Chartography - Art of Noise

A very interesting project, pioneering for its time. In truth, I had a hard time getting into most of their stuff - too experimental and not very musical for my tastes. But the idea and execution have to be applauded. What interested me the most, though, is that they managed to have a very fair share of success worldwide, becoming rather reliable hit-makers during the mid and late 1980s (as the chartography proves) - which is remarkable in an era that embraced commercialism and looked upon experimentation. And, of course, they did "Moments in love" - one of the most gorgeous melodies of the electronic era! So they merited an inclusion - and here they are:

Art of Noise

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the bestest viewing experience😊)

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Chartography - The Cars

The visionaries of New Wave keep passing away. Earlier this year we lost Mark Hollis of Talk Talk, now - Ric Ocasek of The Cars. Not the way I'd chose to continue this blog, but here we are.

The Cars are a strange case. Very unconventional for the US music scene of the time, they debuted - and almost immediately broke through, going almost from strength to strength from then on for years and years. Quite why did they do so good is somewhat puzzling - probably because for all their technological sheen and strange lyrics Ric wrote irresistible melodies and hooks, - but the fact is they became the first US "New Wave" bands to succeed and therefore opened the gates for compatriots and wavers from abroad. But they also managed not to get trampled by successors and, having made on of the biggest-selling debut albums of the time, went on to make a couple blockbusters more ("Heartbeat City" and "Greatest Hits"). But strangeness continued - having conquered North America and Australasia (that had lots in common music tastes-wise), they had a hard time planting elsewhere, only really hitting the big time with their deathless ballad "Drive", one of the biggest all-electronic hits of the decade. They needn't have worried, of course - being big in America is a position of immense strength, but still on the outside they weren't nearly as famous as their peers Blondie. Peculiar time for the darlings of the US FM radio stations - most of them sold millions at home but managed only a hit or two internationally. Styx, REO Speedwagon, Survivor, Foreigner - the list continues. Probably there was something particularly "American" about them that prevented the world domination.

Still, thanks to Ric's vision, The Cars were able to appeal both to radio, usually reticent about that whole "New Wave" thing (especially home-grown, for some reason), and forward-looking circles, and moved with the times unscathed until 1987, when even the giants started to lose grip. Carrier-wise and commercially both the band and Ric himself never recovered, but they remained dearly loved by both fans and public, and induction in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame became the final ... of their achievements. Final, as it happens, in more ways than one.

So rest in peace, Ric, and thank you (and The Cars) for the music!

The Cars

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the bestest viewing experience😊)

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Chartography - A Flock of Seagulls

This may be an unexpected inclusion as the band has for quite a long time been at an unenviable position - one of the most ridiculed of the genre (in the US) or barely remembered at all (in the UK and elsewhere). Still, that's some consistency - they were never a critics' favourites from day one. Yet if one digs deeper, a distinctive entity is found. Maybe not pioneering and overly creative (like it's necessary), but very musical, entertaining and talented. I personally most fond of their instrumental work which is one of the best of the decade at the very least (and which I recommend without reservations), but for all their shortcomings they had a sound of their own, being at their best with up-tempo, energetic songs, but rarely missing out with slower ones. They had an interesting overall atmosphere that is quite addictive and memorable. So it's actually little surprise that they had success at the time when this style of spacey, sci-fi-informed music was in vogue. Unfortunately they couldn't really adapt to swift changes and vanished commercially almost as quickly as they appeared. Still, their success has been rather solid to warrant a chart file of their own.

A Flock of Seagulls

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the best viewing experience😊)

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Chartography - Alphaville

Here I won't post only music grands - the lesser-known performers will also get attention. Like Alphaville, for instance - major stars and probably the biggest European débutantes of 1984. There was literally no country on the continent that escaped their charms - and these also extended far outside (to much lesser extent, though). And thankfully such phenomenal success has been for a reason - their initial hits are pure gold, pop evergreens fondly remembered and oft-covered to this day. So it's a small wonder that they were unable to prolong their success and by 1987 it was practically over. Changing music trends played a big part, no doubt, and frankly even their debut album was eneven, and the later ones were quite spotty too. But still they declined too swiftly, even losing ground in their homeland of (West) Germany. Surprisingly they had a short comeback in German-speaking territories in 2010 (!). Still, they are active as a live band and are well-loved by audiences. And their widespread success warranted this compendium (which looks impressive for any band - on first pages, at least😏).

