Top of the Pops: The History of Hit Parades

100_wydanie_listy_przebojow_programu_iii_1984_sala_kongresowa_forum-0428336684_fot_witold_kulinski_forum-s.jpg, default, Concert on the occasion of the 100th edition of the Hit List of the Third Polish Radio Program, in the middle Wojciech Mann, Congress Hall, Warsaw, 19

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From ‘Studio Rytm’ (Rhythm Studio) to ‘30 Ton’ (30 Tons). During our end-of year review, let’s take a trip down memory lane to the number one hits on the charts from the past.

The beginning of hit parades as we know them today dates back to 1935. On 20 April, Your Hit Parade was broadcast for the first time on America’s NBC radio station. The idea was born in the office of an advertising agency: the new format was to help a certain tobacco company, the main sponsor of the program, reach new groups of consumers, i.e. women and young people – they were deemed to be popular music’s main audience. The rules for selecting songs were unclear: the audience was not polled, the creators of the program declared that the chart was based on data about the best-selling phonographic records and sheet music, the songs most frequently ordered on radio stations, played in dance halls and selected in jukeboxes. The first number-one song was Soon by Bing Crosby. The program also appeared on television 15 years later.

Poland had to wait a little longer for its first hit parade. It appeared on the air thanks to Rozgłośnia Harcerska (Scouting Radio Station), a short-wave broadcast – the first Polish non-public radio station and the only one in the Eastern Bloc that was outside state structures (although, of course, it was also subject to censorship). The debut program (its originator was Jacek Bromski) was broadcast on 17 October 1965: the number-one song was I Got You Babe by Sonny & Cher, number two was Bo Ty Się Boisz Myszy (Because You’re Afraid of Mice) by the Polish band Czerwone Gitary, and number three was ( I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones.

The response from listeners was immediate – another hit parade was created based on thousands of letters and postcards. A maximum of ten items could be submitted to the weekly ‘top 40’. The Rozgłośnia Harcerska hit parade had a great deal of influence on the popularity of domestic big beat, then progressive rock and early hard rock as well. In a 1999 article for Machina magazine devoted to Radiostacja, Rozgłośnia Harcerska’s heir, Tomek Lipiński, the vocalist of Tilt and Brygada Kryzys (Crisis Brigade), talked about the importance of Rozgłośnia for the generation raised in the 1960s:

[...] I remember that in the 1960s listening to Rozgłośnia Harcerska was a sign of belonging to a particular clan. Their hit parade was aired on Sunday at 10:40. People were going to church at this time, so we put huge tube receivers in our windows, and they listened to our manifestation as they went.

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Czerwone Gitary - No bo ty się boisz myszy [Official Audio]

The challenge was quickly taken up by Polish Radio. In the same year, 1965, Młodzieżowe Studio Rytm (Rhythm Youth Studio) was launched, which also specialized in big beat and began broadcasting hit parades. Its first music director was Andrzej Korzyński, the future genius of film music.

Two top-ten charts were presented, one Polish and one foreign. The first was dominated by the greats of the national beat: Czerwone Gitary, Trubadurzy, Skaldowie, Czesław Niemen and Grupa ABC. Studio Rytm was of great importance for preserving the phonographic heritage of the beginnings of Polish rock’n’roll – during the recording sessions for the broadcast, over 1,200 songs were recorded. The second chart brought a whiff of rock’n’roll and soul from behind the Iron Curtain: the Stones, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. The ratings were also published by the magazine Sztandar Młodych (Bannar of Youth) – for many teenagers it was the only reason to buy this press organ of the ZMS [Związek Młodzieży Socjalistycznej, the state-operated Union of Socialist Youth, trans.].

A notebook with Rytm’s playlists, which were hand-written (often by ear, so in the case of English names usually phonetically), was an essential item in many school bags. In fact, every aspiring rock’n’roll fan had to buy two notebooks – the second one was used to write down songs from Radio Luxemburg’s hit parade.

