CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. As 2014 comes to an end, so too does our look back at the ARIA top...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. What would the Australian pop music scene have been without...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. As the world headed towards the 1990s, Australia found itself at a...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Everything old was new again on the ARIA chart this week in 1989,...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. In the almost two-and-a-half years that I've been writing this...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. There's a lot to be said for going out on top — but...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. It was a good week for cover versions this week in 1989, with three...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Pop music has always been a fairly fickle business — and that was as evident as ever this week in 1989 on the ARIA singles top 50. Four of the performers debuting on the chart had enjoyed massive hits just months earlier but struggled with their latest releases. Billy Joel bucked the trend to land his biggest hit in years In all four cases, the downturn in chart fortunes was probably warranted — the sin

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. I'm sure someone has a record of how many times this happened in...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. One minute, you're barely scraping into the top 40; the next, you're winging your way towards your first top 10 hit. Yep, just like that, fortunes can change on the ARIA chart — and this week in 1989, a male artist who was having a massive year in the States debuted with the song that'd help him cross over in Australia. It was a good week for Bobby Brown on both sides of the ARIA chart At the other end o

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Earlier in the '80s, medleys had been big business on the...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Everybody loves a comeback, and this week in 1989, two artists...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Sometimes it pays off for an artist to make a dramatic departure...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Over the years, rap and R&B artists have caused a lot of...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Some weeks, the new entries on the ARIA singles chart from 1989...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Singers emerging from TV shows might seem like a relatively...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. Back in 1989, the concept of the B-side was still alive and well....

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. This week in 1989, a duo with braided hair based in Germany...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. Not many artists can lay claim to releasing 100 singles in their...

Originally posted as  25 Years Ago This Week  in 2014. Updated in 2019. Success can be a fleeting thing, especially in pop music. One...