Alphaville

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the best viewing experience😊)

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Chartography - Yazoo

So now another revue of a performer's achievements chartwise. Yazoo were big news for a couple of years, seemingly had a long and successful carrier ahead of them - judging by the early successes. The combination of catchy synth motives and bluesy vocals was truly ahead of its time - and a formula seldom repeated since. Still, they helped make synth music acceptable in the mainstream, showed its flexibility and wide reach. Their albums are a bit inconsistent, but generally are strong and enjoyable. So it was quite a shock to see them disband at the height of their popularity. Hard to judge if they had more to offer - well-covered internal tensions aside, did they have anywhere to go with their established style? Even Eurythmics - the band they paved the way for (and one that's going to be featured here in time) - all but put electronics aside after a couple of albums' worth of experimenting. Perhaps they just gave all they could - and decided not to waste everybody's time. One way or the other, they still left their mark on the development of electronic and pop music - and for that should be praised and respected.

Remarkably successful chart carrier, by the way - one you don't generally expect from an "indee" band: worldwide successes on a big scale, both with singles and albums! So the file is uncharacteristically long for a band with a couple of long players and a handful of singles☺ Also I included The Assembly single - because why not. Enjoy!

Yazoo

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the best viewing experience😊)

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Chart collection - De Nederlandse Top 40

So, another chart collection. The Netherlands is one of those countries that always had not one, but two charts, even to this day. They were Nationale Hitparade/Mega Top 100 and De Nederlandse Top 40 (aka Stichting Top 40). The first is readily available here, while Top 40 site only has singles charts, and is quite awkward to use. But - there were once two sites by Micha Jans, that carried archives of these singles and albums charts. Now they are neglected, with albums chart site practically nonexistent. One can always use the Wayback Machine (eternal praise to those who invented it!), but I did the work for others - and here are the contents of these two sites.

One archive is for singles, the other - for albums. These are lists of hits for each year with entry date, peak position and weeks on chart (just basic stuff, but just what is really needed). The real interest here is with album chart (LP Top 20/30/50/75/Album Top 100), as it's not readily available anywhere, to my knowledge (for full story see the chart guide).

De Nederlandse Top 40 (1970-2007)

Album charts 1970-1999

Australia - all chart singles 1960-1989

There are no searchable Australian chart archives before 1989 on the Net... right? Well, actually, there are lists of all singles that charted in the country between 1960 and 1989. Published by Gavin Ryan aka bulion on Australian-Charts.com's great "Special Occasion Charts" subforum, these are available for all to see. Here are links to all relevant posts. Since 1974 info is from Kent/Australian Music report, before that - Go-Set and retroactive charts by David Kent.

1960 / 1961 / 1962 / 1963 / 1964 / 1965 / 1966 / 1967 / 1968 / 1969

1970 / 1971 / 1972 / 1973 / 1974 / 1975 / 1976 / 1977 / 1978 / 1979

1980 / 1981 / 1982 / 1983 / 1984 / 1985 / 1986 / 1987 / 1988 / 1989

Australian No. 1 singles: 1940-1988

Australian No. 1 albums

Enjoy!

Chart collection - Trackslistan (Sweden)

Here's the first of my chart collections from various countries of the world. Swedish national radio station P3 debuted its weekly show called "Tracks" in September 1984. It had the listeners'-voted Top 20 chart called "Trackslistan" - which quickly became the most talked-about in the country and very influential. Though it wasn't an all-powerful hit-making machine - songs could chart in it, even get to No. 1 without even appearing on the national sales-chart ("Topplistan"). Still, it helped make lots of bands and artists well-known.

There was a website which had all its archives up to mid 2000s but that had gone down (as is rather often with the chart sites), seemingly without a new permanent home. I managed to retrieve most of its contents via the Internet Wayback Machine (all hail those who invented it!) - and now they can be downloaded wholly here (in their original form on HTML pages):

Trackslistan

Well, that's it, really😊

Chartography - Talk Talk

Very sad news of Mark Hollis's passing. A very distinctive talent, both as a singer and a writer, who deservedly made himself a force to be reckoned with. Artistic evolution of his band Talk Talk is second to none in its scope and determination to eschew the commercial motivations. And yet along the way Mark and his colleagues managed to carve themselves a very nice niche in the market, having a widespread commercial success worldwide during early to mid 1980s. They even made their least commercial outings chart quite nicely, such was the power of their music. Always a bit of an underdog in their native UK, they somewhat surprisingly hit real hard in continental Europe and even managed to break the US market (albeit briefly). Their success story is only a little less fascinating than their creative one. I won't pretend I understand or like or rate that highly their experimental output - but their first two albums are stellar examples of "New Romantic"/synth-led sound of their era, I love them very much. So with this in mind and in memory of Mark Hollis, here's a compendium of their chart achievements:

