Ballads

619. ‘First Time’, by Robin Beck

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We began 1988 with some girl-led light-rock from Belinda Carlisle, and we round it off (well, almost) with something similar from Robin Beck.

First Time, by Robin Beck (her 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 13th November – 4th December 1988

I have to admit, the moment where the guitars rev and lock in to a chuggin’ riff is musical catnip to me. There is no better sound in pop music than when tight guitars kicks in. (Not that the guitars here are anything beyond run of the mill; it’s just been so absent from the top of the charts recently.) The solo is great too, played in soaring fashion by a Slash-a-like.

Problem is, the rest of the song doesn’t know what it is. The production elsewhere is soft and glossy – it begins and ends like a Disney theme – and the verses float by anonymously. Had they gone full-out rock, then this could have been one of the decade’s great power ballads. At the same time, had they gone guitar-less, this would have been one of the decade’s drippiest (in a decade with stiff competition in that department…)

As it is, this is a perfectly ‘okay’ soft rock tune. The ascending chorus: And it’s taken control, Of my body and mind, It began when I heard ‘I love you’… For the very first time! would be a great one for belting out drunk (I can’t hear it without imagining someone murdering it at karaoke). The fact that the only version of ‘First Time’ available on Spotify is from an album called ‘Music for a Girls Night Out’ says it all.

The video for this one is, and I apologise for dragging this phrase out yet again, peak-eighties. Soft-focus, slow motion, black and white, long shadows, white sofas, Ms Beck’s gigantic hair … All boxes checked. I was thinking its success might have been movie related, but it was yet another #1 from an advert, following on from ‘Stand by Me’ and ‘He Ain’t Heavy…’. It was in a Coca-Cola advert, no less, meaning it becomes the second chart-topper to advertise the world’s favourite soft drink (replacing For the very first time… with Coca-Cola is it…in the advert). Perhaps controversially, I’d take this over The New Seekers teaching the world to sing…

For someone of my age, ‘First Time’ will forever exist – for better or worse – in the dance version by Sunblock that made #9 in 2006 (and on which Robin Beck was credited) And if the original video is peak-eighties, then the Sunblock video is pure mid-00s. That was Beck’s first chart appearance since the follow up to ‘First Time’ had made #84. She still records and tours, and seems to have remained fairly popular in Germany and Scandinavia.

617. ‘One Moment in Time’, by Whitney Houston

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It’s well known that songwriters aim to write songs for the radio, for TV shows, for streaming playlists… Do some, I wonder upon hearing this next #1, write songs that they hope will be sung by school choirs from here to eternity…?

One Moment in Time, by Whitney Houston (her 3rd of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 9th – 23rd October 1988

Probably not, for where are the royalties in that? But ‘One Moment in Time’ does sound like the love-child of a hymn and a school song. It’s got a heart-tugging, traditional-sounding chorus, and lots of inspiring lyrics: I’m only one, Though not alone, My finest day, Is yet unknown… It was written for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which makes sense, as it is all about seizing the day, racing with destiny, and similar inspirational twaddle.

The school choir comparisons fizzle out pretty quickly, though. For all their merits, not many school choirs sound like this. Whitney Houston could, fair play to her, sing. And this is the first of her chart-toppers, after the sultry ‘Saving All My Love for You’, and the poppy ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’, where she’s been allowed to let loose. And boy, does she let loose…

There’s not a school choir on earth that could keep up with her past the three minute mark, when the tempo changes: You’re a winner, For a lifetime… Whitney tells us, before embarking on what has to be one of the most technically impressive displays of singing we’ve heard in a #1 so far. Trumpets come in too, as if heralding the arrival of royalty. It’s a moment.

It’s also way too much. By the end, when Whitney holds the I will be free line…, it produces a sensation not so different from being walloped around the head with a bag of sand. It’s not often that you finish listening to a song and come away feeling like you’ve just done a couple of rounds in a boxing ring, but you do here (apt in a song written for a sporting event, I suppose). The legendary songwriter Albert Hammond wrote it with Elvis in mind, apparently. I can see it, but I also think Elvis would have given a more nuanced performance.

