I've reached the end of this series of posts. I could of course pick a record of the year for the years that have passed since but I know I'm going to struggle to find something I like. Either that or Eminem will win each year he has a Top 40 hit.
In the end 40 of my original picks remained and 27 lost their crown. That's quite a significant number when you consider the music hasn't changed and the playing field is still the same. That said, I knew there would be several I'd change my mind about which is the reason why I decided to do this.
The most significant change were the 1950s years where I changed my mind for 7 of the 8 years. The 1960s years were also significant with me changing my mind for 6 of the 10 years.
The most common them in these years were to do with me learning new songs. If not learning new songs, it's becoming more familiar with certain songs. Even in the 90s which I lived through and also listened to and reviewed every Top 30 hit I still find myself looking back at certain songs and don't remember how they go. With the 50s and 60s I wasn't alive and I've not done too much focus on those charts so in another 10 years my picks could change again though me becoming more familiar with certain songs.
In the 70s I changed my mind for 3 of the 10 years with my new picks being songs I'd already known for years when I made my original picks.
In the 80s it's the same story for 3 of my new picks but the other new pick of that decade is one that I've only come to know in more recent times.
In the 90s I've changed my mind 6 times, the same as the 60s but for different reasons. The 90s had so much choice if anything because of the sheer quantity of records that made the Top 40, but there were so many records I liked it was difficult to single out one.
It reminded me of Jeremy Clarkson applying a similar logic to cars in the videos he would bring out each year. The first one was a quest to find the best car in the world ever where he decided the best car had to be new and a Ferrari and picked the Ferrari 355. Then 5 years later he did a countdown of the 100 best cars and number one was a Jaguar E-Type which was neither new or a Ferrari.
Music and cars do have their similarities in that there's no one size fits all. It's difficult to draw comparisons between a Ferrari, Rolls Royce and Range Rover because they all serve completely different purposes. By the same token its hard to say whether a banging rave tune is better than a chill out record, depends on the mood really.
Once we hit the 21st century it's pretty much as you were with just one change which incidentally is an uplifting dance tune replacing a chill out one. As the years go on though we reach the territory of records that wouldn't stand a chance had they been released in the 90s.
It's been interesting revisiting this but the biggest learning has been to not make a post every other day, it was hard to keep up at times. Will aim for every 3 days in the future.
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