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Countdown Club Magazine

Does anyone know how long this mag lasted for? I have seen it advertised on a couple of episodes from '82. I guess only about 6 months ???

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

I have ALL of them, I will be putting them all up in the next few months. On Countdown Magazines, it says cominbg soon!

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

While we're on this subject...

How many years did the official Countdown magazine last for?

I know that it must have lasted until 1989 at least as I have an issue dated March 89.

I've only got four of them though - the best ones having Marilyn and Boy George on the cover, bless 'em!

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Hi Patrick!
Countdown Magazine went beyond 1989.I remember pickin' up an issue from 1990.Unfortunately,I don't have it anymore.Bugger!

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

The Countdown Club newsletter ran for 12 issues (July 1982 - June 1983). I have 11 of them but am just missing issue No1, lucky you Jason having them all.

The Countdown magazine started September 1983 and ran until about 1991 as it continued on with Countdown Revolution but I only collected them up until 1987. I have all of the first 54 issues except for issue 49 August 1987. There was no issue 29 as it jumped from .

Then there were also the Countdown Annuals - 1979, Countdown 80, Rock All Over the World 1981, Rock 'n' Roll Royalty 1983 and the Annuals from 1985 onwards.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Interesting info there Guru - I never realised the magazine went on for that long.

Even though I don't have many of them I do have a heap of mid 80's Smash Hits magazines that are amusing to flick through now and again. I've got one with a brilliant cover of Dead or Alive on it.

Pity the pop music mags seem to have gone out of fashion now - as far as I can tell TV Hits is the only one standing for the locally focused teen market.

Although the American/British ones are still going - even Top of the Pops magazine is still here - despite the show itself ending 3 years ago.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

The UK smash hits mags are brilliant and i had a huge collection once but lost them

Bought one off ebay awhile back that ironically was one of the mags i had as i remembered specifically an interview with adam ant and some comment he made about the human league.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

yeah the UK Smash Hits was great - I've got a few of the 90's ones and was quite impressed by their quality.

Sadly it's not published anymore as is the Australian version.

There was a mag called Big Hit which was fairly good -reasonably in depth and not too frothy, albiet focussing on 90's/00 music.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Am enjoying this discussion on Countdown and music mags in general. Hopefully Jason will expand the Countdown magazine and annuals covers section at some stage so that all the great issues will be viewable.

Being into Countdown I was naturally interested in all the Countdown publications but as I am into most Australian music I am also a fan of Melbourne's Juke (I have about 85% of them from 1979-1992), Sydney's RAM (also have a large run of them), Adelaide's Roadrunner (only have a couple of them as they are harder to find) and a few others such as VOX and EON Extra from the early 80's.

A few years back I bought a lot of mags on ebay and have a complete run of the bi-weekly UK Smash Hits (Issue 1 1978 with Blondie on cover to Dec 87, I especially like the 1983 issue that featured Icehouse on the cover as very few non-UK bands made the cover of those) which spawned the Australian Smash Hits and I also have a complete run of those from Issue 1 1984 (Wham on cover) to Dec 1987.

A similar mag to Smash Hits was "No 1" magazine which started in the UK in 1983 and I have a complete run of those from Issue 1 (Boy George on cover) to Dec 1987. Unfortunately the Australian version of "No 1" only lasted 7 issues in 1985 which I also managed to track down. Another similar magazine was Record Mirror and I have a complete run of those from 1979-87.

Australian Rock Video was another good magazine in 1985 and usually had an add for Donnie Sutherland and Sounds in it. All these mags were also good for all the great posters they had, along with TV Week (I still have my Koo De Tah TV Week poster)

These magazines are just a wealth of information and useless trivia, you can easily spend hours looking through them, especially if you are like me and have over 3,000 of them from the early to mid 80's. The feature articles on obscure bands, first articles written on new bands starting out when you realise how big they became and the live performance reviews are real time capsules. One day I will catalogue all the information so that I can track it all down easier, particularly handy when someone asks questions on this forum about obscure bands.

I never really got into Rolling Stone, NME, Billboard, Melody Maker etc. I think it may have been because they took themselves too seriously or they just weren't colourful enough.

Being into chart trivia as well I started collecting Countdown, 3XY and EON FM music charts, I was always interested in which artist they would feature on the back. I nearly have a set of the 3XY ones but the Countdown ones are hard to find now - they ran from July 1983 to January 1986 before becoming the Aria Top 50 chart that still exists today. I have about 80 of them.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Wow sounds like an amazing collection there Guru!

Sadly mine is only miniscule compared to yours but still I do agree it's interesting looking at them as they provide a snapshot in time for pop culture stuff.

Most of my mags are 1990's set, atlhough as I mentioned I do have a fair bit of 80's Australian Smash Hits. What I liked about those was their inventive covers - which suprisingly - didn't have many 'blurbs' on them to ruin the cover photos.

I've got a lot of Star! mags from 89 - 95 and the only issue of Cool Magazine which attempted to find a niche in the local pop market but failed in 1994.

What I also liked about Smash Hits - in its early years - was they had a page devoted to chart positions, etc, which again is interesting to read for obscure songs that one may have forgotten.

I've also got a swag of old ARIA charts too. Not sure if you know this one, but I've got a book called Top 40 Research by Jim Barnes and Stephen Scanes, which lists every charting song from 1956 - 99 in Australia. I swear by it and its a brilliant source for local bands and songs. I've got the 5th Edition, although I know some latter ones exist.

I've got a few old Rolling Stones, the oldest being from 1983 and there's a street magazine where I live -Adelaide - called DB Magazine which is a great outlet for local groups. The fact that I write movie reviews for it every fortnight has no bearing on my mentioning of it of course..!!

