CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Of all the musical oddities I've recapped while writing this blog, few singles are as random as the ballad duet that debuted on the ARIA...

There came a point in time where I went from being a music fan who had never heard the original versions of cover songs or the old tracks...

Rock music was changing in 1990 — and there was no greater proof of that than the highest new entry on the ARIA singles chart this week in 1990. As hair metal gave way to grunge as the most favoured rock style in the US and indie rock blended with psychedelic and/or dance music in the UK, it seemed that anything was possible: even a rock anthem that featured a rap. Faith No More took their mismatch approach seriously It wasn't the first time we'd seen such genre blurring — Ru

You can probably count the instrumental hit singles of the '80s on the fingers of one hand. Maybe two. And songs released in 1985 would make up a good chunk of those, with easily the most famous instrumental single of that year debuting on the ARIA chart this week in 1985. Harold Faltermeyer's instrumental hit was OK with me, too Like the two other big instrumental tracks from 1985, the song in question was taken from a movie — a film that had already spawned two major hit si

The Honeydrippers, The Power Station, The Travelling Wilburys... so far in our look back at the ARIA charts of the late '80s and early '90s we've come across a number of supergroups of the rock variety. Electronic's Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner were a match made in synthpop heaven This week in 1990, a synthpop supergroup finally reached the singles top 50 with their debut release — a song that had come out overseas in December 1989. In fact, many of the songs to feature thi

This week in 1985, the global music industry united in an unprecedented show of force. The event: Live Aid, which I looked back at in a...

I've made no secret of my disdain for Heart's chart-topper, "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You" , in recent weeks — think of it as my...

For Pat Benatar, it's a chore to sing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" , while R.E.M. hate "Shiny Happy People" so much they left it off...

Music and sport don't often mix — and when they do, it's usually a disaster (think Jacko, Gazza, Shaquille O'Neal). But every so often, a...

When people talk about Madonna's image changes, they're usually referring to how she'd routinely go from blonde to brunette and back...

Over the previous decade, there had been the odd rap hit on the Australian chart. From Blondie's "Rapture" (number 5) and "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (number 21) in the early '80s to Run-DMC's rap/rock hybrid, "Walk This Way" (number 9), in 1986 to "Push It" by Salt 'n' Pepa (number 3) and Tone Lōc's double whammy, "Wild Thing" (number 15) and "Funky Cold Medina" (number 8), later in the decade. For five weeks in 1990, this was the song no one else c

Many of the bands that have featured in my look back at the Australian charts of the late '80s had careers that extended well beyond that...

Nancy Sinatra. Natalie Cole. Miley Cyrus. Daughters of musicians themselves becoming hit artists has been going on for decades, but in...

Gay rights might have made leaps and bounds in the three-and-a-bit decades since 1985 (when same-sex relations were still illegal in half...

Periodic reinventions are a necessary part of any pop act's career — and no one knows that more than the singer who went through her...

When is a hit song not a single? It happens all the time these days — for example, when album tracks flood the singles chart upon the...

It's always fun to discover a song you always thought was originally performed by the artist who had a hit with it was actually a cover...

They'd been on the market for a couple of years, and by 1985, compact discs were starting to show signs of becoming the music industry...

Sometimes artists never do any better than their debut hit, but often, performers move on to a long and varied career — and the initial...

Music talent often runs in families — and over the decades, several groups of siblings have taken on the charts. Some, like The Jacksons...