Ridiculous!

There are no Wednesday or Thursday morning rage episodes this week either. I hope that this is not an omen.

It's most probably an over-zealous response to Oz Music Month, flooding our screens with current local artists. Bring on December, and more importantly ...

BRING ON JANUARY! More Countdown!

I've checked ahead, and there is no vault episode next week, either

Instead there are two episodes of Doctor Who.

That is ridiculous. I mean, I love Doctor Who, but the new episode was aired Monday night, there is no need to repeat it (if that's what it is) or any other in a music timeslot.

Such a missed opportunity. Imagine celebrating Aus Music Month with a couple of Vaults worth of rare Aussie eighties videos.

I hope they've listened to my request for 'It's Your Move' by Zan, which they could lift from an episode of The Factory that they have (if not play the whole episode which I also suggested for Retro Month).

The vault looks like it's back next week! There's an episode of rage scheduled on ABC on Tuesday morning next week.

... but the Monday after that, December 17 (or Tuesday morning Dec 18th) .... no VAULT!

B l o o d y ABC!

I'm a bit out of routine, forgetting to check for a Vault playlist until now (an hour or two later than normal). It looks like 1983 is the theme.

Coming up on the VAULT tonight Tears for Fears, Men Without Hats, Jim Capaldi, F.R. David, Bette Midler, Carly Simon, Thompson Twins, Howard Devoto, Shriekback, Falco and more. 1:10 am on ABC TV. #rageabcvault

BETTE MIDLER Favorite Waste Of Time
STEVIE NICKS Anyone Falls
CARLY SIMON You Know What To Do
KIM CARNES Invisible Hands
F. R. DAVID Words
JIM CAPALDI That's Love
BLUE ROSE Don't You Know
DAVID KNOPFLER Soul Kissing
CHRIS REA I Can Hear Your Heartbeat
TOTO Waiting For Your Love
IMAGINATION Looking At Midnight
STRANGLERS, THE European Female
CURE, THE The Walk
TEARS FOR FEARS Change
ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK Telegraph
PETER GABRIEL I Don't Remember
GARY NUMAN Warriors
HOWARD DEVOTO Rainy Season
SHRIEKBACK Lined Up
PLANET P Why Me?
NAKED EYE Promises Promises
FALCO Zuviel Hitze
MEN WITHOUT HATS I Got The Message
LUNA TWIST Look Out (You're Falling In Love Again)
THOMPSON TWINS Love On Your Side
BEAT, THE I Confess

Tears For Fears and OMD were dropped from the playlist.

"Change. You can change"

^ I guess TFF can't be angry about being removed from the playlist.

That's very funny!! :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

What I LOVE about Vault nights, or even just Saturday nights/mornings, is the utter surprise at hearing a song which you distinctly remember from your youth, but haven't thought about for decades. All of a sudden, the song hits you, and you remember it like it was yesterday. Such an awesome feeling that only a show like Rage can give you. This has happened many times over the years, but last Monday's Vault had this memorable song:

• BETTE MIDLER Favorite Waste Of Time (Atlantic)

Bette is not a favourite of mine, nor is much of her music, but this song has sat is my mind for 35 years. It finally resurfaced on Rage, and I got to enjoy a rare moment of reminiscing my youth. Thanks Rage! Keep digging up those gems!

No Vault on Christmas Eve either - Monday 24th/Tuesday 25th. Of all times, it's most expected, I suppose. Let's hope The Vault comes back bigger and stronger in 2019. R R A A G G E E ! ! !

I agree with you - there have been numerous occasions where I've rediscovered a song I didn't think I knew, but did, or hadn't thought of in decades, via the rage vault episodes and specials.

I also didn't think I knew 'Favourite Waste of Time', but it seemed vaguely familiar.

And d a m n about there being no Xmas eve vault episode either! Can I ask, where do you get this information more than a week ahead from? I used to get it from looking ahead at the schedule at https://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/rage/, but recently the default has been set back to 2014, and none of the few 2018 episodes listed are dated now, for some reason. I guess that's what you get with the ABC with a Coalition government chronically underfunding it

Rage will probably do another Christmas theme on Saturday night, as they have the last couple of years. Mind you, I don't know how many new Christmas songs there are anyway. I use 'On Tv Tonight'. They have up to two weeks in advance for countries all over the world.

