My Life with Chart Music

Hello friends -

I hope you're doing alright, and dealing ok with the heat. (Wherever you are in the world, seems a fair bet there will be heat issues at present.)

Continuing the tradition which sees every edition of this newsletter covering an entirely different subject from the previous ones though, today I'm going to speak to you about podcasts. Or, one podcast in particular, but we'll soon get to that.

Such a stupid neologism, isn't it, 'podcast'? I cringe slightly every time I need to use it. Heading from obsolescence to flat-out meaninglessness from pretty much the moment it was coined, and yet we've still not bothered to replace it with something more sensible. Like "glorified DIY Talk Radio" for instance.

Anyway, be that as it may, I listen to a lot of them - primarily during the one day a week I'm obliged to spend cleaning the flat. Over the years, I must have sampled hundreds of the damned things, and one hard and fast rule I've observed regarding this particular medium, is that personalities matter more than subject matter.

IE, you can make an effort to track down a highly specialised podcast dealing with a subject close to your heart... but if the people presenting it prove to be boring, or obnoxious, or just on a slightly different wavelength from you, you're not going to get very far with it.

But if, on the other hand, you stumble upon a podcast featuring the voices of people who are witty, and insightful, and nice, and basically like the kind of people you'd want to spend time with in real life - well, to some extent, what they're talking about ceases to even matter after a while.

Case in point: if you'd asked me a few years ago whether I wanted to spend literally hundreds of hours listening to a bunch of former Melody Maker journos discussing old episodes of 'Top of the Pops' in forensic detail, my response would likely not have been a positive one.

But, here we are heading into back end of 2026, and over the past two and a half years, The Chart Music Podcast (henceforth CMP) has become a permanent fixture in my life, perhaps even to the point of altering my daily speech patterns. (It's certainly made me swear more, for better or for worse, as well as leading me to refer to inferior versions of other things as "shaking", to use "rammel" as a synonym for "rubbish", and goodness knows what else.)

CMP has been going since about 2016, but I was a late convert, discovering it only in January 2024, as a direct result of receiving the extremely sad news that the brilliant writer Neil Kulkarni had died, at the age of only 51. (Sudden heart attack whilst walking down the street in his native Coventry, in case you were wondering - terrible.)

Neil was (and is) the one writer whose name had stuck with me ever since my days of reading the weekly music press as a teenager, and I had followed his work through various publications, through his intermittent weblogging, and via his harrowing memoir 'Eastern Spring', ever since. Throughout those years, his name on a piece of writing was pretty much a guarantee of honesty, integrity, righteous anger, flawless writer-y craft, and other such cliched descriptors which he no doubt would have hated, adding them to his famed list of "words/phrases never to use", assuming they're not on it already.

Most of the obituary posts I read online in the aftermath of Neil's death mentioned that he had recently gained a whole new audience and a higher public profile (relatively speaking) through his participation in something called "the Chart Music podcast". Indeed, followers of said podcast donated a surprisingly huge amount of money to a fund set up to support Neil's teenage daughter, which was very nice to see. 

So, I thought, I am gutted that this guy has gone, and I would really like to hear his voice. I'm not sure that a podcast about chart pop music is really my thing, but I'll look it up and give it a go.

A fateful decision. 

I don't recall what the first CMP episode I listened to was, but I know it didn't prove an instant hit (no chart-related pun intended). In fact, it took me a while to really get to grips with what I was hearing.

Like many first-time listeners I suspect, I was immediately perturbed by the exuberant, circus barker stylings adopted by host Al Needham (a man with a long and varied CV, who once earned the sobriquet "Nottingham's Mr Sex" from his local paper.) Stick with it though, would be my advice - he's lovely once you get used to him.

Subsequent to this, the opening "free form chat" section of each episode, in which Al breaks the ice with the episode's two allotted pop experts (picked from a talent pool of five, now sadly four) can soon veer off in directions both banal and alarming. Meanwhile, the dense barrage of in-jokes, show-specific slang and references to previous episodes can easily prove pretty bewildering. And... god help any newcomers once they reach the regular run down of the 'Chart Music Top Ten', that's all I can say. (Reference to the ever-helpful Chart Music wiki may be advised at this point, lest you fear the worst vis-a-vis some of the more obscene lingo in play.)

At this point during my first go-round, I confess I had serious doubts about proceeding. But, once the episode got down to business - setting out the wider cultural background to the episode of ToTP under consideration, looking at contemporary current events, music news, TV schedules etc - I soon settled into the necessary groove, and have basically stayed there ever since.

Happy realisation # 1, was that, as much as his published writing often tended to be fuelled by anger, spite and disillusionment, on a personal level Neil Kulkarni was clearly also warm, modest, funny, full of enthusiasm for the good things in life, and basically a quintessentially lovely bloke. In fact, it is difficult to listen to his contributions to CMP without immediately wanting to make friends with him and go down the pub - which of course now makes the impossibility of doing so feel all the more tragic. 

(That's not to say he couldn't get the knives out in his trademark style when required however; repeated listening to his beautiful takedown of Oasis - helpfully extracted by some kind soul on Youtube - proved a welcome balm last year when those dullard brothers returned to rake in the millions. Deeply NSFW, needless to say, but if you take anything from this post, please do give it a listen. Standing up and applauding at the end is optional but recommended.)

Happy realisation # 2 was the existence of Taylor Parkes. A new name to me more or less, given that I believe he ceased writing for Melody Maker before I started reading it and, by his own self-deprecating account, has subsequently lived a life of obscurity and under-achievement.... but boy, does he ever make up for it on CMP.

