TIMELINE OF POP MUSIC

By Amy Hutchinson

1944

Columbus day riots:

Frank Sinatra is Pops biggest star. Hysteria produced by his concert

on 12th October 1944

1952

The pop charts began in postwar Britain when Percy Dickins of the New Musical

Express telephoned 20-odd shops asking for a list of their bestsellers. Coming out on top

with Here in My Heart was crooner Al Martino, who kept the No 1 spot for nine weeks

on the first UK chart based on record sales. Martino later starred as Johnny Fontane in

The Godfather – a character said to be based on Frank Sinatra.

1953

How much is that doggie in the window? Becomes a smash hit.

1956

Elvis Presley turns into Elvis the Pelvis live on tv.

1958

Phil Spencer plans to build his wall of sound.

1959

Larry Parnes appears on panorama

Who would you sooner see sing, Billy Fury or a bloke called Ron? Larry Parnes – the first

major UK music manager – had a gift for renaming the pop idols on his roster to add a

dash of glamour. In a sense, he was the 50s' Simon Cowell, and the issues around pop

svengalis (Was he manipulating his young stars? Did they deserve their success?) were as

relevant on Panorama's stern 1959 feature about Parnes and his "golden boys" as they

are now.

1959

Cliff Richard promises to lock up his living doll in a trunk

Cliff was the UK's first rock star but within a year of his first hit with Move It, he was joined by

a new band, the Drifters (later the Shadows), to record a version of the Lionel Bart number,

Living Doll. It marked the arrival of a softer sound and a more family-friendly image, and sold

more than a million copies. It was the first of Richard's 14 No 1s. (And in 1986, it returned to

the top, in a memorable version recorded with the Young Ones.)

1960

For the first time the Beatles create their own look

1961

Motown gets its first number 1

The US postal service might not seem like the most romantic of subjects for a pop record, but

Motown could inject magic into any situation. The Marvelettes's debut single, Please Mr

Postman – later covered by the Beatles and the Carpenters – described the high anxiety that

comes with any teen love affair and gave Motown its first US No 1, only a year after Berry Gordy

had merged his Tamla and Motown labels and changed the group's name from the Marvels to

the Marvelettes. It was no fluke – during the next decade the Detroit label scored dozens of top

10 hits, thanks to the likes of Smokey Robinson, the Supremes and Marvin Gaye. And while the

Marvelettes never reached No 1 again, they notched up two further US top 10 hits (Playboy and

Don't Mess With Bill in 1962 and 66 respectively), though neither captured the trials of

adolescence quite like the fervent Please Me Postman.

1963

Pop dances onto tv

Pop on TV in the mid-60s was the chaotic and brash Ready Steady Go! – the audience

milled about the studio while cameras pushed through; artists performed from four

stages. It was a weekly party of pop, rock and soul. The singers were the stars but the

audience was almost as big a part of the show.

1965

The Monkees form

1965

The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson listens to Rubber Soul

As Brian Wilson later recalled, the Beatles' sixth album was the first release he'd ever heard

where every song "went together like no album ever made before". It proved a huge influence

on the set of songs that then became the Beach Boys' next album, Pet Sounds, released in May

1966. Paul McCartney later called Pet Sounds his favourite album of all time; it also marked the

end of an era – because no set of songs thereafter could ever summon such a sense of

innocence.

1967

Sandie Shaw becomes the UK's first Eurovision winner

The barefoot Sandie had been a regular on TV shows such as Ready Steady Go! and epitomised the

"swinging 60s". But sales of her records were declining by 1967, and despite her concerns that it wasn't

cool, plus the BBC's misgivings that she'd been cited as the "other woman" in a divorce, she was invited

to represent the UK in that year's Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. She won, with Puppet On a

String, cementing the country's on-off love affair with the competition for decades to come.

1967

Radio one launches

And good morning everyone," it began. "Welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1." Tony

Blackburn was sitting in the breakfast show chair and the first record he spun was Flowers in the

Rain by the Move, followed by the Bee Gees with Massachusetts. Smashing. Other DJs on the

fledgling station, launched simultaneously with Radio 2, included Kenny Everett and Simon Dee,

both of whom, like Blackburn, had cut their teeth on the pirate stations. Much else followed.

1975

Abba rescue their career

In April 1974, Abba won the Eurovision song contest with Waterloo and the world fell

for the Swedish band's charms, the song turning into a global hit. But their future success

was far from certain: to the public, they looked like classic Euro one-hit-wonders

1975

Boney M define Europop

Move over Bill Grundy – the most scandalous pop TV appearance of 1976 was Boney M

doing Daddy Cool on Musikbladet, Germany's Top of the Pops. Bobby Farrell's wild

gyrations – and the band's revealing costumes – did more than jump-start their career.

