150px, Issue 5, Feb. 1985
(Heather Mac of Ella Mental) ''Top 40 Music Magazine'' was an English-language

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

n monthly

music magazine A music magazine is a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. Such magazines typically include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews, concert reviews and occasionally have a covermount with recorded music. Notable mu ...

published nationwide in print form between 1984 and 2002. Its content featured coverage of new music across the popular

music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...

s of the time and also included articles and snippets on current film and video releases, the general

music business The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, ...

, domestic and international

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

info, exclusive interviews, as well as

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

and

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

trends during the latter years. Furthermore, the magazine hosted a mail order division for miscellaneous music- and video-related products and

merchandise Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative way that entices customers to purchase more i ...

and, for a period in the 1980s, ran the "''Record & Video Shack''" at Shop 7 Leebram House, Biccard Street in Braamfontein,

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

Timeline

80px, Issue 145, Sep. 1997 Launched at the "Raffles Nightclub" at the Intercontinental Hotel in Johannesburg, the magazine's first issue featuring

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

on the cover appeared in September 1984. As a marketing ploy, early issues of the magazine were given away free by CNA outlets with any "music purchase" made. The initial newsstand price was R1,00. Published by Joe Theron, ''Top 40s offices were originally situated in

Yeoville Yeoville is an inner city neighbourhood of Johannesburg, in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. It is located in Region F (previously Region 8). It is widely known and celebrated for its diverse, pan-African population but notorious for it ...

, moving to Braamfontein in 1985. The cover of the April 1988 issue proudly claimed "over 2,7 million sold!" By June 1989 they had again relocated, this time to

Randburg Randburg is an area located in the Gauteng, Gauteng province of South Africa. Formerly a separate municipality, its administration devolved to the newly created City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, along with neighbouring Sandton and Roo ...

. The May 1990 issue introduced a slight change in name to Top Forty Music Magazine, and by October 1990 sales of "well in excess of 4 million units" were boasted. By late 1993, publishing was undertaken by Pretoria based Promedia Publishing and Colleen Gouws was appointed editor. Mark Bennett briefly took over in 1995, followed by the title being taken over by CoAuto Publishers. In 1997 the magazine moved its base to

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

and was sold to Thompson Publishing, started by the then editor, Colleen Thompson (née Gouws), who had bought both Top Forty and Jive Magazine. It was during this time that the magazine saw one of its most creative periods, with both a format and logo change. Thompson Publishing eventually amalgamated with ISO Publishing Pty. Thompson remained on as Publisher and CEO, and the company continued to publish Top Forty Magazine, O Magazine and Soap Opera Digest. April 2002 saw the last printed issue of Top Forty Magazine whereupon the title went "digital-only", disappearing completely by January 2005.

Staff

Editors over the years have included Debby Tattersall, Mike Waddacor, Suzanne Ellis, Chris Chapman, Tara Robb, Steve Masters, Colleen Thompson (née Gouws) and Jason Curtis.

Audio Releases

While some of the earlier "birthday issues" included a free (regular commercial)

7-inch single In music, a single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. One can be released for sale to the public in a variety of formats. In most cases, a single is a song that is released separate ...

, the publication is also responsible for at least two compilations of its own; a

covermount Covermount (sometimes written cover mount) is the name given to storage media (containing software and or audiovisual media) or other products (ranging from toys to flip-flops) packaged as part of a magazine or newspaper. The name comes from the ...

cassette which came with the ''Top Forty Music Annual: The First Decade'' book (1990), and a "free" compilation CD (1991) -- both in conjunction with

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

South Africa.Releases according to discogs.com
/ref>

References

External links

*
Top 40's defunct website on archive.org
' {{Greater Johannesburg, media 1984 establishments in South Africa 2002 disestablishments in South Africa Defunct magazines published in South Africa English-language magazines published in South Africa Magazines established in 1984 Magazines disestablished in 2002 Mass media in Johannesburg Monthly magazines published in South Africa Music magazines South African music