CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

You may not remember his name or what his group is called, but if you recall anything about the singer of top 10 hit "Word Up" it'd be...

It's so often the case — a song gives a previously fairly niche band a major commercial breakthrough and the band comes to dislike it....

Back in the '80s, I'd assumed collaborations happened because the artists were friends and wanted to record together. They'd get together...

It's not uncommon for lead singers to go off and record a solo single in between their band's albums. Or even make a movie, if they're...

I have mixed feelings about posthumous releases. On the one hand, a song or album completed after an artist has passed away may not...

There are some songs you just know are going to be massive. Then there are those singles that climb all the way up the chart, defying any and all expectations. Kate Bush continued the Elton John appreciation in 1992 This week in 1992, a remake of a song first released 20 years earlier was a much bigger hit than I would've thought. In fact, it almost reached number 1. A song I always knew was going to be big — it had the word "sex" in the title, after all — reached number 1 th

A lot can change in 30 years — but it's funny how some things never do. In 1987, the Cold War hung like a dark cloud over the world....

Who doesn't love formation dancing? From Bobby Brown to Backstreet Boys to OK Go, Janet Jackson to Britney Spears to Beyoncé, music clips...

In recent years, when famous musicians have passed away, many of their songs have re-entered the ARIA top 50, sometimes bettering their...

Welcome back to 1987. When I started this blog in mid-2012 , I wrote my first posts about the ARIA charts from July 1987. Why? Well, it...

Music acts can pretty much be divided into innovators and imitators, and as our look back at the ARIA charts from years past finally...

Welcome to the first ARIA chart for 1992! Back then, most musical collaborations were pretty much what you would expect. A pair of...

Before Big Day Out, there was Australian Made. This week in 1986, some of the biggest homegrown acts were making their way around the...

It's funny what it takes for a song to be banned — and how that's changed over the years. Just last week, we saw that the suggestion of...

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...

It didn't happen often — especially compared to the UK chart — but when a former hit song was re-released and returned to the Australian...

There comes a point in some bands' careers where they go from being purely popular to absolutely huge. Often, it only takes one song to...

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....

It's funny how so often the songs that are basically afterthoughts end up defining an artist's music career. A song that's dashed off in 10 minutes becomes a monster hit, a cover version eclipses any of the act's original songs or a last-minute addition to an album turns out to be the best-selling single lifted from it. "Walk Like An Egyptian" would turn out to be a double-edged sword for The Bangles This week in 1986, two singles debuted on the ARIA top 50 that would be amon

Sometimes it's better not to tempt fate (pun intended) and try to recreate an iconic pop culture moment. But, 1977's Grease had been so...