Long thought lost, this list of the "Forgotten Fifty" (consisting of 61 songs) was finally pieced together from rare archive materials for the 2007 BBC book The Peel Sessions.
The following years returned to a listener poll and listed mostly contemporary songs; "Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols topped three consecutive charts from 1978 and came second in 1981.
In the mid and later 1980s indie bands began to gain recognition with The Smiths making many appearances, including a record eleven entries in the 1987 list, but by this time Peel was beginning to become disillusioned with his listeners' tastes, complaining that there were too many "white boys with guitars" and not enough diversity.
In 1997 Peel decided that he didn't have enough time on-air around Christmas to do a countdown, and it was only from listener pressure that he agreed to do a 'Pretty Festive 31', which was topped by Cornershop's Brimful of Asha.
It still contained many of the same songs, three of the top five were the same, but newer bands (such as Pavement and Stereolab) had been assimilated and also older artists from a wider variety of genres made appearances (such as Nick Drake and The Beach Boys.