Longest charting hits in Australia 1980-1992 I

I wanted to do a follow up to my OZ Media list by covering the thirteen years prior to when those charts were calculated, the problem of course is that no such alternate charts exist which combines the ARIA and AMR charts of 1988-1992 (as well as there being no alternate charts here prior to that since the Go-set charts ended in 1974.) As such, I've decided to rank the biggest hits of the 80's and early 90's based on how long they charted here back in the day, this means I'll be including several songs which were sleeper hits here during that time that failed to make my official lists due to charting mostly outside of the top twenty here back in the day. As usual, any commentary from returning entries on this list have been unaltered as I feel the change of their placements on this list compared to my earlier lists should speak volumes as to how their success played out here upon their initial releases.

64 Weeks

Even though this only peaked at number five on the Australian charts, the fact that this managed to linger on our charts for 64 weeks (mainly due to the B-side "Pink Cadillac" being promoted on radio) ensured that this would be the second-best charting single of the decade according to David Kent, I ranked it a bit lower as I tend to not take into account stats from the lower half of the charts.

Two entries in and we already have a new appearance on this list as this also managed to stick around for a staggering 64 weeks on our charts even if it failed to appear in our top twenty back in the day. I'm guessing this was due to it the song being a success twice given how it charted around the time the film first came out and then rebounded once it won an academy award months later.

49 Weeks

The Use your illusion era of Guns n roses career was already a huge success by the time they unveiled the video to this song, which fun fact was released months prior to deafening silence likely due to it being one of the more long-winded songs on both albums. The video was such as success that it quickly became not just their biggest hit but also one of the biggest hits of the twentieth century.

48 Weeks

The ballad which won Stevie Wonder an Oscar at the academy awards, although many will tell you that this is easily one of his worst songs in his catalogue due to how sappy they find the lyrics to be. I can't say I've seen the Woman in red despite it starring Gene Wilder and Kelly Lebrock of Weird science fame.

44 Weeks

Oh, you thought we were done with looking at comedy routines on this site, weren't you? Well, here we are with another comedy routine this time courtesy of Billy Birmingham AKA the 12th man who scored a massive hit with this E.P where he does accurate impersonations of some of the more popular sporting commentators of the day.

This is a song whose success came completely out of nowhere here in Australia, mainly because the last time anyone cared about the lead vocalist Mick Jones was during his time with the Clash before he was unceremoniously fired from the band almost a decade prior. He came back bigger than ever with this track which seemed to go off in different directions throughout its runtime, thus explaining its success.

There haven't been that many instrumentals to make it big in Australia over the years, have they? Here we have David A Stewart (one half of the Eurythmics) and Dutch saxophonist Candy Dufler scoring a big hit with this track which I'm sure was the soundtrack to some steamy love scene that I wasn't able to track down to verify for this post. Candy would go on to be an in-demand session musician following this collaboration.

41 Weeks

This remains the biggest hit in Robert Palmer's career in Australia, mainly due to the video which depicts him in what appears to be a precursor to the set of a Deal or no deal show with a bunch of women who appear to be clones of Bebe Neuworth who's best known for her performance as Lillith Crane on Cheers and later Frasier. All I can say is that Robert is clearly having the time of his life in the video.

Well, this was the first big hit that Milli Vanilli managed to score in Australia admittedly this was only a sleeper hit here due to our scepticism towards whether they were the real deal or a what they really were which was hired models to lip synch to music that otherwise would've gone unnoticed in the mainstream.

This was all set to flop here in Australia upon its initial release given how we Aussies were a bit slow when it came to the hair metal craze of the late 80's, naturally this rebounded once the album took off here thanks to the success of its second single which allowed it a very high placement on this list of mine due to how long it stuck around for.

40 Weeks

In case you were wondering, yes, this song is deliberately gay as it was made by an openly gay band meant to shock and titillate audiences who seemed to be put off by the queer community in general. Basically, if Culture club was easing people into accepting others for who they are, these guys were forcing it down everyone's throat albeit with a highly catchy and provocative sex jam.

This was originally released in Glenn's native Hawaii following his victory in a singing competition which he won with this cover of a George Benson track from earlier in the decade. Somehow this managed to become a surprise hit over in the UK which allowed it to crossover to Australia, I'm guessing due to how romantic people felt he sounded throughout its runtime.

This was the only Billboard chart topper that Taylor Dayne managed to achieve in her career, and admittedly this was the song which saved her second album from tanking across the world given the crushing failure of its lead single "With every beat of my heart" outside of America. In Australia, the song which saved the album was the next single which was more upbeat than this ballad.

This is one of many songs throughout the 80's that didn't get much of a look in here in Australia but nonetheless had massive legs on our charts, this is a new wave track from the obscure Canadian band Rough Trade who charted for quite some time on the lower half of our charts likely due to it being a favourite on late night MTV.

39 Weeks

This was originally released on Bob Seger's 1978 album Stranger in town to deafening silence, probably because Bob was considered to be a bit ahead of his time as his popularity didn't shine outside his native America until this was featured in the Tom Cruise flick Risky business (specifically that famous scene where he dances to it in his underwear.) For some reason, this finally became a hit four years after that film in Australia, presumably through the strength of his other big hit this year "Shakedown."

38 Weeks

This was the only notable success that Phil Seymour had in his career, admittedly this sounds completely different from everything else that got popular this year as this would've felt more at home several years prior. Australia was the only country in the world to make it a hit for what it's worth.

It felt weird to me that this song wasn't a huge instant success and instead a sleeper hit here in Australia back in the day given how much airplay it continues to receive on oldies stations to this day, alas it appears we largely passed up this single in favour of its album and the second single for said album given how "Waiting for a girl like you" proved to be the song which broke these guys into our mainstream.

37 Weeks

Even though this appeared on the Use your illusions albums, this was released as a single due to a performance the band gave at a Freddie Mercury memorial concert which helped this become a huge success for the band a year after the album's release. It seems curious that they would choose their Bob Dylan cover to perform at the concert, although I guess it's not like they covered any of Queen's discography by this point.

Well, I told you that Alannah Myles managed to have massive success here in Australia with both of the lead single from her debut album, although this had a very slow rise to its success here given how it was initially a flop for her much like it was throughout the rest of the world. I'm not sure why as this is catchier than her earlier track, I guess because it's happier compared to "Black velvet" which is more sombre.

This is meant to be the big showstopper of Andrew Lloyd Webber's adaptation of Phantom of the opera, although curiously he replaces Michael Crawford on this single for Cliff Richard likely to try and have it become a mainstream success which it admittedly was in the UK for him and Sarah Brightman. Sarah of course got her big break with this duet as well as her performance as Christine Daae in the show.

If you can believe it, famous Hollywood composer Danny Elfman began his career as the lead singer of the new wave band Oingo boingo who's best known for their theme song to the 80's classic Weird science (a film that holds up fairly well despite its problematic premise of making a real-life woman out of a barbie doll.) Here in Australia, this was the big hit they had albeit only after months of charting in the lower half of our charts.

36 Weeks

Now normally I'm not the biggest fan of country music, in fact when it comes to either loving or hating the genre, I'm more towards the hate camp even if I don't hate a lot of country songs out there. With that said, I have to say that I adore this collaboration between Kenny and Dolly, the two have amazing chemistry and it rightfully allowed the song to linger on the charts for quite some time here in Australia.

It gives me great joy to know that one of the biggest hits of the decade in Australia was an honest to God pub rock anthem, true the Choirboys had been hustling in the industry for four years at this point, but their determination paid off with a track that's still fondly remembered by Australian audiences to this day. This even saw moderate crossover success in NZ, proving how much wide appeal these guys had.

This was the other big hit that Tone Loc had in Australia, and indeed it relies on the nostalgia people have of the Kinks classic of the same name as while it isn't a cover of that track, it does heavily sample the instrumentation which is a trend that would become all too common in hip hop throughout the following decade. As I said earlier, he would go on to become a popular voice actor in children's media.

35 Weeks

Yep, this comedy routine wound up being the biggest hit single of the year in Australia. Bear in mind this was back in the day where comedy tracks were considered to be singles and thus were able to chart along the likes of everything else that will appear on this list. As for Austen Tayshus himself, this was the only notable success he managed to achieve throughout his career as far as the Australian charts are concerned.

Oh, rick rolling, why did you have to ruin this otherwise cute and innocent song from one of the more impressive vocalists to emerge from the 80's? Nowadays people think this is one of the worst songs of all time due to that immature meme from the late 00's, however back in the day it was the biggest song of the decade in Australia thanks to how many demographics it managed to appeal to back then.

Johny Logan set up a record with this ballad as it allowed him to become the first artist to win Eurovision more than once for a particular country, in this case it was for his native Ireland who likely were as surprised as everyone else when he took home to top prize for the second time this decade following his earlier victory "What's another year." It appears we Aussies finally understood what made him so special as this became a huge success for him down under.