At the same time, perhaps there’s no room for nuance in a song written for the Olympics, required to appeal to people from all around the globe, and to recreate the moment a sprinter crosses the finish-line in first place. In the right time and place, this could really work. Unfortunately, I’m writing this on a cold Thursday evening, after a long day at work, and the last thing I need is someone howling in my ear about all of my dreams being a heartbeat away…

There are ballads, there are power-ballads, there are eighties power-ballads, then there’s this. I can’t think of many more bombastic chart-toppers, or of one belted out with as much gusto. And there possibly won’t be again, until Whitney’s final #1 some four years from now…

615. ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’, by The Hollies

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A big feature of the late eighties and early nineties, aside from all the dancing, the sampling and the acid house, was classic re-releases…

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, by The Hollies (their 2nd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 18th September – 2nd October 1988

One such re-release means that The Hollies score their second #1 single, a full twenty-three years after their first. And like the two most recent belated chart-toppers – ‘Stand By Me’ and ‘Reet Petite’ – this is a classic in every sense. It’s pop as classical music: stately, grandiose, full of portent and power… The road is long, With many a winding turn…

In fact, I’d file this up there with ‘Hey Jude’, and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, as pop music working as a hymn for the secular. And not just because the band do their best impression of a gospel choir towards the end, but also because the title line is from a Christian tale about a sister carrying her brother on her back, uncomplaining. Interestingly, ‘Stand by Me’ also features lines from the bible (while ‘Reet Petite’ does not, unless I missed that particular week of Sunday School…)

The climax is the middle eight, the If I’m laden… At all… part, that positively soars. In fact, it perhaps soars too much, for my tastes. For a band that spent most of the sixties releasing perfectly crafted, snappy pop tunes – from ‘Just One Look’, to their previous #1 ‘I’m Alive’, to ‘Bus Stop’ and on – this is quite the departure. I have to admit that I prefer their pop stuff to this, as impressive as it is, in the same way that ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ are not my all-time favourites either.

This song originally came not long after Graham Nash had left the band, to form Crosby, Stills & Nash, leaving the band more reliant on outside songwriters. ‘He Ain’t Heavy…’ had been written for US singer Kelly Gordon, a few months before The Hollies made #3 with it in 1969. (Fun fact: not only is it a belated 2nd #1 for The Hollies, it’s a 2nd #1 for Elton John, who played piano on the track as a pre-fame session musician!) And, for a song with such religious connotations and gospel leanings, it took a much more prosaic reason to finally get it to #1: an advert for Miller-Lite.

In 1969, this hit set the band up to keep going well into the 1970s, something that very few of the big ‘60s acts managed. Their ‘final’ big hit was ‘The Air that I Breathe’ in 1974 (a song I do kind of wish had had the big re-release treatment, instead of this…) And unless I’m missing something obvious, this song’s second round of success meant that The Hollies achieved the longest gap between chart-topping singles, a record they kept for quite a while. On a personal note, and quite fittingly, this was #1 on the day that my own brother was born (but I will refrain from commenting on his heaviness…)

614. ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’, by Phil Collins

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Just when I’d made such a big point about us being past the gloopiest years of the decade…

A Groovy Kind of Love, by Phil Collins (his 3rd and final #1)

2 weeks, from 4th – 18th September 1988

It’s Phil, a keyboard, some subtle background strings and percussion, all drenched in glossy, echoey reverb. Only three and a half years have passed since his last #1 – ‘Easy Lover’ – but already Phil Collins feels old-fashioned and left behind by this dancey, sample-heavy era. This feels very 1985… And the use of ‘groovy’ in the title is worth suing for false advertising!

Not that it’s terrible. There’s always space in the musical landscape for a smoochy ballad. It’s just fairly dull, and the lyrics are delivered so slowly that their clunky rhymes stand out even more: When I kiss your lips, Oooh I start to shiver, Can’t control the quiver, -ing inside… When you think of Collins’s hits that didn’t make the top – ‘In the Air Tonight’ and ‘Against All Odds’ both peaked at #2 – you might wonder why this unremarkable one made it.

But then Phil Collins isn’t the only artist to be unfairly represented by his chart-toppers. Sometimes there’s a lull at the top, and something understated and gentle can take over for a couple of weeks. It was also on the soundtrack to the movie ‘Buster’, which I’m guessing helped as well.