You could vote for the Rytm playlist by post, but only for two songs, one from each category. Proposals were collected throughout the month. This tradition was continued into the early 1980s in the television show Lista Przebojów Studia Gama (Studio Gama Hit Parade, from 8 August 1981) and Lista Przebojów Programu I (Channel One Hit Parade, 2 April 1982). Plebiscyt 17. Rozgłośni (Radio Station 17 Balloting) was a sensation – it was broadcast on radio Jedynka (Channel One), and the hits were chosen not by radio listeners but by music editors of regional stations.

Inevitably, every more or less important youth and music magazine had to have its own charts. These playlists were published by, among others, the magazines Radar, Nowa Wieś (New Countryside) and, as early as the 1980s, Non Stop, Magazyn Muzyczny, Panorama and the weekly Razem (Together

Maanam snare drums

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Grzegorz Miecugow & Marek Niedźwiecki, 29th anniversary of Polish Radio’s Channel Three, premises at 3/5/7 Myśliwiecka Street, photo: Witold Jabłonowski / PAP

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Another breakthrough was Lista Przebojów Programu Trzeciego (Channel Three Hit Parade). Its story began in April 1982. There was probably no other hit parade with anywhere near Channel Three’s mass audience influence at the peak of its popularity in the 1980s (according to data from 1985, it was regularly listened to by 3.5 million teenagers under the age of 18 and 1.5 million people over the age of 18). It created a whole mythology of its own: characteristic jingles, presenter jokes, specific slang (e.g. presenters who ran the hit parades in Niedźwiecki’s absence were called ‘druhowie zastępowi’ [a pun on the double meaning of a scoutmaster and a substitute colleague in Polish, trans.]. There’s also a number of anecdotes that went down in the history of Polish music: the snare drum section from the beginning of To Tylko Tango (It’s Just a Tango) by Maanam signalled that the group’s song should be included in this spot on the charts at a time when the band was banned from the air.

In accordance with the principle ‘where there are two Poles, there are three opinions’, hit parades aroused great emotions and a number of extreme attitudes: from those ‘brought up on Trójka’ [Channel Three, trans.] to critics who believed that Niedźwiecki and co. are responsible for distorting the musical tastes of hundreds of thousands of Poles by promoting so-called ‘music of the middle’ while skipping other musical phenomena of the 1980s.

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To tylko tango (2011 Remaster)

Hit parade playlists are well documented, so we can trace which songs accompanied various significant events in Poland’s recent history. The day after the abolition of martial law, Urszula’s hit Dmuchawce, Latawce, Wiatr (Dandelions, Kites, Wind) went to number one, and in the first listing after the 4 June 1989 elections, the song Jeszcze Będzie Przepięknie (It Will Be Beautiful Again) by Tilt was number one. During the flood of the millennium, Kazik, Budka Suflera and Maryla Rodowicz were taking turns on the podium. The fans of Trójka’s hit parade also did an amazing job of recording statistics. Hence, we know that the band Hey had the most number-one songs (22), second were Edyta Bartosiewicz and Depeche Mode (17 songs each), and third were Lady Pank and Republika (16 songs each). The most songs on the charts were by Maanam (71), Madonna (69), T. Love and U2 (both bands with 65 songs on the charts).

The antithesis of Niedźwiecki’s playlist was Bubloteka (‘Craplist’), broadcast on Polish Radio’s Channel Four (although the same songs were often on both charts). It was supposed to be a hit parade of worst hits. The hosts, Grzegorz Miecugow and Andrzej Paweł Wojciechowski, mercilessly scrutinized the lyrics of the hits of national stage stars and made nonsense interpretations of them, which was echoed by listeners, who outdid each other with ideas for increasingly absurd letters to the editor. As Miecugow recalled:

Several hundred letters would arrive […] after each broadcast. Mostly very unusual ones. […] They write to us on various materials: toilet paper, sandpaper, chalk paper, wallpaper, aluminium foil, chocolate wrappers, on a newspaper and even… on the sole of a shoe!

