Rob Bingham
As everyone knows, 1979 was the best year in the history of pop music. Coincidentally it was also the year I got my first radio.
Previously all music in the house had come from my dad’s record collection and the Radio 2 playlist. With the new radio I was suddenly given access to a whole new world of music. As soon as I got in from school I ran to my room, shut the door and turned on Capital Radio. At five o’clock every evening Capital broadcast the Hitline – a countdown of the top 10 songs as voted by its listeners that day. To vote you dialed 388 7671 and after listening to a recorded message from the Hitline host, Roger Scott, you left the name of your favourite song.
Night after night songs such as ‘Sunday Girl’, ‘Dance Away’, ‘Up The Junction’, ‘Are “Friends” Electric?’, ‘Eton Rifles’ and ‘London Calling’ burst from my shiny new Sony radio. After a while I started to keep a record of each day’s top 10 and using a points system of 10 points for number 1, nine for number 2 etc, I was creating weekly and monthly versions of the Hitline charts. I wrote each artist’s name in felt pen on a small slip of paper and stuck it to my wall.
Before long the entire wall was covered in hundreds of stickers saying IAN DURY, THE POLICE, SPARKS, GARY NUMAN, THE BUGGLES, along with each song’s cumulative points. My parents were trying to sell the house at the time and I remember several potential buyers staring at all these weird lists of pop stars and numbers, trying to make sense of them.
I became obsessed with these stickers, spending hours making new ones for new songs, so much so that I never did any homework. When we went on holiday I got people to listen to the Hitline and write down the top 10 for me – school friends, aunts, neighbours, anyone who could be trusted to know their M from their Boney M. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that this went on for several years, right up until I failed my A levels and had to get a job and could no longer get home in time for the Hitline.
Oh, in case you were wondering, when I finally stopped this madness, at the top of my chart was Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’, with 501 points.
