Comments on: Popular Demographic Survey

By: ashley

ashley — Tue, 10 May 2011 05:31:47 +0000

1.1990
2.1994
3. In a weird way, where im fully aware of the top 40 and often really like songs in it but it doesnt seem like a thing anymore, as a real reflection of tastes, which is why this blog is so interesting to me.

By: seekenee

seekenee — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:59:52 +0000

1. 1971
2. 1978
3. 2003

By: Eli

Eli — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:22:25 +0000

1. When were you born? 1987
2. What was the year you were first regularly interested in what was at #1? 1998
3. Do you still listen to music in the Top 40 on a regular basis (and if the answer’s “no”, when did you stop)? No – my interest began to evaporate in 2002.

By: tonya

tonya — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:28:18 +0000

1. 1965
2. 1975, I received a transistor radio for Christmas 1974. My parents didn’t listen to pop music at all when we were kids.
3. Yes, I’m still 14 in my head.

By: Jimmy the Swede

Jimmy the Swede — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:41:06 +0000

Those chart jukeboxes sound wonderful. I personally would prefer a machine where you pump in a month and year and transform yourself back to school as you are now. Like Erithian, I would also choose July 1973 when I was 12, specifically the Monday morning after Jan Kodes won Wimbledon. As a big Kodes fan, I remember cheerfully discussing his victory with any kid who could give a stuff, as we were about to begin a Geography lesson, before I was silenced by Mr Gee our teacher and even more unnecessarily dismissed from the class, which hadn’t even started. It was an astonishing show of petulant overreaction and I have often wondered what fuelled it. A lost tenner on Roger Taylor, whom Kodes knocked out in the semi, would be my guess. Whatever it was, the incident has not been forgiven and thus I would go back in the transformer with a boxing glove adorning my southpaw left hand and punch Mr Gee right on the fucking bugle.

By: Paulito

Paulito — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:14:38 +0000

1. November 1978.
2. I started actively following what was at #1 from early 1987 – though I remember being conscious of current pop hits, and of watching and enjoying TOTP and ‘MT-USA’ (fab video show which graced the Irish TV schedules in the mid-80s), from 1984 onwards.
3. Not since the final wave of great chart music in 1994-95.

By: will

will — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:15:34 +0000

I did exactly this at my local a couple of weeks ago! For a quid I got Silver Lady, Black Is Black and From New York to LA and relived October 1977.

By: vinylscot

vinylscot — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 16:02:57 +0000

My local, The Bay Horse,in Shawlands, has one of these jukeboxes,and a fair number of elderly (even more elderly than I) customers, and it can be a brilliant night just sitting and lapping up some of the stuff they play.

By: Billy

Billy — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:56:46 +0000

1. September 1988 (am I the current youngest?)
2. A growing awareness throughout the mid-late 90s, kicking off in Summer 1999.
3. Every week without fail. Ask me again in ten years though and I imagine the answer will be different.

By: Erithian

Erithian — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:29:01 +0000

I don’t know how common they are, but a pub near us has a jukebox where you can enter any date since 1960 and bring up that week’s Top 40, so for a small outlay you can entertain the pub with your own mini-version of POTP. Choosing at random July 1973, when I was the age my twins are now, I regaled people with Medicine Head, Stealer’s Wheel, Mott the Hoople, the Jackson Five, Paul Simon, 10cc and Slade (cos you have to play the number one). Great fun.

By: Jimmy the Swede

Jimmy the Swede — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:40:50 +0000

Dear God! Unswerving praise for Timmy Bannockburn! Is this the Twilight Zone now?

WOOF WOOF!

Yep, Arnold. I guess it is!!

By: Conrad

Conrad — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:32:38 +0000

MC, 105 – thanks for the link!

Agree wholeheartedly, some real verve in TB’s delivery, and a decent choice of tracks, although A.Pedant notes that Charlie Daniels Band was a re-recording. Blaming researcher/producer rather than TB for that one…

By: Billy Smart

Billy Smart — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:26:46 +0000

Re: 105 “Sensational! And at fifteen, here’s my favourite record in this week’s forty – Here’s SHIK!” :)

By: Steve Mannion

Steve Mannion — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:17:28 +0000

Nice one Mike. From that I guess it would also be easy to have a playlist of every song to make the top 100 within the year (hint hint!).

By: Mike Atkinson

Mike Atkinson — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:09:44 +0000

For those who still like to keep tabs on the UK singles chart, I maintain a Spotify playlist of the current Top 100, which is updated most weeks (if not absolutely every week – I’ll be abroad this weekend, for instance). On average, between 90% and 95% of any given chart are sourceable on Spotify, so it’s not a bad catch-up service. (This week, it’s 95%.)

Here’s your easily memorable link: http://tinyurl.com/uktop100 – needless to say, you have to have Spotify installed and the service isn’t available outside Europe.

