CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Girl groups (as opposed to girl bands) were thin on the ground in the early '80s — after having been a major part of music in the '60s and '70s, and returning to the forefront of pop in the '90s. The Pointer Sisters weren't shy of a little chart success But one trio of singing sisters bucked the trend, adding eight Australian top 20 hits to their tally during the decade, including the song that arrived on the chart this week in 1980. Jumping up to number 1 this week in 1980 w

You've got to love a chart battle. Record company marketing teams certainly do. But I must say I've been swept up in the past when two artists are pitted against each other as rivals — a situation that may or may not actually be the case — and their latest releases go head to head on the chart. It wasn't as big a deal as the one they had in the UK, but Oasis and Blur fought their own chart battle in Australia Chart battles are definitely more of a thing in the UK, where there

I tend to favour female singers over male singers, especially in more recent decades. But there were a number of great male performers in the '80s, including the man who arrived on the Australian singles chart with his biggest hit this week in 1980. George Benson might not have had many hits in Australia, but it was not for want of great songs At the time, I was only familiar with a couple of his key releases, so when I bought a greatest hits collection of his some years late

As if to prove my point last week that pretty much any song was fair game for a dance cover in the mid-'90s, this week in 1995, two new...

The year had already seen some big musical movies in the form of Can't Stop The Music and Xanadu, and this week in 1980, another film with a hit soundtrack made its presence felt on the Australian singles chart. We certainly would remember Irene Cara's name Unlike those other two films, this movie was pretty well received, and its theme song was performed by a singer who'd become known for her big soundtrack hits — one of which would even top the Australian chart. On top of t

In the mid-'90s, pretty much any song or artist was fair game for a cheesy Eurodance cover. Often, faceless studio acts would take a big ballad hit and turn it into a hands-in-the-air anthem, but sometimes songs you never expected to hear at your local discotheque would be given a club makeover. I'm guessing The Cranberries never imagined their song sounding like this This week in 1995, possibly the most absurd rock-to-dance transformation poked its nose into ARIA top 100. A