Popular Demographic Survey

Since there isn’t a great deal more to say about the last entry, time to scratch an itch I’ve had for a while about who exactly is reading this. I’ve kept the questions vague so as to avoid spoilers for records we’ve not covered yet.

Basically, I’d like you to answer these questions in the comments:

1. When were you born?
2. What was the year you were first regularly interested in what was at #1?
3. Do you still listen to music in the Top 40 on a regular basis (and if the answer’s “no”, when did you stop)?

There is no ‘right’ answer to #3 – I’m just intrigued as to the ‘demographics’ of the blog.

Lurkers very welcome! Come and say hello!

BROTHERHOOD OF MAN – "Figaro"

ABBA – "Take A Chance On Me"

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Tom

22 July 2008 14:52

My own answers:

1. 1973
2. Flickers of awareness before, but the tail end of 1980 and on into 1981.
3. I still do – came closest to stopping in 1988.

Dan R

22 July 2008 14:54

1. 1968
2. Around 1977-78
3. Yes. Ish.

Billy Smart

22 July 2008 14:59

1. 1972
2. 1979
3. No. Circa 2002

rosie

22 July 2008 15:00

1. 1954 (David Whitfield’s Cara Mia was number one

2. 1961, starting at the beginning with Poetry in Motion

3. Very occasionally things filter through but the last time I paid much attention was in 1984.

Mark G

22 July 2008 15:01

Good evening.

1) 1961
2) 1971
3) Yeah, in general I can still read the top forty and know the majority of the songs there.

grange85

22 July 2008 15:10

1) 1964
2) 1973
3) No – probably lost interest in the early 80s and had completely lost touch by the 90s

Lena

22 July 2008 15:12

1) 1967, when the Monkees were #1 in the US & UK

2) 1978, when I got my first radio for my 11th birthday

3) I paid pretty close attention until around 1987 (this being the US charts); have begun to pay attention to the UK charts since early 2006, though being in Canada I only know so many of the songs – this will change soon though!

Pete

22 July 2008 15:12

1) 1973
2) 1978
3) Occasionally, probably once every other month. I do get the RSS of the BBC top Forty thing on Mondays!

DJ Punctum

22 July 2008 15:21

1) Ten thousand years ago
2) I thought that if I won, and took over your village, that I would be able to control an organised breakout
3) General Gordon, but who wielded the rogue exhaust pipe?

Ben

22 July 2008 15:22

1) 1981
2) 1992 – the first three Top Of The Pops #1s I remember were ‘Rhythm Is A Dancer’, ‘Ebenezer Goode’ and ‘Sleeping Satellite’. I still have a fondness for all three songs.
3) I take a look at the charts of a Monday morning, but I don’t really listen to chart music very often, except when recommended to me on FT/Poptimism. That said, the radio output I do listen to is becoming increasingly chart-worthy, so I guess I probably do know about 25% of the Top 40 each week from the radio.

lonepilgrim

22 July 2008 15:25

1. 1960
2. 1972
3. No. I have always had a fairly loose grasp of what is/was in the chart but lost touch almost entirely in the early 1990s.

Alan

22 July 2008 15:27

i shouldn’t do this. question #2 is my secret question for my online bank account

mike

22 July 2008 15:30

1. 1962. Cliff & The Shads were at #1 with “The Young Ones”.

2. 1971. Specifically from “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” onwards.

3. Yes, I still listen to current Top 40 music. I had a wobble in 2002, but pulled back from it.

Erithian

22 July 2008 15:40

1) 1962 – the Shadows’ “Wonderful Land” was number one.
2) 1968 – “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde” was the first I can remember from the time, although “Fire” was the first I was rooting for to get to the top.
3) Yes, although the interest hasn’t been entirely consistent since the early 90s.

I’d get some calamine lotion for that itch if I were you.

lockedintheattic

22 July 2008 15:43

1. 1974

2. First really aware and interested from 1981; first *really, really cared* about 1985

3. Yes, although came close to losing touch several times in my twenties (1995, 2001)

katstevens

22 July 2008 15:48

1. 1982 – #1 on my birthday was an excellent song by a band I really dislike!
2. Summer 1991!
3. Indeed, although for the last couple of weeks I have been somewhat uninspired by the new entries AND Hits!TV have stopped showing the chart countdown on Monday nights, super-lame.