For something more interesting we must delve into the history of ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’, which I had never realised dated back two decades, to a #2 hit in 1966 for The Mindbenders. (The use of a term like ‘groovy’ makes much more sense in the mid-sixties…) It was their first release after Wayne Fontana had left the band, and I prefer that version, also a ballad, purely because it sounds like it’s from the 1960s (snappy and guitar-led) and not the 1980s, and I’m biased. Sorry! Meanwhile, the melody is based on a piece by 18th century Italian composer Muzio Clementi, instantly propelling this innocuous ballad into the top two or three oldest #1s, ever. Who knew?

Phil Collins won’t be topping the charts again, but his career will keep ticking away throughout the ‘90s and 00’s, despite him becoming a bye-word for ‘uncool’. It probably didn’t help that he always looked, to me at least, like one of my dad’s old school friends. However, he regained some respect from the hip-hop community, of all places, and still tours despite various health problems. Nowadays his influence is much more recognised, and rightly so. For what it’s worth, he’s the world’s 2nd richest drummer, behind Ringo Starr.

612. ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’, by Glenn Medeiros

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You might remember that I like to take notes on each #1 I’m going to write about, usually after finishing the previous post. My first note on this, 1988’s big summer smoocher, reads: ‘Straight in with the sax!’

Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You, by Glenn Medeiros (his 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 3rd – 31st July 1988

The use of saxophones in number one singles is a contentious issue for me, and one of the big black marks on the right-hand side of my ‘1980s Pros & Cons’ sheet. Used properly and sparingly, for maximum effect, they can be glorious. But for every ‘China in Your Hand’ or ‘Baby Jane’, there’s a ‘What’s Another Year’. However, all these songs, for better or worse, kept the sax for the solo. ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’ does a ‘Careless Whisper’, and whips its instrument out from the start. So to speak…

It instantly sets the tone, and instantly consigns this song to sub-Disney theme gloop. There’s no recovering from ploughing straight in with such a cheesy, sleazy sax. Not that Glenn Medeiros tries particularly hard to recover any credibility. He’s quite happy to wallow in his saccharine mess… Hold me now, Touch me now, I don’t want to live without you…

The verses are really lame. The key change is a proper teeth-grinder. The video is all soft-focus sunset strolls along the beach, and smouldering stares down the camera lens, as anyone over the age of fourteen swallows back their vomit. And yet… Nothing’s gonna change my love for you, You oughta know by now how much I love you…The chorus is the moment it all hangs together, for a couple of seconds. It’s pure cheese, but the drums pound and the sax soars, and it is kind of glorious. Then it collapses back in on its gloopy self. Meh. (At least the Brian May impression from whoever was on lead guitar for the solo redeems things slightly once more…)

It’s fitting that this chart topper followed directly on from Bros – two sides of the teenybopper coin. For every fun and funky dance pop hit, teenage girls were just as likely to send shit like this to number one. The fact that Glenn Medeiros was just eighteen himself, with floppy black hair and puppy dog eyes, probably helped shift a few copies too. He’s Hawaiian, and this was his first big hit. The closest he came to repeating this record’s success was a few years later, with ‘She Ain’t Worth It’ – a duet with Bobby Brown that made #12 (and hit #1 in the US). He’s since gone on to a career as a teacher and headmaster of schools in his home state.

‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’, meanwhile, had originally been recorded by soul crooner George Benson. His version is a bit more grown up, but every bit as slick and icky. Westlife have also covered it (of course they have…) Meanwhile, I can confirm that it is a hugely well-known English song in the Far East and South-East Asia – up there with the Carpenters and Celine Dion – where tolerance for this kind of cheese is much higher. Why not enjoy it in Cantonese here, before you go?

600. ‘China in Your Hand’, by T’Pau

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The 600th #1! Sadly, it’s a very low-key, uneventful record with which to celebrate this milestone…

China in Your Hand, by T’Pau (their 1st and only #1)

5 weeks, from 8th November – 13th December 1987

Only joking. It’s the power ballad to end all power ballads. (I’m pretty sure I’ve written that at least three times already, ‘Total Eclipse…’, ‘The Power of Love’… Trouble is this decade keeps outdoing itself in terms of big hair, big chords and big drums.)

