eighties pop music

Prince: Best of the Rest

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April 21st marks the 8th anniversary of Prince’s death. One of the most talented musicians of his generation; and one of the most cheated when it comes to UK #1s. Just the one, in fact: 1994’s ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’.

(We of course shouldn’t forget two very famous, and very good, songs written by Prince, that were chart-topping hits for Chaka Khan and Sinead O’Connor.)

So here are the Prince tunes that came closest: 8 records and 10 songs (thanks to two double-‘A’s) spread over quite a few decades… I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not as up on my Prince as I should be, so I’m not ranking them. We’ll just go by ascending chart position. Hopefully, I’ll learn something about the Purple One as we go…

‘Kiss’ (with the Revolution) – #6 in 1986

We start with the first Prince song I was ever aware of. And as an intro to the man, it ticks most of the right boxes… Outrageous funk, untamed horniness, a painfully high falsetto… check, check, check. But actually, the girl he’s looking for should be a blushing rose: no dirty talk, no flirting… You don’t have to watch ‘Dynasty’, To have an attitude… is the pick of the lines. Fun fact: the ‘ah-ah-ah’ effect is a compressed sample from Brenda Lee’s classic ‘Sweet Nothin’s’. A couple of years after the original, a remake by Art of Noise, fronted by Tom Jones, charted one place higher at #5. No comment…

‘Purple Rain’ (with the Revolution) – #6 in 2016

Title track from both an album and a movie, ‘Purple Rain’ is probably Prince’s signature tune. A gospel power-ballad, about the end of the world, it’s never really connected with me. I can respect it wholeheartedly; but I enjoy other Prince songs more. Originally written as a country song, and intended to be a duet with Stevie Nicks, ‘Purple Rain’ wouldn’t have made this list before Prince died, as it only made #8 originally. Upon his sudden death, this was understandably the song fans flocked to, making it re-chart and peak two places higher.

‘Controversy’ – reached #5 in 1993

Another song that peaked much later. Twelve years after it had failed to chart in the UK, ‘Controversy’ was re-released ahead of a Greatest Hits in 1993 and made #5. It’s tight and funky, with a disco beat, and lyrically lives up to its title. Am I black or white…? Prince asks… Am I straight or gay? In the seven-minute album version, he recites the Lord’s Prayer in full, presumably well aware that it would piss off a lot of people. Prince would spend the rest of his career playing up to similar controversy. For example, when I was at primary school, the one thing we all ‘knew’ about Prince was that he’d had two ribs removed in order to… how to put this… auto-fellate?

‘Sexy M.F.’ / ‘Strollin” (with the New Power Generation) – reached #4 in 1992

It took a while for the UK to catch up to Prince’s talents, but by the early nineties his singles were often charting higher in the UK than in the States. This coincided with what I see people now call Prince’s ‘gangsta period’. He raps most of this tune, classic lines like Can’t you see I’m harder than a man can get, I got wet dreams coming out of my ears… It’s a strangely uncommercial tune, all sharp horns and a monotonously funky beat, and that’s before we come to the x-rated title. So, in the UK it was twinned with ‘Strollin”, in the hope that radio would play that one. In the end, they just played an edit of ‘Sexy MF’ (You sexy mother-AOOW…!) ‘Strollin” is a much more jazzy, innocent number: Strollin’, strollin’, We can have fun just strollin’… and it can’t really compete with a sexy MF shakin their ass…

‘Gett Off’ (with the New Power Generation) – reached #4 in 1991

The crowning glory of Prince’s near-pornographic early nineties era. ‘Cream’, ‘Sexy MF’, and ‘Peach’ are all fun, but nothing matches the utter filth of ‘Gett Off’, from the ear-splitting shriek that kicks things off, through a tale of twenty-three positions in a one-night stand, to a brilliant flute-cum-guitar riff. Other highlights include a nod to that urban legend – Whatcha want to eat? “Ribs”, Ha, toy, I don’t serve ribs – and the crackly, funky James Brown tribute in the middle. If I were to rank these singles personally, then this one would be on top. Prince took himself seriously a lot of the time; but ‘Gett Off’ is a load of fun.

‘When Doves Cry’ – reached #4 in 1984

Early-nineties Prince might have been utter filth, but it’s not as if he was particularly pure and chaste before that… The video for ‘When Doves Cry’ caused consternation, setting up the controversy over the ‘Purple Rain’ album, and the introduction of ‘Parental Advisory’ stickers. The best single from the album, it was his breakthrough in the UK – only his second song to chart. It’s a deeply weird, deeply catchy song, that has no bass line.

‘Batdance’ – reached #2 in 1989

So, yep. Prince’s joint-second biggest hit in the UK is this. Recorded, quickly, for the soundtrack to the Michael Keaton ‘Batman’ reboot, ‘Batdance’ is a deeply, deeply strange song. If you can call it a song, which it isn’t in the traditional sense. There’s a lot going on: samples, audio from the movie, Prince’s raps, spoken asides, the classic Bat-maaaan… refrain all against a clanking, metallic beat… Then there’s a slow and funky middle-section that sounds like the needle has slipped on to a completely different song. Prince lovers may argue this an example of the scope of his talent, others might suggest it’s a classic example of over-egging the pudding. The guitar solo is wild, though.

‘1999’ / ‘Little Red Corvette’ – reached #2 in 1985

One of Prince’s more straight-forward pop moments, albeit one with a deeply cool synth-funk riff, and lyrics about dancing towards the apocalypse. ‘1999’ only made the Top 30 initially but made #2 when re-released in 1985. I wonder if ‘1999’ was ever Prince’s most popular hit, as it seems that the longer we get from the actual year in the title the more its fame is overshadowed by other Prince songs. It charted for a third time, making #10, in… 1999. For the ’85 re-release, it was paired with ‘Little Red Corvette’, which had been an even smaller hit originally. In it, Prince carries on the fine rock ‘n’ roll tradition of comparing beautiful women to cars (baby you’re much too fast…) It’s a fine song: a sort of smokey, disco-power ballad. Recorded in 1982, it’s the sound of the 1980s just starting to come into their own.

