When

When did it all start – I am assuming – is probably one of those questions in people’s mind when it comes to Enrico’s Hitlist.

Well, I was still reliving the Sydney Olympics in fall and winter time back in 2000 by simply watching the thrilling swimming semi-finals and finals every single day and in those days I had swim stats, charts and even spread sheets about my own little ‘career’, dreaming of breaking the minute barrier over 100m Freestyle hence why fascination for lists etc.

To get away from the damn TV, me and my cousin came together one weekend, recapping the most liked songs from that particular week and decided to do  a kind of chart presentation a la Top of the Pops. You probably should know, that before I started Enrico’s Hitlist I was pretty happy with continuously listening to just one single song. So the idea behind doing this chart thing was to listen to more music and open up my stubborn mind to more styles, genres, artists etc. I guess you get the idea!

And here is a fun blast from the past. In 1994 me and a few mates from my local swim team were on a bus ride to a pretty big competition in Germany’s capital Berlin and back then most people only had a cassette player, including me. After a while the cassette swapping had started but I was happy to keep listening to mine and wasn’t really keen on giving it away, but eventually had to give in and give it to one of my friends. I’ve clearly warned him that the cassette would be only playing one single song all over gain but he shrugged it off, didn’t believe me and insisted that he’d like to listen to it plus demanded the cassette. After about ten minutes the cassette was back in my possession, as no one else was now brave enough (unlike me) and listening to Whigfield’s debut single – and European chart breaker – ‘Saturday night’ over and over again. I still don’t understand why and how he got bored having listened to the song only three times.

Don’t worry those days are mostly over and the cassette since then has been replaced with discman’s, iPod’s, iPhone’s et cetera to ensure I have a bigger music selection in case anyone ever wants to listen to my music again. Mind you it was pretty tough to get this one record playing over and over again onto one cassette! At least I didn’t have to worry too much about a song description or cover for the cassette and to be honest in most cases I didn’t even bother.

Long story short. My cousin was fed up with this song repetition and in the last weeks of 2000 we finally started our own Hitlist’s to become a regularity. Every weekend (mostly Sunday’s) we would now meet up either at his or my place as we only lived roughly a kilometre apart from each other which was handy as we started presenting each other our latest discoveries especially if there was a new chart topper!

As this incredible Olympic year came to an end I decided to actually document those lists and wrote down my charts and had the crazy thought about this continuation project called Enrico’s Hitlist. The idea was born and it officially started with the first week in 2001

The first number one hit in my charts was obviously still relating to the Sydney Olympics as I was still glued to the TV watching swimming more or less every day and Australian’s Vanessa Amorosi’s ‘Absolutely Everybody’ stormed to the top of the charts by becoming a massive success that year. However, works out that my cousin wasn’t as eager as I was. I think he gave up with his project just after a couple of weeks. On the other hand I am proud to say I’m still going and that I’m now in my 13th consecutive year.

And as for this current week, there are already new entries lined up to enter my Top 20! Week 2 will be out on Sunday again.

Until then I shall revive ‘Absolutely Everybody’ and ‘Saturday Night’ again for you. And please don’t giggle too much about having those songs on constant repeat and most of you probably will try to dance again to Whigfield’s smash-hit! Enjoy and thanks for all your support and feedback!