CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

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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.

Dec 21, 2016
6 min

This Week In 1991: December 22, 1991

Every so often, a song comes along that completely changes the face of popular music. This week in 1991, the ARIA chart welcomed a rock...

Dec 14, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: December 15, 1991

We hear a lot about climate change and the damage we're doing to the environment today, but some people were on the case decades ago....

Dec 7, 2016
5 min

This Week In 1991: December 8, 1991

It must have been the warmer weather and the fact that party season had begun, because suddenly dance tunes were doing well on the ARIA...

Nov 30, 2016
7 min

This Week In 1991: December 1, 1991

It's one thing for a Eurodance act or even an American house outfit to misappropriate vocals and pretend some pretty model (or two) is...

Nov 23, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: November 24, 1991

In the 1980s, talking about sex in music had often resulted in songs and/or music videos being banned for being too risqué. To get away...

Nov 16, 2016
5 min

This Week In 1991: November 17, 1991

By November 1991, it'd been more than four years since Michael Jackson had released his last album. Of course, given the fact he lifted...

Nov 9, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: November 10, 1991

To say Jimmy Barnes and John Farnham had dominated the Australian music scene in the late '80s and early '90s would be a massive...

Nov 2, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: November 3, 1991

It had happened twice already — once in 1985 and again in 1988. And so Australia was pretty much due for another record to debut at...

Oct 26, 2016
6 min

This Week In 1991: October 27, 1991

Australia had taken its time getting into hip-hop music and, up until mid-1991, the big rap hits had pretty much been the obvious ones....

Oct 19, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: October 20, 1991

There have been plenty of successful partnerships between songwriters and female singers over the years. Bacharach & David and Dionne...

Oct 12, 2016
7 min

This Week In 1991: October 13, 1991

First impressions are everything — and this week in 1991, the debut singles by three quite different acts arrived on the ARIA top 50. All...

Oct 5, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: October 6, 1991

This blog is, in theory, a journey through pop. But, sometimes the ARIA top 50 from years past isn't very helpful in that mission. Case...

Sep 28, 2016
7 min

This Week In 1991: September 29, 1991

Back in the days of physical music formats (you know, the pre-iTunes era), I never approved of record companies deleting singles while...

Sep 21, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: September 22, 1991

Some artists have a huge hit straight out of the gate — and then spend the rest of their career trying to live up to it. This week in...

Sep 14, 2016
5 min

This Week In 1991: September 15, 1991

It only takes one song to ruin a hit streak. A song like "Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi", which broke Kylie Minogue's initial run of number 1...

Sep 7, 2016
3 min

This Week In 1991: September 8, 1991

In yesterday's flashback to 1986, we saw Belinda Carlisle embark on what would turn out to be a successful solo career. But what happens...

Aug 31, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: September 1, 1991

Hot August Night. Whispering Jack. Innocent Eyes. 21. These are some of the albums to have held down the number 1 spot on the Australian...

Aug 24, 2016
4 min

This Week In 1991: August 25, 1991

I don't know what was going on in 1991, but, Bryan Adams aside, it was a big year for songs taking forever to reach number 1. Whether it...

Aug 17, 2016
5 min

This Week In 1991: August 18, 1991

I'm sure someone somewhere has tallied up the most common words to appear in top 50 hits. No doubt, "love" is one of them. This week in...

Aug 10, 2016
5 min

This Week In 1991: August 11, 1991

For the previous few years, it had worked the other way. First, a performer would make a name for themselves on TV — usually in one of...

A Journey Through Aussie Pop - green light.png

A Journey Through Aussie Pop is shining a light on classic Australian pop artists and releases from the 1980s, '90s and 2000s.

A Journey Through Stock Aitken Waterman is working its way through every single produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman in chronological order.

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.