Talk Talk

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the best viewing experience😊)

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Chartography - The Human League

Next let's look at the chart activities of the band most close to the Kraftwerk synthesizer format, even a bit wilder at it at times: The Human League. Probably the biggest band of the early 1980s synth explosion, they, along with Ultravox (whom we'll get to in time, for sure), pioneered the British synth-pop and became one of the biggest influences on the electronic pop movement. For years dismissed as a "pop band with synths" (there was a time when this was seen as something wrong, for some reason), in 2000s they finally got their recognition as one of the most important bands of their era - 20 years too late, some might say, but at least it happened.

Surprisingly, for the band of their stature, their consistently successful years are limited to 1981-1986, with later ones providing increasingly diminishing returns. Truly a story of the band that record companies hardly knew what to do with. Still, they did remarkably great for some time, with 12 pages of the Word file to show for it!

I also decided to include solo efforts by The HL vocalist Philip Oakey - just for the hell of it😊

The Human League

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the best viewing experience😊)

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Chartography - Kraftwerk

So, before long, let's start. And what better place to start than at the beginning - with fathers of all things electronic pop and dance: Kraftwerk! Fantastic band, whose pioneering status and place in the canon of pop music among the greats are undisputed. Frankly, it's a small wonder they managed to succeed in probably the most unwelcoming music climate - but they did, and did it in grand style, blowing minds and tearing down the rule books, making it all possible for those who followed. Chart-wise, they are very uneven - apart from Autobahn, their biggest hits differ from country to country and there's no clear pattern to their success, hitting big with one album in some areas while at the same time completely missing out in others. Still, it makes charting their success interesting! So here we are:

Kraftwerk

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the best viewing experience😊)

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Chartography - contents

Here's the list of performers I'm going to feature over time. Will certainly add some over time😃 When a new chartography is published I'll add a link to it here.

a-ha / ABC / Alphaville / Adam Ant / Art of Noise // B-52's / Bangles / Belle Stars / Berlin / Blancmange / Blondie / Laura Branigan / Bronski Beat / Buggles // Belinda Carlisle / The Cars / China Crisis // Dead or Alive / Chris De Burgh / Depeche Mode / Thomas Dolby // Enigma / Erasure / Eurythmics // Falco / A Flock of Seagulls / Frankie Goes to Hollywood // Go West / Eddy Grant // Heaven 17 / Human League // Icehouse / Billy Idol / INXS // Japan / Jean Michel Jarre / Johnny Hates Jazz / Grace Jones / Howard Jones // Kajagoogoo / Katrina & The Waves / Nik Kershaw / Kraftwerk // Level 42 / Jona Lewie / Living in a Box // Madness / Men at Work / Men Without Hats / Alison Moyet // Nena / New Order // Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark // Pretenders / Propaganda / Psychedelic Furs // Roxy Music // Sandra / Simple Minds / Siouxsie & The Banshees / Soft Cell / Spandau Ballet / Sparks / Stranglers // Talk Talk / Talking Heads / Tears for Fears / Thompson Twins // Ultravox // Vangelis // Wang Chung / Kim Wilde // Yazoo / Yello

Chart guide

Here's the guide to clarify and expand on basic chart info featured in chartographies. Currently it hold info from 25 countries. Anyone who spots any mistake or can add anything significant is urged to contact me in the comments😊

Chart guide

(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the best viewing experience😊)

What I'm missing

I tried to make my chartographies as full as possible. But there are still some gaps I just can't fill for the lack of information available or people ready to provide it. I strongly urge anyone who may have stumbled upon these pages and by chance have the needed bits to contact me - that'll be most welcome and very much appreciated! Meanwhile here's what I lack:

1. Canada - "The Record" chart info
2. Portugal - "Música & Som" and "Top Música & Som" info (especially the latter)
3. The Netherlands - "De Nederlandse Top 100" album chart info (after 1999)
4. Spain - anything that's missing (mainly mid 1980s and album info)
5. Japan - anything that's missing

These are the main things. Also, it'd be nice to have chart info from "newer" countries like those of the former Soviet Bloc (Poland, Hungary etc). Also, I don't have album charts from "Melody Maker" and "New Musical Express" (UK), so if anyone's inclined to help - please don't hesitate😏

Why are there charts

A very good article that explains the meaning of record/song charts. Perhaps it's a bit outmoded now, with streaming and other things taken into account, but what's written hold true for the time period this blog is concerned with. Focused on Australia, it nevertheless is applicable to other world countries that had charts then.