By: punctum

punctum — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:51:17 +0000

Yes, it was a remarkable improvement; TB sounds engaged with the music, the choices are better (you just know that Dalebot would have skipped “Tusk” and played the Dooleys) and the listening experience altogether livelier and happier. Still a few factoids to placate the hardcore chartspotters but not remotely missing the “it was their 37th consecutive single to peak at number 37, although it did climb to Number Two” mindset of old. Also – “Winchester Cathedral” to “Video Killed The Radio Star”; the route seems natural and I’d never thought of it that way before (i.e. megaphone as outdated token of usurping Modernism, both in mourning).

This weekend, two more excellent choices; 1968 and (YES!!!) 1981. Here’s hoping that TB’s liking of Beyonce, Plan B etc. will encourage some movement into noughties charts.

And yes, one chart as of old was better than two rushed-through charts but hey, you take what you can find! If you do want to hear the great man counting down the same 1979 chart when it was new, however, go here and click on the appropriate file.

By: Billy Smart

Billy Smart — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:47:42 +0000

It was a bit of an improvement, wasn’t it? I liked his observation about the drums at the end of ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ waking the rest of the band up! You can imagine TB actually listening to, and enjoying, the discs, rather than just taping his links in 15 minutes.

By: Conrad

Conrad — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:34:54 +0000

MC, did you catch Blackburn presenting Pick of the Pops on saturday? Sensational…

I do wish they would just play an entire Top 20 though rather than leaving loads of stuff out.

By: Mark G

Mark G — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:33:40 +0000

Update from #5, 2008…

1) 1961
2) 1971
3) [s]Yeah, in general I can still read the top forty and know the majority of the songs there.[/s] Thesedays, I’d have some difficulty.

By: rosie

rosie — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 11:45:26 +0000

Marcello@99: You don’t need a licence to listen to any radio station: the radio-only licence was abolished in 1971. Anyway, may I echo the Turnip’s sentiments in wishing Lena luck in her new job and both of you luck in house-hunting. I suspect you’ll need it in these times.

No problem for me in lingering with Lindisfarne – a fine band which has sadly fallen into obscurity. (Yes, I do follow Then Play Long especially as you pass through ‘my’ period and specifically ‘my’ album period). Alan Hull was always more than a “good-time” musician, intensely political in action as well as words. His premature passing was a sad loss to the city he never abandoned for fame.

By: Jimmy the Swede

Jimmy the Swede — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 11:28:31 +0000

Best of luck to Lena in what would appear to be a vocational new position. There are plenty of hospice shops down in Eastbourne, all staffed by wonderful people.

And good luck with the househunting, MC. I hope you won’t mind me reminding you that this is an uber-stressful manoeuvre, dealing as you do with some of the lowest forms of humanity, namely estate agents, solicitors and bankers. I went through it all myself just four short years ago. Bon chance!

By: punctum

punctum — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:58:22 +0000

#97 – Agree that the interview sections are by far the best part of the JW Prog but unfortunately if I want to hear “Young Hearts Run Free” for the zillionth time (as I did on his show this Sunday past) I can do so on umpteen oldies stations (or on one of the approx 27893 compilation albums I have which include it) without having to pay a license fee for the privilege. Nice to hear the hitherto unreleased ’78 Springsteen stuff, though. Drop the obvious crowd-pleasers and go for more of that, I say. Much prefer the delightful Paul O’Grady Show whose explicit mission seems to be to play non-obvious, neglected and/or leftfield music (by Sunday R2 standards at any rate).

Also (sorry for this extended digression) I should apologise to all Then Play Long readers for the unconscionable delay in posting entry #109. This is because of several life upheavals that are currently going on, not least the fact that Lena this morning starts her new job as Assistant Manager at the Trinity Hospice shop in Putney High Street (I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing her all the best, and I know she will do magnificently – do feel free to drop in if you happen to be in the area!). In addition we’re doing major househunting at the moment since our combined and ever-increasing music and book collection needs considerably greater space than our current compact and bijou abode (as indeed do we). Which means, along with everything else, that I’ve essentially been too knackered to do any blog writing. Worry not, though; TPL will resume once things have settled down again, with a comparatively compact and bijou entry on one of the prime examples of what many still call “Our Kind Of Music” or “Loud Heavy Rock Metal.”

By: DietMondrian

DietMondrian — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:28:35 +0000

1. 1973.

2. Late 1980, and I started buying music (mostly by Adam in the Ants) in early 1981, using money I’d received for Christmas.

3. 1990, when Being Boring only reached number 20. I was gutted! Though I continued listening to some stuff that made the charts, but not because it was in the charts.

By: Jimmy the Swede

Jimmy the Swede — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:04:49 +0000

#95 – MC, I actually get the impression that Johnnie Walker (whom we both admire greatly) quite enjoys his seventies show, as most definetly do I. His interviews are always interesting, probably because his subjects share our utmost respect and affection for him. Certainly he is obliged to play some tracks through gritted teeth but the absolute pleasure he derived from banging on Medicine Head’s “Rising Sun” (a disc in the Swede’s own collection) a couple of weeks ago was plain for all to hear. I’m just delighted that this wonderful man is still amoung us.

By: punctum

punctum — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:34:38 +0000

n.b. yes I was three when I started to notice the charts and five when I started writing them down. Child prodigy innit.