Aside from the music, there can be no doubt that Prince was one of, in not THE, ultimate rock star. Beautifully androgynous, deeply strange, myths and legends about him sprouting left, right and centre, and most importantly of all supremely talented. RIP.

Random Runners-Up: ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, by Bobby McFerrin

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Our 3rd random runner-up for the week, and I have to admit I smiled when the date generator threw up this #2 single…

‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, by Bobby McFerrin

#2 for 1 week, from 16th – 22nd October 1988, behind ‘One Moment in Time’

I smiled, because I would be able to tell the world how much I detest this song. To say the date generator threw it up feels apt (as does calling it a ‘number two’ single….)

Childish name calling aside, I really do struggle to find anything likeable about this song. Which is strange, because there are few pop songs that have tried as hard to be likeable. The whistling, the finger clicks, the spoken asides… It’s all so folksy, so cute. An a cappella song for all ages – from five to ninety-five – to enjoy.

Except, no. It genuinely makes my skin crawl. And that’s before you get to the lyrics. One critic at the time described it as a ‘formula for for facing life’s trials’, but Bobby’s formula is to simply smile like a lunatic at whatever problems life brings… No money, no partner, rent’s due and the landlord is taking you to court…? Don’t worry, be happy! Why? ‘Cause when you worry your face will frown, And that will bring everybody down… So shut up and smile, you whiny prick!

Maybe I’m reading the song wrong, and am missing a layer of cynicism buried within. Maybe it’s a satire of this sort of life-affirming nonsense. But I doubt it. I’m pretty good at spotting cynicism. No, for me, this is the musical equivalent of a ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ poster, a song for those who refuse to ‘adult’. Plus the song’s crimes go beyond the pop charts: it helped spawn Big Mouth Billy Bass, the mounted fish toy that sings ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ on demand.

While I think it’s bad enough that this made #2 in the UK; it made it to the top in the US, Canada, and Germany. It stayed at #1 for seven weeks Down Under, which confirms every suspicion I ever had about Australians… It was released on the soundtrack to the Tom Cruise movie ‘Cocktail’, which features another all-time classic in The Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’. Bobby McFerrin is a one-hit wonder thanks to this tune, but to his credit he moved pretty quickly away from uplifting novelties, and started working in TV and film sountracks, as well as classical, jazz, and musical education in colleges and schools.

Top 10s – The 1980s

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We’ve left them far behind, but before we draw a line under the decade of synths and hairspray, lets rundown the Top 10 records of that era (according to my very scientific ‘Recap’ posts).

I’ve already done a Top 10 for the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Follow the links to see how they panned out.

For the eighties, there are six ‘Very Best’ records, and then four records that came so very close. Oh, and an honorary ‘best’ number one, for reasons that will become evident below. Just to be clear, I’m not retroactively ranking these tunes: these are the ones I picked as we meandered through the decade, even if some I look at now and wonder quite what I was thinking… And I’m restricted to one #1 per artist (the only act who could have had two are… I’ll reveal that later!)

‘Atomic’, by Blondie – #1 for 2 weeks in February-March 1980

We kick off with only the 4th chart-topper of the decade, and a punk-disco-new-wave-funk masterpiece. ‘Atomic’ came in the midst of Blondie’s run of five chart-toppers in just under two years – one of the best runs of number ones the charts has ever seen. Debbie Harry’s vocals (plus her rocking a bin-bag in the video), Clem Burke’s drumming, and Nigel Harrison’s bass playing combine to make something truly explosive (you can read my original post here.) And yet, I didn’t name it as a Very Best Chart-Topper, because Blondie already have one, and this record came along a few months later…

‘The Winner Takes it All’, by ABBA – #1 for 2 weeks in August 1980

What more needs to be written about one of the greatest pop songs of all time? Not much, to be honest, and I already wrote a lot about it here. Usually my ‘Very Best’ Awards are dished out in the heat of the moment (see the next song in this list as proof), but I knew ‘The Winner Takes It All’ would be one of them as soon as I started writing this blog.

‘My Camera Never Lies’, by Bucks Fizz – #1 for 1 week in April 1982

From two all-time classics, to Bucks Fizz’s forgotten final number one. I can still justify picking it, as this is very sophisticated pop, from a band most people only remember as one of Eurovision’s cheesiest winners (a category for which the competition is unimaginably fierce…) Read my reasons for doing so here. And yet, seriously, this is one of the ten best number ones of the eighties?? No Michael Jackson, no Madonna… but Bucks Fizz? To which I say, yes! Why the hell not?? (Though perhaps I should have chosen ‘The Land of Make Believe’ instead…)

‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, by Bonnie Tyler – #1 for 2 weeks in March 1983

Turn around… The ’80s was very much the decade of ‘bigger is better’, and you don’t get much bigger or better than this power ballad. The first of the great eighties power ballads? That’s up for debate, but it’s certainly one of the very best. Tyler gives a performance of total commitment, unwilling to be eclipsed by the ridiculousness of the song, and yet she seems fully aware that she’s helming something quite ludicrous (other over-earnest balladeers, take note). I named this as runner-up, ahead of ‘Billie Jean’ no less, to the record below… Read my original post here.

