CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Music acts remake songs for all sorts of reasons. This week in 1993, Australia's favourite British boy band debuted on the ARIA chart...

This week in 1993 on the ARIA singles chart, two instances of a common problem for musicians occured: the less successful follow-up to a...

In between all the reggae, grunge, Eurodance and rock remakes that defined 1993, moments of pure pop were few and far between. Thank...

Some songs are bigger than a chart position — going on to sum up a moment in time or become a statement about life. "Everybody Hurts" by...

By 1993, sampling was well-established as part of music — and was generally being done much more legally than at first. This week that...

On the ARIA singles chart this week in 1993, there were a handful of ho-hum entries in the top 50, but something much more interesting...

Some bands steer well clear of cover versions, preferring to release only self-penned material. And then there's UB40, who early on in...

It's always disheartening when an artist you like decides to go down a musical path you don't. Not mentioning any names, but like when a...

Some song lyrics are filled with metaphors and imagery, with the real meaning remaining a mystery forever. Other songs get straight to...

There are some singers whose voices are instantly recognisable. Artists like Cher, Freddie Mercury and Rihanna, who you can pick the...

Everyone loves a comeback, and this week in 1993, three acts that had all been quite successful in the '80s returned to the ARIA top 50 for the first time in years. New Order had no regrets about being back on the chart in 1993 In two cases, the artists turned around their chart fortunes, scoring hits after a series of flops. In the third case, a band released their first new music in three years and their first studio album in four. Meanwhile, Faith No More spent their seco

Sometimes it's only a matter of time until an artist lands a number 1 hit. And for Janet Jackson, the inevitable came in May 1993, when...

The problem in being a solo male rapper and having a massive number 1 hit in Australia in the early '90s was that it quickly became all...

Even though he was in the midst of legal wrangling with his record label in the early '90s, George Michael still managed to find ways to have hits. George Michael didn't have to look very far to find somebody to love his music This week in 1993, he debuted with his third consecutive non-album single, keeping himself in the ARIA top 50 for another year. And in a sign of things to come, it was released by a different record company. Lenny Kravitz was keeping himself at the top

No matter how successful a band is, there comes a time when they reach their use by date. Sometimes it might take decades (U2, The...

Kicking off your music career with two top 10 hits is a pretty good start to things, but even though it looked like soap...

Bobby Brown. Marky Mark. Peter Andre. That guy from Radio Freedom. The previous few years had seen a steady stream of male pop stars with...

It must be disheartening to release song after song and see them all fizzle out on the chart, so it must come as a huge relief when a...

Remember the time , just over a year ago, when we'd marvelled at how Michael Jackson had debuted on the ARIA top 50 with two different singles. This week in 1993, he just went and did it again. When it came to Michael Jackson's Dangerous album, we took the bad with the good Except this time, instead of one of those songs being a remix of a previous chart-topper, they were both completely new hits — the latest two tracks lifted from his indefatigable Dangerous album. Also thi

Over the past couple of weeks, we've seen American bands remake "Cats In The Cradle" and "Mrs Robinson" in early '90s rock style. This...