Well, this is a surprise, you'd think this would be one of the most successful songs of the decade here in Australia considering how inescapable it was internationally for Tiffany Darwish. Alas it was only a sleeper hit here despite how catchy the song is and it arguably being her best performance in her catalogue, although she did find success with her follow up from earlier on this list.

34 Weeks

Now I use the AMR charts to determine what the order these songs/E.P's appear on these lists (that is, how well they did on those charts) however I have to make an exception here as this E.P from Ratcat didn't chart on the AMR singles chart (rather it was on the album charts) but it did on ARIA's singles chart and thus here we are.

This was the first of several songs to be released from Black box's one and only album Dreamland, although that's likely due to the behind-the-scenes drama the band went through when lead vocalist Martha Walsh (of Weather girls fame) was replaced with a more attractive woman on the cover art and in the videos. This led to her leaving the group which in turn led to them disbanding once the album cycle was done.

Well, I guess we Aussies aren't opposed to allowing cheesy RNB to become a hit here after all given how this highly ridiculed ballad from Boris Gardiner managed to become a huge success here. It's hard to talk about this song without coming off as mean, as such I won't say anything else here.

It feels odd this was a hit considering it was released not long after the launch of MTV, although considering that one half of this duo had just won an academy award when it became a success throughout Europe, its success isn't as surprising as you might think. Jon Anderson is of course best known as the lead singer of Yes, although he briefly left the group to form this project with the Greek composer.

Not only did this song achieve all of its success upon its initial release here in Australia, but it also came out much sooner here which is odd considering this feel like a shoe in for instant success over in NZ like I'm sure it seemed like at the time when the kiwis nearly made it a chart topper over there. I guess this was a sleeper hit here due to us Aussies vaguely remembering his first hit "Patches" from eighteen years prior.

We have another example of a song appearing on here due to it rebounding on our charts once a much more popular song became as such here in Australia, this time it was when "Electric Avenue" nearly topped our charts like it did in America that compelled us Aussies to check out what the fuss was about with this big chart-topping hit Eddy Grant had in NZ and his native UK.

It looks like R Kelly had some success in the 90's here in Australia after all as his breakthrough single with Public Announcement managed to be a massive sleeper hit here upon its initial release despite it not being a huge success anywhere else in the world. It's a bit odd to hear the RNB legend (at least he's a legend as far as his music is concerned) on a new jack swing track given what he would be known for.

33 Weeks

This was a massive success for Laura Branigan this year, likely due to how unique and powerful her vocals were but also for the lyrics which seem to depict a vein woman by the name of Gloria and the narrator calling out how her vanity has alienated her from anyone wanting to do anything with her.

So, it's come to this, what's often considered to be one of the worst songs of the decade which was indeed also one of the biggest worldwide. I unfortunately agree with the consensus which is that this is an annoying song with lyrics some of the corniest lyrics known to man, however it does have its merit as it did spear head the line dancing craze that would persist throughout the decade in America.

Well, I think I found the reason as to why Julio Iglesias was able to score massive success the following year with his first English album, we have Renee and Renato who were a UK based duo singing a song that you'd expect in an old Dezi Arnaz film that became a surprise hit in Australia and throughout Europe.

For eight years, this was the only hit that Underworld managed to achieve anywhere in the world, they eventually escaped the one hit wonder bin with "Born Slippy" from the Trainspotting soundtrack. In the meantime, their only hit was this infectious EDM track which was much bigger here than it was in their native UK despite EDM not being our favourite genre until well into the 90's.

This was the debut single from 1927, a band that serves as a spiritual successor to Moving pictures as it has Garry Frost as its founding member who was a key member of the former band. They were off to a good start with this track given how it became a huge success for them, and indeed their second single and debut album from later in the year made them one of the hottest new names in Australian music.

Celtic music might not have reached its peak until the Riverdance craze of the 90's, however it did see a massive spike in popularity around this time which no doubt led to Foster and Allen scoring a hit with this ballad dedicated to a Maggie in their lives. The success it had in Australia led to it being one of the biggest hits of the decade in NZ.

Well, this was something else from Janet Jackson, we have a rock track from her album Rhythm nation which I'm guessing she included on the album to appeal to the rock snobs of the world much like how her older brother included "Beat it" on Thriller seven years prior. It paid off for her as this became a huge hit in Australia and other parts of the world which would appreciate her attempts at rock and roll.

This needed two attempts to become a hit here in Australia as it was released towards the start of the year to deafening silence for the French pop star FR David. I'm not sure what allowed us Aussies to change our mind about this track other than it being a catchy number and its success throughout Europe.

There was a popular British drama series known as Minder that ran throughout most of the 80's, it came with a theme sung by its star Dennis Waterman that needed several attempts to find success worldwide on the singles chart. This was the fourth attempt to have this be a hit here in Australia, becoming as such two years after it succeeded in NZ and his native UK.

Ever wanted to hear a disco rendition of a signature track from Frankie Valli? You're in luck as this track from the 80's disco band Boys Town Gang (yes there were 80's disco groups) managed to find success here in Australia albeit as a sleeper hit due to how much of a surprise hit this was in the UK for the American band. Naturally this was a huge flop on Billboard due to the disco backlash in their homeland.

I've yet to see St Elmo's fire the movie, although I've heard nothing but terrible things about it even from diehard 80's afficionados so I'm in no hurry to watch it anytime soon. This was the theme song to the movie which was a bit of a surprise hit here in Australia likely due to how well received the film was here back in the day, it was basically the quintessential brat pack flick after all.

Well MC Hammer didn't have one of the biggest hits of the decade here in Australia out of nowhere, here we are with the song his signature track heavily samples which was indeed a massive sleeper hit here nine years prior to when that song saw the light of day. Interestingly enough, this was released on time here in Australia as opposed to almost a year late over in NZ where it was a much bigger success.

32 Weeks

There was a lot of controversy surrounding this theme song to the comedy classic Ghostbusters, namely that Ray Parker jr stole the melody from Huey Lewis and the News "I want a new drug" which resulted in a lengthy lawsuit between both parties. As for the film itself, it's remained a comedy classic for a reason as the premise is inventing, the jokes are hilarious and the visual still hold up to this day.

I always thought this was a 90's track, although admittedly there was an inferior cover made a decade after this song came out that I do vaguely remember so maybe that's why I thought this was released later than it was despite the obvious usage of synths on the track. Something I'm sure most people don't realise about this track is that it's a breakup song, I'm guessing because of how repetitive it is without spelling out the moral of the track.

This is a song that sparked massive controversy upon its initial release, mainly because it contains homophobic slurs in its second verse which even at the time, was a big no no in the music industry. Fortunately, the radio tends to edit out this verse so there's a good chance that most people aren't even aware of what I'm talking about, even if you are I think we can all agree that it's far from the most harmful thing to happen towards the LGBT community.

This was a huge UK chart topper for the American RNB singer Phyllis Nelson, this was enough of an incentive for it to be a sleeper hit here in Australia which was impressive for a musician of colour during the midpoint of the 80's. Sadly, this was her only hit as she failed to find any further success anywhere in the world.

I have no idea what took us Aussies so long to make this a success back in the day given how effortless it was for the other two hits from Wow to become a hit here, heck this only barely missed the cut on appearing on the NZ side of my site given how it briefly cracked their top ten upon its initial release. I guess audiences felt it was a retreat of "Venus" right down to the music video being very similar to that classic.

31 Weeks

This version may seem very different compared to the one that wound up being a huge international success for Kylie Minogue, this is because it was originally made without the assistance of Stock Aiken and Waterman and was more of a vanity project for Kylie following the popularity she had on Neighbours. It's surprise success assured audiences of her singing talents which led to her success in the music industry.

This was the biggest hit of Bananarama's career in most parts of the world, likely due to the nostalgia people had for the original by Shocking blue back from 1969. This is also the first song of theirs to have Stock Aiken and Waterman produce their track, something that would happen for their next album where all of the tracks received this treatment.

Ah yes, we have yet another Oscar winning ballad to become a massive success in Australia, this time it's the love theme from Dirty dancing (yet another movie you either love or hate which I love for the record) which captivated audiences upon its initial release thanks to the chemistry between Righteous brother Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes simulating the characters from the film it was written for.

This was the first solo hit that MJ had as an adult anywhere in the world (his first solo hit overall was with "Rocking robin" from earlier in the decade) it's also the first hit of his to feature Quincy Jones as his executive producer which resulted in some of his finest work both solo and with his family. Despite it clearly being a disco track, it still remains one of his more fondly remembered songs to this day.