‘Relax’, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood – #1 for 5 weeks in January-February 1984

The winner of my 3rd ’80s recap, Frankie and the boys tell us just what to do when we want to… you know what. Chaos ensues: controversy, bans, Mike Read in a tizz… Read all about it here. Meanwhile, in the video, Holly Johnson turns up straight from work to his local leather-bondage-piss bar for a night of wholesome fun. In a twist nobody could have predicted, banning the record turned it into one of the biggest-selling hits of the decade. Though the fact it’s a throbbing, pounding synth-pop banger probably also helped. At the time I asked whether it was a triumph of style of substance, and there may be some truth to that. But substance be damned: it’s just too iconic to have been left out!

‘You Spin Me Round’ Like a Record, by Dead or Alive – #1 for 2 weeks in March 1985

Another synth-pop banger was named as my 4th ‘Very Best’ eighties #1. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, alongside Boy George, and all the New Romantics (there was a lot of make-up around at the time), opened the door for gender-bending oddballs like Pete Burns to score hits. It’s not deep, or very thoughtful, but boy does it get you racing for the dancefloor. It was a sign of the Hi-NRG to come, and was the first hit record produced by Stock Aitken and Waterman (and it wouldn’t be an eighties rundown without them!) Read my original post here.

‘The Power of Love’, by Jennifer Rush – #1 for 5 weeks in October-November 1985

I’m a bit surprised that this makes the cut, but then again there probably is room for one more blockbuster power ballad. Runner-up to Dead or Alive above, ‘The Power of Love’ is a slow-building beast of a love song. (Read my original post here.) And the moody video makes no sense, but provides ample opportunity for Jennifer Rush to wander the streets of New York, showing off her spectacular earrings.

‘It’s a Sin’, by Pet Shop Boys – #1 for 3 weeks in June-July 1987

The final three songs hit a much dancier groove, as the beats per minute rose in the final years of the decade. First up is ‘It’s a Sin’, one of the best pop groups of the decade’s best songs. And yes, you can dance to it, but it’s also a scathing look back at Neil Tennant’s closeted childhood. Never has Catholic guilt sounded so catchy… Original post here. PSBs were the only act that could have featured twice on this list, with their cover of ‘Always on My Mind’ a runner-up in my next recap, which was won by…

‘Theme from S-Express’, by S’Express – #1 for 2 weeks in April-May 1988

Enjoy this trip… The final Very Best Chart-Topper of the 1980s… Uno, dos, tres, quatro…! From the first house #1, ‘Jack Your Body’ in early ’87, sample-heavy dance music had started to break through into the upper reaches of the charts. At first, I felt the random samples stitched together seemingly for novelty value rather than sonic pleasure sounded dated. But S’Express were the first act to really get it right, to prove that effective sampling could create something wonderful. Original post here.

‘Ride on Time’, by Black Box – #1 for 6 weeks in September-October 1989

Runner-up in my last ’80s recap, and sneaking in just a couple of months before the deadline, the last song in our countdown is what I called the first modern dance record in my original post. It’s still all samples, and not all of them obtained legally, but you’d be forgiven if you mistook it for an original club banger. Plus, it contains one of the great mondegreens (the lyrics are clearly ‘right on time’) that confused even Black Box themselves when it came to naming their biggest hit.

Honorary Inclusion

‘Stand by Me’, by Ben E. King – #1 for 3 weeks in February-March 1987

I couldn’t not find a place for one of the best pop songs ever recorded. Back in my 86-87 recap, I was torn between naming this outlier as the ‘Very Best’, and giving it to the much more contemporary ‘It’s a Sin’. The Pet Shop Boys won out, but I invented an honorary award so that Ben E. King could take his rightful place at top table. It didn’t even make the Top 20 on its original release in 1961, but was taken to the top of the charts through a combination of the classic movie and a Levi’s advert (Levi’s adverts being one of the less-likely providers of #1s at the time – this was the first of three…)

And so we can finally bid the 1980s adieu. Next up, I head on into 1992…

661. ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’, by The Clash

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Last week, in a recap of the past thirty chart toppers, I made a lot of just how eccentrically the charts have been behaving over the past year or two. And happily, they show no signs of becoming predictable quite yet…

Should I Stay or Should I Go, by The Clash (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 3rd – 17th March 1991

For yes, we must sound the ‘random re-release’ klaxon one more time: The Clash score their sole UK #1. And once again, as with ‘The Joker’, it’s Levi’s Jeans we have to thank for giving this classic tune a new lease of life (the ad team knew how to pick them!)

We open with a nonchalantly cool intro. Two guitars have a little call-and-response, before a bass guitar so jagged it almost rips your speakers in two. It’s a simple riff, so easy and familiar that my immediate response is to dredge the memory banks to recall if it’s a cover version. It isn’t, but Mick Jones based it, knowingly or otherwise, on ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’, a sixties garage-band classic.

The whole thing is loveably ramshackle, and a world away from the polished dance hits that have been the sound of the early 1990s. The guitars crackle, Joe Strummer sneers, and the band holler and screech the backing vocals in Spanish. The main lyrics meanwhile, tell the story of a toxic relationship: It’s always tease, tease, tease, You’re happy when I’m on my knees… and the chaotic ‘chorus’, such as it is, does its best to portray the frenzy of a conflicted mind.

The singer’s happy to remain, no matter the torture doled out, but by the end of the song we’re left none the wiser over whether he stays or goes. (I struggle to see how this helped to advertise jeans, but who am I to question…?) I’d call this record pretty poppy for The Clash, as well as assuming it was one of their early singles. But it was the 3rd release from their 1982 album ‘Combat Rock’, making #17 at the time. And despite coming five years after the band’s sixth and final studio album, this re-release was their first Top 10 hit, let alone their first number one.

