CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

One song can change everything. There you'll be, plodding along releasing moderately successful records and then one of your singles...

The ARIA chart loved a makeover. Since its debut in 1983, the top 50 printout had been through four major format changes, with a few...

As well as being a big year in music, 1987 saw significant developments in music TV in Australia. While Countdown was just months away...

The ARIA singles chart was a bit of a funny one this week in 1984. Three of the songs that entered lower down the top 100 would re-enter...

I love a chart week like this one. Four future top 10 singles — three of them top 5 hits. And I actually like all of them! From a Stock...

Number 1 singles and albums are pretty hard to achieve. Even harder: a career made up entirely of chart-toppers. Although, it must be...

I'm sure no band ever sets out to be a one-hit wonder. But if you had to be one, then best to have your sole smash single in the '80s....

Where would generations of children be without The Wiggles? That situation might've come to pass if the band whose biggest single debuted this week in 1987 had been more successful. The Cockroaches bounded towards the top 10 This week in 1987, the song that made it look like The Cockroaches were onto something began its climb into the top 10. But it was a short-lived taste of chart stardom. Speaking of short-lived successes, Kim Wilde and The Bangles both seemed unable to hol

Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers... If I was a rock music fan, I'd be loving delving back to when all those bands had their...

Every so often a recording artist comes along who's unlike anyone else. That was certainly the case this week in 1984 when a...

It wasn't the most auspicious of debuts. Bon Jovi's first hit single sneaked into the very bottom of the top 50 after months floundering...

In today's flashback to 1987 , we saw the ARIA chart debut of Bon Jovi. Five years later, another seminal rock band landed their first top 50 single in Australia. But in 1992, I was less interested in them and more taken by a dance duo from Benelux. 2 Unlimited got ready for a string of dance hits Stepping into the void left by the decreasingly successful wave of club acts that'd surfaced in 1989-90, the pair's blend of techno and Eurodance would prove irresistible in the yea

Nothing helps a single sell a truckload of copies more than controversy. From Elvis to Eamon , artists that've caused a stir have frequently found themselves at the top of the chart. Frankie says: the way to have a hit is to have your song banned This week in 1984, a song that'd been banned by the BBC (but still reached number 1 in the UK) made its debut on the ARIA singles chart. The controversy surrounding the single can only have helped its chances here. There was nothing

There are some voices you recognise as soon as you hear them — and this week in 1992, a British female singer with an unmistakable tone...

A few weeks back, I talked about how "If You Were With Me Now" by Kylie Minogue and Keith Washington shattered most of the illusions I'd had about duets. If any song had given me those illusions then it's the collaboration that debuted on the ARIA singles chart this week in 1987. Aretha + George = pop perfection The song featured two of the best vocalists in the world, who looked like they'd been friends for years and thought it'd be fun to sing together. I know now the duet

It'd been around for years, but 1984 was the year breakdancing went mainstream. There were films, songs, stories on kids' shows like...

It was a bit of slow week on the ARIA singles chart this week in 1992, and so I'm forced to talk about a subject regular readers will...

As long as there'd been pop music, there have been love songs. But love songs in the '80s were pretty different than they are now — more...

Music history is littered with stories of how one record company exec or another didn't think a song would become a hit before being proved wrong when it did just that. This week in 1984, one such song debuted on the ARIA singles chart on its way to the top 10. "Break My Stride" became a top 10 hit for the first time in 1984 The artist was proved right and his decision to leave the label that didn't believe in the track paid off. Not only that, but the song has actually been

Back in the pre-digital era, it was pretty unusual for an artist to enter the top 50 with more than one single in the same week. It did...