I know several people who want to go to this. Rick Astley fans, not rugby fans!

Nor music fans.

Well yes, I do tend to agree.

> at the music snobs who look down their noses at pop music, when secretly they enjoy it as much as anyone else. Bit weird also when the lineup consists of pretty much career muzos and not flash-in-the-pans or synthetics. But hey.

Quite apart from The Real Thing being from the 70s they were an excellent band. Is Eddie Amoo still singing?

I don't quite know what point you're making, but if this is it, then i wouldn't say any decade has a significantly bigger or smaller proportion of crap to avergae to good to classic music - especially when it comes to the singles charts. Your lists don't seem to be what you claim, those were not the No. 1s of those years. (I have an mp3 collection of every no. 1 single since the 50s when they officially began)

Anyhoo, and on the basis I dunno if you're saying they're good or bad, and on the basis that I just can't resist music threads, being obsessed with it as I amMarmalade -
Great band. I hated and still hate Ob-la-di although it's a BEatles song, but Reflections remains one of my all-time favourite tracks. Proper muzos all of 'em, did the tours with some of the greats, fine band.

Edison Lighthouse
Ah but no such group, really. or a 1 hit wonder some may think. In fact, an extremely catchy and infectious perfect pop tune of its day, i still like "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes", it has aged well. But the lead vocal sells the song, and looking it up, I see it was a professional singer called Tony Burrows, and they list a number of hits he had under different names including White Plains, The Pipkins and First Class. In fairness this was the best one.

The Jackson 5
Absolute class. One of the best groups of all time.

Simon & Garfunkel
Absolute class. One of the best - if not the best - singer/songwriter duos of all time.

Norman Greenbaum
Spirit In The Sky - Another one of my all time favourite records, despite the dodgy lyrics. He wrote it as well as singing it.

Christie
Yellow River is another really classy pop song.

Mungo Jerry
in The Summertime? Sheer genius.

Free
Bow down.

Elvis Presley
No commentary needed

Smokey Robinson and The Miracles
Bow down in the presence of one of the all-time great voices

Freda Payne
Band Of Gold remains another of my all time favourites

Deep Purple
Rock geniuses, Gillan and Blackmore, and later the superb voicals of Coverdale, are hard to beat.

Matthews' Southern Comfort
Woodstock is a superb track, which was written by one of my idols Joni Mitchell, and only came about because she was touring and so couldn't play Woodstock (as it turned out, she could have made it) and she bitterly regretted it. Genius piece of music, all the more so if you understand what Woodstock was.

Dave Edmunds's Rockpile
One of my rock guitar heroes, top writer too. (But did Rockpile ever have a no. 1 hit?? I remember the excellent "I Hear You Knocking" but don't think it was a no. 1)

McGuinness Flint
Proper muzos, "When I'm Dead and Gone" is one of my favourite singles, has stood the test of time


1985 No 1s

Foreigner
Pretty legendary band, not really my cup of tea but some occasional memorable and listenable singles interspersed with a mammoth career.

Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson
What you're really saying is Lloyd-Webber. He picked Paige, and she was OK, if not the greatest singer, but he worte her some great songs. Always loved Barbara Dickson's voice, and "I Know Him So Well" is a fine pop song.

Dead or Alive
A working title for a Stock/Aitken/Waterman project but "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" is a classic track and you've got to give Pete Burns credit for being a proper muzo.

Philip Bailey (duet with Phil Collins)
"Easy Lover" - not that great a record for me, and I'm not that big a Collins fan either (but he did found Genesis) but Bailey was a top class vocalist and RnB man, his distinctive voice is what you hear on the best Earth Wind n Fire tracks. Class.

Phyllis Nelson
"Move Closer" is a very good, listenable record. One hit wonder (but she did write it too)

Paul Hardcastle
Proper muzo. You mean "19"? Credit to the guy for getting a Vietnam protest song to the top of the UK charts. More a composer really, but how can you knock (if you are) the guy who wrote the theme to Top Of The Pops?