Over the past few months, rock music has started to creep back in to the upper reaches of the charts (hurray!) If we start with ‘The Joker’s classic rock, then five of the past twelve #1s have been rock of one kind or another: indie rock (The Beautiful South), heavy metal (Iron Maiden), progressive rock (Queen) and now this. Is ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ more classic rock? Or is it garage? Or is it our first real punk rock #1, a decade and a half too late…? Or should we simply not care, and just revel in proper rock ‘n’ roll enjoying its new-found moment in the sun?

Never Had a #1… Bon Jovi

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And so here we are. The final episode in our ‘Never Had a #1…’ week, and it’s the band with the biggest disparity between Top 10 hits and number ones: 18 to 0.

Bon Jovi – 18 Top 10 hits between 1986 and 2006

Interestingly, three of this week’s four acts have had remarkably similar chart careers. Depeche Mode, Janet Jackson and Bon Jovi’s Top 10s all stretch from the early-mid ’80s through to the early-mid ’00s. Why did artists from that era prove so durable? In Bon Jovi’s case it’s probably down to the fact that, of all the poodle-permed hair metal acts of the late eighties, they cut their hair just in time and recast themselves as everyman rockers. Here are their three biggest hits…

‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ – reached #4 in 1986

Once upon a time, Not so long ago… ‘Mr Brightside’, ‘Sweet Caroline’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’… All songs I have to some extent enjoyed, once upon a time, only for them to pale, then bore, then sour from over-familiarity. ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ is possibly the ultimate overplayed anthem. It might have been good. It might still be good, for all I know. I never will know, though, for I’d rather lose a pinkie finger than ever hear it again.

‘It’s My Life’ – reached #3 in 2000

Bon Jovi’s Bon-Joviest song. Power chords and cloyingly earnest lyrics about it being ‘now or never’ and how we ‘ain’t gonna live forever’, while Jon bounces around like an excited labrador. I want to hate it, but dammit that chorus just clicks. What I notice from listening to it now is how many little nu-metal touches there are – the piano line is lifted straight from Linkin Park, for example – and how dumb the video is. Bearing in mind Bon Jovi were all pushing forty when this came out, why exactly is a teenage boy jumping off bridges and dodging oil tankers to see the old fogies rocking out in a tunnel?

‘Always’ – reached #2 in 1994

It’s a widely held fact that the moment Kurt Cobain first played the opening riff to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, all the hair metal acts dissolved to dust like the Nazis in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’. Except for one… Bon Jovi laughed in the face of the glam apocalypse, shook the debris from their hair, and scored their biggest ever hit with this monstrous power-ballad. I can’t argue with it. Nobody can argue with music this pompous and sincere. A giant with a sledgehammer would be more subtle than Jon Bon Jovi howling his way through ‘Always’. I will say, though, that if you’ve ever sat through someone other than JBJ trying to howl their way through this song – at your local karaoke evening, perhaps – then hell will hold no fears for you.

I’ve been a bit down on Bon Jovi, I worry. I like some of their stuff. ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ is fun, while ‘Bad Medicine’ might be the ultimate hair metal anthem. Sadly, their three biggest UK hits are all songs I would jump off bridges and dodge oil tankers to avoid…

Thanks for reading and enjoying this detour into the biggest non chart-topping acts of all time. We’ll be resuming the regular countdown in a few days time!

Never Had a #1… Janet Jackson

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Part three in this series of posts on artists with an abundance of Top 10 hits, but for whom the very top of the charts has proven elusive. Up next…

Janet Jackson – 16 Top 10 hits between 1986 and 2002

Given that she is one of the most succesful female pop stars of all time, I can’t say I’m very familiar with Janet Jackson’s discography. There’s ‘Together’ Again’, which during my first year of high school you couldn’t turn on the radio for more than five minutes without hearing, and ‘Scream’, the duet with her brother Michael, and the most expensive music video ever (at the time). Neither of these make this list…

In my head I put it down to her simply being bigger in the US than in Britain. Which is true; but which is also completely disbunked by the fact she’s featuring here as the second most succesful non-number-one-getter of all time. Why isn’t she mentioned in the same breath as Madonna, or Whitney Houston? Has her music dated more than theirs? Has she been dwarfed by her brother’s fame (and infamy)? Or is it because her right breast slipped out at a Superbowl half-time show? I’m not attempting to choose a reason here (though, sadly, it’s probably the latter), yet it is worth pondering as we count down her three biggest UK hits.

‘What Have You Done for Me Lately’ – reached #3 in 1986

Miss Jacko has several #3 hits to choose from, but I’ll go for her breakthrough smash. From the wonderfully over-acted intro, to the pounding synths and drums, it is so mid-eighties it hurts. But it also has an energy, and an aggressive beat, that pretty much drags you to the dancefloor. Not a relaxing listen, but one that ‘slaps’, as the kids might say. Interestingly, given her famous family, it took three albums and four years of flops for Janet to establish herself as a solo star with this sassy tune.

‘The Best Things in Life Are Free’ (with Luther Vandross) – reached #2 in 1992

Janet Jackson’s joint-biggest UK hit is this perfectly pleasant, if fairly forgettable, slice of mid-tempo nineties pop, with a hint of R&B. It was from the soundtrack for the movie ‘Mo’ Money’, and neither Janet nor Luther feature in the video. Instead the film’s stars Damon Wayans and Stacey Dash lip-synch along gamely.

‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ – reached #2 in 1993

From the sounds of this, Janet went down the same ultra-slick route as her big brother in the ’90s. At least she is singing, rather than clicking and squeaking her way through the song, but still. I’m trying to find something to grab on to here, but it’s all just too polished and bland. Apparently it was a shockingly sexy change of pace for her, and this record ended up with 8 (eight!) weeks at #1 in the US. I can’t see it, myself.

Much more interesting is the video, with the ginormous home sound system (I pity her neighbours) and actual J-Lo (!), back when she was plain old Jennifer Lopez. Anyway this ended up as Jackson’s (joint) biggest UK hit, but it hasn’t given me much of an urge to do a deep-dive into her discography.