It looks like Vault nights might be back to some kind of regularity, although New Year's Eve seems to just be a big celebration night. Might be some good songs in there somewhere ...

Monday Night 31st December / Tuesday Morning 1st January

RAGE: NEW YEAR'S SPECIAL (12:19am to 5:59am)

After the fireworks ring in 2019, rage brings you an all night party mix to help you rock in the new year and keep the party going with classic tracks and party hits until the sun comes up.


Monday Night 7th December / Tuesday Morning 8th January

RAGE (1.29am to 2:31am)

For over 30 years rage has been showcasing a diverse range of music videos from Aussie and international artists. #WatchingRage

Good to see the Vault is back next week... but only a 62 minute episode (if it starts on time)? I hope the theme is crap, to get one out of the way, if it's going to be that short.

Oh, we can say crap now? About ******* time (just testing) :smile:

The vault is only an hour long tonight... so of course they choose a theme that's right up my alley.

We're taking it back to the dancefloors of 1994 on the VAULT tonight. Expect to see videos by Pizzaman, K-Klass, Melodie MC, Future Sound of London - FSOL, Snap! and more. 1:30 am on ABCTV. #rageabcvault


PIZZAMAN Trippin' On Sunshine
DOOP Doop
GRID, THE Swamp Thing
TINMAN Eighteen Strings
REEL 2 REAL I Like To Move It
MELODIE MC Dum Da Dum
PRODIGY, THE No Good (Start The Dance)
FUTURE SOUNDS OF LONDON, THE Lifeforms
JX Son Of A Gun
STAXX Joy
SNAP Welcome To Tomorrow
URBAN COOKIE COLLECTIVE High On A Happy Vibe
CRYSTAL WATERS 100% Pure Love
M-PEOPLE Sight For Sore Eyes
D:REAM Things Can Only Get Better

K-KLASS What You're Missing

should be added after TINMAN above; I asked rage where the missing K-Klass clip mentioned in the blurb was, and they revised the playlist.

Looking ahead on the schedule, there is a 1 hour, 59 minute vault episode of rage next week. Hopefully it's back for good now.

If only a Countdown was back for good, 90s special tonight, how crap

Though at the moment with Countdown episodes and Vault clips being played in ratios where the logo is going into the screen and just barely over the 4.3 box it is stressful to even collect anything that is dear to me as they are being all ruined.

As much as l love January, these hiccups are with ratios are making it too stressful

I don’t mind some dance and house music of the 90s and this playlist isn’t too bad from what I have just read. I will most likely watch this one. I wonder if ABC Me ch 723 are going to play any Countdown show replays from last Sunday morning’s Week 1 selection. I will be watching to see. Better still are Rage on ABC ch 2 going to play shows on Wednesday morning from Week 1 which we have seen done in past years. There certainly is space in their morning programs to do that once again. Who knows last year it did not really happen too much. I think there was the odd show replayed though it was far and few between from memory. Always good if they do this for anyone who may of missed or had something go wrong during the Saturday and Sunday morning replays.

I like early and mid 90s dance, so am looking forward to the program tonight.

The ABC ME repeats don't repeat any of the Saturday night guest programmer/special segment, but do repeat the 5-6 and 6-7 slots (no Countdown was aired during that period, and hasn't been for the last few years) on Tuesday and Wednesday night, respectively.

If there is a rage show on Wednesday morning on ABC, that's when part of the Saturday night guest programmer/special hour is repeated. There is a 61 minute episode of rage on ABC at 1:02am on Wednesday morning this week. I imagine that one of the Countdown episodes will be repeated during it, and ads (or possibly one isolated music video) will fill up the remaining few minutes.

