UK Chart Attack

OK, 4 posts in one day, I'm getting a bit carried away...  But something I just found via google prompted this one.

Back in the early 90's, Fox FM in Melbourne used to air a radio show called 'UK Chart Attack' on Sunday nights, at 9:30pm or thereabouts, following American Top 40.  Although I listened to American Top 40 sometimes (usually not the whole show though), unfortunately I didn't discover UK Chart Attack until May 1992.  I've always generally liked UK/European music the best, and the UK Chart Attack radio show aired an hour's worth of new releases from UK/European acts, as well as singles charting in the UK that hadn't yet been released/become hits in the US (for whom the show was primarily designed).

Back in those days, singles by UK/European artists (particularly the more obscure or less successful ones) were not released in Australia until usually 3, and sometimes 6 or more, months later (if at all for the less-successful/well-known artists).  So there were many tracks I heard via UK Chart Attack months before they were released here, and also quite a few that didn't ever get a local release.

One of the first new tracks I heard on UK Chart Attack was the single version of Shakespears Sister's 'I Don't Care', which was completely re-recorded and radically different to the album version on the 'Hormonally Yours' album I already owned:

Eventually I'd have my blank cassette tape ready to record any new tracks that I liked from UK Chart Attack.  I still have that cassette somewhere.

Another track I heard first on UK Chart Attack (in September 1992, ahead of its December 1992 release here) was Tasmin Archer's 'Sleeping Satellite'.  Not yet having seen the video, I assumed Tasmin was white.  I was quite surprised when I first caught the video on Rage as a new release 3 months later:

I also heard Utah Saints' 'Something Good' on UK Chart Attack for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised when it became a #10 hit in Australia a few months later.

Unfortunately, Australia was still in the grip of 'classic rock' on FM radio at the time, and to hear music such as this on the radio outside of the top 40 was a rarity.

And one track I probably never would have heard if not for UK Chart Attack was Ambassadors of Funk's 'Supermarioland' (another one I have to link here, as only duplicates of my upload appear in the embedding search results... despite my video being the first search result for the track on youtube iteself - what's up with this?!) - yes, heavily based on the Nintendo game music.  Eighteen months earlier, someone at school had dubbed me 'Nintendo Nath'.


Like all good things, UK Chart Attack's broadcast on Fox FM unfortunately came to an end in January 1993, to be replaced with Dr Feelgood's 'Pillow Talk' radio show.  Sure, while I also listened to this sometimes, I was gutted that my favourite radio show wasn't coming back.  As usual, there was no announcement that the last UK Chart Attack show to air on Fox FM would be the last.  Coincidentally, I encountered someone who worked behind the scenes as an audio engineer on the 'Pillow Talk' radio show (among other things), earlier this year at work.  He had some interesting tidbits to reveal on how the show was put together and broadcast.

Ioni 'Sentence of Love'

I mentioned in the first post on this blog that I am (was) an ardent chart follower.  Besides the Australian chart, I've also had a long interest in the UK singles chart, which I always thought was more interesting than our own, as it tends to be faster-paced (or used to be, pre downloads being included in the chart), and nearly everything that deserves to chart, does... somewhere; even if it's just scraping the top 200 (compared to the paltry Australian top 100 singles chart).  However, prior to 1994, the only readily-available UK chart information online is the top 75.  But, if you know where to look, you can search the 76-100 UK singles chart positions (by artist, since the full charts were removed from the site).  Well, for between 1983 and May 1991.

Recently, I discovered a thread on the UKMix Chart Analysis forum which has positions 76-100 from between September 1992 and February 1994.  Browsing through the list, I checked to see if I had the videos for some of the singles that peaked between #76 and #100 in the UK from this period, and lo and behold, I do.  A number of these weren't already on youtube, so I uploaded a couple last night.  Among them was this track:

I found this video on a VHS tape I acquired and converted to DVD in 2009.  I liked the song, and wrote it down on my 'to download' list of songs.  I keep this list, as often I'll think of a good song to download randomly, and then forget it by the time I get around to doing so.  But as I only watched the video once, I quickly forgot how the song went, and didn't end up downloading it.  I remember seeing it on my 'to download' list some months later, and wondering how the song went.  It seems that Ioni (that's 'ioni', not 'Loni') was a rather obscure artist (the only information I can find online is that this was a Dutch/UK dance 'project'... but I don't even know if 'Ioni' is the name of the singer or if this is a group).  This track spent a solitary week in the UK top 100, at #94, in February 1993.  Subsequently, an mp3 of the track isn't easy to come by... so I've just bought the CD single online.  I love love love this track, and have listened to the video file about 15 times in the past two days.  Criminally underrated.  As someone once posted on a youtube video of mine: "Diamonds sink; shit floats" (in reference to that song's chart placing).