CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. I don't know what was going on this week in 1987, but if the...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. I'm sure I've said this already about 1987, but the top 50 chart...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. 1987 really was a banner year for the Australian music scene. I've already discussed some of the big developments in music television that year (goodbye Countdown, hello Rage and Video Hits), but I have yet to mention MTV, which launched on Channel 9 in 1987 as well. My enduring memories of the Richard Wilkins-hosted late night show was that it always showed the R-rated version of clips that you'd obviousl

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. I remember being excited any week there were lots of new entries...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. In the past week, I attended my high school's 20 year reunion — it being (almost) two decades since I completed Year 12 in November 1992. On the night, schoolmates I haven't seen in years commented that they recall me always having an ARIA chart or issue of Smash Hits on hand. I guess it's nice to be remembered for something other than being crap at rugby. Who's That Girl: great song, terrible movie Somethi

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. Who can remember where they were when they first heard "Locomotion"? I can. I watched it nine times in a row when I played my VHS recording of the Countdown episode it first appeared on. A few weeks later, Kylie Minogue's debut single arrived on the ARIA top 50. Kylie had good reason to smile We'll get to where it entered the chart later (or you can cheat and look at the printout below), but I think it's sa

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. It was one of Australian television's most watched moments. A soap...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. Last week was all about the controversial “I Want Your Sex”, which jumped from 31 to 13 this week on the ARIA singles chart. But there was nothing raunchy about the new arrivals on the top 50 this week in 1987. Thanks to Tom Cruise, an eight-year-old song became a massive hit in 1987 On the one hand, a batch of golden oldies and mature artists hit the chart; on the other, two doses of squeaky clean pop fro

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2012. Updated in 2017. A week after picking up my first ARIA chart, I decided I just had...

This week in 1987, I picked up a copy of the latest ARIA chart from my local record store (remember those?) and studied it from top to bottom, before filing it away for safe keeping — something I would do for the next 11 years. Look, here it is: I still have every chart from July 1987 to May 1998 (when I left Australia to go backpacking), and I would've kept the collection going, but the person I'd lined up to stockpile the charts in my absence turned out to be a bit crap, an