Music – Ben remembers…

In many ways this was ITV’s answer to top of the pops or perhaps a way of capturing the MTV experience in an hour on Saturday Mornings.

The programme featured music videos from the various chart toppers if the week. There was on screen information alongside which when I was younger only the animations were of interest but as I grew older the information contained within was somewhat of interest.

The on screen graphics and information from the mid-90s straight from an Amiga computer.

The programme was a constant throughout my childhood as my Dad was a big music fan and missing it was probably unthinkable. Even as I got older and watched Live and Kicking it was rare I ever got to see the phone-in at the end of the programme.

The chart show is the kind of programme I would probably appreciate more now than I did then only with the same songs they used to play. As a child music was not so important to me, least of all chart music.

As well as the main singles chart – it was the Saturday Chart and therefore often differed from the main chart on Sunday, there were other charts like the Indie Chart and Album Chart.

The graphics would often change but the format was stellar. Top of the Pops 2 owes a lot to the programme. Eventually it was Ant and Dec and a live music programme, CD:UK that would see the programme end.

Just incase you couldn’t tell with the Twix logo all over the title sequence.

Bonus points for the well integrated Twix sponsorship at the start.

Most radio stations sound the same thesedays, to be honest that wasn’t really much different when I was a regular radio listener at the turn of the millennium but at least the studios were local and so were the hosts.

As I got into my teens, and therefore more interested in music, it was 103.2 Power FM that I tuned into. The music was the latest pop music. I’d generally have it on in the background while I went about whatever I was doing.

Better still I got to look around the studios when a friend arranged it. As well as getting to speak with the DJ if sister station Ocean FM in the studio in between links, thats the kind of memory that would excite anyone with even a passing interest in the media industry.

I was a regular listener for a good couple of years, even tuning in for the late evening show presented by a certain Jeremy Kyle, when he was known only as Jezza.

But as much as I was a regular listener at some stage I just stopped tuning in. I cant say for sure when that was but I reckon the advent of the internet and the ability to get music for free may have been connected to it.

Power FM today is gone, replaced by Capital Radio South Coast but other than the fact most of the shows are now beaming out of London little has changed in format. For me I have Spotify at my fingertips so a station playing the same songs on heavy rotation no longer appeals.

This song take me back to my youth and the school disco days because it was always played. I think too it was played a lot as one of the biggest dance tunes of the year it was released.

Even now when I listen to this track it takes me back to those schoop disco days, the pic and mix sweets and the hot sweaty school hall. I imagine if you’re a little bit older than me your memories might take you to a different place but it remains one of my all time favourite tunes.

Dance music had been topping the charts for a good few years and there are certain tracks that take me back to that period in my life but at the time I was just a bit too young to appreciate it outside of the school discos.

Around the same time Mr. Bobby was also topping the charts and that was possibly where my musical tastes were at the time. Still, What is Love is a choon!

More specifically I remmeber Now 34 being my first taste into the long running compilation series. I had the double cassette version – remember them!

For one particular camping trip I remember listening to it pretty much whenever we were driving on my Walkman – yes personal music perfection.

There were a few songs I prefered over others like Return of the Mack, Robert Miles’ Children and yes the Lighthouse family. I’m still taken back to that summer in the New Forest when I listen to Ocean Drive.

Never forget the clunk of the buttons on a cassette tape.

It was so frustrating if you wanted to listen to a particular song again or skip through one due to the nature of cassette tape. Later Now’s I had were on CD but I didn’t own a personal CD player so I listened much less to them.

I have a very eclectic taste in music so it is a surprise that I never had more Now’s growing up. Thesedays I stream music and although Now is still a thing I can’t imagine me ever buying a compilation and I don’t really know who still does.

Category: Music

The ITV Chart Show

103.2 Power FM

Haddaway – What is love

Now 34