I think my American readers will be surprised to see this song appear on this list and not one of my 90's lists, this is because this signature track from the Proclaimers was eventually chosen as the theme song to the Johnny Depp flick Benny and Joon in 1993 despite it being five years old by the time that movie was released. I guess this does serve as the perfect song to use on a road trip montage.

This was the signature track from Wendy Matthews given hot it easily remains her biggest hit in her career, admittedly it does showcase her vocal talents quite nicely even though I'm a much bigger fan of her more upbeat tracks such as "Let's kiss" and "Token angels." This song did lead her to having a widely successful album which goes to show how much love it had from Australian audiences.

It's strange to think that the biggest hit these guys had outside their native America would be the rare non disco track in their catalogue, I guess mainstream audiences always preferred sentimentality over dance floor bangers and admittedly these guys certainly had earned the right to make a breakup ballad at this point in their career.

I'm willing to be that Chris De Burgh watched the Gene Wilder flick Woman in red and used that as a basis for writing this love ballad supposedly about his wife, it's as good an explanation as to how he managed to achieve so much success worldwide with a song that seems to be the complete opposite of his other hit from earlier in the decade "Don't pay the ferryman." His popularity would carry on in his native UK for the rest of the decade.

One of the earliest forms of electronic dance music (or EDM for short) was known as acid house, this is basically music you dance to while taking substance known as acid (look up what that means in your own time.) By far the biggest hit from this sub-genre is this breakthrough single from Yazz who managed to achieve massive success around the world with this trumpet heavy dance track.

So Carly Simon was still able to find success going into the 80's, admittedly there was every indication that she would be one of the most popular artists of the decade had MTV not launched this year and ruined her chances at replicating the success she had throughout the 70's. I also have to admit that outside of her magnum opus "You're so vain," I've never been that much of a fan of her music.

This was the debut single for one of the most prominent female hip hop stars of all time, although it's interesting to note that this never became a hit for them in their native America and only saw crossover success when it became a surprise hit for them over in the UK. The girls would go on to have massive success throughout the 90's even though they wouldn't score a massive hit on Billboard until 1993.

This guy scored a massive success eight years prior with "Baby don't get hooked on me," it was by far one of the cheesiest songs of the 70's that seemed destined to trap him in the one hit wonder bin. He was able to escape from that bin with this track due to a performance that had Kenny Rogers on stage with him.

This was the second single to be released from Heavy nova, a song that initially struggled to find success here due to it being one of his more subdue ballads but eventually became a success due to it being one of his bigger hits in his native UK. Apparently, the Brits didn't care for "Simply irresistible" but latched on to this track from the album, proving what they liked about his music and what they didn't.

While this wasn't Yothu Yindi's debut single in Australia, it was the song which made them a household name due to how incessantly catchy it is despite the lyrics being about how the band wants the Australian government to sign a treaty with the aboriginal community (something that's still yet to happen as of this writing.) International readers will recognise this as the song that plays when Brendan Frasier flips over to MTV in Encino man, which gives you an idea of how American audiences received this.

Although he remains a one hit wonder internationally with "Undercover angel," Alan O'day was able to score a second hit here in Australia with this track about how much he likes skinny girls. I guess everyone is entitled to their preferences and to be fair, this is meant to be tongue in cheek about how thin girls were becoming from around this time.

Here's a song that became a hit purely through the controversy caused by the music video, after all it's not every day where you see a nineteen-year-old woman dancing around in a bikini that's clearly too small for her to the point where she has to adjust the bikini multiple times throughout the video's runtime. This resulted in the video being banned in the UK due to partial nudity, which of course made the song a huge success worldwide.

This is one of those melodramatic songs that's received a ton of backlash over the years due to its podophilic storytelling, I guess this is why it was only a sleeper hit here in Australia as there's been very few tracks to make it big with such a problematic premise to them. Still its success in Benny's native America was undeniable which was enough for us to check it out likely as a guilty pleasure.

This wasn't Robert Palmer's first hit single here in Australia (that of course was "Bad case of loving you") however this was a huge sleeper hit for him years before he joined forces with members of Duran Duran to become the Power station which gives you an idea of how his sound shifted throughout his career. This was the second single he released in the 80's after "Johnny and Mary" which remains a favourite on oldies stations.

Gary Moore is best known as the guitarist from Thin Lizzy who curiously never had much success here in Australia back in the day, heck he had more success with his solo outing than his band ever did which began with this cover of the Easybeats classic two decades after its success in the UK. I wouldn't say this replaced the original given how it only became a success due to its refusal to die on our charts.

This is now the third version of this Johnny Nash classic to feature on my site following the original and the Jimmy Cliff version from 1994, I bet you didn't realise that the Celtic band Hothouse flowers put their name on the reggae classic given how they did just that for their second album from 1990. It was due to this becoming a sleeper hit that said album was a massive success here in Australia for them.

30 Weeks

Were it not for the popularity of the biopic about Ritchie Valen's life, I doubt Los lobos would've achieved any form of success during their impressive career. Fortunately, the biopic was a critical and commercial success which led to their cover of Valen's signature tune becoming a massive worldwide success for them.

This remains the biggest hit in Cliff Richard's career in Australia, although I guess if we were going with sales then technically his remake of his debut single from later in the decade would claim that prize. In any case we have the crooner score a massive hit with this upbeat track right around the time MTV first launched proving he was still hip with the kids when the music scene drastically changed.

It looked like the third album from the Bangles would be a huge commercial disappointment worldwide, however much like their previous album, a huge chart topper from the album saved it from flopping in the form of this heartfelt ballad which some have described to be creepy due to Suzanna Hoffs performance. I personally disagree as she's too earnest and lovestruck for it to be intentionally creepy, although it didn't prevent the girls from breaking up this year.

So, this turned out to be Julian Lennon's biggest hit outside of America, granted "Too late for goodbyes" wasn't that big of a deal in Australia as even "Now you're in heaven" managed to be a bigger hit for him here. That said, this was also decently successful for him in his native UK, in fact it was able to match the success of his debut single over there seven years after that came out.

Although their debut single was a huge success for them, it was this second single from 1927 which made them a household name and allowed their album ....Ish to become a huge success just as the decade was beginning to wind down. They were pipped for great things going into the 90's, however their second album was a huge commercial failure for them much like it was for Icehouse.

The last time we saw Linda Ronstadt in the mainstream was over a decade prior when she scores a massive hit with her album Living in the U.S.A, although it's worth noting that Linda is known for experimenting with her sound and as such often reinvents it to varying degrees of success. Here she decides to release a song about how growing old kind of sucks but at least she's with the person of her dreams, that apparently being Aaron Neville who is the person she's duetting with here.

It looked like that Daryl's previous album's success was a fluke and that he would again fade into obscurity, however he then released this cover of the Ricki Lee Jones track (best known for its usage throughout Jerry Maguire later in the decade) which became a huge success for him likely due to backing vocals from Margaret Urlich who was fresh off the success of her solo album Safety in numbers.

Much like Joan Jett from earlier in the decade, these guys had a hard time trying to market their music to a mainstream audience as they were too rock for pop, too sexy for rock and too successful to be alternative. Eventually they threaded the needle in their native UK which allowed them to score a hit with this lead single from their debut album that saw even more success here in Australia likely due to audiences being infatuated with lead singer Wendy James.

You'd think that this would be one of the biggest hits of the decade here in Australia, admittedly it was huge and the reason why it wasn't bigger was due to it being the second single to come out of Slippery when wet after "You give love a bad name" which somehow flopped here. This song's success was more likely due to it being a huge hit in the UK where it was the lead single from the album rather than their other track.

This doesn't feel like an 80's song to me, I'm guessing because there were so few songs whose main instrument was the violin this decade that it feels like something that came from the 90's or even early 00's. In any case, it took Sam Brown a few tries for this to become a success for her likely due to how different it sounded to everything else on the charts, she eventually got there in the early months of the year.

Although this did take a while to become a hit here in Australia, at least it eventually became as such on its initial release unlike the rest of the world where the girls needed to find success with their next album Break out in order for this to be a success. This is one of the most upbeat songs in their catalogue as well as the most sexually suggestive which is likely why it won us Aussies over initially.

This is one of those cheesy duets which has endeared over the years due to how sincere both performers are on the track, although it's worth noting that neither Gloria Loring nor Carl Anderson saw much success in their respective careers outside of this duet even in their native America.

This was originally written by Michael Bolton for Laura Branigan, that would explain his earlier entry on this list as Cher made this ballad her own following the success of her performance in Moonstruck which got her an academy award for best actress. Although this was a massive worldwide success for her, it would be her next album where she would truly be welcomed back in the music scene.

This was the second version of the Little Eva track to become a hit in Australia, although considering that the original was a flop here back in the 60's, I feel that these covers being a success was our way of atoning for sleeping on the original. Here we have a disco cover of the song which proved to be a huge hit for Ritz this year, although it was an even bigger hit over in NZ where it was the biggest hit of the year according to RIANZ.

