You are right Jason, instead of playing the 1985 Countdown, I wouldn't have minded seeing a Rock Arena!!

Australian hosts to tie in with Australia Day on Tuesday. There's always a theme!

Awesome, five countdowns, I'm one happy man.

Really looking forward to getting clean copies of these clips.

ELTON JOHN I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues (RocketRecord Company)
DONNA SUMMER She Works Hard For The Money (Mercury)
IRENE CARA Flashdance...What A Feeling (Polygram)

I don't mind the 1985 episode, I agree that there's nothing particularly rare in there though. From the point of view of stuff I like that I don't have on DVD there's Eurogliders, Kids In The Kitchen, Models and Thompson Twins. It's also the week that Koo De' Tah peaked in the top ten. The rest is very common though, and no host doesn't help.

Having 3 of the episodes on timecoded copies means I am not as excited overall but as none of the episodes have ever aired on Rage before it is good to get another 5 clean copies to the collection.

Jesse by Julian Lennon is a rare clip on the 1985 episode. I still have my old audio recording of songs off this episode including Jesse, Cold Fever and Current Stand.

While most of the clips are common on the Rockhampton episode I like the songs and am happy to fill another gap from 1985. That makes 28 episodes I have from 1985 with 19 to go.

To me they're all good episodes although none that I would have requested as I think there are a few better ones that still need to be dusted off. I may have to try this Facebook requesting next year.

The 1985 episode does look dire but it's still an unaired Countdown. Don't think I've ever heard the Julian Lennon song so looking forward to that at least.

A few Flashez inserts sprinkled in between the Countdown's instead of oft repeated clips would have been

For anyone that's interested my EPG is giving me a start time of 11.47.

I think it would be worth creating an account just for rage suggestions/requests. Jason or I could copy and paste your requests there, but I doubt it would have as much impact, as we often make suggestions ourselves, and although they indulge us from time to time, I think rage might be more open to hearing retro month requests from a 'new' person

I like what I know (only the singles) from Julian Lennon's 80s/early 90's career, but don't know 'Jesse', so am looking forward to seeing it too.

Which chart did Counntdown use for the UK top 5? I noticed that "Gold" was at number one but I've always thought that it peaked at #2. So it must have made it to #1 on one of the UK charts. Spandau's best song IMHO

'Gold' definitely peaked at #2 in the UK, see http://www.officialcharts.com/artist/18710/spandau-ballet/ .

I don't know about that early in the 80's, but in the late 80s, there was a different UK chart called the Network chart, which was published in UK pop magazine, Number One - a rival Smash Hits-type magazine that used to ship to Australia about 2-3 months after its cover date. The Network chart didn't begin until 1984 though, according to its wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Network_Chart_Show

Countdown were using their own chart, I believe, until mid 1983. e.g. they had some singles tying for positions occasionally in the top 10, and in this Humdrum segment from July 1983, Molly explains that they were now switching to using the ARIA chart (which was then licensing the Kent Report chart): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7OxWO4I2NY

Thanks for the info and links - hadn't heard of officialcharts.com. I've mostly used everyhit.com for my UK chart info

I also remember Number One magazine. I collected those along with Smash Hits.

Polyhex has it at number 2 as well

I am guessing they may have produced the chart from No.1 Magazine as Nathan mentioned. At the base of the chart it says "Compiled by N.M.E." which was the New Music Express pop paper similar to RAM and Juke that we had here in Australia. It is more likely that Countdown copied the chart from the one published in N.M.E. rather than the No.1 chart as I had seen Molly hold up copies of that paper in a few Humdrum episodes.

I have just had a look through my copies of No.1 and the August 27 1983 copy had the following chart which was very similar to the Top 5 shown on Countdown Sept 4 1983 except Give It Up and Long Hot Summer swapped positions - this may even have been an error produced by Countdown when reproducing this chart.

Gold spent 2 weeks at No.1 on this chart.

Polyhex, as JASE has mentioned, is also another useful site (and probably more user-friendly), but it only lists top 75 chart runs:

http://www.polyhex.me.uk/uksingles/chartruns-uksingles.cfm


Chart Log UK is another useful site, listing top 200 peaks from late 1994:

http://www.zobbel.de/cluk/CLUK_00.HTM

However, the peaks listed on this site up until some time in 2001 are the uncompressed chart (no exclusions below #75) peaks, so peaks within the 76-100 range from this period differ to those on the officialcharts site, which displays the 'compressed' chart peaks (singles falling out of the top 75 are removed from the chart if their sales decline exceeds 20%, but can re-enter the chart if their sales start increasing again). The difference can be quite large, as e.g. I've seen a single listed as peaking at #134 on the uncompressed chart peaking at #100 on the compressed chart.

I noticed when they played the UK Top 5 there was an alternate video to 'Long Hot Summer'. Must check YouTube!