Tag Archives: FPI Project

Off The Chart: 22 December 1989

Off The Chart: 22 December 1989

It’s Christmas! Well, actually, not quite, because we’re going back to this day in 1989 on this week’s Off The Chart and there was still one more chart to go before the big day. Still, all the constituent parts are in place: the usual complement of obscure and forgotten hits, all the new entries on the album chart, a look at the day’s goings-on, a quick jaunt over to Italy to look at their chart, and back home for the just-before-Christmas top five in full.

  • Which huge international hit turned out to be a rip off of an obscure Bolivian song?
  • Who was obliged to arrange a Christmas single at very short notice?
  • And had three hits in six months with other people’s songs?

Tune in and find out!


Listen to Off The Chart on Noisebox Radio at 9pm every Tuesday! You can stream Noisebox Radio via their website, their apps for iOS or Android, or through TuneIn and MyTuner, or ask your smart speaker to “play Noisebox Radio” – and don’t forget to tweet along using the hashtag #OffTheChart. If you’re not around, you can hear the show again on Noisebox Radio at 10am on Friday, or catch up on Mixcloud after that.

Get the Extended Mix!

If you enjoy Off The Chart but find it’s just not long enough, why not join us on Patreon or Mixcloud Select? For a small monthly subscription you get access to the exclusive Extended Mix of the show every week with bonus 12″ mixes, additional chatter and the week’s top ten singles in full!

Our subscribers also get access to exclusive shows including Further Off The Chart in which we play some of the records that come up in conversation on the regular shows. You can even download shows to listen offline in the Mixcloud app! Please consider backing us – we really appreciate it and your subscription allows us to keep producing a new episode every single week.

There’s a podcast too!

For those of you who enjoy the nonsense we talk but don’t have time to listen to the music, we’ve put the talky bits together with some exclusive extras to make a podcast! ‘Twas the chart before Christmas 1989, and all through the podcast, not a creature was stirring, even though there were dogs, goldfish, goats, rabbits and an unexploded Scotsman. It’ll all make sense if you listen.

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Spotify playlists

If you’ve missed a previous edition they’re all on our Mixcloud page, or for a taster of the music we play, listen to our Spotify playlist Way Off The Chart including one track from each show!

We also have a Spotify playlist for our #ICEOTWF feature, including all (well, most) of the international hits we’ve played since the feature began in March 2017. There are all sorts of oddities in here, all of which were hits somewhere in the world but not in the UK!

1989 Christmas Top 40

Andy Stewart

In many ways the last year of the decade wasn’t too dissimilar from the early years – people were still using synths and computers to make their records, except the computers were now the size of a suitcase rather than … read more