To be amazed at the charts this week in 1986?

[KentLocksmith]

Just looked at the charts this week in 1986 and every single song a banger!

In the charts is Whi’s Zoomin Who? by Aretha Franklin - I wonder if she foresaw the effect of the 2020 Covid epidemic and how day to day life would change? 🤣

But seriously, the charts were of such high calibre then why don’t we get that now?

im going to listen to the charts today - curiosity about Victoria Beckham - but im not expecting miracles !

I really didn't want to grow up into someone who says that music nowadays is rubbish and the old stuff is better...but ...
Am I getting old or is music really worse nowadays? Everything just seems to sound the same...and has no heart in it.

Anyway yanbu

YABU to think every song is a banger when it contains Walking In The Air.

I think we are all biased towards our own formative years in music anyway - I don’t know quite a few of the songs on there, and don’t like many of the others. A bit like today’s charts, really!

To be fair I like the current no 1

Djo - End of Beginning

You should watch Top of the Pops on BBC4 on a Friday night 80's and 90's charts. Its our music evening every Friday 😁

Victoria won't do well in the singles charts. She was #1 on iTunes but you don't need many sales now to be #1 on there. Streaming is what counts now.

Plus it's shite. And the video is so cringe . She must have wanted to forget that outfit !

1986 was a great year for music!
some proper tunes.

I was watching Totp on bbc4 with my kids a couple of years ago when they were late teens banging on about great music then. Which all promptly came undone with Shaddup your face

No way, music went to shit in the mid 80s, everything overproduced, bland and soulless. Late 70s to early 80s Post Punk and New Wave, mod and ska, early synth bands (early Human League, OMD, Depeche Mode etc.) was the best. It all unravelled around '84 and went downhill from there. Kitchen sink productions and weak tunes. Horrible.

🤣 agree

Broadly agree with what you’re saying but I think it unravelled after the summer of 86

There's plenty of good new music out there, it just doesn't chart any more, because the way we consume music has changed

When I was growing up in the 90s, every album you bought was a risk. Even if it was a band you knew you liked, you'd probably only have heard one or two songs from the new album before you bought it, therefore you were taking a real risk by spending your £15 on an album.

So people clustered into about 5 or 6 herds. You had the pop kids, the indie kids, the nu-metal kids, the dance music kids. And in those herds word of mouth would rule, and consensus would form, because you'd only buy something if everyone else said it was good. And so the best songs of the moment from each of the big genres would hit the charts.

There's no risk any more. You can call up any song in a second, for free, there's no need to spend £15 on an album you may end up hating. So the need for the herd doesn't exist. Kids don't like genres any more, they like songs. An average evenings listening for 18yo DD will have her jumping from Placebo to ACDC to Florence and the Machine, to some song from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast, to The Crane Wives, to some K-pop thing, and so on and so on. (And thats just the stuff I recognise)

She doesn't have a herd, there will be noone on the planet who shares anything close to her music taste. Her friends are no more of an influence on her listening than her parents, her Grandad, the TV show she saw last night, a random Twitch streamer, a band she heard in a pub. She has songs in common with everyone, but no common genre. And she's not unusual in this, we're all genre hoppers now.

And because there are no herds any more, there is no consensus, so what gets to the top of the charts is the lowest common denominator, the music that's most inoffensive to the most people. Its not good music, because good music is divisive. The stuff in the top 10 is being listened to by lots of people, but I doubt its their favourite music. Thats why you can get to number 1 with a 100th of the sales you'd have needed 30 years ago.

The problem with modern music is that the record companies, who have always controlled music from the 1930s on, can plug and plug and plug an artist. Rita Ora got so much hype that talksport's afternoon show would mention it almost daily. However, back in the day with magazines like NME and the like bands who were not mainstream got publicity...so became big, hence the indi scene in the middle 80s on.

Plus kids wanted to be different. From Teddy boys, mods, skin heads, punks, new romantics etc who all bucked the accepted trend and fashion...now kids are told what to wear by 20 something's sponsored by fashion labels and shops.

But look at the top 30 in 86.

Aha
Dire straits
Pet shop boys

Are the top 3

But in it are also

Nana Mouskouri
Sarah Brighman
Aretha

And a personal favourite....The Alarm

None of which could be described as mainstream pop at the time.

Plus AC/DC, Starship, Sting, Elton who could be described as well past their "hip" peak

1986 was a good year for bangers. In fact most 80s years produced some great ones, many still played at weddings, Christmas parties etc. Dance floors always packed.
I wish I could go back to 1986 x

I've got Bowling For Soup's '1985' in my head now

Aha, Dire Straits, PSB, Aretha, The Alarm....not "mainstream"? What are you on about? They were all about as mainstream as you could get! You'll be telling me Echo and the Bunnymen were weird and avantgarde next! 🤷‍♀️ 😅

I ended up watching a random "top of 1987" top of the pops a month or so back and it was absolutely dire 🙈

I still have a old VHS recording of Christmas Top of The Pops from 1986, and very happy memories of watching it with my big sister 🥰

1986 was the first year I bought a Now That’s What I Call Music album, great year. Fond memories of listening to that over and over.

Ten years earlier, it was even better, imo!

Top 20 UK Singles (Week Ending 25 January 1976):

1. Mamma Mia – ABBA
2. Forever and Ever – Slik
3. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
4. Love Machine – The Miracles
5. Glass of Champagne – Sailor
6. Love to Love You Baby – Donna Summer
7. We Do It – R and J Stone
8. In Dulci Jubilo/On Horseback – Mike Oldfield
9. King of the Cops – Billy Howard
10. Evil Woman – Electric Light Orchestra
11. Let the Music Play – Barry White
12. Midnight Rider – Paul Davidson
13. Itchycoo Park {1975} – The Small Faces
14. Answer Me – Barbara Dickson
15. Art for Arts Sake – 10cc
16. Walk Away from Love – David Ruffin
17. Sunshine Day – Osibisa
18. Milky Way – Sheer Elegance
19. Wide Eyed and Legless – Andy Fairweather-Low
20. No Regrets – Walker Brothers

The Sun Always Shines on TV – A-ha
Walk of Life – Dire Straits
West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys
Broken Wings – Mr. Mister
You Little Thief – Feargal Sharkey
Saturday Love – Cherrelle with Alexander O'Neal
Hit That Perfect Beat – Bronski Beat
Only Love – Nana Mouskouri
Alice, I Want You Just for Me – Full Force
Suspicious Minds – Fine Young Cannibals
Who's Zoomin' Who – Aretha Franklin
It's All Right (Baby's Coming Back) – Eurythmics
System Addict – Five Star
Russians – Sting
Borderline – Madonna
Girlie Girlie – Sophia George
Leaving Me Now – Level 42
Ring of Ice – Jennifer Rush
Saving All My Love for You – Whitney Houston
Pull Up to the Bumper/La Vie En Rose – Grace Jones

It's hardly wall to wall bangers is it? Nana Mouskouri? Mr Mister? Level 42? A couple of good ones, a few more that I wouldn't turn off the radio for, but a lot of it is very dull and some of it is actively annoying.

@HauntedBungalow

Yep, only decent songs in that list are Aha, PSB, Eurythmics and Grace Jones, plus FYC which is a cover anyway. With the possible exception of "Borderline" the rest is forgettable dross.

Thanks for listing them!

I love them !! The Alice one was hilarious and gets no radio airplay
now

I love the Nana Mouskouri one !

Nope my 20 yo daughter and her friends have all said music was better in the 90’s. My 15yo son listens to drakes & Kanyes first music so even he isn’t listening to new music