Category: Hi-NRG Disco Charts

Record Mirror Hi-NRG Chart 18th March 1989

The Record Mirror Hi-NRG Chart was abandonned this week with Alan Jones citing the following reasons:

RM’s Hi-NRG Chart bites the dust this week — and it won’t be revived. We finally pulled the plug on a chart that both myself and James Hamilton have spent numerous hours compiling after a concerted attempt to manipulate it (partly successful) by an individual whose only aim would appear to be to boost his personal favourites to unrealistic heights. Though we had been suspicious that this was the case for some time, we continued to put together the chart, believing that it was important to reflect what was happening in this particularly specialist area. But the recent history of the Hi-NRG chart has been a stormy one, with enormous amounts of flak flying in all directions.
We’ve had allegations that the chart is rigged by a prominent songwriter/producer who owns his own record label, that the SAW content of the chart is unrepresentatively high, that it is full of highly priced European imports placed there on the instructions of an import shop owner who had therefore a vested interest in giving these records a boost, and various other petty accusations.
Enough, we say. All we ever did was to compile the chart on the basis of specialist returns with scrupulous honesty.
Appearing in rm, the chart gave Hi-NRG (basically gay disco music) a visibility it has nowhere outside specialist publications. Its passing means that such charts will no longer get any prominence in the overground press. That is to no-one’s advantage, and all those who sought to distort the chart by making false claims on behalf of their own/friends’ records or by casting stones at others must share the guilt for its demise.
On a brighter note, though it was the most undynamic chart in history the Pop Dance Chart did mirror what was happening in thousands of clubs up and down the country, as well as helping our esteemed but hard-pressed Mr Hamilton decide what pop records he should review. As such, it served a purpose, and will be re-instated as from next week.

Scan of the original text from the Record Mirror magazine of 18th March 1989.

However in subsequent weeks, James Hamilton did continue to review Hi-NRG releases in his Discos Column

SANDRA ‘Heaven Can Wait (Extended Version)’ (Siren SRNT 104), jittery jolting small voiced (0-)118bpm Eurodisco chugger produced by her husband, Michael Cretu, in the old Madonna style;
SHEILA STEWART ‘It’s You’ (Loading Bay Records LBAY-1, via PRT), Holland recorded plaintive Abba-ish steadily loping and stuttering 109bpm Eurobeat chugger, big in Birmingham since last June and a Hi-NRG chart fixture on import since December, launching in fact a Birmingham (Selly Oak) based label.
CLAUDIA T ‘Dance With Me’ (Loading Bay Records LBAY-2), like Sheila Stewart licensed from Holland’s Made Up Records, but in this case a blatantly uptempo recent Hi-NRG chart-topping squeaky SAW-style pounding rinky tinky 128¾-0bpm galloper
CELENA DUNCAN ‘Running For The Moon’ (Nightmare MARE 75, via PRT), Levine & Wagner created impassionedly wailing 126¼-0bpm jittery galloper (for some reason the label credits it as being 128bpm, and the sleeve 130bpm!)
SCHERRIE PAYNE ‘Pure Energy’ (Nightmare MARE 85), Yazz-ish emphatic 122½-0bpm jerky galloper, actually co-penned by Freda’s sister with Ian Levine & Steven Wagner (who produced, along with LA’s Rick Gianatos);
DANCE ADDICTION ‘Don’t Stop (Perpetual Mix)’ (Bolts NUTSX 101), untidily amateurish jumbled 122½-0bpm jitterer, the best bit being an early Chic quote, squeakily prodded by the Brown twins, Sarah and Angela (who don’t have much to do).

I Venti d’Azurro Italo Disco Chart 18th March 1989