There are two sides to this record: the verse side and the chorus side. The verses are a bit folky, slightly new-age. Echoey synths and strings. It’s a movement that seems to be gathering pace, as The Bee Gee’s ‘You Win Again’ had a similarly Celtic air to it. And the ultimate new-age #1 is coming up next year… While the vocals are very Kate Bush. The lyrics meanwhile are at best silly, at worst pretentious: Come from greed, Never born of the seed, Took a life from a barren hand… A prophecy for a fantasy, The curse of a vivid mind… Very ‘angsty teen poetry’ (apparently it’s inspired by Mary Shelley and her novel ‘Frankenstein’). If that was it, I’d find this record quiet annoying.

But that is not it. For we have the flip-side: a storming, chest-beating beast of a chorus. Don’t push too far, Your dreams are china in your hand… Suddenly a gem of a line emerges from the nonsense, and drums pound, and guitars soar. It’s a chorus that obliterates any doubts you have about the rest of the song. You have no idea what it’s about, but it’s OK. It’s still somehow life-affirming.

And yet still that’s not it. For after just two minutes or so the song slows down and begins to fade, and you wonder if it’s ending, though surely not so soon… Then wham! In comes the saxophone. In the video, the first note is timed to match with a statue smashing in slow-motion… It’s perfection. The die is cast. The song remains turned up to eleven for a glorious ninety-seconds of slow fade.

Despite them being perhaps the defining sound of the 1980s, not that many power ballads made #1 in the UK. Glance at the Billboard charts for the same period, and it’s clear that Americans would let any old fist-clencher into top spot: Peter Cetera, Boston, Richard Marx, all clogging things up with their seriousness. While the British public seem only to let a power ballad make #1 if it is either very good – ‘The Power of Love’ – or very silly – ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. ‘China in Your Hand’, meanwhile, is…

I’m really not sure. It expertly straddles the line between sublime and stupid. One minute you think it’s going to fall on one side, then the other. But it’s so sure of itself, and singer Carol Decker commits herself so fully, that it drags you along with it wholeheartedly for the ride. Plus, I’d say the time of year helped. Forget Christmas Number Ones; there are also Winter Number Ones, perfect to cosy up to as the nights draw in. Songs that wouldn’t have been so successful had they been released in May.

T’Pau were from Shrewsbury (the only chart-toppers ever to come from Shrewsbury?) and ‘China in Your Hand’ was just their second release. Their name comes from that of a Vulcan elder in ‘Star Trek’, making 1987 a year in which that show really made its mark on top of the charts. (I’m not going to mention the name of the earlier Trekkie #1, lest I summon it into my head for the next three days). They would have just two other Top 10 hits, but still remain active today. Not one-hit wonders, but not a sustained chart presence either. Though they made their mark, with the power ballad to end all power ballads. Until the next one comes along, that is…

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596. ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’, by Michael Jackson with Siedah Garrett

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

It would make a good pub quiz question: what was Michael Jackson’s only UK #1 single to be released from ‘Bad’…

I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, by Michael Jackson (his 3rd of seven #1s) with Siedah Garrett

2 weeks, from 9th – 23rd August 1987

For it wasn’t ‘Smooth Criminal’, ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’, or the title track. It was this smoocher. And why was this the lead single from his first album in five years…? Who would listen and think, yes, this is the one to launch the most anticipated album of the year? Sure, whatever single they chose would probably have topped the charts; but that makes it all the more frustrating that the other, better songs missed out…

Anyway. We haven’t even got onto the music and I’ve made my feelings pretty clear. It’s not a terrible song, but it’s proper syrupy, glossy, eighties lite-soul. The intro, with its tinkly percussion, sounds like the love-theme from a Disney film. Like it should be sung by an animated teacup, or a doe-eyed princess; not the world’s biggest pop star. Whispers at morning, Our love is dawning… Heaven’s glad you came… And then there’s the fact that I can’t help feeling a bit icky hearing Jackson croon a love song, knowing what we know now… (The album version is even worse, opening as it does with MJ whispering I just wanna lay next to you for a while… and I just want to touch you…)

Much better were he whooping and squealing his way through ‘Bad’… Who’s bad? You Michael, we know that now. At least the chorus here has a bit of beef to it. My life ain’t worth living, If I can’t be with you… Boom… It doesn’t completely redeem the song, but it offers a glimpse as to why it was seen as a potential lead single.

