CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Your band's broken up? No problem... if you were the lead singer, that is. There's always the option of pursuing a solo career — and if...

Inspiration for pop songs can come from just about anywhere — an overhead conversation at an electronics store , a school massacre ,...

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...

It's inevitable that whenever a music artist releases a new album after even a relatively short period of time, it's classed as a...

Previously successful bands reform for a variety of reasons, but more often than not it's for the cash. Just look at all the '80s groups...

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...

For a song to reach number 1 once is pretty good going. For it do so twice is an even more impressive feat — and something that has...

Easy listening station Smooth FM is currently Sydney's most listened to radio station. My parents have it on constantly and whenever I'm...

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...

Whatever it was that had prompted ARIA to stop producing take-home printouts of the top 50 chart back in January 1986 (an effort to be more environmentally friendly, perhaps?), that decision was reversed this week that same year. Once again, a pile of charts (about half the size of the old ones) greeted shoppers in record shops around the country, with the top 50 singles on one side and the top 50 albums on the other. In Erasure, Vince Clarke finally found a musical project t

There are some soundtrack hits that are so inextricably linked to the movie scenes they played during that you can't ever hear the song without picturing the scene. Jennifer Beals danced like a maniac in Flashdance A song that provided the backing track for a memorable montage in one of the year's biggest movies made its debut on the ARIA chart this week in 1983 — and will forever be associated with that moment in the film. Another song from the same movie held down the numb

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...

Prince and Michael Jackson get all the glory, but they weren't the only American male artists who dominated the charts during the '80s....

There are plenty of differences between the ARIA chart as it existed in 1983 and as it stands now. For one thing, there would've been a lot more artists listed on the top 50 from this week in 1983 if it had followed the current trend for including the names of everyone who features on a song. Stevie Nicks got a little (uncredited) help on her hit "Stand Back" As it just so happens, the four new entries from this week in 1983 would be credited quite differently if they were ch

A few weeks back, we saw on my 1986 recap how Kids In The Kitchen struggled with their second album. This week in 1991, another...

For every band that's become a success over the years, selling records and touring to packed houses, there have been many more that...

There were some fantastic songs released in 1983, but the single that ended up as the year's biggest hit in Australia wasn't a song at...

There have been a number of musical collaborations between parents and children over the years. Frank and Nancy Sinatra on "Somethin'...

There's a lot to be said about going out while you're still on top. Just ask The Beatles. Or Take That (the first time around). Yes, I just compared The Beatles to Take That. Point is, rather than dragging things out and releasing decreasingly popular music, some acts know when to call it a day. Wham!'s "final" single almost gave them a second Australian number 1 Acts like the duo behind the highest new entry on the ARIA singles chart this week in 1986. Wham!'s split had been

Boy bands. Where would pop music be without them? This week in 1983, the group that kicked off the modern era of boy bands debuted on the...