The first number-one hit was Sztuka Latania (The Art of Flying) by Lady Pank (with the memorable line: ‘Generally speaking – life is brutal / Apart from that, everything’s perfect’). At that time, Czwórka (Channel Four) was listened to mainly by the rock audience, for which the achievements of domestic pop and disco performers were the ultimate cringe, so the charts were dominated by the hits of Papa Dance, Ex-Dance, Krzysztof Krawczyk and Eleni, but the program’s fans would sometimes also find fault with, for example, punk rockers from the band Siekiera (for the song Misiowie Puszyści [Fluffy Teddy Bears] with its lyrics ‘The shoemaker kills the shoemaker bumtarara bumtarara’).

Scouts strike back

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Dezerter concert at the club Riwiera Remont, Warsaw, 1985, photo: Zenon Żyburtowicz / FOTONOVA / East News

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The attitude of punks towards hit parades and pop music was bluntly expressed by Dezerter in the song Polska Złota Młodzież (Polish Golden Youth), which in English reads:

Easy music with moronic text

that’s Polish youth – tight knit and next

Hit charts, kitsch loving

That’s Polish youth for you – nothing

But youth who sympathized with the punk scene also had their own hit parade (although some considered it a social safety valve and a set-up controlled by the authorities): ‘Polski Independent, i.e. Rozgłośnia Harcerska’s hit parade in a refreshed formula. From the mid-1980s, thanks to new hosts (Bożena Sitek and Paweł Sito), it explored the musical underground in all its shades: from classic hardcore punk (the above-mentioned Dezerter, Abaddon, Moskwa or TZN Xenna) to Slavic reggae (Izrael, Bakszisz, R.A.P), from the Tricity scene (Apteka, Bóm Wakacje w Rzymie or Oczi Cziorne) to the Rzeszów scene (1984, Aurora, Noah Noah, One Million Bulgarians).

Most importantly, the hit parades included songs by bands without officially released albums, those coming from cassette demos or recordings from the Jarocin Festival. Since the number of punk and new-wave artists with vinyls released by state labels in the 1980s could be counted on the fingers of two hands, this was the only chance for many bands to be heard on the airwaves. Appearing on hit parades was also an opportunity to record tracks professionally, thanks to the cooperation of Rozgłośnia with Polish Radio.

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Izrael - Idą Ludzie Babilonu

Compared to the more conservative Trójka hit parade, listeners following the independent hit parade could become roughly acquainted with the novelties of Western (mainly British) alternative music: the top ten included artists such as Talking Heads, The Fall, The Smiths, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Cocteau Twins, Butthole Surfers or Swans. Reggae and ska performers also appeared there, and hip-hop even made a shy appearance thanks to Grandmaster Flash. The hosts of the program also strongly promoted the so-called Krajowa Scena Młodzieżowa (National Youth Scene). It included bands with Jarocin origins, which, however, presented a pop-rock, more well-behaved repertoire (so-called scout rock), such as Róże Europy, Chłopcy z Placu Broni or Sztywny Pal Azji.

Let’s stay for a while in the circles of new guitar music and scouting. Another interesting phenomenon was the Metal Top 20 playlist published in the scout weekly Na Przełaj (Shortcut) (which not only helped promote extreme music – it was there that the first texts about death metal and other devilish villainy appeared in the Polish press) and broadcast on Trójka. This is how Jarek Szubrycht recalled it in his book Skóra i Ćwieki na Wieki: Moja Historia Metalu (Leather and Studs Forever: My History of Metal):