Tomorrow, we’ll wrap this series up by featuring the biggest band never to make number one. Yes, we are significantly more than halfway there…

Never Had a #1… Depeche Mode

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This week, in a break from our regular schedule, I’m going to be celebrating some acts with plenty of Top 10 hits to their name. Household names, the lot of them. But acts that, for whatever reason, have never made it to pole position.

In fact, the acts I’m going to cover – two bands, two soloists; three whose careers began in the ’80s and stretch to the present day, one who was present on the very first chart way back in 1952 – are perhaps the unluckiest pop stars around. They are the bands and artists who have managed the most Top 10 hits without ever making number one. As recompense for their bad luck, I’ll present to you the three records from each band/artist that came closest…

First up… Well, I kind of gave that away in the title:

Depeche Mode – 14 Top 10 hits between 1981 and 2005

‘People Are People’ – #4 in 1984

None of Depeche Mode’s biggest hits are the tunes you’d expect. No ‘Enjoy the Silence’, no ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ or ‘Personal Jesus’. ‘People Are People’ was the lead single from their fourth album, and their joint biggest hit (they’ve never risen above #4). The clanking irons and booming cannons that intro this record are almost too ‘eighties’ for me, but they are certainly striking. Interestingly, I’d have thought that this was from a few years later, when the synths in the charts got harsher and tinnier. This record, then, was a trendsetter, a nod towards a Pet Shop Boys, SAW future. The lyrics are the sort that are sadly always going to be prescient: I can’t understand, What makes a man, Hate another man, Help me understand…

‘Barrel of a Gun’ – #4 in 1997

Deep in the midst of the Britpop years, Depeche Mode were on their 9th album, and the lead single was this moody, churning, paranoid beast. It takes a chorus that could have been by Oasis, mixes it with Nine Inch Nails, and some grungy leftovers, and a hip-hop beat for good measure, to create an very unlikely hit single.

‘Precious’ – #4 in 2005

The Mode’s final Top 10 single (to date… who knows?) is also their joint highest charting. By the mid-00s, synth-pop was making a comeback thanks to acts like the Killers, Goldfrapp, the Bravery and more, and Depeche Mode were the granddaddies. Perhaps that’s why they managed such a late career flourish (or perhaps it was the fact that singles sales were in the toilet in 2005). It’s a low-key, melancholy track, written by Martin Gore to his children as an apology for his impending divorce.

Another unlucky artist is up tomorrow, and we’re going right back to the dawn of the British singles chart…

Recap: #631 – #660

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And so, to recap…

The past thirty #1 singles have thrown the charts into a state of flux. We last recapped in July 1989, and the song that kicked off this latest section was Sonia’s ‘You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You’. Back then, Stock Aitken Waterman were responsible for what felt like one in every two chart-toppers, their brassy synths and predictable melodies the sound of the late 1980s…

And then, suddenly, they weren’t. After Sonia, SAW had just two number ones left in the tank – Band Aid II, and Kylie’s cute cover of ‘Tears on My Pillow’ – and neither of those were classics of their kind. No, it seemed that as dance music took over, people realised that there was a world beyond SAW. Black Box’s ‘Ride on Time’, for example, that autumn’s monster hit, and the record I claimed as the first modern dance #1.

From then on, we slipped into a dance groove as we began the final decade of the 20th century. Beats International, Snap!, Adamski, even New Order with the finest football song of all, and Madonna with another of her famous shapeshifts. It was dance music of a different sort: not one hundred manic samples all smashed together; but cool, confident music that, to be honest, wasn’t always that easy to dance to.

Yet to claim that this recap is solely about the dance hits is to airbrush a lot of what makes this period in chart history so interesting. For while the dance hits were trying to hold everything together, the rest of popular music was going ever so slightly mental. We caught glimpses of the decade to come, with the first modern boyband (NKOTB), some lilting indie from The Beautiful South, and the first movie-soundtrack monster ballad of the ‘90s in ‘Show Me Heaven’. It won’t be the last.

Then there were the continued random releases of golden oldies that have been a feature of the charts since 1986, thanks to Levi’s adverts (‘The Joker’) and movies about ghosts with a fetish for pottery wheels (‘Unchained Melody’). And then there was the long-awaited arrival of hip-hop as a genuine chart force, with the genre scoring three out of the past thirty number ones. (Though, as those raps were either about animated turtles, or delivered by cartoon children, or Liverpool midfielders, or… oh yeah… Vanilla Ice, it’s safe to say that it’s a genre still finding its feet. Its time will come soon enough.)

And then it’s almost too easy to pass over the fact that Elton John scored his first ever solo #1, and that Cliff Richard went all Christian-contemporary to ensure he managed a chart-topper in each of the singles chart’s five decades, and his 3rd Xmas #1 appearance in a row! Because all that pales into insignificance when we hit the run of number one singles that came in the deep midwinter of 1990-91. Iron Maiden brought the heavy metal. Enigma brought the Gregorian chanting. Queen brought the Spanish guitars (not to mention the end of the world). And the KLF brought the house down with their industrial dance banger ‘3AM Eternal’, complete with machine guns.

Anything else…? Oh, but I’d almost forgotten. At least, I’d tried to forget. Jive Bunny. J-J-J-Jive Bunny. He was a thing that happened. And he didn’t just ‘happen’. Three #1s, ten weeks at the top, in barely four months. For a brief moment it was the Bunny’s world and we were just living in it (and I’ve only just realised quite how much these past few months have been dominated by cartoon characters…) To tell the truth, I quite enjoyed his first two hits, with their perky mash-ups of rock ‘n’ roll classics. By the 3rd, Christmas-themed, hit however the joke had run out of steam…

Which brings us on to the awards. The ‘Meh’ Award is hard to decide, as so many of the past thirty records have been anything but dull. I could give it to Lisa Stansfield’s ‘All Around the World’, but that was a bit too classy. I could give it to NKOTB’s ‘Hangin’ Tough’, but that was entertainingly lame. So, I’ll have to give it to Band Aid II, for their completely faithful, but nowhere near as iconic, attempt to recapture the magic of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ At least it raised some money for a worthy cause.

