Bill Drummond suggests taking the top 10 on your 13th Birthday as a start point - having a quick look at what was in the charts on my birthday they're pretty much all songs I know pretty well
Interesting, I just looked mine up, and 8 of the 10 I couldn't pick out of a police line up.
Ah now, 7/10 I COULD pick out.
Bill Drummond suggests taking the top 10 on your 13th Birthday as a start point - having a quick look at what was in the charts on my birthday they're pretty much all songs I know pretty well even though I wouldn't put any of them on a list of my favourites - but they might be much more engrained in my thoughts that songs I've preferred to listen to since.
That's a weird one - 8/10 I could start singing immediately. But then no 2 was Slade 'my oh my' and no 10 (going down) was Cliff Richard 'Please don't fall in Love'. I'd no idea Slade were still charting in the 80's and I'm not sure I've ever heard either of those two tracks.
But if you're a teenager now is there anything in our culture that has the same saturation as 'a pops song' had when we were young?
I don't think there is anything like the common experience that there was a few decades ago. Top of the Pops meant pretty much everyone knew the big hits. Artists/tracks get huge now without me having any awareness of them at all.
Radio 2 for me today, which normally I would argue is better, but it started immediately with sixpence none the f*cking richer
Just revisiting some older threads, and catching up on this one, Radio 2 may be playing them regularly because, and I only found out a week or so ago, but they’ve got back together, they’re touring and there’s new music in the offing!
That’s something to look forward to for 2026! 🤣
Bill Drummond suggests taking the top 10 on your 13th Birthday as a start point - having a quick look at what was in the charts on my birthday they're pretty much all songs I know pretty well even though I wouldn't put any of them on a list of my favourites - but they might be much more engrained in my thoughts that songs I've preferred to listen to since.
Well, Queen were my favourite band for years and still get played. Listen to Bowie quite a lot too. The rest can get in the bin...
I'm not in a rush to listen to any of my "top ten at 13".
Radio is still playing BTW. A bit of GnR at the moment.
- John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John – “Summer Nights”
- Rose Royce – “love don't live here anymore”
- Frankie Valli – “grease”
- 10cc – “dreadlock holiday”
- ABBA – “summer night city”
- Dean Friedman – “lucky stars”
- Leo Sayer – “I can't stop lovin' you”
- Sylvester – “you make me feel (mighty real) “
- Boney M – “Rasputin”
- Exile – “kiss you all over”
Not the strongest of weeks 🤐
- House of Fun - Madness
- Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant
- Torch - Soft Cell
- Only You - Yazoo
- The Look of Love - ABC
- Fantasy Island - Tight Fit
- Mama Used to Say - Junior
- Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran
- I Won't Let You Down - PhD
- A Little Peace - Nicole
Cannot recall 6, 9 or 10.
- Don't Give Up On Us - David Soul
- Don't Cry For Me Argentina - Julie Covington
- Sideshow - Barry Biggs
- Isn't She Lovely - David Parton
- You're More Than A Number In My Little Red Book- The Drifters
- I Wish - Stevie Wonder
- Things We Do For Love - 10cc
- Daddy Cool - Boney M
- Wild Side Of Life - Status Quo
- Car Wash - Rose Royce
No wonder I only really got into music when punk came along! (Apart from a bit of T Rex fanatacism 2 or 3 years prior.) I think the only song I was fond of from that chart was Showwaddywaddy at number 11. Oh the shame.
Mmm not classic but better than number 1 on my actual birthday.
1. Duran Duran - "Is There Something I Should Know?"
2. Bonnie Tyler - "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
3. Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)"
4. The Style Council - "Speak Like a Child"
5. David Bowie - "Let's Dance"
6. Forrest "Rock the Boat"
7. Bananarama - "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"
8. Michael Jackson - "Billie Jean"
9. Orange Juice - "Rip It Up"
10. Modern Romance - "High Life"
Bizarre how the human mind stores all this rubbish..! Apart from 8 & 9 of theartistFKASTR's top10 (thankfully - cos I hated Shakey!), I can remember the melody and at least one line from every one of the songs listed above. Can't they all just go away and make room for something useful!?
working in care homes and the like smooooooth radio was the station of choice. Bland but inoffensive
Personally I do find bland offensive.
Maybe it's the feeling that you're stuck in a permanent time warp, forced to listen to Summer of 69 again and again until you actually melt. 🤔
To use a culinary analogy. It's like the cuisine of all the world is laid out in front of you for the tasting, but some people just want a cheeseburger.... Every day.... Forever. 😔
given where I was working more like mince and mash followed by semolina 🙂
To use a culinary analogy. It's like the cuisine of all the world is laid out in front of you for the tasting, but some people just want a cheeseburger.... Every day.... Forever.
To flip that analogy on its head...
Sometimes, you just fancy some beans on toast, because it's easy, it's kinda comforting, it might even remind you of younger, simpler times when your mum would make you beans on toast. And, generally, few people would criticise you for that, indeed they're likely to say something like "ooh, yeah, you having beans on toast? Nice, can't beat that"
Radio stations like Heart/Magic (in all their many incarnations) etc are musical beans on toast. They offer easy, uncomplicated listening that allows the listener to remember younger, possibly/probably happier, times. So let them enjoy it, it might genuinely be the only pleasure they get.
My FIL of nearly three and a half decades (bless him) spent a couple of weeks in a care home in Chesterfield before his last fall and after a short stay in hospital that he knew nothing about, he parted ways with us recently.
They played smooth quite a bit and the residents seemed to like it, but the last time we saw him they had a singer in - while we were there, he did an Elvis number and a Buddy Holly one too.
The last memory we have of him awake was him mouthing the words to the songs and remembering serenading his late wife - this through his rapid onset of dementia.
Sometimes old and bland is good 🥰 rip Tony