Where it began...

Although I'd been a 'casual' music follower for a few years (e.g. watching Countdown from age 5), it wasn't until 1987 that I started to follow music more intently... perhaps inspired by listening to my sister's various artists 'hits' compilation cassettes on my Walkman.  '87 Hots Up was the first one I bought myself, though; then Smash Hits '87 a few months later (A$16.99 at my local K-Mart).

 
I didn't realise that Smash Hits was a magazine as well until visiting a relative of my parents' friends' in January 1988, where their daughter had a copy (the local Australian version).

Of course, I soon began buying Smash Hits myself.  The first edition I bought featured Michael Hutchence on the cover, and retailed for A$1.75 from memory.  I continued to buy Smash Hits until 1994 (even though I thought it had gone downhill from '92 when it started to focus more on TV shows, and ones I didn't watch such as 90210).  I threw them all out though during a house move in 1995.  Initially, I was most interested in the section where they printed a copy of the top 50 singles chart, and soon after became an avid chart-follower.  I wanted to know how well the songs I liked performed on the charts.

I soon discovered the Take 40 Australia radio show, and began writing the list of songs down each week.  Around the same time, I also discovered the local music video shows Video Hits, and Rage - which played the videos for the top 50 songs each week.  Eventually, I noticed that Rage played the chart a week before it aired on Take 40 Australia, and so switched to using Rage for my weekly chart fix.

Just after Christmas 1988, while visiting a cousin's house, we watched some music videos she had recorded from Rage.  I remember thinking 'what a great idea!' at recording music videos to watch later on.  Even though I had been watching Rage for almost a year, somehow I'd never thought to record the videos I liked.  It probably didn't help that I didn't yet own any of my own blank VHS tapes (which were quite expensive at the time, especially for someone still relying on pocket money).

The first music video I recorded was Enya's 'Orinoco Flow', from the Rage top 50 in early February 1989.  I also recorded the top 5 songs from that week.  I still have that 4-hour video tape today, though converted it to DVD in 2005.  Some other videos I recorded onto it were Neneh Cherry's 'Buffalo Stance', Tanita Tikaram's 'Twist InMy Sobriety', and Paul Kelly's 'Dumb Things' (yes, that video is a direct upload from this VHS tape).  Quite diverse tastes for a 10 year-old ;)

And so I've continued to record/keep music videos I like ever since... and er, even a few I don't like so much.  My interest in new chart music severely waned though towards the end of the 90's, and hasn't recovered since.  But there's still lots of 'old' new music I missed the first time around that I'm discovering now, and finding new, obscure-ish music videos on VHS compilations from the 80's/90's I acquire helps with that.  "When you can't find the music to get down and boogie, all you can do is step back in time" indeed.  I do find some new music that I like, but it usually requires effort to find it.

I've always tended to like the less-successful artists/songs the most.  Through youtube and this blog, I hope to give some of these tracks exposure to a new audience.  I always get a buzz from reading comments on my youtube videos from people who've liked the song for years but have never seen the video before; or from people discovering an 'old' song they like but didn't previously know.  I try to upload videos for songs that aren't already on youtube; or better-quality versions of videos that are already there.