irishguy28 wrote:Can you tell me please - how do you discover music? Even if your monthly chart was a weekly chart, some of the tracks seem to hang around far longer than would seem "normal", judging by others' charts on here. Also, some tracks debut many months after release. I'm not being cheeky - just genuinely curious as to how you discover, and consume, music, as it seems to be so different to anyone else on this forum.
Very good questions - so I fear this is going to be a very long, very full answer.......
Apart from the Eurovision Song Contest, which I've watched and followed for nearly as long, my main source of discovering new music for over thirty years has been the singles chart shows, on radio and television, of various Western European countries.
I first listened to the Sunday evening chart show on Radio 1 in early 1978, a few months before it expanded to a top 40. And I tuned in every week until early 2003, when Wes Butters took over and the format and presentation began to decline. Luckily, it was around this time that I discovered the superior BFBS version on Monday nights, which remained until earlier this year. Since then, as I find the level of verbal diarrhoea of the latest presenters just too unacceptably bad, I've switched to the television versions - initially The Hits, now VH1/TMF or others. (Now presented by Scott Mills, or stand-in Mark Goodier!!)
I started to listen to the weekly Irish chart show at the beginning of 1979, then the Europarade in early 1983, and the Dutch charts from a few months later. And by the late 1980s my weekly routine also included the radio chart shows of Austria and Germany - then Belgium and France had replaced Ireland and Holland, which I was no longer able to receive, in the early 1990s.
But, from the mid 1990s and the arrival of satellite television and radio, I was able to hear the Dutch charts on Radio 538 and Happy-RTL, and the German charts on various radio and television channels. Eventually, with the switch to Sky Digital, I was able to hear the Irish chart show again eery week as well.
Currently, via the internet and television, I listen to/watch several programmes devoted to the charts of these countries every week:
- UK (usually on Monday evenings, or later repeats)
- Ireland (Sunday afternoons)
- Belgium (Saturday mornings, but available to listen to again at any time - and also on TMF on Sundays and Wednesdays)
- Holland (Friday afternoons - but also the excellent "Non Stop 40", permanently available in a three-hour loop)
- Germany (Thursday and Friday evenings on VIVA TV)
- Denmark (Friday afternoons, repeated on Sunday mornings).
Virtually everything in my current chart and breakers has been in one or more of these national charts. However, I also review the new releases schedules in various places - especially the suppliers I regularly use for CD and vinyl purchases. They usually have options to listen to clips of those that sound promising - such as new versions of old songs I previously liked, or new material from acts that have impressed me previously. That's how I discovered all of these:
03 01 04 I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS Mark'Oh
04 10 03 WISH YOU WERE HERE Jan Wayne with Scarlet
09 09 08 JUST BREATHE Lizzy Pattinson
16 15 04 SHE'S GOT THAT LIGHT Straight Flush
26 18 09 MUSIC BOX DANCER DJ Schwede
31 28 09 LARGER THAN LIFE Regi, Wout and Caren Meynen
32 ---- 01 PROMISE ME Axel CoonReading threads on UKMix - and, occasionally, other forums - has also alerted me to some other tracks I might not otherwise have become aware of. A particularly good example is:
B14 [ 17 ] BRUISED WATER Chicane Vs Natasha Bedingfield .......which I've never heard on
any radio or television show!!
However, despite all this, I'm finding that I am hearing fewer tracks that I like enough to want to buy than previously. Looking back at my breakers charts of a period selected at random - early 1995 - there were around 12-18 new breakers every month. Nowadays it's more like half as many. So, as tracks are remaining as breakers for longer (up to a maximum of twelve months) there are some that I will gradually like more and more, and they will ultimately reach my chart. Similarly, with fewer new hits than there used to be (in the mid-1980s, there were almost 100 hits a year. By the mid-1990s, the average was more like 70. Now, it's descending towards 50!) the older tracks are dropping down my chart more slowly than they otherwise might have done.
A further way in which I continue to regularly hear my hits and breakers long after radio stations have stopped playing them is that at least once a month, for nearly thirty years, I've set aside a few hours to play my own charts, in a similar format to the radio chart shows - although it has varied over the years. (I've wondered if other contributors to these forums do the same, on a weekly basis or whatever!) Originally, everything was played on vinyl. Later, after I first bought a CD player and started to buy in this format too, typically I played alternate tracks on vinyl and on CD. More recently, it has been CDs only. And, in only the last few months, I've switched almost entirely to Youtube, for a monthly five-hour countdown - starting with the previous month's Chartbuster and number one, then all the breakers, 40->1, then all the hits 40->1, with the new Chartbuster again just before the top 20 and at the end. 84 tracks, with an average length of around three and a half minutes, fit comfortably into five hours - although I'm currently finding that there are quite a few featured tracks that are closer to the three-minute mark (and those by
Fixkes and
Ishtar are much shorter even than this!) - so I'm also able to fit in a few number ones from years gone by, which I'm now including links for in these postings. This is partly why I changed the format of my postings here to include all the Youtube links - although it was partly inspired also by one or more of your threads elsewhere in this forum!
[ Incidentally, it was only in seeking a Youtube link for
Makem and Clancy's "Red Is The Rose" earlier this month that I belatedly discovered that Tommy Makem died last year. This wasn't mentioned in the Irish chart thread - but I wonder if any of his back catalogue reappeared on the Irish albums chart as a result? I must look baok and check at some point. ]
Finally, there is a further reason that my chart may seem more out-of-sync with others - but this is one that I might be able to address in the months ahead. I compile each new chart as near to the
beginning of the month as possible. But, when I first posted one here, it was nearly the end of a month - so essentially I've remained almost a month behind ever since. I did mean to make an effort to catch up - that's partly why I posted this most recent chart nearly a week earlier than usual. Perhaps, by catching up by a further week or so each month, I should be able to post more up-to-date charts from early 2009?
Therefore the new breakers from this latest one were the tracks I heard for the first time and/or decided that I liked enough to want to buy/did buy, or at least ordered - during
September:
B01 [ 00 ] SEE YOU AGAIN Miley Cyrus
B28 [ 00 ] RED LIGHT Ian Carey
B29 [ 00 ] WASH MY WORLD Laurent Wolf
B34 [ 00 ] BOTTLE IT UP Sara Bareilles
B35 [ 00 ] STEPPING STONE Duffy
B36 [ 00 ] OUT OF MY MIND Lasgo
B39 [ 00 ] GIB MIR SONNE Rosenstolz
B40 [ 00 ] ANGEL IN THE NIGHT Basshunter And, of course.......
B04 [ 00 ] PADDY'S REVENGE Steve Mac irishguy28 wrote:Oh Lord, Steve Mac's "Paddy's Revenge" is the most irritating, annoying track I've had the misfortune to hear in a long, long time, and further, it's clearly a reel, not a jig.
I only referred to this as a "jig" because that is how it was described in various other internet sources, presumably incorrectly. I've now amended it to "reel" accordingly. I must admit, I already knew of your views on this track - having read your succinct and forceful analysis on a thread in the Dance forum. Without even going back to check, I can remember that.......
You wrote:This is total muck.
Well, one man's total muck is another's....... whatever. Sorry, but I really
do like this one - a lot!! And I'm sure it's going to be a
very high new entry in my November chart!!!
I'm glad to see Madonna in the chartbusters area and Amy Macdonald rising
