Chris Lowe listed rockabilly as one of the genres he doesn't like — there's quite a list (but what he does...

Feb 2, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: February 3, 1980

Husband and wife musical duos don't tend to end well. Look at Sonny & Cher and Ike & Tina Turner. But when the chemistry is right, they...

Jan 26, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: January 27, 1980

For celebrities in 2020, multi-tasking means appearing on a reality TV show and maintaining an Instagram account. In the '70s and '80s,...

Jan 19, 2020
3 min

This Week In 1980: January 20, 1980

OK, let's get this 1980 party started for real. I wrote about the first new chart for the decade in 2018 and updated my post last week —...

Jul 1, 2018
16 min

The first Australian singles chart of the 1980s

Originally posted in 2018. Updated in 2020. When I started this blog six years ago, I took a look back at the first ARIA chart I...

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.