The Crowd
No comment is required for a one off supergroup formed specifically to raise money for Bradford City Fire victims., except Bravo. Not really relevant to the charts thread.

Sister Sledge
"We Are Family"? Awful

Eurythmics
Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, both musical geniuses.

Madonna
No commentary required

UB40 and Chrissie Hynde
Or here

David Bowie and Mick Jagger
Or here

Midge Ure
Had a load of singles in the 80s. Do you mean "If I Was"? Not bad, not really my cup of tea, but another proper muzo with proper pop and music credentials if a bit pretentious at times.

Jennifer Rush
"The Power Of Love" - one hit wonder in Uk terms, not a bad voice, but god how that tune now grates on my ears. Still she recorded many singles and albums for decades, so a pro vocalist. Don't know much about any of the rest of it, though.

Feargal Sharkey
Voice a bit of an acquired taste, "A Good Heart" (which I presume you mean) is quite a listenable track if not great

Wham!
Genius. End of.

Whitney Houston
One of the great voices. End of.

Shakin' Stevens
Hate and detest. But tbf a time-served rock n roller. But not my cup of tea.

Now, what was your point again? I haven't got a clue if I've addressed it. It is something of a random choice of tracks to be honest, and you missed a million better ones out.

My point is that pop music, or chart music, in the late 60s/early 70s was quality, some absolute all time classics of all time there mate. From the early 80s it went from bad to worse.
About every one of the 1970 songs is a great pop song, I even like the England WC song as a kid, by great artists, as you state.
From 85 they are mostly godwaful songs, whether musically talented artists or not. There is not one song on there that if it came on the radio I would take notice, with the possible exception of the Eurythmics. I loved the Pretenders but Campbell's whiney voice with UB40 put me off that one. Bowie & Jagger are 2 of my heroes but a tame song for a worthy cause.
Collins didn't found Genesis, he was there from fairly early, but destroyed them after Gabriel left. No wonder his wife left him, miserable git.

Not like you to slip up!

Collins joined in 1970 as drummer - their fourth, IIRC. Genesis was founded by Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks while at Charterhouse posh School, I think joined by Michael Rutherford and Anthony Phillips from the same school and the first of the drummers whose name I never remember. He took over as singer in 1974 (?) when Gabriel left, although he had been doing much of the backing vocals anyway, as you can see if you watch some of the Gabriel-era live stuff on that video-sharing channel.

I'd subscribe to maybe about 70% of your analyses otherwise. Fekking loathed and detested Mungo Gerry at the time, and have never liked Elvis. Deep Purple, Free, S&G & prob. Rockpile, plus "Woodstock" for me from "1970". Eurythmics, Madonna, Chrissie Hynde from "1985" plus quite a few of the rest listenable. Loathe Shakin' Stevens. Jury still out on UB40. Bowie and Jagger of course bestride a couple of generation as musical collossi, and five of the first eight albumns I ever bought (around 1973) were by David Bowie (the other three were Goodbye Yellow brick Road, Dark Side of the Moon and Close to the Edge).

As you were...

Disagree. Changed them. Or rather, they collectively changed. You could certainly tell the Gabriel influence dropping out in the songwriting, but Banks continued the style (and remained the dominant influence) for some time after, I thought?

For me, the first few post-Gabriel albums were still pretty damn good, and represented a second period. I felt the direction really changed after Steve Hackett left, and his guitar style (which was a key part of the Genesis "sound", albeit usually playing second fiddle to Banks' keyboards) was superseded by Rutherfords pretty ordinary boring non-style on their subsequent material (although "And then there were three" was for me the last of the albums with any of the the "original" sound. Bit less keen on the "third period" material since, although "Domino" live takes some beating IMO.

Golden period though = Trespass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, SEBTP IMO so I guess we are not really disagreeing.

