This blog is devoted to my love of music. Since December 2018, I have posted various top 100 music countdowns. It has been a great way to help the time go by during the winters, and more recently, a global pandemic.
Although the hair is long gone, thankfully the music never left. This photo is proof I once wasn't as follicly challenged, a scan of a family shot taken in 1988 during the holidays. And rare physical proof of my 'Depeche Mode' days.
We can’t live in that moment when we first heard a song, but we can visit it every once in a while. Many of the songs stayed with me like old friends through the years, long after they’d fallen off the charts. More than just escapism, the tunes became a sort of personal spirituality: a new religion.
Growing up, I was a voracious music video junkie. Like many teens, I binged on all the video shows. Starting in junior high during the early 80s, we watched Switchback with Stan the Man and that cool ASN program on Saturday nights, Atlantic Canada's Choice (Thanks, Katrina!). On high school weekdays before supper we turned on CBC's Video Hits with Samantha Taylor, and on weekends, Good Rockin' Tonight hosted by Terry David Mulligan and eventually Stu Jeffries. For the night owl, the U.S.-based Friday Night Videos kept us entertained.
The best and worst part in life before content-on-demand was having to wait then hope your favourite song made the cut. The weekend programs played a top thirty countdown and typically showed a four or five second clip of the chorus with a graphic display depicting its current chart ranking compared to last week.
Long before discovering Excel spreadsheets, I compiled my own favourite fifty songs of the week in Hilroy scribblers as a response to Huey and the News and Starship topping the charts with mediocre gack. Motivated partly to correct the egregious countdown 'errors,' these personal charts also represented a small way I could exert a little control and order in my life.
Other countdowns on this site:
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