They sparked the look and ethos of Europop. Eye-popping costumes, gravelly spoken

bits, big-lunged divas singing outrageously catchy nonsense – everyone from Snap! to the

Black Eyed Peas has used this formula and they all owe a debt to Boney M

1978

Blondie records Parallel lines

Although rooted in the New York punk scene, Blondie were the finest pop band of the era, with

this their pinnacle, as good an advert for the city's musical credentials as Tin Pan Alley or the

Velvet Underground. Debbie Harry might have been the poster girl but, as the album's opening

tracks (Hanging On the Telephone, One Way Or Another, Picture This) underlined, top-flight

songwriting was Blondie's real strength, with Heart of Glass even bridging new wave and disco.

1984

Madonna releases ‘Like a Virgin’

Madonna started 1984 a disco chick with a reasonably well-received debut album to her name. Then she

released Like a Virgin. Although it also combined nightclub-friendly beats with catchy melodies, its tone

was dramatically different. On the cover: a picture of the singer wearing a belt with the contentious

slogan "Boy Toy". Inside: a handful of songs that set her apart from every female singer who had come

before. One was Material Girl, which boldly stated that, in her world, love came a distant second to

money; another was the title track, which, in the context of a euphoric love song, confidently referred to

her sexual history, something mainstream pop girls simply hadn't done before.

1984

Band Aid record ‘Do they know its christmas?’

If you were assembling a team of pop stars to tackle famine in Ethiopia, Culture Club, Duran

Duran and other 80s stars more familiar with hairspray than hardship might not be your first

choice. But Band Aid's incongruous lightness of touch would prove a strength, especially

compared to the earnestness of the conscience-led pop that followed. The first step on Bob

Geldof's path to canonisation was also marked by him badgering Mrs Thatcher into refunding

VAT on all sales.

1993

Spice girls form

The Spice formula was simple: the band's ordinariness was played up – they were

presented as cartoon girls next door, making the most of what they had. Each was given a

nickname and an image, helping fans to identify with one or another of them, and their

choice of Wannabe as their first single was even cannier: it was about the importance of

putting friendships before romantic relationships, a message guaranteed to appeal to the

prepubescents who comprised a large part of their audience. They were assertive,

wisecracking and feminine, and the girl power slogan snappily tied the whole package

together

2003

Apple launches Itunes store

With the music business still suing fans for piracy, Apple steamed in and gave them what

they've always wanted: instant access. Selling 25m tracks in 12 months and passing the

10bn mark before the end of the decade, iTunes' impact on labels, retailers and the album

format is well documented. The upside for digital natives reared on instant gratification is

not yet properly documented but, to paraphrase its original definition, what could be

more pop than something so low cost, transient and mass produced?

2001

Pop Idol

Simon Fuller had taken the Spice Girls to a new level of superstardom after taking over as

their manager, but for his next trick, the pop svengali did something far more sinister: he

reinvented the talent show contest for the modern age, and spawned with it Simon

Cowell. Of course, Fuller had drawn heavily for inspiration on Popstars, the TV series

that produced Hear'Say; and to begin with, Cowell just seemed like one of the gang,

settling in cosily beside fellow judges Pete Waterman, Nicki Chapman and "Dr" Fox. But

soon the show took on a momentum of its own, with the country captivated by the final

showdown between Gareth Gates and Will Young. Cowell pushed hard for Gareth to win.

It didn't happen; if only that should have augured well ...

2005

Take That announce their comeback

Who'd have guessed that there was such pent-up demand for a Take That reunion? Even the band

themselves didn't anticipate the reception that greeted the announcement that they were back – possibly

for good – and were going on tour. Because previous reunions of ex-pop sensations such as Duran

Duran hadn't exactly shaken the world, there was no reason to expect that Take That's gigs would sell out

instantly, leading to a record deal and a string of No 1 albums and singles

2009

Lady gaga writes ‘Bad Romance’ on the bus

Most musicians see the pop world stretching out before them and they consider it as a

long line with art at one end and cash at the other. They set a limit on how far in each

direction they are prepared or able to go, and they get to work. In 2009, Lady Gaga

decided that this world was not flat. In fact, from her vantage point orbiting pop, she

could see the line between art and commerce bending round so that the two extremes of

art and commerce met at the top. She stuck a flag in that spot at the top and called it Bad

Romance.