CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. As I sat down to write this week's look back at the ARIA chart from...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. You don't see so many of them these days, but in 1989, cover...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. I've just realised it's been just over two years since I started...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. Movie soundtracks were big business in the 1980s — and so was the...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. It was a bit of weird week on the ARIA top 50 singles chart this...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. A few months ago, I looked at politics in music, and while overseas...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. Girl power was in full force on the ARIA singles chart this week...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. It's been a long time since 1989 and a lot has happened to the...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. At the moment, I'm in the middle of counting down my favourite...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. Regular readers of my weekly trip back to the ARIA charts from...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. So far this year, we've looked back on some of 1989's biggest...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. In the pre-internet dark ages, it was not unusual for Australia to...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. It was hardly "War", "Fight The Power" or "We Shall Overcome", but this week in 1989, a protest song (allegedly) for the house music generation debuted on the ARIA singles chart. It only spent one week in the top 50 and didn't generate much publicity in Australia, but it was a different matter altogether in the UK, where the song originated. Australia, it seemed, would rather Fleetwood Mac than The Reynolds

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. Every boy band needs a bad boy member — and this week in 1989, the man who set the standard for the likes of Donnie Wahlberg, Robbie Williams and Harry Styles hit the Australian top 50 as a solo performer. Bobby Brown: earning some of the money that kept him and Whitney off crack The band that launched him, New Edition, were never as big in Australia as they were back home in the US — their sole top 50 hit

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. In 1999, there was a highly publicised chart battle in the UK...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. I wonder if ARIA actually received complaints about the top 50...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. There are some songs that get covered over and over, in a variety of genres and by a wide assortment of artists — and this week in 1989, two such songs entered the ARIA top 50 singles chart. The Bangles held it together long enough to land one of their biggest hits One of the debuts was the original version of a song by a girl band who wouldn't be around for very much longer (until the inevitable reunion

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. Every so often, Australia takes an artist or song to their hearts...

Originally posted as 25 Years Ago This Week in 2014. Updated in 2019. There's no doubt rock was the favoured genre in Australia...

It wasn't every week that the biggest female artist on the planet released a brand new single — but this week in 1989, the Queen of Pop...