I'm sure it is probably considered bad form amongst CMP aficionados to state a preference for one contributor over another, but nonetheless, I'm sure most listeners would be forced to admit if pushed - Taylor is the star of the show. My initial thought when I first heard him let rip with his unique blend of scatter-gun socio-cultural jeremiad, outsider stand up grumpery and free-form pop-poetics was, "I can't believe they let this guy speak at this length, digressing so far from the subject at hand," closely followed by, "..but I hope they don’t make him stop, because everything he's saying is fucking brilliant."

I'll hold back the tide of hyperbole, but suffice to say - I love this guy to death. I'm on-board with pretty much everything he says, he's funny as hell, and he swings into his delivery with confidence befitting a sold out one-man show at the London Palladium. The fact he doesn't at least hold the same position in our culture as, say, Stewart Lee, feels like a massive injustice. But, at least CMP give him a platform from which he can hold forth, relatively frequently, and fully uncut. Worth the entry price alone.

[I would put in a picture of Taylor Parkes here, but I don't have one. In fact, I'm not sure anyone has one. I've seen him in person though, so he is definitely real.]

Of the remaining contributors, I'll also give a shout out to Sarah Bee, who is always a very welcome presence, and I wish she turned up a bit more frequently. I hope it won't sound too much like tedious gender stereotyping if I suggest she plays somewhat of a "voice of reason" role on the show, keeping her contributions pointed and concise, and helping to rein in the wilder and more grotesque meanderings of her colleagues - but such is the way it often plays out. She's also somewhat closer to my own age than the others, having arrived at Melody Maker straight out of uni during its dark final years in the early '00s, which aids relatability, and helps her excel on the (sadly all too rare) '90s episodes.

Before we move on, a further warning should probably be addressed at this stage to readers outside the UK: any given episode of CMP represents a massive, potentially lethal, overdose of Britishness, so plan accordingly. Of course I don't say this with any sense of nationalism, and certainly none is intended from the show's contributors (see entry for "Britain" in the aforementioned wiki), but... the microscopic detail and texture of life growing up on this sorry island during the late 20th century inevitably plays a pretty big part in CMP proceedings, and, as with the work Half Man Half Biscuit, I am sorry I can never fully share it with those who did not also endure such an experience.

As implied above, there is probably also a generational issue to deal with here too. I am sufficiently old that I have happy memories of watching Top of the Pops during the '90s, and my cultural tastes are sufficiently retrogressive that I have a pretty good working knowledge of the pop culture of the '70s-'80s era which forms CMP's main stomping ground. Others however may not be so lucky  find themselves in a different situation, and may struggle to remain afloat amid the tide of references to sit-com actors, newsreaders, daytime DJs, long-retired items of clothing and homeware, and the like. I'm not sure that there is any remedy for this, but personally I just drink it all in with an enthusiasm befitting my peculiar fascination with the dark mysteries of the era immediately preceding my birth. 

Enough with the caveats though. In short, the reason I'm writing about this podcast at such length, is because it is frequently, nigh on gratuitously, brilliant, and if you can find it in your heart to make allowances for the issues outlined the above, you should probably give it a listen and draw your own conclusions.

It is the first podcast I have ever listened to which made me think, "I will actually pay these people money for doing this," and indeed I did just that in September 2024, when I purchased a ticket to the annual Chart Music live event at the London Podcast Festival in King’s Cross, bearing witness to Taylor, Al and Sarah ripping through a 1985 ToTP in a mere 90 minutes before retiring to the pub - an experience I am set to repeat this September, having just purchased a ticket to the 2026 event on Sat Sept 5th, which has in turn inspired me to put this... recommendation? confession?, what shall we call it?... together.

Given that (as has been made clear above) Chart Music Podcast is something of an acquired taste, I thought I would close by recommending a few episodes which might constitute a good first step into its world.

My top pick for this purpose I think, would be Episode # 66: De La Stoke, covering March 15th 1990.

This is a Taylor and Sarah episode - always a good combo - and has a relatively subdued vibe, delivering much of the stuff which is so rewarding about Chart Music whilst minimising the more outrageous / in-jokey nonsense which could prove offputting to newbies. Systematic demolition of "Bobby Omnishake" and Primal Scream is a definite highlight.

The downside however is that, whilst the ToTP episode covered features a couple of ok tunes, it's nonetheless perilously close to being a dreaded "all cat-shit" proposition, meaning you get very little of the soaring praise and enthusiasm for genuinely sublime records and performances which is a vital part of the CMP equation.

For more of that therefore, I suggest following up hard with.... Episode # 63: Thank God For Belgium World In Action, covering December 28th, 1972.

My vote for Peak Chart Music, this is a full strength, seven hour(!) trawl through the post-Christmas victory lap of a year in which the tunes were banging, but, in order to access them, The Kids needed to negotiate an obstacle course comprising more sex offenders than you can possibly believe were ever assembled for a single light entertainment broadcast, even by the standards of the BBC in 1972. 

Taylor and Neil in top form, solid gold throughout. Believe me, those hours will just sail by. Genius radio. Even though it's not on the radio. You know what I mean.

And, that's more than enough of that. If writing all this can help bring just one reader into the Chart Music fold, it will all have been worthwhile. (Tickets still available for 5th September at the time of writing by the way, in the extremely unlikely event that anyone is bored enough to unpack and digest all this in double-quick time.)

Now, who knows what I'll write about next time in this space. UFOlogy? Yoga? American history? Repairing sash windows? All distinct possibilities. 

Until then though, thank you for reading until the end and take care until next time,

Ben