Which year in the UK had the most innovative top 40 singles?

[platinumsage]

Which year did the top 40 singles feature the most innovative material (for the top 40)... stuff that the usual top 40 listeners might never have imagined they would like.

I reckon it must in the 90s when rave/dance influenced the mainstream.

Maybe 1994?

 

[[62]]

I was going to say 1982 purely on the fact that Oh Superman by Laurie Anderson hit the charts, which has to rank as a unique moment in musical history when truly avant garde music bisected with the mainstream:



Otherwise, can't pick a year, but that spell from 1979 to maybe 1982 was the era for me - post-punk, ska, reggae, early Dexys, Kraftwerk, Kate Bush and the like.

 

[Pickman's model]

Whatever year star trekkin was in the charts. Or agadoo

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Some year in the 60's. So much was innovative then that we have got used to and now might think of as mainstream or background.

 

[Elpenor]

Which year did the top 40 singles feature the most innovative material (for the top 40)... stuff that the usual top 40 listeners might never have imagined they would like.

I reckon it must in the 90s when rave/dance influenced the mainstream.

Maybe 1994?

Four crackers there, particularly like The Real Thing, but I suppose it was my era, I’d have been 13 and listening to radio 1 nonstop

 

[Knotted]

Maybe 1980, general new wavey art school vibe overall and also the Sugarhill Gang.

Maybe 1966 with a slew of extraordinary Beach Boys singles including Good Vibrations. Also the Stones at their most innovative - Paint It Black and Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown and the Beatles at their most innovative - Paper Back Writer, Eleanor Rigby. Mid-late 60's is probably the only time when the biggest names correlated well with the biggest risk takers.

 

[stavros]

Looking at the list of number ones from 1994 nothing jumps out as even that good. Plus Wet Wet Wet were there half the year.

1993 looks a bit better, with 2 Unlimited, Ace of Base, Boom Shake the Room and Meat Loaf.

 

[magneze]

FSOL's Lifeforms got to 14 in 1994 so that's a good shout on the year.

 

[andysays]

I'm going to stick my neck here and say that for most people, the year they think had the best/most innovative/whatever popular music was round about the time they started getting popular music themselves.

So for me it's going to be late seventies when I was in my early to mid teens.

 

[domestos]

I'd go for late 70s early 80s for all the electronic music that was a revolultion in sound. It. hasn't all stood the test of time was it was a period of innovation

 

[krtek a houby]

not sure about how it impacted the UK, or its charts, but all those blues records cut in the late 20s and 30s were pretty damn innovative. And the stellar jazz from the decade 1959 - 1969.