The power of Vistula metal was built primarily by Polish Radio. […] Most important were the weekly ‘Metalowe Tortury’ [Metal Tortures] on Trójka, led by Wojciech Mann (who still manages to scare listeners with Slayer), Roman Rogowiecki and, for some time, Krzysztof Wacławiak; and ‘Muzyka Młodych’ [Music of the Young] on Dwójka, led by Marek Gaszyński. The latter was moderately familiar with noisy new releases, but once a month he hosted a certain Kris Brankowski from Oleśnica, a metal fan and activist who, as an act of public service, also brought him gems from outside official circulation. Brankowski had something like a homemade metal chart (people regularly sent him letters and postcards with votes), which he called ‘Metal Top 20’ and presented both on the radio and in ‘Na Przełaj’. […]

To Marek’s credit, instead of talking nonsense and presenting at random, he used the help of professionals for the benefit of the program and its listeners. ‘Muzyka Młodych’ was presented on weekdays in the early afternoon, so I didn’t always manage to get back from school for the beginning of the broadcast. Fortunately, it was replayed on Sundays at dawn. I loved those mornings. Ten minutes after seven, the entire apartment building was still asleep, and the first sound that pierced the silence was the thrilling riff from ‘Diabolic Force’ by Running Wild, which served as the opening theme – to this day, when I hear this song, I’m always surprised not to hear Marek start speaking during the station break to announce the name of the program. […]

TLPsts from Grodno

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‘30 ton – lista, lista przebojów’, photo: TVP / Kompania Telewizjna ITC

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In the 1980s, hit parades also appeared on public television: first it was Telewizyjna Lista Przebojów (Television Hit Parade, 1982-87) hosted by Bogdan Fabiański; then Wzrockowa Lista Przebojów (1988-96) hosted by Marek Niedźwiecki, which was, in a way, an extension of the hit parade known from the Trójka airwaves.

The first of these presented only Polish music videos – these were pioneering times for this audiovisual genre. Although among Polish fans it did not have as much importance as the charts from Trójka or Rozgłośnia, it led to a subcultural ferment in Grodno, Belarus. Polish television was picked up in this city, which was Soviet at the time, and many people knew Polish – from the media or because of their Polish roots. The Polish People’s Republic rock mainstream, mocked by the Jarocin audience, was a breath of fresh air for Belarusian teenagers compared to the Soviet stage. As Joanna Sadowska wrote in an article about Grodno fans of Polish music:

Courtyards were empty while their favourite programs were being broadcast, and then young people would meet to share their impressions. The logo in the intro of ‘Television Hit Parade’ consisting of three white and red letters became a symbol of the Grodno TLPists [TLP standing for ‘Telewizyjna Lista Przebojów’, the name of the show, trans.]. They painted them by hand on T-shirts, applying red characters to the white material using a stencil and spray paint. […] The name of the owner’s favourite group would be placed on the back of the shirt, so each was unique.

‘First Dezerter, then the radio, “Muzyczna Jedynka” [Musical Channel One] / whoever shows up there, I don’t respect,’ Kazik sang in 12 Groszy. The program, hosted by Artur Orzech, with the ‘hot ten’ Polish video clips, appeared on TV Channel One between 1993 and 1997. Many music videos were made especially for this channel – there were no Polish-language music stations at that time (the first domestic music television station, Atomic TV, started broadcasting in 1997; Polish versions of MTV and Viva first appeared only in 2000), so shooting music videos was not obligatory for promoting a new single. Voting for the best music video of the month was also held on the young people’s music program Clipol.

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Program Drugi - 30 ton! Lista, lista przebojów. 14.01.2006 r.