22 July 2008 15:49

1. 1964
2. 1977
3. Obsessively interested until mid-eighties, completely lost touch in early 90s. I wouldn’t have the faintest clue what the current no. 1 is.

Doctormod

22 July 2008 15:54

1. 1951 (I’m older than the chart, perhaps not as bad as being older than dirt.)

2. ~1963 (But I was interested several years before in observing an older sibling who wrote down the Top 30 in order every Saturday when the new charts were announced. She still likes to make lists.)

3. I stopped listening to “Top 40” radio in the early 70s, then started listening to alternative rock stations (but not Top 40) in the early 80s and through the early 00s. Now I listen to my iPod.

WBS

22 July 2008 16:01

1) 1983.
2) 1987. “Star Trekkin'”. Yup.
3) Been a bit in and out over the years, but I’m pretty into it at the moment (though given the amount of globalised gobshitery in there at the moment, I do wonder why sometimes)

vinylscot

22 July 2008 16:06

1. 1960

2. 1966 (Good Vibrations)

3. I still read the charts on a Monday, and I’m still fascinated by the figures/stats etc., but stopped listening to top 40 stuff around 1996. I actually listen to more music than ever now, and do listen to new music (some of which may be top 40 stuff, but that’s incidental), but usually find it through recommendations or blogs rather than “finding it myself” on the radio.

koganbot

22 July 2008 16:08

1. 1954, the year Elvis started recording (in the U.S., Patti Page’s “How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?” was number one the day I was born).

2. 1963 I started noticing the pop charts, then stopped, then started again in 1966, which was a new world. But I don’t think I ever cared about no. 1 per se or even specifically about the pop charts (I’ve cared about Pazz & Jop a lot more, also about the poptimist Now tournament, where I was sending my brainwaves across the ocean to get you lot to vote for Britney rather than Kate, to no avail). I was more concerned with whether music I cared about pro or con had a constituency, and who that constituency was, than specifically how high something charted.

3. By the late ’60s I’d jumped to FM radio, then in the seventies print was more important source than radio in regard to e.g. the New York Dolls, though off and on I would pay some attention to the pop stations; in the late ’70s I’d listen to Casey Kasem count down the top 40 so as not to be out of touch, but it was a weekly task more than anything I did out of compulsive desire, then in the late ’80s I decided that MTV was a good place to hear new things (new to me, that is, not new to everyone, obviously) and to provide material for conversation, was watching only sporadically in the ’90s but Radio On got me writing about singles, then starting in ’99 when I moved to Denver I jumped back in ’cause of all the amazing hip-hop and r&b, but it was to the “rhythmic” station rather than a top 40 station, which we didn’t really have. In my time here, Denver rarely has been able to support an actual top 40 station; between them the hip-hop/r&b station and the country station take too much of the potential audience, as do the adult pop stations.

Waldo

22 July 2008 16:23

1) 17th April 1961. The same day as The Bay of Pigs. Number One in UK (I was born in Wandsworth) was Presley’s “Wooden Heart”.

2) Although I was conscious of Number Ones as early as 1966, I only really tuned in to the chart in 1969, specifically when the format for calculation changed and on day one, Amen Corner suddenly leapt from nowhere straight to the top.

3) Lost interest in about 1984. There was nothing for me there anymore and I was now discovering all sorts of things from the recent and more distant past. My only link with what happens now is Radio 2, although this probably keeps me more in touch than I try to kid myself.

Jo Newham

22 July 2008 16:28

1. 1977
2. 1988 (the year I got a radio).
3. I do, as long as it gets as far as Radio 2.

Dan M.

22 July 2008 16:34

1. 1959. Late December 1959. So you could practically call it 1960. But, 1959.

2. 1973 or 74. American, though. By ’80 or so I had moved on. Missed the ’90s completely and have been tuning in a little but more in this decade.