EDIT - OK, they've posted the playlist for Wednesday morning's ABC episode, and it does not repeat a Countdown, but instead repeats the Saturday morning playlist of retro videos:

https://www.abc.net.au/rage/playlist/tuesday-night-8-january-2019-on-abc/10695662

Hmmm it turns out that rage stretched Staxx 'Joy' and D:Ream 'Things Can Only Get Better' last night - they are 4:3 clips, but both overlapped with the watermark slightly. Ridiculous!

This stretching is getting to be ridiculous indeed!!!!

The watermarks overlapping into the actual video is just silly. I don't see why this even needs to occur :-(

I don't see why Countdown episodes and videos can't just be played from the archives with no editing to the 4.3 ratio!!!!

Even with the last episode of Countdown last Saturday night from May 4, 1980 ... The logo was just outside of the 4.3 picture nearly touching the edge of the Countdown episode and then on the GTK clip of Jon English the logo moved right to the very right of the screen, why the logo couldn't have been to the very right of the screen for the whole night, I don't know ... It all seems unnecessary to me how logos change position all night :-(

rage have played some really amazing videos in the Vault specials in 2018 and the Countdown's so far this January have been BRILLLIANT! They have done such a STELLAR job but whoever is editing the Countdown episodes and Vault videos clearly is not doing a good job at all, these Countdown episodes and videos just need to be played as they are from the masters and not edited for ratio purposes ...

^ The watermark is stationary; it's the edge of the picture that moves (I'm sure you know this).

Did you ever hear back from rage?

I can imagine the frustration with all that aspect ratios and watermark issues but as someone like myself who had analogue TV for so long with a terrible quality reception I can only be thankful that now I can see Rage on crystal clear picture and crispy CD quality sound with all my favourite tracks on Monday Vaults without even dropouts on a rainy thundery weather , Iam so lucky to have an overnight music show running through the weekend and on some weekdays on free to air television that's why I can't give my opinion on the aspect ratio / watermark issues I wish I had an opinion!
On the Friday new music segment I'm not sure if you guys watch it much but as I have noticed so many new songs they play throughout the Friday night get repeated after the charts segment and in between the mini guest programming segment and the last hour of Saturday morning. As I remember in the 90s all the way through the mid late noughties this would rarely happen, if my memory serves me right on Sunday early morning after the countdown concludes or the guest programming concludes is when Rage replay some of the Friday night new releases and I think the entire top50 was also repeated on Sunday mornings until 2004 but I'm pretty sure the Friday program from midnight until 11am Saturday morning would hardly have a song repeated. Is this because of budget cuts? Or the new video releases aren't getting shortlisted by the archivists or whoever is making the decisions, or maybe they are just leaving it to YouTube who knows!

rage wrote back to me about my requests which I posted here last week but I didn't email them about the watermark.

I don't think me emailing them is going to really do much when it comes to the abc logo going into the picture section of Countdown episodes. I only hope that the logo at least stays out of the the picture as the two episodes last weekend was getting quite ridiculous when the logo kept moving in, I'm surprised the logo won't end up in the middle of the screen at this rate :-(

I am very grateful rage even emailed me and took note of some of my requests so there isn't much any of us can do about the logo not staying to the very right unfortunately ...

I could be wrong, but it seemed to me like rage pretty much aired *any* new video they received back in the 90s (and probably the 80s too, but I was only watching the top 50 segment then); whereas, now, they don't air everything new they receive, particularly if they deem it to be 'crap'.

When googling the rage playlists (when they were all up on the website dating back to 1998), I saw that e.g. rage never aired Daphne & Celeste's 'Ooh! Stick You!' video as a new release, in late 1999, but have aired it since when it (or rather, one of the two versions) has been chosen by a guest programmer. They also never aired Wayne G's 'Twisted' in 1998 - either as a new release, or (for obvious reasons) when it was in the top 50. It received its first airing on rage during the 2012 Mardi Gras special. That shows they weren't airing everything they received by 1998.

You're right about there not being repeats of new release videos on the Friday night segment back then - until (I think some time in 1998) it switched to the top 50 finishing at 9, and then 2 hours of new release videos (mainly repeats) showing, I guess when Recovery was off air over summer.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I recall seeing a post top 50-'new releases' repeat segment in January '97, when rage finished at 11 on Saturday morning.