It’s quite easy to miss the fact that this is a duet, as Siedah Garrett has a very similar voice to Jackson. Apparently he wanted Whitney Houston or Barbra Streisand, but both turned him down. Garrett was an interesting choice, as she had largely been a club singer and backing vocalist (though she did co-write ‘Man in the Mirror’) and her biggest hit prior to this had peaked at #45. Still, she sings it well, though I do think a duet is more effective with two more differing voices.

Compared to his last chart-topper, ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ feels like the beginning of MJ Part II. The vocal tics, breaths and whoops are much more pronounced, and his voice feels softer and higher (though that might just be because he’s signing such a syrupy ballad). Meanwhile, I never noticed before how white he looks on the ‘Bad’ album cover, compared to ‘Thriller’.

In the US, this made number one, along with the four following songs from ‘Bad’, a record that’s since been matched but never beaten. In total he released a ridiculous nine of the ten tracks from the album as singles, and while they’d give him six more UK Top 10s none of them would make it to the top. Next time we’ll meet Michael Jackson it will be with the lead single from his next album. He’ll have gone from ‘Bad’ to ‘Dangerous’, make of that what you will…

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586. ‘Everything I Own’, by Boy George

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After the exploits and successes of George Michael; another famous, lead-singing George goes solo…

Everything I Own, by Boy George (his 1st and only solo #1)

2 weeks, from 8th – 22nd March 1987

For someone as provocative and outspoken as Boy George, he didn’t half play it safe when it came to the actual music. I commented as much when Culture Club’s two chart-toppers came along: ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me’ left me a little cold, and while ‘Karma Chameleon’ is a brilliant pop song, it’s more likely to have granny dancing along than reaching for the smelling salts. At the time, I wondered if a double whammy of androgyny and provocative songs might have been too much. Maybe it was enough for Boy George just to be part of the mainstream…

But still, you might have expected him to launch his solo career with something a little more edgy than a cover of a Bread hit from a decade and a half before… ‘Everything I Own’ is a nice song. The original is nice, the Ken Boothe version (on which this take is heavily based) is nice… Did the world need another version? Probably not, but it doesn’t offend. The reggae beat is bright and breezy – a little perkier than in Boothe’s version, as if UB40 were George’s backing band.

The most interesting bit of the song is Boy George’s voice. It’s only three and a half years since he last topped the charts, but his voice sounds like it’s aged by a decade or two… I would make an irreverent joke about it, but the sad truth is that he was by this point a heroin addict, and had been arrested for possession just a few months before this record’s release. Perhaps the success of this song was as much a statement of support from his fans as it was about people genuinely liking the song (his follow-up singles’ lack of success perhaps backs this theory up…)

Culture Club had disbanded the year before, in the wake of diminishing chart returns and Boy George’s increasingly erratic behaviour. The start of their decline can be traced directly back to the astonishingly bad ‘The War Song’ in 1984, which I’d say caused more harm than the drugs ever did. In fact, when I start yearning for a bit more edge from Culture Club and Boy George, I should remember their big anti-war statement piece and be grateful that they largely stuck to soft reggae…

Speaking of soft reggae, I have a ‘soft’ spot for Culture Club’s 1998 comeback single ‘I Just Wanna Be Loved’, which came out when I was twelve. The band have reformed a couple of times now, while George maintains an on-again off-again solo career. He’s arguably been more infamous than famous in recent years thanks to various legal troubles, but he seems to have turned a corner now that he’s in his sixties (!) Whatever you think of him, he’s certainly an icon of the decade, and it’s apt that he managed a brief swansong on top of the charts…

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585. ‘Stand by Me’, by Ben E. King

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From a sixties legend, to a legendary song from the sixties. Who’d have imagined, as we ticked over from 1986 to ’87, that three of the past four #1s would have featured Jackie Wilson, Aretha Franklin, and now Ben E. King…?

Stand by Me, by Ben E. King (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 15th February – 8th March 1987

Let’s be quite honest, the world doesn’t need to know what I think of ‘Stand By Me’. It doesn’t need me to prattle on about the instantly recognisable bass line, and the passion in King’s voice; about the soaring strings and the gospel influence. What more can you say about it…? It’s a good song. Very good. Amazing. One of the best ever. It’s simple – a basic chord progression, accessible lyrics, fairly limited production – yet it proves the notion that writing a good simple song must be fiendishly difficult.