There have rarely been as many rich pickings for our next award, the The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else. Where in God’s name do we start? Partners in Kryme? Timmy Mallet and his scantily clad young ladies? The Simpsons? Iron Maiden? Vanilla Ice?? J-J-J-Jive Bunny?? No, I think it’s between two back to back #1s from January 1991. ‘Innuendo’, and ‘Sadeness Part 1’. And as much as I grew to enjoy Queen’s 3rd chart-topper (or perhaps because I now like it so much…) I’ll have to give it to the one with the chanting monks, and the lyrics in French about a perverted literary genius.

Finally, then, to the main events. The Best and, before that, our 22nd Very Worst Chart-Topper. I listed so many weird and wonderful hits above, but I’d be loath to give it to any of them. No, this one’s cut and dried. I’m giving it to the record which confirmed that the Jive Bunny joke had ceased to be funny: ‘Let’s Party’. Cheap covers of Slade, Wizzard and Gary Glitter, stitched together with the subtlety of a charging elephant, do not a classic record make.

Much more tricky to decide is this recap’s Very Best Chart-Topper. I started off with a longlist but, as much as I enjoyed ‘Vogue’, Beats International and the KLF, I pretty quickly refined things down into a shortlist. Black Box’s ‘Ride on Time’, and a song I haven’t even found time to mention yet… Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. Two very different records, two worthy winners. Black Box set the sound for the decade to come, whereas O’Connor’s take on Prince’s original would sound, yes, iconic in any decade. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ for the win.

To recap the recaps:

The ‘Meh’ Award for Forgettability

  1. ‘Hold My Hand’, by Don Cornell.
  2. ‘It’s Almost Tomorrow’, by The Dream Weavers.
  3. ‘On the Street Where You Live’, by Vic Damone.
  4. ‘Why’, by Anthony Newley.
  5. ‘The Next Time’ / ‘Bachelor Boy’, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows.
  6. ‘Juliet’, by The Four Pennies.
  7. ‘The Carnival Is Over’, by The Seekers.
  8. ‘Silence Is Golden’, by The Tremeloes.
  9. ‘I Pretend’, by Des O’Connor.
  10. ‘Woodstock’, by Matthews’ Southern Comfort.
  11. ‘How Can I Be Sure’, by David Cassidy.
  12. ‘Annie’s Song’, by John Denver.
  13. ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, by Art Garfunkel.
  14. ‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ / ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’, by Rod Stewart.
  15. ‘Three Times a Lady’, by The Commodores.
  16. ‘What’s Another Year’, by Johnny Logan.
  17. ‘A Little Peace’, by Nicole.
  18. ‘Every Breath You Take’, by The Police.
  19. ‘I Got You Babe’, by UB40 with Chrissie Hynde.
  20. ‘Who’s That Girl’, by Madonna.
  21. ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’, by Phil Collins.
  22. ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, by Band Aid II.

The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else

  1. ‘I See the Moon’, by The Stargazers.
  2. ‘Lay Down Your Arms’, by Anne Shelton.
  3. ‘Hoots Mon’, by Lord Rockingham’s XI.
  4. ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, by The Temperance Seven.
  5. ‘Nut Rocker’, by B. Bumble & The Stingers.
  6. ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, by Gerry & The Pacemakers.
  7. ‘Little Red Rooster’, by The Rolling Stones.
  8. ‘Puppet on a String’, by Sandie Shaw.
  9. ‘Fire’, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
  10. ‘In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)’, by Zager & Evans.
  11. ‘Amazing Grace’, The Pipes & Drums & Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard.
  12. ‘Kung Fu Fighting’, by Carl Douglas.
  13. ‘If’, by Telly Savalas.
  14. ‘Wuthering Heights’, by Kate Bush.
  15. ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, by Ian Dury & The Blockheads.
  16. ‘Shaddap You Face’, by Joe Dolce Music Theatre.
  17. ‘It’s My Party’, by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin.
  18. ‘Save Your Love’ by Renée & Renato.
  19. ‘Rock Me Amadeus’, by Falco.
  20. ‘Pump Up the Volume’ / ‘Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)’, by M/A/R/R/S
  21. ‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’, by The Timelords
  22. ‘Sadeness Part 1’, by Enigma

The Very Worst Chart-Toppers

  1. ‘Cara Mia’, by David Whitfield with Mantovani & His Orchestra.
  2. ‘The Man From Laramie’, by Jimmy Young.
  3. ‘Roulette’, by Russ Conway.
  4. ‘Wooden Heart’, by Elvis Presley.
  5. ‘Lovesick Blues’, by Frank Ifield.
  6. ‘Diane’, by The Bachelors.
  7. ‘The Minute You’re Gone’, by Cliff Richard.
  8. ‘Release Me’, by Engelbert Humperdinck.
  9. ‘Lily the Pink’, by The Scaffold.
  10. ‘All Kinds of Everything’, by Dana.
  11. ‘The Twelfth of Never’, by Donny Osmond.
  12. ‘The Streak’, by Ray Stevens.
  13. ‘No Charge’, by J. J. Barrie
  14. ‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, by David Soul
  15. ‘One Day at a Time’, by Lena Martell.
  16. ‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’, by St. Winifred’s School Choir.
  17. ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’, by Charlene.
  18. ‘Hello’, by Lionel Richie.
  19. ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’, by Foreigner.
  20. ‘Star Trekkin’’, by The Firm.
  21. ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’, by Glenn Medeiros.
  22. ‘Let’s Party’, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers.