The Friday night new releases segment was peppered with the odd vault/older video. I've got a Friday night show taped from June 1993 (just before the Friday morning new releases program commenced) where they aired Fuzzbox's 'Walking On Thin Ice' (then 3 and half years old) in between the new release videos, about 3 hours into the show. I had never heard/seen it before, though, so it was 'new' to me.

I think one of the main issues with the watermark/picture stretching is that rage did not used to do this. It's only with newly-digitised material that they are stretching the picture; clips digitised earlier are not affected. It doesn't make sense why they would suddenly decide to change the original aspect ratio of the material

I haven't really paid much attention to this stretching saga. Would I be right that they are doing this as most people own wide screens and not 4:3? I agree with everyone that why not air them as is in 4:3. Also how long has this been happening?

It has been happening since at least late 2016. I noticed, in retrospect, when looking at some of my 4:3 recordings (referring to standalone videos here rather than Countdown episodes), e.g. from the November 2016 Fleetwood Mac-themed Vault, that on some of the 'new' (previously unaired/haven't aired in many years on rage) videos, the picture runs right to the edge of the (4:3) screen, suggesting it probably continues beyond that point a little bit.

Some of the videos are not stretched, but are actually moved slightly left or right of the 4:3 border. Why, I don't know.

Others are stretched horizontally a little bit - it's not usually that noticeable though unless you are viewing/recording the picture in 16:9 and see that the picture almost touches, or does touch/overlap with the watermark. The photos I posted in the week 1 retro month thread illustrate this.

Normally, there should be a bit of a gap between the right edge of a 4:3 picture and the ABC watermark, but on these streteched videos, the gap is narrower or there is no gap.

It became really apparent to me when viewing the 'Classic Countdown' episodes in late 2017. The picture for every episode overlapped slightly with the ABC watermark, even though all of that footage was shot in 4:3. I thought that was a really stupid decision, and they probably did it to fill more of the screen, since most people would view it now on widescreen TV's.

It's like they (it's probably not rage staff themselves, but whoever is responsible for digitising the tapes and/or broadcasting the material - though it may not be the latter, since earlier-digitised clips are not affected) think we can't handle seeing pillarbox bars (the vertical black bars either side of a 4:3 picture viewed on a 16:9 TV).

Despite noticing it, in retrospect, from late 2016 clips shown on rage, I think most of the 2017 retro month Countdown episodes were spared, as I've since religiously checked all of my 4:3 recordings when adding them to my external hard drives to see whether the picture fits within the 4:3 screen on a program I use. It's only the 2018 and 2019 episodes so far that seem to have been affected, and they did remedy it a little bit for week 2 during retro month 2018 after Jason phoned rage and spoke to them about it.

Thanks Nathan -seems like new guys in charge since 2017 or change of policy.Either way it's silly if the reason is to avoid black bars on a wide screen TV at the expense of the integrity of the clips/Countdown episodes.Personally I've always had 4:3 TV's and still do. Owned a wide screen a few years back just for watching DVD's in wide screen but that's it.

Given that each 'Classic Countdown' episode was like this, and that presumably wasn't put together by the same people who program rage, I assume that it's probably general ABC staff/those who digitise the tapes who are making this decision, rather than rage themselves. OK, well I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt :laughing:

I don't think the stretching that occurs is malicious or the result of editorial direction, I think it is either incompetence or ignorance on the part of the people who digitise and parameterise the old analogue recordings.

It's probably different people at different times in the studio bringing their own biases or lack of understanding to the process, and that's why it happens to varying degrees and is quite random, from no stretching to really annoying stretching.

That seems plausible.

Except it mainly happens on 'new' (old) clips they air, like Joy's 'Staxx' this week. I'm referring to non-letterboxed 4:3 clips that are stretched for no apparent reason.

They need to move whoever is doing it to another department. Given their incompetence, it's bound to happen eventually :laughing:

I'd really like a Playlist to be published on rage for this weekend. Nearly 6 pm, I have been refreshing for what seems like years

I've been refreshing the Rage website as well. We have Friday's play list so shouldn't be too much longer

Metal/industrial tonight...