This was the final hit single that Ol'55 managed to achieve in Australia, it makes sense as they were one of the biggest rockabilly throwback bands of the 70's down under scoring a string of hits with their rockabilly tracks throughout the decade. They would breakup not long after this became their final hit.

This was the final hit that Cliff Richard managed to score in Australia for the rest of the twentieth century, although he did return in 1999 with "The millennium prayer" which was the last time anyone had heard from him in the mainstream. Even though this was a big hit for him in his native UK the previous year, it took a while for this to become a success here likely due to us Aussies not wanting to make him relevant but changing our minds several months later.

This was a big hit in Swing out sister's native UK the previous year, however it didn't end up crossing over to Australia or NZ until the band became the final act to perform a song on Countdown during the final episode of the show. It was a big enough success in the southern hemisphere for it to crossover to America, making this a rather circuitous route for the band to make it big worldwide.

There'll be plenty of disco tracks on this amended list of mine that were only sleeper hits here in Australia back in the day, although this was far more of an immediate success in NZ given how it was easily one of the biggest hits of the decade over there for the German band Ottawan. Interestingly none of their other songs managed to crossover in the southern hemisphere for whatever reason.

For some reason, this took two attempts to become a success here in Australia which is why it failed to appear on this side of my site up until now despite it being a huge chart topper everywhere else in the world. I guess in a way this was Falco's biggest hit here in Australia like it was internationally given how "Der Kommissar" was more of an immediate success and thus didn't chart as long here.

It turns out Kim Carnes isn't a one hit wonder after all as she managed to gain a second hit outside of her native America with this hidden gem that got pushed aside back in the day in favour of all the Live aid promotion. I guess this charted around the time she provided backup vocals for "I'd die to be with you tonight" on Jimmy Barnes big hit which would explain its success here in Australia.

29 Weeks

Although she had already seen massive success with her song "I found someone," this was the comeback that Cher needed to reinvigorate her career following a long absence in the music industry. Admittedly this absence was due to her involvement in Hollywood where she starred in a string of some of the more memorable flicks of the decade such as Silkwood, Mask and the Witches of Eastwick.

Most people will be familiar with the Celine Dion version of this track from eight years later, however this was originally a hit for American born German pop star Jennifer Rush who took the world by storm with her strong vocals (though not as strong as Celine's) as well as the lyrics of devotion that struck a chord with audiences.

This was the second single from Prince's Diamonds and pearls album, although given how it was the runaway success from the album, you'd be forgiven into thinking it was the lead single. I don't think he's ever sounded hornier on any other track than he does on here, which is perhaps why this remains his most successful single even if it's not one of his more iconic.

I have no idea why this signature track from the Rocky horror picture show became a hit five years after the success of the theatrical adaptation, I'm guessing it was due to the scene in Fame where the characters referenced the scene that this song takes place in the film which reminded us Aussies about how awesome the song was. It became one of the biggest hits of the decade as a result, and to be fair it's not the only time and older album found success much later here than it did internationally.

One of the more poignant films of the decade was An officer and a gentleman, mainly because it depicts the blooming romance of a renegade navy soldier and a working-class woman who both bring out the best in each other. To highlight this steaming romance, Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes were commissioned to record this duet which played over the ending scene of the film and led to it winning an academy award.

One of the more promising Australian artists from the EDM scene was this trio, although they were mired with behind-the-scenes drama as the vocalist on this track Keren Minshull didn't appear in the video which had future vocalist Holly Garnett lip synching to her vocals. The trio patched things up on their next single which featured both women singing on the track as well as appearing in the video.

It's a shame that Alannah Myles remains a one album wonder outside of her native Canada considering how rich and dynamic her vocals are throughout her debut, indeed we Aussies were quick to recognise how special she was given that this was released shortly before it saw the light of day in America. This songs success encouraged us to give her debut single "Love is" a second chance which allowed both songs to chart in the top twenty for a while simultaneously.

This was the first of many hits from the house sub-genre of EDM music, as I mentioned earlier, this is where the emphasis of the track is placed on the groove rather than the vocals or lyrics and that's a description that perfectly describes Technotronic despite them having a pretty good vocalist to sing over these beats. This was a surprise hit over in America which no doubt led to EDM exploding in popularity worldwide.

Rage baiting and how to avoid it

Hi guys, I thought I'd follow up on what I discussed on my one year anniversary post when it comes to rage bait considering how I briefly glossed over that in favour of how far I had come from being a toxic shithead on the internet since I launched this site of mine.

So, what is rage bait exactly? Basically, it's when a content creator puts out content that's meant to offend those who are consuming it, preferably otherwise sound minded individuals who normally wouldn't expend their outrage consuming media, but it also works for the terminally online given their refusal to touch grass from time to time. I brought up the main offenders for this trend on my previous post but felt I should go into more detail in what they collectively do so that anyone reading this can look for them in other media that's put out in the world.

We'll start with Velma as that show is the epitome of rage bait, the show is basically a bunch of rants from its star Mindy Kaling strung together to form a plot that vaguely resembles that of a traditional Scooby Doo plotline. The issue of course is that we're listening to a woman in her mid-forties rant about how much she hates men, Christianity, white people and wealthy people despite having two kids (although as far as I can tell, she's never been married) is known to be attracted to white men specifically and is of course a multi-millionaire (her hatred of Christianity makes sense given the recent backlash it's received and that she's a Hindu.) This is all obviously an attempt to rage bait right wing audiences, however it also manages to offend the left wing as well due to its offensive depictions of LGBT characters (not helped by Mindy being straight and thus engaging in queer baiting) non white characters (Velma is an offensive Indian stereotype, Norville an offensive African American stereotype and Daphne and offensive east Asian stereotype) and if I'm being honest, women as the show goes off on tangents about feminism that I doubt even the most devoted fourth wave feminist will find appealing. At least the animation is decent, in fact it's one of the few animated shows/movies to have this luxury which is more than I can say for what Disney has to offer.

When it comes to movies, there's plenty to choose from when it comes to clear rage bait, however I've decided to highlight Wish in this regard because I refuse to believe this is anything other than a middle finger to the legacy of Walt Disney. First off, the animation is garbage, I refuse to believe anyone looked at the final product and felt it was appealing in any regard. Apparently the animators knew what they were working on was complete crap but were too afraid to speak up against it due to the arrogance of the film's director who clearly only got the job due to politics I'd rather not get into on this site (look up the term DEI for more information) resulting in a bizarre hybrid of 2d and 3d animation that doesn't mesh well together like other movies that successfully pull off this technique such as the Spider verse films and the more recent offerings from DreamWorks. Compared to Disney's other recent films, Wish is rather A-political for the most part as there's no forced diversity whether it be racial or with LGBT characters, instead it focuses on the other big problem with the studio which is that the writing is exceptionally poor especially when it comes to characterisation. Asha is completely forgettable and has a bland personality purely so that she can spout off the terrible fourth grade humour that the writers of the film has, the villain is even worse as by all accounts, he's not really a villain as his descent into madness is believable due to how the other characters in the film treat him. If anything, the lack of diversity in this film just goes to expose how weak the writing in their other films really is as they can't gaslight us into believing we're just racists/sexists/anti LGBT etc for not liking the film like they do for their other projects as no such character exists here, instead we're left with the incoherent plot, childish humour even toddler's won't find funny and of course, the terrible music.

Now the music is what I should really talk about on this site given that's my area of expertise, it isn't just Wish that has a terrible soundtrack (in fact it might be one of the better soundtracks in recent memory from Disney) as the company has done away with hiring composers for Broadway/West end musicals in favour of trendy pop stars and of course Lin Manuel Miranda. The pop stars sort of make sense given how they tend to have the biggest reach to younger audiences, however the films run the risk of becoming extremely dated as a result which admittedly has been a problem for many decades at this point (we'll have to wait and see if people still remember Billie Eilish by the end of the decade.) Lin Manuel Miranda on the other hand, boy howdy is this guy a hack as he combines traditional Broadway melodies with the most dated trends of the 2010's resulting in songs that even now in 2024 are beyond cringe. Now obviously he didn't write the songs for Wish (hence why I don't think it's among the worst soundtracks in recent years) however he did write the likes of "The scuttlebutt" from the Little mermaid remake, the soundtrack for Encanto (which includes the intolerable "We don't talk about Bruno") and a whole bunch of other songs that I doubt anyone reading this will find appealing outside of a so bad it's good tone. It's especially egregious when these terrible songs are paired with terrible renditions of songs from older movies that we grew up loving, specifically those from the likes of the Disney renaissance which have all been butchered by the casts of their respective remakes with terrible autotune and a lack of personality from their casts. There are exceptions of course, any song sung by Halle Bailey from the Little mermaid are all decent due to her being a good singer, however it seems Disney goes out of their way to hire the worst vocalists out there from Emma Watson to Mena Massoud as Belle and Aladdin respectively. This is another example of rage bait in my opinion as Disney is renowned for having excellent music in their movies that were usually composed by well established artists of their day, instead we now have bad rehashes of these excellent songs paired with instantly dated original tracks from mediocre to talentless composers.

