CHART BEATS: A JOURNEY
THROUGH POP

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Apr 22, 20174 min read

This Week In 1984: April 22, 1984

If a picture is worth a thousand words, surely one image will introduce this week's big new entry better than I could. A photo like...

Apr 19, 20176 min read

This Week In 1987: April 19, 1987

The return of the world's soon-to-be-biggest band? An ambitious double album by music's most inventive male artist? A landmark hip-hop...

Apr 19, 20174 min read

This Week In 1992: April 19, 1992

How things had changed by 1992. Dance music was so acceptable in the mainstream by then that a local club track had recently reached...

Apr 15, 20175 min read

This Week In 1984: April 15, 1984

As clichés go, "third time's the charm" was never truer than in the case of Madonna. The future music megastar's third single became a...

Apr 12, 20173 min read

This Week In 1987: April 12, 1987

Even the most popular bands can have off days. Or, as was the case this week in 1987, singles that don't connect for whatever reason. Two...

Apr 12, 20174 min read

This Week In 1992: April 12, 1992

Girl groups had been around for decades, but so far in the early '90s, they'd been mostly going unnoticed in Australia. That was despite...

Apr 8, 20174 min read

This Week In 1984: April 8, 1984

It didn't strike me at the time — since I was only nine in 1984 and everyone in music seemed incredibly old — but the top 50 wasn't as...

Apr 5, 20175 min read

This Week In 1987: April 5, 1987

There are many reasons why a band's lead singer might decide to go solo, but usually somewhere in the mix is tension within the group....

Apr 5, 20176 min read

This Week In 1992: April 5, 1992

Earlier today in my flashback to 1987, we saw the solo debuts of Foreigner's Lou Gramm and Boy George. Five years later, it was the turn...

Apr 1, 20174 min read

This Week In 1984: April 1, 1984

As a country where the primary language spoken is English, Australia hasn't welcomed that many foreign language songs onto the singles...

Mar 29, 20175 min read

This Week In 1987: March 29, 1987

It didn't have a proper music video. It was performed by a model discovered in a night club. It had some pretty dodgy lyrics. It was one...

Mar 29, 20176 min read

This Week In 1992: March 29, 1992

Fifteen. That's how many songs we have ahead of us in this week's flashback to the ARIA singles chart from 1992. OK, 13 songs and two EPs...

Mar 25, 20175 min read

This Week In 1984: March 25, 1984

One song can change everything. There you'll be, plodding along releasing moderately successful records and then one of your singles...

Mar 22, 20174 min read

This Week In 1992: March 22, 1992

The ARIA chart loved a makeover. Since its debut in 1983, the top 50 printout had been through four major format changes, with a few...

Mar 22, 20176 min read

This Week In 1987: March 22, 1987

As well as being a big year in music, 1987 saw significant developments in music TV in Australia. While Countdown was just months away...

Mar 18, 20173 min read

This Week In 1984: March 18, 1984

The ARIA singles chart was a bit of a funny one this week in 1984. Three of the songs that entered lower down the top 100 would re-enter...

Mar 15, 20175 min read

This Week In 1987: March 15, 1987

I love a chart week like this one. Four future top 10 singles — three of them top 5 hits. And I actually like all of them! From a Stock...

Mar 15, 20173 min read

This Week In 1992: March 15, 1992

Number 1 singles and albums are pretty hard to achieve. Even harder: a career made up entirely of chart-toppers. Although, it must be...

Mar 11, 20173 min read

This Week In 1984: March 11, 1984

I'm sure no band ever sets out to be a one-hit wonder. But if you had to be one, then best to have your sole smash single in the '80s....

Mar 8, 20174 min read

This Week In 1987: March 8, 1987

Where would generations of children be without The Wiggles? That situation might've come to pass if the band whose biggest single debuted...

A Journey Through Aussie Pop - green light.png

A Journey Through Aussie Pop is shining a light on classic Australian pop artists and releases from the 1980s, '90s and 2000s.

A Journey Through Stock Aitken Waterman is working its way through every single produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman in chronological order.

Chart Beats subscribers have access to exclusive content, including extended interviews and extra discussion we can't fit in the regular episodes. Click here for more info.

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About Chart Beats

Chart Beats: A Journey Through Pop has been looking back at music from the '80s, '90s, 2000s and 2010s since 2012. Run by freelance journalist and content creator Gavin Scott in Sydney, Australia.