Coming up on the VAULT tonight Type O Negative, Meshuggah, Dark Tranquility, "Strapping Young Lad", Corrosion Of Conformity, Napalm Death, Pantera, System of a Down and more. 2:01 am on ABCTV.


CORROSION OF CONFORMITY Stone Breaker
PRONG Rude Awakening
ROB ZOMBIE Dragula
STRAPPING YOUNG LAD Detox
SAMAEL Jupiterian Vibe
CANNIBAL CORPSE Sentenced To Burn
PANTERA Drag The Waters
NAPALM DEATH Greed Killing
SEPULTURA Choke
MESHUGGAH New Millenium Cyanide Christ
DARK TRANQUILITY Therein
TYPE O NEGATIVE Everything Dies
MARILYN MANSON Man That You Fear
MARILYN MANSON Long Hard Road Out Of Hell
MARILYN MANSON Tourniquet
KORN Clown
KORN No Place To Hide
KORN Falling Away From Me
SKINLAB Second Skin
SKINLAB Know Your Enemies
SEVENDUST Waffle
GODSMACK Whatever
MACHINE HEAD Ten Ton Hammer
SYSTEM OF A DOWN War
CLAWFINGER Pin Me Down
FEAR FACTORY Resurrection
FEAR FACTORY feat. GARY NUMAN Cars
COAL CHAMBER feat. OZZY OSBOURNE Shock The Monkey
ORGY Blue Monday


And the vault is on next week - a 119 minute episode.

Metal may be my most disliked genre - that or opera:thinking_face:

I guess they picked the genre that is the most polar opposite to the retro we are getting with Countdown! Did Countdown ever play a metal song? I don’t recall they ever did.

There was some Judas Priest the other week, but no, not much.

Haha, yeah, funny timing. I'm just in the process of editing that 1980 episode of Countdown that had the



… along with a description of what Heavy Metal is, so it's fair to say that they didn't play much of it!
Adorable stuff really.

I'm no fan either although I do have a little bit of Rammstein and System of a Down in my collection.
I like the "polar opposite of Countdown" theory. Sounds about right. And as long as we keep getting Countdowns I'm more than happy to keep skipping crappy Mondays.

Did they ever show any Iron Maiden videos?

Here is an Iron Maiden snippet from Countdown in 1982 ...

If only Rage would do more of these dancy Vaults I'd be the happiest man on earth. With all the YouTube, dailymotion.com and internet videos we have I still find myself buying Dance and techno DVDs ! 😊

I would love more dance/pop/electronic-themed vaults, too, though more from the 80s and early to mid 90s than the late 90s/early 00s. 70s disco is welcome too.

Tonight on the VAULT we're delving into the uncanny world of Polish director Zbigniew Rybczyński. Expect to see Yoko Ono, Grandmaster Flash, Pet Shop Boys, Art Of Noise, Lou Reed, CAMEO, The Alan Parsons Project and more. 2:28am on ABCTV. Check out the playlist below.



CAMEO Candy
THE JETS You Better Dance
GRANDMASTER FLASH Sign Of The Times
NONA HENDRYX Why Should I Cry?
JIMMY CLIFF Hot Shot
MICK JAGGER Let's Work
RICKIE LEE JONES The Real End
SUPERTRAMP I'm Beggin' You
THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT Stereotomy
PET SHOP BOYS Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)
YOKO ONO Hell In Paradise
LOU REED The Original Wrapper
ART OF NOISE Close To The Edit
PROPAGANDA p: Machinery

Not a bad Vault.
I'm interested in these...
NONA HENDRYX Why Should I Cry?
MICK JAGGER Let's Work
SUPERTRAMP I'm Beggin' You
THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT Stereotomy
ART OF NOISE Close To The Edit
PROPAGANDA p: Machinery

plus Pet Shop Boys which I already have on DVD.

1999 special tonight.... ****e playlist, so won't be posting!