I usually roll the eyes when someone claims of a song that ‘they don’t make ‘em like that anymore’, but when it comes to ‘Stand by Me’ then it’s hard to argue. It was written by King, alongside Lieber and Stoller, and was based on a spiritual song, which in turn had been based on Psalm 46: “will not we fear, though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea”.

There ends today’s sermon, go forth and prosper (you can perhaps tell I’m not a regular at church…) So, ‘Stand by Me’ is technically a religious song, but whereas other holy #1s have preached – I’m looking at you, Lena Martell and Charlene – Ben E. King’s is a humble profession of faith, as long as someone, be it God or his lover, stands with him. Just a few chart-toppers ago, The Housemartins were being similarly low-key religious, and scoring an equally palatable hit.

When originally released, in 1961, ‘Stand by Me’ made a lowly #27 in the British charts. (Number one that week was ‘Well I Ask You’ by Eden Kane – perfectly pleasant, but somewhat lacking in ‘classic’ status.) Ben E. King wasn’t very well served in the UK: this being his only Top 20, though he did make #2 with The Drifters. And I’d always assumed that ‘Stand by Me’ was a 1987 hit thanks to the Rob Reiner movie – another classic. A tie-in video was made, featuring a young Ben E. King morphing into an older Ben E. King, who is then joined on stage by River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton (a sight which takes on a very bittersweet edge knowing the fate that would befall Phoenix just a few years later).

But it turns out that ‘Stand by Me’ was actually given a final push to the top of the charts by an advert for Levi’s jeans, which takes the wholesome gloss off it slightly. Filthy lucre was ultimately behind this beautiful song claiming its rightful chart position. Still, it feels only right that a song of its stature made #1, and it’s interesting to see how generation-defining classics that missed out first time around – ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Imagine’, this – seem to eventually find a way to the top. Class will shine through in the end…

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579. ‘Take My Breath Away’, by Berlin

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Serious question: is this the 1980s’ most iconic riff? It’s not a decade known for its riffs, not like the sixties and the seventies anyway. ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’, ‘Money for Nothing’, Van Halen’s ‘Jump’, this…?

Take My Breath Away, by Berlin (their 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 2nd – 30th November 1986

Of course, purists will argue that any riff not played on a guitar ain’t worth mentioning. But the fact that this is played on a squelchy, echoey synth simply makes it even more representative of the era. Add the drums, the backing melody, the video, the fact that it’s from the soundtrack to one of the decade’s biggest movies, and you’ve got yourself an eighties classic: ‘Take My Breath Away’. Or to give it its full title: ‘Love Theme from ‘Top Gun’’.

Watching every motion in my foolish lover’s game… The lyrics are pure power-ballad tosh: profound, until you actually sit down and listen to them. On this endless ocean, Finally lovers know no shame… I was going to let them off as I assumed the band were German and not writing in their first language… But no, Berlin were from Los Angeles. Yet you’re not here for the lyrics; you’re here for the drama, for the fist-clenching, head-shaking silliness of it all. You’re here for the key change, one of the very best of all time.

Even if you’ve never seen it, you’d put a lot of money on the video for this song featuring dry-ice and a wind machine. And it does, as well as lots of bombed out aircraft shells, interspersed with movie footage of Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. If there is a story to it, it seems to be that the band are scavengers, returned to the Top Gun Academy following a nuclear apocalypse. It makes as much sense as the lyrics…

It’s a triumph of style over substance – further cementing it as one of the 1980’s defining tunes – but I love it. This could have been quite slow and plodding – it is not a fast song – but Berlin, and lead singer Teri Nunn, give it a ridiculous energy. Also helping is the fact that none other than Giorgio Moroder was on production duty. He adds this to his credits on ‘I Feel Love’ and ‘Call Me’ to complete a hattrick of electro-classics (as well as the very first electronic #1 being a cover of his ‘Son of My Father’.) Lady Gaga clearly took ‘Take My Breath Away’ as inspiration for her song on the Top Gun 2 soundtrack but, as much as I love her, she didn’t quite manage to match the original…

‘Top Gun’ has one of the most famous, and successful, movie soundtracks of all time, although this song was the only big UK hit to come from it. This was also the only big UK hit for Berlin, a new-wave band who had been around since the start of the decade. It returned them to the Top 3 in 1990, too, when re-released. And look! It’s only Part I of a quintessential eighties double-header at the top of the charts. Get the hairspray ready for our next #1…

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