Again, as you were...

btw, as an unashamed prog rock/rock fan, the very late 1960/early 1970s was THE golden age for me. Unfortunately, it was about 1972 before I actually started to listen much to music, so i was just a teeny bit late on the scene The 1980s and 1990s were generally pants IMO.

But that's just absolutely plain and simple nonsense, I'm sorry, but it is.

In general, I simply disagree that music has ever ground to any sort of creative or productive halt, it is probably that as most people age they gradually stop listening, or become less interested, or open to new ideas, or a combination of all three. It's a pity, and it works both ways, as for the reverse reasons kids today for the most part will automatically dismiss "old time" music and thereby miss a huge treasure trove of great music. But there it is.

Anyway, and as I love waffling on about music, the point is impossible to quantify, just because there is so much music in any given year, so I thought I'd just pick a year at purely random, and see what I could turn up to counter your theory.

The first year I selected was 1989. This brought us gems including the following
Nirvana - Bleach
The B52s - Cosmic Thing
De La Soul - 3 Feet High & Rising
Neil Young - Freedom
[sizePixies - Doolittle [/size(arguably the outstanding album of the 80s)

Singles included the following -
[sizeNeil Young - Rockin In The Free World [/size
Boy Meets Girl - Waiting For A Star To Fall
Madonna - Like A Prayer
Soul II Soul - Back To Life
Bangles - Eternal Flame
Lisa Stansfield - All Around The World
Alannah Myles - Black Velvet
Roxette - Listen To Your Heart, The Look
[sizeRoy Orbison - You Got It[/size
Aerosmith - Love In An Elevator
Black Box - Ride On Time
Coldcut ft. Lisa Stansfield - People Hold On
Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid II
[sizeB52s - Love Shack [/size
Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy
Natalie Cole - Miss You Like Crazy
Cher - If I Could Turn Back Time
Tina Turner - Simply The Best
James - Sit Down
Paula Abdul - Straight Up
Martika - Toy Soldiers
Tears For Fears - Sowing The Seeds Of Love
Donna Summer - This Time I Know It's For Real
Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal
Van Morrison - Have I Told You Lately
[sizeThe Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drums / Fools Gold / Made Of Stone[/size

Quite emotional, doing that list . A fabulous year, indeed. Do you disagree?

Want me to mark your card for any other random year?

I've never been into Genesis, never owned an album, but heard a fair bit of early stuff that friends had that featured Gabriel (who remains street cred). I'm also aware Collins is a great drummer, his work on Robert Plant's early solo albums was great, but after 'Follow You Follow Me' which I liked, everything Collins did solo or with Genesis seemed so miserable. Then he reportedly supported the Tories which was a crime worse than Country & Western.

If you could point out anywhere where I have remotely suggested such a thing I would be interested. There is always great music happening, absolutely tonnes of it. It's just not in the charts in any numbers & hasn't been since the 80s. I have Radio 6 on constantly, which plays a lot of it. My favourite show of the week is Introducing West Yorkshire at 7.00 on a Thursday on Radio Leeds. 3 hours of unsigned bands from West Yorks. Everyone brilliant &/or interesting, none near the charts.
You picked 20+ singles from a year. I would agree that at least 20 of them are crackers. Not bad for a year. You could get 20 from most weeks in the 70s.

Well, the charts have never been representative of the overwhelming volume of music, nor intended to be, just popular ditties of the day, so no news there. But as I think my posts tend to support, the overall ratios of great to good to indifferent to bad doesn't significantly change over time. Of course there are years of outstanding quality, and some poor years, but that doesn't disprove the rule.


But that always was and will be the case. All the more so nowadays, given just how easy and cheap it is to put together some form of music making, which any kid with some free software can pretty easily do alone. By definition, only a tiny fraction of "all the new music" can ever reach the top end of the charts - even if "the charts" is a pale imitation of what they represented in the days when people actually often went out and bought hard copies of singles. (I couldn't afford it but recorded many hundreds of singles from TOTP, Radio Caroline, Luxembourg etc on my dad's big reel to reel tape recorder 3.09716796875:10