Category Archives: countdown to festive season

(Yes, I know the festive season is to all intents and purposes over, but why change a winning formula?)Nobody knows for sure why there was only a Festive 31 in 1997. It was compiled from telephone votes and was squeezed … Continue reading →

Yes, we all know the ‘Blur or Oasis? Answer: Pulp’ line, but it has to be said, looking at the lineup for this year’s bash, there was some rationale behind the quip. Six entries in total, with the top two … Continue reading →

Having delivered one chart already in the year (see previous post), albeit piecemeal, the Peel Show’s 1993 Festive Fifty was dominated by one band: the Fall. With ten entries (but none in the top ten), this was their best showing … Continue reading →

This was the year when the Festive Fifty…didn’t happen. You see, John threw a wobbly right in the middle of voting and announced that, due to the lack of interest in the chart, he would not be having one that … Continue reading →

Madchester had arrived. Yes, the baggies, the E tablets and those funny coats with the hoods that made one look like a dope addict splashed their mongy influence all over John’s last chart of the 1980s. And yet the top … Continue reading →

‘Faintly ridiculous’ was what JP said about this chart. Well, it does seem that hero worship went a bit overboard in this year, with all but two of the tracks from the Smiths’ Strangeways Here We Come making the fifty. … Continue reading →

In the International Year Of The Child, the make-up of the Festive Fifty changed very little from the previous year, with the notable exception of, for the first time, one band holding down the top two spots. (This would only … Continue reading →

The chart really shifted up a gear in ’82, with JP making one final all-time chart (a practice which would not see the light of day again until 2000) and then inaugurating the yearly chart, whereby listeners would vote for … Continue reading →

The times they are a’ changing. The Sex Pistols no longer being number one and a spate of Joy Division hero worship mark out this all-time chart, which was to change forever the following year into a ‘three favourite tracks … Continue reading →

Peel said at the beginning of the year that we should forget about the Festive Fifty for a year or two: yet here he was again, from the 20th December 1979 to the 1st January 1980, playing the hits and … Continue reading →