Now I've stated at several points in this site that the music industry has long since moved on from spouting out divisive political topics, yes you have the occasional outlier such as when Meghan Trainor briefly resurfaced in 2022 or when Jason Aldean made that racist country track that resulted in him becoming a lol cow in the music industry. Apart from these outliers, there hasn't been anything nearly as egregious in the music scene as what we've seen in Disney in recent years. Instead, it's whatever Tik Tok decides to make a viral sensation which is a site I'm convinced is little more than a constant breeding ground for rage bait which most hit singles these days have the misfortune of soundtracking. I'll swing back to Tik Tok in a bit, but I will say that the methods of what makes a song a hit more than qualifies for rage bait as we have tons of songs that never would've even touched the charts a decade ago finding massive success due to people on the social media site making a mockery of the song in question. What's worse is that music labels have gotten in on the formula and have convinced their artists to play into this trend, resulting in songs such as "WAP" by Cardi B and Megan thee stallion, "Unholy" by Sam Smith and Kim Petras and a whole bunch of others that have instantly fallen into obscurity as their reason for existing was to piss off the right demographic (usually the idiots from the Daily Wire) with their tasteless provocation in a way that "Old town road" from Lil Nas X did accidentally in 2019.

The good news is that like other harmful trends I've covered on this site, the music industry was the first to combat it as there's been fewer of these types of songs making it big in recent months. The downside is that there's been nothing to replace it with as no artist other than Taylor Swift seems to have any presence in the music scene these days, even then, it appears the public's patience with her is finally starting to run out given how insufferable her fanbase is as well everyone realising she's a bit of a one trick pony both musically and lyrically if the reception to her latest album is anything to go by (something I've been saying for fifteen years at this point, but I digress.) Even so, I'll take the fiftieth rehash of "I knew you were trouble" from her any day over her dire attempts at being political such as on "You need to calm down" or her attempts at rage bait such as "Look what you made me do," any day of the week. Basically as much as I don't care for her music, I'll always respect the fact that Taylor Swift is making music she believes makes the world a better place (barring those two outliers I brought up) this is more than I can say for the likes of Meghan Trainor or Halsey who were two of the worst artists of the 2010's with their pathetic attempts at social commentary during the height of the music industries venture into "woke" culture. I stand by that this culture died out in 2018 as everyone from both sides of the political isle were able to see through the facade these artists put up in their music, not helped by the fact that the songs in question were usually poorly performed and produced in addition to spreading toxic messages about how being unlikable is the way to get ahead in life among many other things. The pendulum appears to have swung the other way in America if the existence of "Try that in a small town" and "Rich men north of Richmond" is anything to go by, although thankfully those songs are little more than lol cow anthems throughout the rest of the world, so I wouldn't worry about "anti-woke" songs climbing up the ARIA, NZ or British charts anytime soon.

When it comes to gaming, there's not much to say really as the rage bait there is more from practices implemented into AAA games rather than through artistic merit (or the lack thereof.) Sure these companies will hire consultancy agencies to make a game that much more insufferable with identity politics, cringe urban Californian dialogue and otherwise completely unlikable characters even the far left would despise, however I've found this is a mere distraction from the real issue at hand which is that these games are plagued with microtransactions meant to bypass the intolerable grinding gameplay that these games have to offer. The best example of this is Suicide squad kill the justice league, everyone initially bashed the game for its terrible dialogue and obvious disrespect for the DC universe (not helped by it coming from the mindset of a company that endorses extortion in the name of "political correctness) however I like many others can ignore these aspects of a game if said game was any fun to begin with. This is where the true failure of this game comes into play as it's one thing for Harley Quinn to give a lecture to the Batman for what makes a person good or bad, it's something else entirely if this comes right after a bland boss fight that feels like it was ripped from Borderlands which itself comes after multiple levels of "fight off multiple waves of enemies" that feels ripped from Warframe (made worse that Warframe is a FREE game that's been out for a decade at this point.) The game developers knew that this was a weak premise for a game, so they decided to include battle passes which is clearly meant to incentivise gamers to replay the bland campaign in order to unlock in game rewards, said rewards being worthless and a cheap cash grab in the case for the DLC expansions. The best part of all of this is that when gamers made the connection that many of these games used the same consultancy agency, a curator group was created to expose this agency (even though it should be noted that they're not entirely to blame for why all these games suck) which resulted in said agency freaking out and unintentionally starting gamer gate 2 as a bunch of other agencies were exposed as a result of their freak out. This goes to show that even these agencies know that what they're working on is garbage, although they'll do whatever it takes to hide the fact these games are terrible.

This of course leads me into perhaps the biggest form of rage bait outside of Tik Tok, that being journalism as I of course can't bring up gamer gate 2 without talking about how journalists have reacted to it. Thankfully this appears to only affect online journalism as televised bulletins more have an issue with concealing news rather than twisting it to piss people off. I could summarise this part by simply mentioning Kotaku given how they're infamous for writing inflammatory articles that only serve to make progressives look that much more insufferable, however it isn't just them as we've had article after article from the likes of Rolling stone, Buzzfeed and Pitchfork about how everything is offensive except for the offensive media they actively promote on their sites. When it comes to Kotaku, rolling stone and Pitchfork, they're just bad hit pieces against anything that itself isn't rage bait to allow the likes of Velma, Suicide squad or Hasley to seem tolerable by comparison. Buzzfeed is where I believe journalistic integrity went to die as from the very beginning, that site has only existed to promote awful articles about how everyone's a bigot and how they can change their daily lives to not be the case. The problem of course is that these articles are written by some of the most entitled people on the planet who are themselves bigots as they promote harmful stereotypes for certain demographics whilst shaming others for things, they can't do anything to change (such as their skin colour, sexuality etc.) It doesn't help that the overall quality of these articles on a technical level is rather poor, from bad sentence structures to the authors clearly not knowing what certain words mean. Then there's the bad research these authors do for their articles, particularly from that deranged woman from Kotaku who straight up lied about what happened in gamer gate 2 and then pulled the race card when people tried to correct her on it (despite this being a white woman mind you, although she does seem like the type of person who is genuinely confused on what determines one's race if those crazy screenshots of her is anything to go by.) It's fairly obvious why these articles exist, which is why I recommend using AdBlock when viewing them for yourself as to not give them any financial engagement.

OK time for me to talk about the BIGGEST form of rage bait, that of course being Tik Tok as everything up till this point at least has the benefit of being made by professionals (supposedly.) Tik Tok is a social media app that has done nothing but made the world that much worse than it already was as its designed specifically for its users to engager with it due to the nature of its short form content. This alone is egregious as it’s been scientifically proven to damage one's attention span, however if it were simply kids dancing around like brain dead idiots to the latest hit single from Sam Smith like the media insists it does, that would be one thing. While that certainly does happen, that's only one of the many trends on the site and it's by far the most innocuous as we have other more worrying trends from the fat acceptance movement to the promotion of neopronouns to straight up unhinged rants about different ethnicities and religions that make the ones from Velma seem tame by comparison. At least Mindy Kaling has the excuse of suffering from a midlife crisis during her rants on the show (as well as the possibility of workplace harassment as I very much doubt, she willingly allowed these rants to be animated for the purpose of a mean-spirited spin off of a beloved kids show.) These individuals on the other hand are ranting about stuff that doesn't matter or is at best a minor inconvenience for them like they've been persecuted in a third world country, only to then blame their conundrums on normies as if anyone else is responsible for their poor decision making skills and delusions for being something they're clearly not. I won't even go into the legal issues with the site when it comes to one's privacy as I'm not exactly well educated in how that works on an international scale, but that too is something to consider if you're to continue engaging with the site.