Seriously, I love sifting thru magazines of that type and am always trawling thru old book shops in the hopes of finding some new 'old' delights.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Yeh that's a massive collection The only ones I'm really interested in are the UK smash hits(and countdown of course!) and might start collecting them again

I do remember the #1 mag and had a few from memory and it was very similar in style and content to the UK smash hits

And charts..something else i had a huge collection of but lost i used to religiously pick up the top 40 charts each week to see how my favorites songs/albums were doing. Do kids even do that anymore?

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Who knows Gary? I'm sure some still download charts from the ARIA website, although of course it's always more fun to search for older charts.

I'd definately recommend that book I mentioned - it's a mine of information.

I still find it upsetting that Rage dis-continued the Top 50 - of course it was shamelessly commercial - but doesn't everyone need to know what's going on with pop culture now and again??

That's what I do like about seeking old magazines too though - they show a moment in time for what music fans got into - and maybe a reminder of how some bands these days copy a lot of their styles.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

I had something similar awhile back and would spend hours pouring over it..i had an unhealthy obsession with chart positions.

Also remember this excellent book i had which had every UK #1 up to the early '80s IIRC. It had a couple of paragraphs on each #1 it's history etc. Wouldn't mind finding that one again.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Ok I think I may know which book you mean - can't remember the title, but I love stuff like that.

The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles is another good one too - not only do they show the chart positions but also have pages of other facts and figures that are quite interesting.

I often get suprised at songs that were massive hits here didn't even dent the charts over in the U.K. - interesting to compare musical tastes like that.

That's one of the things I notice about Countdown though - it had a high quota of British artists on it, something which I'm grateful for as I think - certainly in the early 80's - had plenty of exciting video clips and music that outclassed anything seen elsewhere at that time.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Did some googling and I'm quite sure this is the book i had..

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/productdetails.aspx?catalog=HighStDonated&product=185993

A shame it only went to 1982 and I'm not sure if an updated version has been released

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Hmm I know I've definately seen a book recently that had more up to date material on No. 1 songs. Can't remember the name of it though unfortunately.

There is a Billboard book all about the origins of hit songs in the U.S. and there is another one about No. 2 hit songs - those that didn't quite make it to the top.

Which leads me to another question - which official charts did Countdown follow in order to make their own Top 10 each week? I think I vaguely saw an explanation somewhere but I can't recall now - old age creeping up on me I reckon!!!

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Just found one called 1000 UK number 1s but I'm not sure if it's by the same authors.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

I also collected 'Smash Hits' in the 80's. The first one I bought was from mid '87. I did massacre them a bit in those days. Wish I didn't, but there are still a few in excellent condition. I kept buying them until mid '92. I did enjoy reading the ARIA singles and album charts at the back. About 8 years ago, I found a'Smash Hits' video magazine from
December '91/January '92 - trying to launch the video, but I don't think it ever took off. The video is pretty bad, with stuff on Bruce Samazan, Melissa Tkautz, MC Hammer, Color Me Badd...it just gets worse.

I bought 1 Countdown magazine in it's day - December '89 - with Roxette on the cover. I think I bought it as a end of the 80's thing - something to finish of the 80's and I think it had readers poll etc of best singles and albums of the year.

Rolling Stone - never really got into it. However, at a trash n treasure market about 10 years ago, I picked up about 15 Rolling Stones from 1976-1982 - fantastic! not greatfor reading, but definitely worth having. My favourite cover (of the ones I have) is from November 1980 with Pat Benatar of the cover leaning over this guy, looking very sexy with her short hair and leather pants. I also bought the 'Rolling Stone -The Complete Covers' about a year ago. Just great checking out the covers of the past 40 years.

I have also been collecting Aria Top 50 Charts since May '87 to present (yes that's right - 16 March '09). I still love my Top 50 music and printing off the weekly charts of the Aria website.
By the way, if anyone wants to check out The Top 50 charts from the last 21 years, logon to: www.australian-charts.com It's all taken from ARIA.

You can search for a song or album and check out the Top 50 of a given week of year. The earliest info they have is from June '88, but are constantly backtracking and in the process of getting the rest of '88 up there and then working on 1987.

and lastly...my No.1 music reference is 'Who's Who of Australian Rock!' - a discography on every australian band.

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

forgot to add...with the australian-charts website, it also displays the covers of the singles and albums. You can click on the image and it gives you all the info on that song. How many weeks it spent in the Top 50, highest peak. How it charted in other countries and the b-side/s etc. - amazing stuff for any chart geek!

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

Interesting info there Michael!

You've reminded me about the Smash Hits video magazine - I actually had about 8 of them at one stage - though they've long since vanished. It wasn't a bad concept although hamstrung by the choices of music they had. I believe it lasted from around the end of 91 - maybe early 94 - possibly 15 altogether, not sure.

I remember one of them showed the Teen Queens going around the shopping malls introduced by none other than Bob Downe himself!

As for Smash Hits mag - the earliest issue I have is dated 25 March 85 with Pseudo Echo on the cover. I've got about 25 from the 80's all in reasonably good condition.

I've got quite a few Top 50 Aria sheets too - I think they're a great time capsule of what people were listening to at any given moment. I still keep an interest in the Top 50 - even if Rage no longer show it.

Rage should show classic Top 50 charts from the 80's during Retro month - would go down very well I'm sure!

Re: Countdown Club Magazine

" Bruce Samazan, Melissa Tkautz, MC Hammer, Color Me Badd...it just gets worse."

Not sure it can get any worse!