This year Radioinfo will take you back 50 years to songs from 1974. It was a mighty fine year for music.
On November 8, 1974 Countdown debuted at 6.30pm on a Friday night. It shortly afterwards moved to Sunday evenings from 6-7pm, with a repeat the following Saturday night.
The influence of the show on Australian music and culture will never be repeated. At its peak host Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum had artists so desperate to get him to listen to their music that they would shove it under the toilet door at gigs, or stalk his home.
23 BILLION views.
The show was also important for international acts through the showing of music videos (Madonna’s Holiday video saw her hit the charts here in early 1984, Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights video, the one with the red dress above, was made especially for Countdown and Australia). And he would champion what he thought was a bloody good song. He was responsible for ABBA releasing Mamma Mia as a single (watch below) and, while Roger Voudouris and Harpo didn’t ever go beyond one hit wonder status, they have Countdown to thank for their only hits, Get Used to It (which is also below – I rather liked him) and Moviestar respectively.
Countdown’s role in the ABBA’s hit Mamma Mia and Get Used to It above.
The great tragedy, and it is a tragedy, is that video was valuable in those early days and so the ABC would erase and reuse tapes. Entire episodes from 1974 – 1978 are gone forever. Some that were saved are only portions of the show.
The very first episode featured a few of our 1974 artists we’ve featured already, like the Skyhooks and Paper Lace.
Also performing were Sherbert, an up-and-coming band of blokes who were in the process of a pivot from being a covers band to recording their own original material and taking advantage of their clean-cut, good-looking image toward a younger audience.
The band sang Silvery Moon, written by band members Garth Porter and Clive Shakespeare, as was all the tracks on their ’74 album Slipstream (Silvery Moon reached #2) and the band’s lead singer Daryl Braithwaite sang a cover of the Cilla Black 60s hit You’re My World, which would go to No 1, Daryl’s only solo No 1 until a little number called The Horses some 15 years later.
They don’t make ’em like this anymore.
I have rather gone down a Countdown rabbit hole since I started this article, watching Australian Crawl and James Reyne perform Beautiful People with two broken wrists, Prince Charles most awkwardly join Molly on the couch (the main picture is the special jubilee album they both were promoting in 1977) and Bon Scott surprising his AC/DC band mates by dressing in drag for a 1975 cover of Them’s Baby, Please Don’t Go, a version definitely non mimed as later performances were, and a reason why Midnight Oil never appeared on the show.
Two broken wrists. No problems.
Definitely not mimed.
By 1977 three million of Australia’s population of 14 watched the show. As Molly would famously say, do yourself a favour and watch and read of this classic show that literally saved a floundering Australian music industry with the host and team having an incredible eye for a good song and star artist.
A TV special Countdown 50 Years On will premiere on November 16 on ABC TV and ABC iview at 7.30pm.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo