CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

Some artists are lucky to have a hit at all, while others visit the top 50 multiple times. And sometimes, a performer will be successful in a number of different guises — with a band, as a solo artist, in collaboration with other artists... James Freud started his ever-evolving chart career in 1980 This week in 1980, an Australian singer whose career brought him to the top 50 in four different capacities landed his first ever hit as frontman of a new local band. He would go o

Sometimes a song needs a well-timed re-release to find its audience, who missed it first time around. Or perhaps a remix to freshen up a...

Sometimes even the most floundering of careers can get right back on track with one hit single — all it takes is the right song at the right time. Guess who's back? This week in 1980, a singer who would make two comebacks during the decade returned to the top 50 after a lengthy absence — and all it took was a little help from a former chart-topper. The chart-topper this week in 1980 was still "Can't Stop The Music" by Village People, which remained at number 1 for a third wee

Like all genres, dance music has its good songs and its bad. But what exactly did anyone do to deserve the cavalcade of crap that debuted...

Sometimes a great soundtrack single can do wonders for an average film — especially in the '80s when movie songs were big business and convinced plenty of people that if they loved the song, chances are they'd love the film, too. Of course, that wasn't always the case. The film might have been ridiculous but the Xanadu soundtrack was magic This week in 1980, the first single from a pretty amazing soundtrack album arrived on the Australian singles chart on its way to the top 5

I'm sure I've written before about the proliferation of vocal harmony groups in the mid-'90s, but you need look no further than the new entries on the ARIA top 50 this week in 1995 for proof I wasn't making it up. MN8 and Kulcha gave Boyz II Men a run for their vocal harmony money Three different R&B quartets — one American, one British and one Australian — all entered the singles chart with new tunes, although none of them got any further than the 30s. Was the trend overexp