Chart Nostalgia

It has been announced that all new albums and singles will soon be released globally on Fridays. This is to align the whole world so that internet sales make sense.

This means that the new chart can also now be compiled and revealed on a Friday rather than the current Sunday. This has sent everyone off on a wave of nostalgia about the demise of the Sunday Chart Show Countdown.

The real nostalgia though is for when the chart was released on a Tuesday lunchtime. That was the earliest they could do it because it took two days to compile, by pen and paper probably. It was repeated on the Tuesday early evening show and then again on the Wednesday Breakfast show. The chart was a big thing is those days. The Sunday show was just a rather late recap of sales figures that were by then a week old but this was when you taped your favourites.

Every Tuesday we used to gather around a radio at 12:45 during our lunch break, waiting for Newsbeat to finish. Then they played the top five in reverse order without giving the rest of the chart away. After playing number two you’d then get the countdown in full before they’d play the number one just before 1pm at which point we had to leg it back to class. It was a brilliant format, compulsive listening and quite a social thing. 

All of that went when technology moved on and they could collate the sales data faster meaning they could move the initial reveal to Sundays. Sadly they kept the Sunday format rather than the Tuesday format, meaning you had to go through the whole top forty, taking ages, before you found out what was number one. The tension went and everyone I knew stopped tuning in, at least until the last ten minutes or so. It was a major marketing cock up.

I would say bring back Top of the Pops, put it on a Friday and make that the chart reveal. Just don’t forget to do a CRB check on the presenters this time.

L wishes me good luck with dancing boy as I head off for another sports massage. The chap is a former dancer but a rather evil masseur. He doesn’t disappoint on that front.

(Friday 27^th February)