"HI CHART FANS!"
1987. The year i turned 11 and started secondary school. Still a bit of a loner. And still obsessed with music. I hadn't graduated to buying my own records yet (that would have to wait another year or so), so until then my collection consisted a few singles and albums i was given for birthdays and Christmas, or that i could pester my parents into buying for me, and a ton of blank cassettes containing my weekly recordings of the Top 40. Back then, as now, there was a choice on Sunday of the full Official Top 40 on Radio 1, or the Network Chart on local commercial radio, which for me was Trent Fm. The Network Chart started in 1984, and was broadcast every sunday between 5 and 7pm across local Independent Radio stations, and was for many years presented by David "Kid" Jensen. More aimed a teen audience, it broadcast only the Top 30 until 1990, and differed from the Official Chart by combining airplay figures with sales figures. This meant differing chart positions, and sometimes different Number Ones - in this alternate universe, for instance, Rick Astleys' 1987 cover of the Nat "King" Cole classic "When I Fall In Love", was that years Christmas chart-topper, not Pet Shop Boys' "It's A Sin". I often switched between the two, depending on which station i could get a a better reception on! It didn't really matter, as long as i got to hear my current favourites. So every week, without fail, i would lock myself in my bedroom, turn on my radio, turn it up, and press record.
Listening to the chart rundown on a Sunday night was a ritual, as was watching Top Of The Pops - and The Chart Show on ITV on Saturdays, where you might get to see your favourite artists' latest music video, before the annoying "fast forward" effect kicked in (the shows gimmick was that it mimicked a video player. No presenters or voiceovers). Those were your lifelines to pop music. The other essential as a pre or early teen was Smash Hits magazine. A loud, irreverent, and offbeat fortnightly magazine, it held no pretensions to serious music journalism: it was all about POP! And it took the piss out of "serious" musicians and anything deemed boring. Musicians and records that they didn't like went "down the dumper" (a phrase also used to describe any pop career on a downward trajectory). As well as the all-important interviews - during which searching questions such as "what colour is Wednesday?", it also had song lyrics and posters to adorn your bedroom walls with.
Nowadays, Smash Hits is long gone, along with several other music magazines. In its place, a host of "celebrity" magazines and websites. I'm no luddite: i'm using the internet to write this, i download songs and search for information on artists and music that i like online. But it lacks the excitement of waiting for the next issue, or for your favourite band to be interviewed on Saturday morning tv. Top Of The Pops went the same way, made irrelevant by a hundred or so music video satellite and cable channels, and sites like YouTube. The idea of musicians holding back material and exclusive content is long gone too, the word "exclusive" having lost its meaning in an age of leaked and pirated information - nothing is kept secret for long. In the rush to give the public whatever they want 24/7, music itself has lost a little bit of immediacy. Not the tunes themselves necessarily, but the magic surrounding it. Of course, i'm heading towards 40 fast and the younger generation would no doubt call me an old fart! But the expectation, the build up, waiting to see if your band were on TOTP or if their latest single had gone up or down the chart, listening to the radio intently for ages waitimg to see if they would play your new favourite song: it made you appreciate it, and that's why the nostalgia market is so big: people remember the music heard when they were growing up more precisely because it wasn't played to death weeks before it was released - or even after. I'm not really in tune with popular music these days, and to be honest most of it isn't really aimed at people like me. But it's hard to imagine most of it still being played or remembered in 10 or 20 years, even by the generation growing up with it.
Listening to the chart rundown on a Sunday night was a ritual, as was watching Top Of The Pops - and The Chart Show on ITV on Saturdays, where you might get to see your favourite artists' latest music video, before the annoying "fast forward" effect kicked in (the shows gimmick was that it mimicked a video player. No presenters or voiceovers). Those were your lifelines to pop music. The other essential as a pre or early teen was Smash Hits magazine. A loud, irreverent, and offbeat fortnightly magazine, it held no pretensions to serious music journalism: it was all about POP! And it took the piss out of "serious" musicians and anything deemed boring. Musicians and records that they didn't like went "down the dumper" (a phrase also used to describe any pop career on a downward trajectory). As well as the all-important interviews - during which searching questions such as "what colour is Wednesday?", it also had song lyrics and posters to adorn your bedroom walls with.
Nowadays, Smash Hits is long gone, along with several other music magazines. In its place, a host of "celebrity" magazines and websites. I'm no luddite: i'm using the internet to write this, i download songs and search for information on artists and music that i like online. But it lacks the excitement of waiting for the next issue, or for your favourite band to be interviewed on Saturday morning tv. Top Of The Pops went the same way, made irrelevant by a hundred or so music video satellite and cable channels, and sites like YouTube. The idea of musicians holding back material and exclusive content is long gone too, the word "exclusive" having lost its meaning in an age of leaked and pirated information - nothing is kept secret for long. In the rush to give the public whatever they want 24/7, music itself has lost a little bit of immediacy. Not the tunes themselves necessarily, but the magic surrounding it. Of course, i'm heading towards 40 fast and the younger generation would no doubt call me an old fart! But the expectation, the build up, waiting to see if your band were on TOTP or if their latest single had gone up or down the chart, listening to the radio intently for ages waitimg to see if they would play your new favourite song: it made you appreciate it, and that's why the nostalgia market is so big: people remember the music heard when they were growing up more precisely because it wasn't played to death weeks before it was released - or even after. I'm not really in tune with popular music these days, and to be honest most of it isn't really aimed at people like me. But it's hard to imagine most of it still being played or remembered in 10 or 20 years, even by the generation growing up with it.
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