Record Mirror Disco Charts

For this special episode, Chicago house pioneer Marshall Jefferson joins co-hosts Greg Wilson and Mike Atkinson, as we take a look through a list of eighteen early Chicago house classics: compiled and supplied to James Hamilton by Jesse Saunders and Vince Lawrence, and published in Record Mirror in October 1986.
"You may be amazed", James said at the time, as these tunes - played by Frankie Knuckles at the Warehouse and the Power Plant, and by Ron Hardy at the Muzic Box - belong to the period directly before Chicago acts started making their own music, and represent a canon that was far removed from UK club culture during the same timespan.
As the episode unfolds, we try to determine what made these tunes "house" music, before the genre was formally defined and codified; we discover that many of them were in fact created by the same pool of people, particularly from the Philadelphia International and Salsoul labels; we discuss the impact that house music's commercial UK breakthrough in 1986 had on its founding fathers; and we learn more about some of Marshall's own musical inspirations, which lay far beyond the world of dance music.
To accompany this episode, you can listen to this entire Top 20 in full, or alternatively as a shorter medley of snippets.
Further listening:
* other tracks mentioned in this episode (YouTube)
* random monthly megamixes, 1975-1989
Further reading:
* James Hamilton's Dance Pages 1983-1989 (800 page hardback book)
* James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982 (550 page hardback book)
Mike Atkinson also hosts the podcast Which Decade Is Tops For Pops?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the final Club Chart of 1989, we are joined by Terry Farley: DJ, remixer and producer, whose career was in the ascendant just as James Hamilton was on the verge of ceding full control at Record Mirror. Hip house was waning, Italian house was the new big thing, piano riffs were everywhere, and while some acid house pioneers were slowing their BPMs right down, others were emerging from the warehouse rave scene with a wholly different agenda.
To accompany this episode, you can listen to this entire Top 20 in full, or alternatively as a shorter medley of snippets.
Further listening:
* other tracks mentioned in this episode (YouTube)
* random monthly megamixes, 1975-1989
Further reading:
* James Hamilton's Dance Pages 1983-1989 (800 page hardback book)
* James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982 (550 page hardback book)
Record Mirror Disco Charts mugs and T-shirts are available from our merchandise store.
Mike Atkinson also hosts the podcast Which Decade Is Tops For Pops?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By late 1985, Luke Una had started to immerse himself in dance music and club culture – initially in his native Sheffield, just ahead of a move to Manchester – and so many of the tunes in this chart served to lay the foundations for his pioneering and influential DJ career.
At the end of a year largely dominated by glossy, polished, but still fairly orthodox soul/funk productions (some of which appear here), new shoots were emerging that would grow into street soul, garage and house, while hip hop was on the brink of a commercial rebirth, and Washington DC go go influences were seeping into other areas. Social commentary “message songs” were popular with some, while others were seeking out a more elemental, stripped-down sound, via fully instrumental tracks and dub remixes.
To accompany this episode, you can listen to this entire Top 20 in full, or alternatively as a shorter medley of snippets.
Further listening:
* other tracks mentioned in this episode (YouTube)
* random monthly megamixes, 1975-1989
Further reading:
* James Hamilton's Dance Pages 1983-1989 (800 page hardback book)
* James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982 (550 page hardback book)
Record Mirror Disco Charts mugs and T-shirts are available from our merchandise store.
Mike also hosts the podcast Which Decade Is Tops For Pops?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the son of a New Jersey DJ, Kerri Chandler started mixing records in public in his early teens, and so many of the tunes in this chart – published when he was 14 years old – are part of the soundtrack of his formative years. Then again, as we discover, there was often a disparity between the UK and the USA in terms of which tunes became successful: a high-charting track on the Record Mirror chart was sometimes only a minor entry on the Billboard chart, and some of the biggest tunes in New York were ignored by British DJs. In this chart, more traditional post-disco soul/funk material was being challenged by the continuing wave of electro-funk releases, with breakdancing becoming so popular that even our future king tried joining in.
To accompany this episode, you can listen to this entire Top 20 in full, or alternatively as a shorter medley of snippets.
Further listening:
* other tracks mentioned in this episode (YouTube)
* random monthly megamixes, 1975-1989
Further reading:
* James Hamilton's Dance Pages 1983-1989 (800 page hardback book)
* James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982 (550 page hardback book)
Record Mirror Disco Charts mugs and T-shirts are available from our merchandise store.
Mike also hosts the podcast Which Decade Is Tops For Pops?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A year before his first single "Theme From S-Express" topped the UK charts, Mark Moore was DJ-ing at Philip Sallon's Mud Club, and at Pyramid (formerly Asylum), Heaven's midweek alternative gay night. He joins Greg Wilson and Mike Atkinson to take a look at a Record Mirror Disco Top 20 from May 1987: a time where London was still "rap city", while the rest of the country was becoming a "house nation". You can see both factions in this chart, as old school hip hop mingles with Chicago jack tracks, and "rare groove" funk rubs shoulders with modern funk.
To accompany this episode, you can listen to this entire Top 20 in full, or alternatively as a shorter medley of snippets.
Further listening:
* other tracks mentioned in this episode (YouTube)
* random monthly megamixes, 1975-1989
Further reading:
* James Hamilton's Dance Pages 1983-1989 (800 page hardback book)
* James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982 (550 page hardback book)
Record Mirror Disco Charts mugs and T-shirts are available from our merchandise store.
Mike also hosts the podcast Which Decade Is Tops For Pops?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.