The Very Best Chart-Toppers

  1. ‘Such a Night’, by Johnnie Ray.
  2. ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado & His Orchestra.
  3. ‘Great Balls of Fire’, by Jerry Lee Lewis.
  4. ‘Cathy’s Clown’, by The Everly Brothers.
  5. ‘Telstar’, by The Tornadoes.
  6. ‘She Loves You’ by The Beatles.
  7. ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones.
  8. ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, by Procol Harum.
  9. ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye.
  10. ‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry.
  11. ‘Metal Guru’, by T. Rex.
  12. ‘Tiger Feet’, by Mud.
  13. ‘Space Oddity’, by David Bowie.
  14. ‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer.
  15. ‘Heart of Glass’, by Blondie.
  16. ‘The Winner Takes It All’, by ABBA.
  17. ‘My Camera Never Lies’, by Bucks Fizz.
  18. ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
  19. ‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’, by Dead or Alive
  20. ‘Stand by Me’, by Ben E. King (Honorary Award)
  21. ‘It’s a Sin’, by Pet Shop Boys.
  22. ‘Theme from S-Express’, by S’Express.
  23. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, by Sinéad O’Connor.

Pet Shop Boys – Best of the Rest

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Time for a ‘Best of the Rest’ rundown for one of the most consistent hitmakers of the eighties and nineties. In fact, Pet Shop Boys’ run of Top 10 hits spans exactly twenty years, from their first #1 ‘West End Girls’ in 1986, to 2006’s ‘I’m With Stupid’.

Neil and Chris were a bit short-changed, for my money, in terms of their chart-toppers. Far worse acts have had far more than just four number ones… But, I’ve said it before and may as well say it again, the chart gods are fickle. Here then are PSB’s ten biggest non-number one hits. Unlike similar posts I’ve published in the past, I’m not ranking them – this is all based on cold hard chart-positions. It’s just ‘Highest Charting of the Rest’ as a title doesn’t have quite the same ring to it…

‘Before’ – #7 in 1996

Perhaps not the most instant PSBs track, ‘Before’ was the lead single from their sixth studio album, ‘Bilingual’. There’s a hook there, in the cooing synth line, and a chilled mix of disco and nineties dance. The brief for the video, meanwhile, was clearly to aim for ‘peak 1996’, years before people had though of ‘peak’ anything.

Can You Forgive Her? – #7 in 1993

It’s very Pet Shop Boys to make love sound like a panic attack. You’re short of breath, Is it a heart attack…? It’s both compulsive and threatening, with nice brassy synths. It’s not hard to read a subtext in the lyrics about a woman making fun of a man who prefers disco to rock, and who claims that’s she’s off to find a real man instead… Another striking video, that I imagine looked very impressive at the time.

‘Domino Dancing’ – #7 in 1988

As we’ve seen from our regular rundown, the mid-to-late eighties saw a mini burst of Latin-tinged pop. PSBs got in on the act for the lead single from their third album. I think the guitar and Spanish rhythms mixed with with their regular synths works well, but Neil Tennant sees it as the end of their imperial phase (as well as failing to break the Top 5 in the UK, ‘Domino Dancing’ was their last Top 20 hit in the US). The video features two ridiculously handsome (and permanently topless) twinks competing for the attentions of the same girl, before giving up and wrestling one another on a beach. Rolling Stone described it as ‘probably the most homo-erotic pop video ever made’, and it’s hard to disagree…

‘Absolutely Fabulous’ – #6 in 1994

La-La-Lacroix, darling… A charity single next, for Comic Relief. Lines from the sitcom of the same name are stitched around a thumping techno beat, as Neil Tennant does very little apart from intone Abso-lutely fa-bulous… over it all. It’s an pastiche of the big eighties and nineties dance hits – ‘Pump up the Jam’, ‘Ride on Time’, ‘Rhythm of the Night’ to name a few. Techno, Techno, Bloody techno darling… Few charity singles manage to be this catchy and remain (relatively) funny, so it’s a shame that this has been all but forgotten, even if the duo don’t recognise it as an official single and have never featured it on a Greatest Hits. Strange fact: this was PSB’s highest-charting single in Australia.

‘It’s Alright’ – #5 in 1989

A thirty-five year old song about dictators in Afghanistan, and forest falling at a desperate pace… Glad we’ve made progress since then, huh! To me this sounds like Pet Shop Boys-by-numbers. Nothing wrong with it, but not a patch on their greatest singles.

‘How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?’ / ‘Where the Streets Have No Name (Can’t Take My Eyes of You)’ – reached #4 in 1991

This bitchy number – with lines like: You live within the headlines, so everyone can see, You’re supporting every new cause and meeting royalty – is about the pomposity of pop stars in general. Or is it about someone in particular…? Neil Tennant claimed later that it was about a ‘female pop star from 1989’. Make of that what you will… It features guitars, which is rare for a PSBs single.

It was paired with two covers – U2 and Frankie Valli – melded into one soaring disco anthem. An early form of the mash-up, both songs work well with a churning dance beat and Tennant’s ethereal vocals.

‘So Hard’ – reached #4 in 1990

Another atypical love song, about a toxic relationship in which both parties make it so hard for ourselves… Tennant’s vocals rarely break a sweat, there are some wonderfully dated ‘barking dog’ synths, and a low-key gem of a chorus. ‘So Hard’ was the lead single from their fourth album, and the video is set in the wonderful city of Newcastle. It apparently features Paul Gascoigne’s sister Anna, as well candid clips of Geordies out for a night on the toon.

