CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Yep, here I go again. This week's ARIA top 50 from 1993 allows me to once again talk about my favourite chart topic: one-hit wonders. Both of the new entries on the chart are the second hits by acts frequently considered to have only been successful once. The singles that prevented Billy Ray Cyrus and Sonia Dada from becoming one-hit wonders In one case, I'll concede it's fair enough to disregard the relatively minor follow-up to 1992's highest-selling single , but in the oth

What do "High" by The Cure, "Metropolis" by The Church and Duran Duran's "The Wild Boys" have in common? They're all, somewhat...

It seemed like the perfect recipe for TV success — pretty twentysomethings + angsty pop/rock + primetime drama = ratings gold. But for...

Having seen what New Kids On The Block had achieved around the world as the '80s became the '90s, British record companies wanted in on...

By this point in 1993, American R&B hits were more readily snapped up by Australian music fans than they had been just a few years...

A new year, and with the dawn of 1993 came a new musical trend: world music goes electronic. The biggest of the five new entries on the first ARIA chart for the year did for pan pipes and foreign language lyrics what Enigma did for Gregorian chant a couple of years earlier. 1993's first musical trend: world music goes mainstream The song was a worldwide sensation, but I always associate it with another '90s phenomenon: chart rigging. I'll explain why when we get to it... Spe

It's fitting that I write this week's 1984 recap in the UK, the home of the Christmas number 1. Nowhere else in the world is the race to be crowned the festive chart champ such a phenomenon — it's certainly never been a thing in Australia, where the charts used to close down for weeks over the holiday season. Wham! had Christmas 1984 all wrapped up... or so they thought And although the UK Christmas number 1 has lost some of its excitement after years of domination by The X

Kylie, Dannii, Tina, Collette, Melissa, Toni... Australia had had its fair share of young female pop stars in the previous few years, but...

Landing a number 1 song can do amazing things for a music act's career. Take the two female singers who debuted on the ARIA top 50 this...

It's the part of the year record shops used to live for: the pre-Christmas period, during which all the biggest albums would hit stores....

After the deluge of debuts over the previous few weeks, things quietened down on the ARIA singles chart this week in 1984 as those new...

If you're going to release a cover version, it's always a good idea to choose a song not many people are familiar with. That way, it...

It's not something you see very often — especially in the '80s — so when all the new entries on the ARIA singles chart come from female...

By 1992, it was nothing new for a soap star to try their hand at a music career. We'd had Kylie, Jason, Craig, Melissa... and this week...

There are big chart weeks and then there was the ARIA singles top 50 from this week in 1984. Among the 10 new entries — the most for the...

So far in the 1990s, there hadn't been that many rap hits by white artists. And what successful singles there had been came from acts...

Australians have always loved to laugh, never more so than in the mid-'80s when stand-up comedians were regulars on the ARIA singles and...

Some charts weeks are pretty predictable — the songs you expect to be hits go on to do just that, while you can see the flops coming a mile away. This week in 1992 was not one of those weeks. Two one-hit wonders succeeding where established Aussie rock bands failed Among the new entries on the ARIA top 50 were three established Australian rock bands who all struck out with brand new songs and three newcomers who would enjoy huge success over the summer months. A song still

Up until the last month of 1989, every Madonna single released in the '80s except one had reached the top 20 (and most had gone top 10) in Australia. And if the name of the song that spoiled that hit streak wasn't jumping out at you below, you probably wouldn't automatically pick it as the unlucky track. Not so lucky, as it would turn out This week in 1984, the single that would ruin the Queen of Pop's track record debuted on the ARIA top 50 and fall 20 places short of her ne

It can be a fine line between catchy and annoying sometimes. And this week in 1992, the highest new entry on the ARIA singles chart crossed that line by some margin. Frente!'s biggest hit was very popular, but also very annoying While the song gave the band responsible a huge hit, it also resulted in their fall from favour — something from which they'd never completely recover. A song that was also incredibly annoying continued to hold on to its position as the country's hig