3. A little… have a teenaged daughter so some filters through that way, reinforced by work that occasionally finds me at High School graduation parties, Bar/bat Mitzvahs and that sort of thing (I recently had the thrill of seeing the Bat Mitzvah girl karaoke-ing “My Humps” for mom, dad, bubby and zadie et al the other day… I’m better now, thanks), where they generally spin all the hits.

Jungman Jansson

22 July 2008 16:38

1. 1978

2. 1989-1990, I think.

3. Yes. Sort of. But not in a particularly active way.

grebtesthit

22 July 2008 16:42

1. 1980
2. 1993, when I bought my first single, a number 1. (I’d bought two or three albums before this though)
3. Yes indeed, however probably less so in the past couple of years. TOTP‘s demise might be a factor there.

Venga

22 July 2008 16:49

1. 1970

2. 1978

3. I stopped knowing what every record in the chart sounded like around 2000.

will

22 July 2008 16:57

1) 1969

2) The summer of 1976

3) At this late stage, it doesn’t look as if I’ll ever stop.

jeff w

22 July 2008 16:58

1. 1965
2. 1972
3. Yes. (But did lose interest briefly at various points during the 80s and 90s.)

LondonLee

22 July 2008 17:21

1. 1962
2. Around 1971 I think. I looked up the old Number Ones at Every Hit and that was the first year I have clear memories of every song there being in the charts.
3. No. Early 90s when I moved to the States probably and got completely out of the loop for a long time. I occasionally watch MTV to see what “the kids” are buying these days but it’s usually a depressing experience.

Simon

22 July 2008 17:24

1. 1983
2. 1994
3. No – 2000

iainf

22 July 2008 18:25

1. 1985
2. 1999, though vaguely aware from about 96 onwards
3. Yes, although not so much since the point at which all new entries stopped being played on the Radio 1 chart show (2004?) and I stopped listening.

The Lurker

22 July 2008 18:28

1. 1975
2. 1983ish.
3. Not since Top of the Pops and Popworld were cancelled in quick succession. Apart from watching those I’ve probably been drifting away from 1988 or so.

Al Ewing

22 July 2008 18:45

1. 1977
2. I think 1984 or 1985 – 1987 at the latest.
3. No – kept listening as recently as 2002-2004, but nothing’s really interested me about the charts as a way of hearing new music for a while. Since I got an iPod this time last year, I only ever listen to the Adam and Joe show, which pulls up the occasional interesting thing, and Dale Winton’s Pick Of The Pops.

SteveM

22 July 2008 18:48

1. 1978
2. 1984
3. sort of but not really – still take an interest in charts but don’t listen to most of the stuff in it by choice and haven’t since mid 90s maybe

Brian

22 July 2008 19:55

1. October , 1953
2. late 1963 – when the Beatles started charting in Canada
3. These days , I hear Top 40 via my kids but I don’t pursue it. I lost interest in the charts in the 70’s as I started to be more interested in the LP format.

lex

22 July 2008 20:14

1. 1982
2. 1991
3. yes obv (this is the right answer)

Alan

22 July 2008 20:46

(oh well)

1. 1969 Honky Tonk Women
2. 1976ish lets say here
3. yes. where ‘regular basis’ is a little irregular TBH

Matt Cibula

22 July 2008 21:06

1. 1966
2. 1973 or ’74 or so, I made massive lists of my own top 500 and updated them every week or so, color charts, different shapes, the whole thing, very aspie actually, all this in suburban Portland Oregon when I wasn’t playing baseball or soccer or riding around on my banana-seat Free Spirit bike. I WAS ADORABLE.
3. Yes, but more like ‘back and forth, in and out’ when it comes to Top 40, as I’m hella busy keeping up with all the obscure Swiss jazz and African techno and Japanese death metal what pops into the postbox every week. My own kids keep me honest but I am much less likely to be pop-savvy than I was just a couple of years ago. Did I jump…or was I pushed?

Jonathan Bogart

22 July 2008 22:10

1. 1977.
2. Never — for most Americans, even music-besotted ones, it’s never been the cultural touchstone it seems to have been in the UK.
3. It varies. I’ve been making more of an effort this summer than I ever have since the late 90s, when I started to get into music in a serious way, which (for me) meant turning the radio off and digging into history and the underground. But I’ve always kept half an ear cocked.

o sobek!