To go into detail on why Tik Tok is a bad website, I'll bring up the three points I mentioned on my anniversary post, which being the fat acceptance movement, that moron who promotes neopronouns and the creep who makes content specifically for kids. I'll start with the fat acceptance as that's the easiest to tackle, these are a bunch of morbidly obese women who let's face it, are far too lazy to live their lives and have somehow convinced themselves that society is somehow to blame for it. The biggest culprit here is Tess Holliday who is a plus sized model who actively promotes unhealthy eating in her content which has led to an increase in mortality rates when it comes to obesity, at least Lizzo only encouraged her fans to not feel bad about their weight (which makes her fall from grace all the more ironic.) That stupid idiot claiming that you can identify as anything from a dog to a table is a different beast altogether, people say that they have good intentions as they admittedly do a plausible job in creating hypothetical scenarios where a conversation would take place that would involve explaining these pronouns. The issue of course is that pronouns isn't restricted to humans as in certain languages, even inanimate objects have male and female pronouns. Heck German is one of the few languages (that I'm aware of at least) that even has nonbinary pronouns by default (der/die/das=him/her/they) good luck explaining this concept for French or Spanish speaking individuals where that's not the case. Of course, the real issue here is that it's clear this person doesn't understand the concept of non-binary or why certain people identify as such, meaning that it's really strange for them to expand this concept for an audience likely looking to them for further explanation. Finally, there's Jeffrey Marsh who is that creep who likes to make content for kids, honestly just Google the guy, look at the results in the images section and tell me if he has ANY business being around kids from his face alone. This is especially not helped by how CREEPY his speaking voice is, yes, I know it's a falsetto but everything about him just screams child predator to me from his voice to his bad makeup to his overall demeanour. It's because of him specifically that the LGBT movement has received a ton of backlash in recent years as many people (usually idiots from the Daily wire) like to use him as the image of the community when I can assure you that most of us are NOTHING like this guy.

I'll end this off with going over rage bait on YouTube as that's honestly where most people get the wrong idea of what is actually is, many content creators like the Critical drinker and his many associates are incorrectly labelled as rage bait simply for pointing out topics I've brought up in this site in an admittedly harsher way than what I've done. Blair White is another creator that's often described as rage bait as is her associates even though if you watch her content, she's actually debunking many misconceptions people have of LGBT individuals, albeit again in a way harsher tone than I'm giving in this essay of mine. I think the only rage baiter people have correctly identified as such are members of the Daily wire as they often misrepresent media in order to fuel their agenda when it comes to right wing politics, this is very evident with the likes of Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro who both clearly have little knowledge of what they're talking about at any given moment. Believe it or not, most of the rage baiters on YouTube come from the far left as they're the ones spouting off nonsense in media no sound individual would take seriously even for a second. What's worse is that people act shocked when they're involved with scandals of their own, usually child grooming or internet scams which honestly makes the Daily wire seem like saints by comparison. It's almost as if they've joined the far left specifically to cover up for their misdeeds, much like how companies hire consultancy agencies to write "woke" garbage for their games in order to cover up their own multiple scandals.

I could write a separate essay about terrible YouTubers, however no one wants to read about that, so I'll instead give a short list of these creators to avoid like the plague. They include ACTUALLY HAPPENED, Butch Hartman, ImJayStation, Lily Orchard, Morgz, Nicole Arbour, SSSniperWolf and WatchMojo. I know all of these are fairly old but believe me, I begun avoiding these types of channels like the plague a long time ago at this point and as such, I haven't bothered to memorise the names of channels that have pissed me off in more recent years. Besides, all of these channels are fairly well known even in more recent times, so they're a perfect sample of the types of channels I'm talking about regardless.

Well, that's about all I have to say about rage baiting, from the divisive political takes to bad faith criticism of media both current and from the past, we've looked at some truly vile examples of content that only exists to make the world a worse place. Hopefully one day, all of it will be lost media and that those responsible either find their inner peace from whatever mindset caused them to make this vile garbage or are at the very least blacklisted from the entertainment industry (I obviously prefer the former to happen.) I also hope the companies that have pushed this vile content onto the world get exposed for whatever crimes this is clearly meant to be distracting us all from as believe me, there's no other explanation for why Velma is allowed in HBO or why Disney and these gaming companies keep hiring a bunch of no talent consultancy firms to "diversify" their products for a "wider audience." Speaking of, I also hope these agencies go out of business as they're clearly taking work and money away from those who deserve it given how they clearly don't care about the end product that their services go towards. Most of all, I hope that we as a society can find a way to stop making this practice so lucrative as many of the worst online content creators are driven by the low-risk high reward nature it offers. Until we do, vote with your wallets and your engagement (or lack thereof) by not giving these individuals a second or your time or by buying their garbage products.

This site's one year anniversary

Hi guys! Can you believe it's been a full year since I launched this site of mine already? OK so I know nobody was here from the start as let's face it, I had a bit of an identity crisis when I originally constructed it which meant that there was no way to have this be picked up by any search engine until I sorted myself out about a month after its creation. I won't reiterate what I had to do to revamp an older and uglier side I had to what this is today but I came across an old backup file I had of that site and suffice to say, I don't even recognise the toxic individual who came up with that site, let alone what mindset they had to be in to write some of the vile shit that was on there.

I guess I should elaborate on who I am now that I know that I'm in this for the long haul (I'm as amazed as you are that I've found a way to keep making new content for as long as I've done.) I'll start with who I am as a person as we're currently in a time where it's becoming increasingly difficult to reveal who you are without a bunch of cancel pigs dogpiling you for not lining up with who you want them to be. While I reserve the right to keep my gender as anonymous on this site as I can allow myself, I can confirm that in addition to being queer (that is, I'm attracted to those in the same sex I was assigned at birth with) I was one of those mindless sheep who fell into the whole nonbinary craze that honestly has gotten out of hand in recent years. Now this isn't me denouncing the identity of anyone reading this as I do respect those who don't identify as a man or a woman, rather I'm on the firm belief that there are only three genders and thus three sets of pronouns (he/him, she/her and the dreaded they/them) and think that any other pronoun is invalid and only exists to rage bait people on the internet. I've also long since distanced myself from the LGBT community as like everyone else, I believe that the people in said community (many of which I question should even be there in the first place as they don't come off as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and/or non-binary to me) have become some of the most toxic people on the planet and give everyone who SHOULD be in this community a bad name. Rest assured that those people who have also felt alienated by this “community” can comfortably call this website a true safe space as I refuse to tolerate any form of bigotry or harassment on here even if I can agree that many of my "peers" will resort to the very type of violence I'm advocating against in this post.

I guess at some point I'm going to have to talk about the music of the 2020s given how much detail I've gone into for the music of 1975-2019, however, I'm not looking forward to it as in addition to its being completely overrun by some of the vilest people on the planet (it's really sad when Lizzo is among the least contemptuous people in the said industry) I just don't resonate one way or the other with most of the songs that have gotten popular this decade that wasn't originally released in another decade. I've already made my disdain for TikTok and other social media platforms that make the music of today as popular as it is more than clear on this site (you can check out why here) but to elaborate, it has become all about appealing to the lowest common denominator which is a far cry even from the reality show goons of the 00's or the "political correctness" of yesteryear which placed several bands and artists at a huge disadvantage during their heyday. Thankfully I don't have to talk about how films and other media have fallen in despair in recent years as they've arguably suffered a worse fate than what the music industry has, at least the music scene is largely a-political these days as opposed to 2014-2018 where anything leftist instantly shot up the charts (yes I'm aware that America is gravitating towards conservative music, but that's more out of rage bait and thankfully has yet to impact any charts outside of Billboard.)

What made me want to take this first-anniversary post in the direction I'm taking it in is the recent Gamergate 2 which successfully exposed how toxic the gaming industry has been since 2014, to be clear, I'm not one of these "anti-woke" morons who hate diversity by design, rather I'm against people who don't want to be in the gaming industry being antagonistic towards gamers and then using their minority statuses (or in most cases, perceived minority status as again, I don't consider many of these people to be genuinely part of the LGBT community) as shields for criticism against their toxic behaviour. I'm not even sure who's worse, the woman in charge of that consultancy agency who advocates for extortion to allow companies to hire her just so that she can self-insert herself in every game she's hired to consult for (you know the one, I'm not naming the company because they don't deserve any mention on this site) or that journalist who is so deranged that she engages in rage bait just to justify her existence on the internet even after she made a poorly researched article where she admitted to her incompetence as a journalist in said hit piece against a community of gamers boycotting the company run by the self-insert extortionist (again, this individual has no place on this site of mine even in name.) Then there's the film industry, more specifically, Disney. I've never seen a company comprised of so many people that actively despise their affiliation with it spend so much of their resources defending the actions of said individuals, just from an outsider’s perspective it has to be the most toxic company in existence based on the nasty comments made by the individuals working there, let alone the horror stories I've heard about how things work internally. Don't be fooled by their identity politics, these people are sad and miserable and don't even have the courtesy of improving their environments to make their lives just that little bit more worthwhile. Again, this kind of attitude has thankfully died out in the music industry which makes it that much easier for me to talk about on this site (not so much in the YouTube sphere, but then again, that's never really taken off outside of their niche demographic so I'm not too worried.)