‘Left to My Own Devices’ – #4 in 1988

Everything great about the PSBs in a just under five-minute edit: a dramatic string intro giving way to a pulsing disco beat, NT’s trademark deadpan delivery, lyrics that are as camp (I could love you, If I tried, I could, And left to my own devices, I propably would) as they are pretentious (Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat). Oh and, of course, you can dance to it.

‘Go West’ – #2 in 1993

The mark of a good cover is that you no longer imagine it being performed by the original artist. The Village People took their version, inspired by an old rallying cry used to spur pioneers to head out into the great unclaimed (apart from by, you know, the natives…) American West. PSBs kept most of the original, including the chord progression based on Pachelbel’s Canon, but added lots of glorious other things: horns, a male voice choir, a big female diva (posing as the Statue of Liberty) taking it home at the end. They originally covered it for an AIDS charity concert, then decided to release it, scoring their biggest hit in five years. We can assume the video was inspired by the breakdown of the Soviet Union, with lots of sturdy Russian-looking men heading towards a ‘promised land’. The CGI is so dated that it now looks like a brilliantly judged attempt to be retro.

‘What Have I Done to Deserve This?’ (with Dusty Springfield) – #2 in 1987

I’m not ranking these, but it just so happens that the best is saved for last. For not only do we have Pet Shop Boys in their imperial, huge hits without even trying, phase… (Coincidentally, Neil Tennant is credited with first using the phrase ‘imperial phase’ to describe an artist at the peak of their powers.) Anyway, I digress… We also have Ms Dusty Springfield! Almost two decades into a career slump, filled with alcohol and drug abuse, as well as abusive relationships. Despite this, the sixties diva remained a star, initially turning the duet down because she hadn’t heard of the PSBs. A couple of years later, after hearing ‘West End Girls’ on the radio, she agreed. Neil Tennant was a huge fan, and pushed for her inclusion, despite their label wanting someone less ‘washed up’.

Dusty also took twenty or so takes before she was happy with her vocals. But when she was happy, her voice became an integral part of an ’80s classic. When she comes in for the chorus, slightly raspier but still Dusty, after Tennant has dead-panned the first verse, it’s a goosebumps moment. The song itself is perhaps of its time, a comment on society in the Thatcher-Reagan years: You always wanted a lover, I only wanted a job… It’s also a very subversive number, every bit as gay as ‘Relax’, just less in-your-face, with the lesbian Springfield and the gay Tennant playing a very odd couple.

This record came agonisingly close to the top, peaking at #2 in both the UK and the US. It also sparked a late-career renaissance for Dusty. Tennant and Lowe would go on to produce her comeback album ‘Reputation’ in 1990. She died from cancer in 1999. Pet Shop Boys continue to record and perform to great acclaim, almost forty years later.

638. ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, by Band Aid II

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

And so we reach the end of the 1980s. And, in some ways, the decade’s final number one single is quite perfect.

Do They Know It’s Christmas?, by Band Aid II

3 weeks, from 17th December 1989 – 7th January 1990

It’s a charity single, for a start, a ‘genre’ that has dominated the charts since the middle of the eighties. It’s a cover, of course, of the charity single, the one that kicked the whole trend off. Plus, it was produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman, giving the trio their seventh #1 of the year. But beyond the good cause, and the production team, the tag ‘perfect’ quickly wears thin.

There’s a reason why none of the three subsequent Band Aids have ever been much played after their original chart runs; while the first is seen as a classic, a perennial returnee to the charts every Christmas. There’s a novelty factor each time, and the urge for people to be seen to be doing something for charity, that means a new Band Aid single will always chart highly. But beyond that initial burst of enthusiasm, there’s always the slow realisation that the new versions simply aren’t as good.

Here, we swap Bono, Boy George, Sting and Paul Young for a considerably younger crowd. Kylie is on opening line duties, followed by Chris Rea and Jimmy Somerville. We meet Jason Donovan, Sonia, Lisa Stansfield, Bros and Wet Wet Wet again, after their recent chart-topping successes. The only singers to reprise their roles from 1984 are two-thirds of Bananarama (Siobhan Fahey having left the year before). To be honest, I struggled to recognise many voices without watching the video, which isn’t a problem you have with the original. One voice stands out above the rest, though: Sir Cliff, who makes it two Xmas #1s in a row (and who will, without wanting to give too much away, soon be making it three).

The production is muted and respectful by SAW’s usual standards, which was probably to be expected. The video is standard: Michael Buerk reporting from Ethiopia, horrifying images of malnutritional babies spliced with footage of Marti Pellow and Matt Goss goofing about. We’ll leave Band Aid II to play out here, bringing the 1980s to a close, and instead muse on the final year of the decade.

1989 has been, I’m going to stick my neck out here, a game-changing year. It’s set the template for modern pop music, in various ways. Firstly, on a purely technical level, songs have started to enter regularly at #1. They’ll continue to do so throughout the 1990s, speeding up the turnover of chart-toppers. As well as that, we’ve had the first ‘modern’ dance #1 from Black Box, from which almost every subsequent dance smash can be traced. We’ve met the first ‘modern’ boy band too, in New Kids on the Block.

Meanwhile, rock music is no longer the force that it has been since the late ‘50s. Rock groups will still make #1, as U2 and Simple Minds have recently done, but often for one week only, thanks to fanbase support rather than genuine cultural heft. And finally, Madonna has defined the ‘modern’ female pop star, and the pop comeback (and comeback video) as a massive event that every pop star since 1989 has tried to mimic.

Next up, we’ll be embarking on the 1990s – the decade in which I came of age, among Britpop, dance, the Spice Girls and boy-bands. I’m looking forward to reliving it. But, you could argue that the nineties began a year earlier, in the final year of the decade that taste forgot…