22 July 2008 23:50

1. 1974
2. was aware of it for god knows how long but earliest memory i can recall of caring about it is listening to some year end either casey kasem or rick dees top 40 special in december 1983 and being OUTRAGED that somehow ‘every breath you take’ was a bigger hit than take yr pick michael jackson that year. position stands. remember the ‘when doves cry’-‘ghostbusters’-‘dancing in the dark’ tussle of summer 84 very very clearly so i was definitely deliberately paying attention by that point. truth be told for most of this time (or at least very soon after it) top 40 chartwatching or whatever came in the form of adam curry doing the top 20 video countdown on mtv. also very very clear memories of dial-mtv’s daily chart (which easily carried the most weight among everyone i knew – in the official top 40 ‘pour some sugar on me’ stalls somewhere short of #1, on dial-mtv it owned the top for months, which corresponded very closely to what we KNEW to be true), awareness of british charts probably dates to mtv top 20 or issues of rolling stone which is probably where awareness of cmj charts comes in. also remember top 20 most played charts various local radio stations would put out every week and leave in record stores. special fondness still for nightly top requested songs where on the station i listened to ‘it takes two’ held a hold on #1 comparable to def leppard’s.

3. of course

Jamie H

23 July 2008 00:04

1972
1979 maybe, not later than 1980, when Adam and the Ants started having hits.
No. I stopped around the early 90s. Not long after my Mum said of top of the Pops “There always used to be at least one thing on that I’d like!” It used to be fun looking out for the weird one-hit dance things, or the indie standard-bearers like The Jesus and Mary Chain, but it doesn’t seem as important now. Maybe I should spend an afternoon listening to the Top 40 and taping the ones I like, like I used to, see if I can get back into it.

Elsa

23 July 2008 02:39

1. 1968

2. 1978: interested in charts in general, not #1 in particular

3. No, except so far as chart music is heard in the environment. Stopped caring around 1994 – approximately the time you started getting records billed as “So-and-so featuring MC Blanky-blank.”

Brack

23 July 2008 08:10

1. 1975
2. 1984 (I have vivid memories of taping the audio of Duran Duran’s Reflex from Top of the Pops, I guess this was the year.)
3. No. 1995 – The Blur/Oasis chart feud I think marked the end of my interest in where bands I liked charted.

Christopher Barbour

23 July 2008 08:21

1. 1979
2. mid-late 80s, interest probably around mid-87, first purchase early 88
3. Got into “back catalogue” music in early 90s so interest waned gradually from then until dropping off almost completely in late 90s (98 was first time a record was number one without me having any idea what it sounded like or what it *might* sound like) got more interested again when downloads were incorporated, leading to a more stable chart you didn’t have to keep track of each and every week for fear of missing something

Mark M

23 July 2008 09:04

1. 1970
2. Early 80s – but then we spent much of the late 70s in an Eastern Bloc country where the fun-hating Stalinist made sure there was no such thing as a pop chart.
3. Via pop channels on TV, rather than the radio or actually buying the stuff. But yes.

Conrad

23 July 2008 09:46

I’ve been reading Popular avidly since I discovered it, in a round-a-bout way, via a quite perfect review by MC of an album described by Danny Baker as the “lightweight – there’s no other kind – masterpiece of the decade…”

So, first post…here goes

1. 28 January 1967 (I’m A Believer at Number 1, I’m delighted to say)
2. About now-ish, 1978
3. I really stopped listening to the Top 40 when the wheels came off mid-1983. By the time contemporary music mattered to me again I had no real interest in the charts. The next 5 or so years however…

DJ Punctum

23 July 2008 10:00

Ah yes…by an artist who sadly won’t be troubling Popular…

Tom

23 July 2008 10:06

If they won’t be troubling Popular then there’s no need to be coy about who they are 🙂

dodger23

23 July 2008 10:15

1). 1960 – ‘Apache’ was # 1
2). 1970
3). Yes, I like to keep up!

wpDiscuz

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BROTHERHOOD OF MAN – "Figaro"

ABBA – "Take A Chance On Me"

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