CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Of all the musical oddities I've recapped while writing this blog, few singles are as random as the ballad duet that debuted on the ARIA...

Rock music was changing in 1990 — and there was no greater proof of that than the highest new entry on the ARIA singles chart this week in 1990. As hair metal gave way to grunge as the most favoured rock style in the US and indie rock blended with psychedelic and/or dance music in the UK, it seemed that anything was possible: even a rock anthem that featured a rap. Faith No More took their mismatch approach seriously It wasn't the first time we'd seen such genre blurring — Ru

The Honeydrippers, The Power Station, The Travelling Wilburys... so far in our look back at the ARIA charts of the late '80s and early '90s we've come across a number of supergroups of the rock variety. Electronic's Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner were a match made in synthpop heaven This week in 1990, a synthpop supergroup finally reached the singles top 50 with their debut release — a song that had come out overseas in December 1989. In fact, many of the songs to feature thi

I've made no secret of my disdain for Heart's chart-topper, "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You" , in recent weeks — think of it as my...

Music and sport don't often mix — and when they do, it's usually a disaster (think Jacko, Gazza, Shaquille O'Neal). But every so often, a...

Over the previous decade, there had been the odd rap hit on the Australian chart. From Blondie's "Rapture" (number 5) and "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (number 21) in the early '80s to Run-DMC's rap/rock hybrid, "Walk This Way" (number 9), in 1986 to "Push It" by Salt 'n' Pepa (number 3) and Tone Lōc's double whammy, "Wild Thing" (number 15) and "Funky Cold Medina" (number 8), later in the decade. For five weeks in 1990, this was the song no one else c

Nancy Sinatra. Natalie Cole. Miley Cyrus. Daughters of musicians themselves becoming hit artists has been going on for decades, but in...

Periodic reinventions are a necessary part of any pop act's career — and no one knows that more than the singer who went through her...

It's always fun to discover a song you always thought was originally performed by the artist who had a hit with it was actually a cover...

Sometimes artists never do any better than their debut hit, but often, performers move on to a long and varied career — and the initial...

In my flashback to 1985 for this week, we saw a number of duos hit the ARIA chart. Five years later, one half of the biggest duo in the...

After last week 's ballad-heavy slew of new singles, the ARIA chart perked up a little this week in 1990 with six new entries that...

Rock ballads, power ballads, electro ballads, piano ballads... sometimes nothing beats an emotive downtempo number. This week in 1990, ballads of all varieties descended on the ARIA singles chart. All Heart want to do is never perform their number 1 hit again Not all the ballads were big hits, however. Some went all the way to the top 10 but others floundered much lower down the rankings. Many of them were also horrible, horrible songs. Meanwhile, blasting from its number 19

She'd ruled the charts in the second half of the '80s, but the '90s hadn't got off to a great start for Madonna with the worst...

By 1990, it was nothing new for a soap star to try their hand at being a pop star — and quite often the songs that would take them into...

When you think of Detroit, one of the first things that comes to mind is Motown. Seattle is synonymous with grunge music. And this week...

In the 1980s, I liked the odd bit of middle-of-the-road music as much as anyone. Phil Collins, Toto, Chicago (who we saw on my 1985 flashback this week)... it was a great era for soft rock and power ballads. But, by 1990, either my taste had moved on or they just didn't make them like they used to. Del Amitri brought sideburns back to the top 50 This week in 1990, three of the new entries on the ARIA singles chart were what radio programmers would describe as MOR. I only like

Unlike today, when albums sales are perilously low, back in 1990, the album was all-important — and artists would often keep an album alive over a number of years as they milked it for singles. And this was before the days of deluxe editions and revamped tracklistings, so the 10 or 12 songs on the album were all an artist had to play with. Waste not, want not — Janet Jackson made good use of her albums This week in 1990, the latest single from a female singer who really got h

When it came to using other musicians' works, it was still a bit of a free-for-all in 1990. Record companies and, more importantly, the...

Guess it would've been too much to expect another week like last week on the ARIA chart. After a flood of new entries into the top 50,...