For the generation raised in the 1990s, the first television association will be the program 30 Ton - Lista, Lista Przebojów (30 Tons Playlist, Hit Parade). Its musical formula was not particularly innovative (a bunch of current pop hits), apart from the fact that it placed the mercantile dimension over the social dimension that had previously dominated the national charts: it was not based on viewers’ votes; the playlist was created on the basis of data on album sales and the popularity of singles at radio stations. So why was this playlist so popular (besides its great airtime – Sunday lunchtime)? Although not devoid of purely Polish specificity (we need only mention that for a few months in 1999 a folk-inspired song by Kayah & Bregović or the Offspring group competed for a place on the podium with… John Paul II’s song-prayer ‘Pater Noster’), it was the first format on public television that tried to evoke the aesthetics of MTV: short fragments of clips, dynamic editing, colourful and flashy computer animations and the characteristic pitch from Dariusz Odija, the host of the program.

Disco polo also had its hit parade: on the television shows Disco Relax and Disco Polo Live, broadcast on the Polsat channel, and in the press in the weekly Panorama (since 1996).

Radiostacja creates some hype

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Hip Hop w Radiostacji (dżingiel radiowy, 1999 r.)

The end of the state monopoly on the media brought a radio boom that Poland had never seen before (or since). The 1990s brought an abundance of new commercial players, led by RMF FM and Radio Zet, as well as local, official and pirate radio stations. Each of them had their own hit parades: we won’t mention all of them here, and if I had to choose one, I would without a doubt choose the Lista Tygodnia (Hit Parade of the Week) broadcast at the turn of the century on Radiostacja.

This is the third hit parade included in this ranking that was broadcast from the building at 6 Marii Konopnickiej Street in Warsaw, the headquarters of the ZHP (Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego [Polish Scouting and Guiding Association]) – Radiostacja radio station was the heir to Rozgłośnia Harcerska trying to adapt to new business realities. This is probably the last radio station that provided musical education to an entire generation of listeners (although representatives of this generation had to live in one of the large cities: Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Rzeszów or the Tricity; in 2003-4, transmitters also went into operation in Olsztyn, Łódź and Zielona Góra).

Their flagship program was the Sunday Lista Tygodnia, but other programs on this station also used the hit parade formula in their respective niches, e.g. Inna Lista (Different Hit Parade) by Rafał Księżyk (Polish underground from yass to noise), Podwodna Ameryka (Underwater America) by Piotr ‘Makak’ Szarłacki (rock and nu-metal hits from the United States), Zjednoczone Królestwo Niezależności (United Kingdom of Independence) by Grzegorz Hoffman (Britpop and other trends in English guitar music) or the hip-hop hit parade of Druh Sławek. Besides, before hip-hop became the new pop, Radiostacja was one of the few media spaces that promoted this music. This is especially visible in the ratings of the Lista Tygodnia, where Kaliber 44’s track Konfrontacje remained in the top forty for almost four years (198 weeks in the top forty), and Paktofonika’s Jestem Bogiem (I’m a God) remained in the top forty for 117 weeks.

Radiostacja shaped an alternative canon; their playlist also included many so-called ‘new rhythms’, as electronic dance music was called at the turn of the century. Many of the bands listed were completely outside the mainstream at that time, such as Transmisja with the song Palą Palanci, which stayed at the top for weeks, or Super Girl & Romantic Boys with the hit Spokój (Peace), which was then circulating only as an mp3 recording.

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KALIBER 44 - Konfrontacje [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

And we could actually put a full stop here. Hit parades still function, of course, but the further into the 21st century, the more their social importance decreased (maybe apart from the Trójka hit parade, which was a certain phenomenon until the ‘Kazik scandal’ of 2020 and the end of its transmissions, but in this instance it was mainly that it had a loyal group of old listeners who grew up with it). Of course, hit parades are still broadcast by radio stations and music channels and published on websites, but probably none of them arouse such emotions as those mentioned above and none of them had such generational significance (unless I missed something). What determines popularity is no longer a place on the charts but your position on the YouTube time card, the number of listens according to Spotify Wrapped and your place for best-selling albums on OLiS (Oficjalna Lista Sprzedaży [Official Sales Chart]).

Written in Polish by Patryk Zakrzewski, 29 December 2022

Translated by Michał Pelczar

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