Why are there charts

What is a chartography

Of course, I already mentioned that it's a mix of discography, i.e. chronological list of releases by any given artist irrespective of format, and chart information. I don't include the exact discographical info - versions of songs, B-sides, remixes etc, - only a chronological list of releases: singles, albums and compilations (in order of release). To that the list of countries in which any featured release has charted is attached. First I though to present countries alphabetically but then decided the chart entry date will be more appropriate to give the idea how single or album grew in popularity (or didn't) worldwide.

The chart info is presented in a table and goes like this: first of all, name of a country. Next column features the source of the chart, after that the entry date, peak position (with number in brackets indicating how long it spent at No. 1) and number of weeks in the chart.

There are often several infos for some countries. First of all, it's when the country had two or more charts of equal importance. These are featured chronologically - by entry date. If the single/album charted on the same date then the various charts are placed by descending chart positions. In case these are the same too, number of weeks in the charts decides which chart is featured first. In some rare cases all this info can be the same - then the charts are placed alphabetically.

The charts are chosen by their importance. Of course, the official ones are featured, but if there were more then they are all used (where info is available). For example, USA had three main charts in the 1970s - Billboard, Cash Box and Record World. The same with Italy (Musica e Dischi, TV Sorrisi e Canzoni and RAI Hit Parade), The Netherlands (Nationale Hitparade and De Nederlandse Top 40) etc. The biggest count of charts is for the UK - it had a main chart (I dubbed it by the title of publication - Music Week), but also historically important lists in the papers "New Musical Express" and "Melody Maker". Then there was Record Business/The Network Chart, especially prominent in the second half of 1980s. These are all featured.

Regarding radio charts, I only featured them for smaller countries that had only that one radio chart (usually in addition to the main sales-based list). These were important as a measure of public tastes and give some indication of songs' popularity, even if they didn't reach the sales lists (not to mention they boost the number of chart entries😄). On the other hand, I decided not to use specialist charts based on genres (especially prominent in the USA with their rock/dance/country/etc lists). The main ones are more than enough.

Sometimes records (usually albums, but singles sometimes too) had a second life as a re-release or a different version under the same title. So if it's a re-entry, then the info is featured in the main table. If it's a remix or reissue, then the separate table is created.

Sometimes artists released singles or compilations in specific markets. If these charted, they are placed in the main order by date of chart entry.

These are the main things for an explanation. If some other points arise, I'll add them in time.

Statement of Intent

So, yet another blog on the internets☺ It's going to be concerned with the music chart stuff from the part - mainly 1970s and 1980s. Here I'll be posting links to various files I created and gathered or online resources, all to do with the charts from all over the world (hopefully ☺).

The main purpose of this is to publish the things I call chartographies - that is, a mix of discography and chart info - for various artists. I've been doing these things for a couple of years now, but this being just a labour of love that's interesting to very few, if I'm realistic, I see no reason to hold it privately or try to make any sort of commercial use of it. So it'll be free for all to download.

It won't be just random artists, though. Most of them will be from what is rather vaguely called "New Wave" of the late 1970s and 1980s - synthpop, new romantics etc. The usual suspects, you know. Some of them went on to considerable commercial success and international acclaim, while others had a few years (at most) of recognition and then faded due to one reason or other. Most of them I hold very dear to my heart and would like to preserve them, even if only in this way.

Other stuff will comprise of chart collections from various sources that are not readily available. Each one will be explained in the corresponding post. Lastly, links will lead to articles and discussions that I find interesting, enlightening or just plain fun.

With any questions please don't hesitate to contact me. I'd also love to see comments, if only of "that's nice"/"that's crap" variety. Feedback keeps people going, so don't spare it☺

For now that's it, I guess.

Hello World! :)

My name is Vlad (also known as Passing_Stranger on UKMIX Forum) and this is my blog.