The real concerning issue I have with media can be summed up with the second season of Velma, talk about a show that wants nothing more than to make EVERY demographic possible as angry with it as the people who made it are with, well their lives judging by the mean spirited writing of the show which goes after every demographic humanly possible as a way of "being edgy " (whatever that means in this day and age.) This show is the end point of what being needlessly cruel and nihilistic can do to a person as it's clear the people who made it despise the Scooby-Doo franchise and only worked on it due to contractual obligations, made worse by the fact that there’s plenty of people in the industry who would've gladly worked on an edgy take on the human characters of the franchise due to their love of the series. This show also confirms what many people have speculated in recent years, namely that being hateful in media (be it TikTok or streaming services) is lucrative due to how much revenue you'll receive from people negatively reacting to it. I think that explains the negative mindset I had on my older site as I admittedly went down this direction when it came to discussing the music I disliked like I was the nostalgia critic or something (failing to take into account the backlash he received for that awful Pink Floyd review he made.) My only hope is that by this time next year, the show will be lost media as everyone realises that the people behind it only care about prophetic off of people's misery (despite claiming to be anti-capitalists, among many other things that'll get you free money from the right people it seems.) If you haven't seen it, don't watch it as it thrives off of negative attention and is an insult to, well everything in this plane of existence.

What I'm trying to say here is that I'm not like these people who claim to be all about love and positivity but in reality are the very embodiment they claim to rally against, I may think that JK Rowling is wrong with her stance against the trans community, but that doesn't mean I'll stop being a Harry Potter fan just because she has those beliefs (especially when it's understandable where those beliefs came from considering she thinks that those people who claim to be trans to spread their hatred of the world are the same as true trans people who are among the most beautiful and compassionate individuals this world has to offer.) The same goes for the likes of Michael Jackson Elvis Presley or anyone affiliated with Harvey Weinstein, sure I can agree that they did some truly bizarre things that tested the limits of what is socially acceptable at any given point in time, but they made great contributions to the world which is far more than I can say for the "activists" of this world who do nothing but spread their hatred of the world in the name of "social justice." Believe me, these people have deep skeletons in their closets that they want to keep hidden as long as possible before they inevitably come to light in a scandal waiting to happen. Don't give these individuals a second of your time, it's what they want because, at the end of the day, they're attention addicts with nothing to offer other than their tiresome rants about how awful their lives are.

If you've read this far, then you have my respect as my ultimate goal here is to assure you that so long as you don't bring up any of the toxic bullshit I've brought up on this post towards this site, you'll be welcomed with open arms here. Of course, this goes for bullshit peddlers as well as like any sane person, I have little patience for the likes of the Daily Wire or any other "anti-woke" nonsense. But let's face it, those people aren't reading this anyway, so this is more letting people know that of course I don't stand with those individuals either. That's about all I have to say, take care and let's keep this site up for another year!

I'll include some of the media I consider to be harmful to society that you should avoid for the sake of your sanity.

The Daily Wire: a bunch of bullshit peddlers looking to fearmonger normies with their hatred of non-conservatives.

Anything made by Disney post-2019: a collection of bad stories or bad retellings of their classic stories complete with shoddy identity politics (that they made up as no one else in the world has these identities they shove in their media) that seem to only exist to justify the Daily wires bigotry of non-conservatives. Special mention to Wish, She Hulk and the Mulan remake which all serve to destroy the company with their awful stories, cringe attempts at humour and hypocritical messaging.

Velma: a sick, twisted show that only exists to anger those who watch it, at least we've had good reviews of the show from talented online reviewers.

Anything from Soundcloud rappers: your typical rage bait as presented by poorly rapped tracks with terrible production to boot. 6ix9ine is the poster child for this nonsense.

Anything on tik tok: a site that only exists to push content meant to rage bait onlookers, special mention to the fat acceptance movement, the moron promoting neo pronouns based on animals and inanimate objects and that creep who tells their young viewers to keep secrets from their parents while sounding like that creepy old guy from family guy. Speaking of....

Family Guy post-2010: a show that wants to die and goes out of its way to be as offensive as possible so that it can die. Velma's mean-spirited approach to its existence was its way of ending it.

Channel awesome: a bunch of bad-faith reviews made by a guy who's upset he couldn't make it as a credible filmmaker. Yes we all have fond memories of his content, however, it's because of his hatred towards an industry that rejected him that we now have such a nihilistic approach to life over a decade after hire made it big (besides, was he ever that funny outside of "bat credit card" or "the ogre's butt?" Thought not.)

Watchmojo.com: while not intentionally hateful, they personify the quantity over the quality mindset that makes smaller content creators such as me struggle to find an audience.

Any game made with a consulting agency: mainly because said agencies do nothing other than insert their identity politics and third grade humour into these games, they also tend to be filled with everything else gamers hate including season passes, loot boxes and pointless grinding. If anything, the bad writing from these companies feels more like a distraction from these other shady practices.

Go set charts 1970's IV

I've decided to show what was popular during the waning years of the go set charts in Australia, although again I haven't included any commentary here as I feel uncomfortable with talking about songs that I struggle to form opinion about while also feeling that talking about the select few that I do have strong feelings about would reveal my biases in a negative way on this site. I'll also include stats from the last quarter of 1974 to evenly round out this list even though I'm obviously using AMR stats for those entries.

There are two versions of this track that exist, there's the version with the disco trio Love unlimited which features vocalist from the three women of colour on the track. The other version is the instrumental version which is the version that became a massive worldwide hit given how it was commissioned from a group of session musicians by Barry White for one of his concerts with the girls.

#61 for 1974 (#55 AMR)

The Carpenters were on a roll when they released their second big hit around the world, in fact this nearly topped the Billboard charts much like their top entry on this list which confirmed the brother and sister duo as the real deal moving forward in the decade.

#64 for 1971 (#68 AMR)

Although these guys had success in their native America prior to this hit, this was the first of several Billboard chart toppers that Three dog night had likely due to them taking an Eric Burdon track and running through the funk sound with their interpretation. The rest of the world liked what they did with the track which allowed it to crossover internationally.

#67 for 1970 (#74 AMR)

I wasn't expecting to add another entry from an artist who would go on to become a politician apart from Peter Garrett on this site, however that seems to be the case for Mike Curb as the future politician for California would score a hit with the theme to the Clint Eastwood flick Kelley's heroes a decade prior to taking office in the west coast state.

#68 for 1970 (#58 AMR)

You'd think that "Stairway to heaven" would be the big hit from Led Zeppelin's fourth self-titled album, alas it wasn't as that honour goes to this track instead which is more of a conventional rock track as opposed to the prog classic that continues to invade our airwaves even to this day.

(this is Led zeppelin "Black dog)

#68 for 1972 (#70 AMR)

I'm shocked this was only a moderate success for Bob Dylan here in Australia, although that might be due to how Guns n roses revived this song's popularity in the 90's with their rendition which coincidentally came out the same year I was born (1992.) In any case, this was the second hit that the folk legend had here in Australia following "Like a rolling stone" from 1965.

#66 for 1973 (#84 AMR)

This was the only hit for Australian actress/singer Abigail Rogan, I'm guessing this was the case due to the popularity of a TV she was on at the time of its release (it's surprisingly hard to find information about this woman) given how this saw a release in the UK where it predictably flopped.

#67 for 1973 (#78 AMR)

This was a hit for Brian Hyland a decade after his first hit "Itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polkadot bikini" (I can't believe I had to type that up on this site even after mentioning its 1990 cover on the NZ side of my site.) This meant that the former teen idol was able to escape the one hit wonder bin here in Australia with this track about a Romani woman he's in love with (though not enough to not refer to her as a slur.)

#65 for 1971 (#56 AMR)

While these guys only had one inescapable hit here in Australia with "Hot love," their fortunes were much better in their homeland as this became yet another chart topper in the UK for the glam rock band as well as another staple on oldies stations to this day.

#69 for 1972 (#80 AMR)

We have another two for one deal on this list, this time it's from the king of rock and roll as Elvis Presley bundled his cover of a Dusty Springfield classic with a song that's long been forgotten by even his diehard fanbase for decades at this point.

#66 for 1971 (#57 AMR)

This was the only hit to come from American singer Bobby Bloom, mainly because he would tragically pass away four years after its release due to a self-inflicted gun wound (there's actually speculation on if it was a suicide or his gun misfiring on him.) The song would be covered by Australian band Allniters a decade after his death where it became a modest success for them (albeit a sleeper hit.)

#69 for 1970 (#72 AMR)

We've looked at the Boy George cover from 1987 on the NZ side of my site, time now to look at the original non reggae version from Bread which was a hit here in Australia fifteen years prior to when George's version briefly scrapped our top ten before quickly leaving our charts (making it a fan single in my opinion.) This failed to crack our top ten but stuck around for quite some time regardless.

#70 for 1972 (#65 AMR)

There was a popular TV crime series known as Van der Valk (Dutch for "of the falcon") which aired from 1972-1977 back in the day. As with most popular TV series, its theme song was quite popular in the music scene here in Australia as well as in the show's native UK where it topped the British charts.

#62 for 1974 (#67 AMR)

This is the final hit that Axiom achieved during their short time together, it was the lead single to their second and final album which proves that although they weren't quite as popular with their first album, there was still love for the band regardless even mere months prior to them calling it quits.

#67 for 1971 (#67 AMR)

This was a short-lived covers band from Australia who scored two hits during the first half of the decade with cover songs, this one being of the Merry Clayton track that's best known nowadays for Cher's rendition for her film Mermaids. These guys likely would've had more success here had they stuck around once Countdown launched, alas they called it quits mere months after the show premiered.

#63 for 1974 (#65 AMR)

This was George Harrison's final hit here in Australia for eight years as he wouldn't touch our charts again until 1981 with his tribute to John Lennon "All those years ago." It was a much bigger deal internationally where this topped the Billboard charts for the former Beatle likely due to its strong message about world peace.

#68 for 1973 (#86 AMR)

This was another huge hit that Slade had throughout the world during their heyday, it was coincidentally their second UK chart topper given how it was their second biggest hit here in Australia for the glam rock band.

#71 for 1972 (#67 AMR)

This will be the last entry from Don Mclean on this site given how he didn't score any other hits throughout his career, indeed this was only a hit here in Australia likely due to the massive success of his two earlier entries on this list as well as the album they came from which didn't seem to be much of an incentive for the rest of the world in making this a hit.

#69 for 1973 (#61 AMR)

This was the last major hit that the Masters apprentices had in their career, although their next single "Because I love you" would receive plenty of airplay due to a 1988 release of the track that flopped but was regardless what made them a favourite on oldies stations. Their success was more prevalent in the 60's due to their sound fitting in perfectly with the hippy revolution.

#70 for 1970 (#76 AMR)

This is one of the many moderate hits that the Partridge family had here in Australia between their two earlier entries on this list, I'm guessing this song's success was due to how well it went over with us Aussies when it was performed on the show.

#68 for 1971 (#63 AMR)

This is a song that could've only been popular from the 60's or the start of the 70's, it comes to us from Daddy Dewdrop who scored his one and only hit worldwide with this novelty track that still pops up here and there in pop culture.

#69 for 1971 (#83 AMR)

We have another entry from the brothers Gibb, this will be their earliest entry to feature on my site as I don't think I'll ever be looking at what was popular in the 60's where most of their pre disco success came from.

#70 for 1971 (#60 AMR)

This is one of only two entries from Stevie Wonder, that's right, one of the biggest names of the decade only had two hits here in Australia even if his albums did do considerably well with us Aussies (which somewhat makes him an album artist as far as we're concerned.) At least this was a chart topper on Billboard even if it's one of his rare slow jams that got popular over the years.

#70 for 1973 (#79 AMR)

It's puzzling to think that this was the big hit from blues legend JJ Cale and not "Cocaine" here in Australia, although I guess the fact that he had a hit here in Australia is proof that we Aussies did at least love him for one single as opposed to his fellow Americans who completely ignored his catalogue.

#72 for 1972 (#76 AMR)

This is the only entry from Marie Osmond to appear on this side of my site, mainly because her duets with Donny failed to become a success here in Australia (possibly due to their incestual nature which was unintentional on their part.)

#64 for 1974 (#80 AMR)

We've featured the Joan Jett cover on this site on my list of Countdown performances, time now to look at the original version of the glam rock track from Gary Glitter which continued the icon's winning streak back in the day given how it was the lead single to his second album Touch me.

#71 for 1973 (#71 AMR)

Mark Lindsay was the lead single of Paul Revere and the Raiders, an American band who curiously failed to score any hits here in Australia despite how popular they were in their homeland. He did win us Aussies over with this ballad about a girl named Arizona (not the state) which sadly did no favours for his band at the time.

#71 for 1970 (#67 AMR)

This was the first song that John Farnham released in the decade; it was a guaranteed success for him given how this was coming off the heels of his top entry on this list which coincidentally was when the original version from BJ Thomas took home the academy award for best original song.

#72 for 1970 (#73 AMR)

Well, this is something different from Chicago, here we have a jazz rock track in the vein of early Santana or Blood sweat and tears which became a moderate success at the start of the decade worldwide for the band. I guess the genre became more niche as the decade went along, hence why they transitioned to a soft rock sound with their hit "If you leave me now."

#73 for 1970 (#83 AMR)

This is the only hit to come from Brownsville station, a rare American glam rock band who quite surprisingly managed to make it big in their homeland give how rare it was for glam rock to become a success on Billboard (even from local artists such as Suzi Quatro.) Motley Crue fans will know this as one of that band's signature tracks due to their rendition being a minor success on Billboard in the 80's.

#65 for 1974 (#75 AMR)

We have our final Oscar winning track on this list, I've saved the best for last as it's the title track from the Shaft series courtesy of Isaac Hayes who scored his only American hit with this jam. For the rest of the world, he scored another hit in the late 90's as his character in South Park Chef with "Chocolate salty balls" from the Chef aid soundtrack (it only barely failed to appear on this site.)

#73 for 1972 (#64 AMR)

This was a modest success for Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds (what a weird band name) here in Australia, likely due to it being a huge hit in their native America where this type of ballad reigned supreme on the Billboard charts.

#71 for 1971 (#82 AMR)

This was John Farnham's final hit he had until his 1980 comeback with "Help," I guess he was seen as a relic of the 60's by this point in time which was a stigma that wouldn't hold once he released his magnum opus in 1986.

#72 for 1973 (#83 AMR)

This was the only hit for Leon Russell, one of the less influential icons of the hippy culture despite doing quite well with his albums here in Australia during the first half of the decade. I'm not sure how we Aussies came across his work given how little success he had in his native America.

#72 for 1971 (#80 AMR)

This was the last hit that the Brothers Gibb had before they had transitioned to disco, it's a good representation of their sound while they were a trio but before they were having us jam to their music on the dance floor.

#66 for 1974 (#71 AMR)

Bread was another band who managed to achieve quite a bit of success in their native America throughout the decade, this was their biggest hit here in Australia despite it not being their biggest hit on the Billboard charts (we'll get to what was in a bit.) Bread are one of those bands who are often described as "white people music" mainly due to their lack of appeal in other demographics.

#74 for 1972 (#62 AMR)

#67 for 1974 (#90 AMR)

These guys had been active since the mid 50's, which means they scored their final hit in Australia and most parts of the world two decades after their initial breakthrough. They had another hit earlier in the year with "Like sister and brother" meaning this RNB ballad didn't come out of nowhere for the band down under, indeed they were fairly successful worldwide as both of these songs were huge in the UK.

#68 for 1974 (#72 AMR)

#73 for 1971 (#87 AMR)

This was the second hit that the Doors had from their final album L.A woman, it's another song that's been fondly remembered over the years due to how much oldies stations love to play it. I guess if the album weren't so successful, it would've been even bigger here due to our charts revolving around physical sales which the album ate up for this song.

#74 for 1971 (#81 AMR)

Given the success of the Mike Curb congregation from earlier on this list, these guys had to be referred to as the English congregation here in Australia as well as anywhere else in the world that "Burning bridges" had charted in order to avoid confusion with them. In any case, this was a decent hit here in Australia, although it was much bigger internationally likely due to the lack of confusion.

#75 for 1972 (#78 AMR)

This was a hit a year after its initial release, I guess it wasn't released as a single here in Australia initially due to it having to compete with "Imagine" from earlier on this list as that was the Christmas chart topper of 1971 down under. It had its full chance to shine the following Christmas where it was too little too late for it to make an impact on our charts.

#73 for 1973 (#85 AMR)

This was John Farnham's penultimate hit here in Australia until his comeback from 1980, it's a song released during our Christmas which makes its lyrics about how things go out of season appropriate given how we Aussies have Christmas in summer as opposed to most of the world which has it during winter.

#74 for 1973 (#74 AMR)

This was the lead single to CCR's final album Mardis gras, or rather it was a throwaway track they released following the success of Pendulum that they included on the album due to the behind-the-scenes drama they went through during the album's conception.

#75 for 1971 (#84 AMR)

This is another one of those cheap covers of an international track from an Australian artist that got big throughout the decade, although at least we'll eventually get to the original version of this track further down the list as opposed to some of the other entries that missed out from appearing on this list.

#69 for 1974 (#81 AMR)

This was a hit for Lobo two years prior to his other two entries on this list, likely because it's a love song that revolves around a couple and their puppy which I'm sure melted the hearts of listeners back in the day despite how lame it seems for modern audiences.

#76 for 1971 (#79 AMR)