eighties pop music

Today’s Top 10 – April 19th 1984

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

In going through the chart-toppers of the time, I was always a bit down on the early to mid-eighties. 1980 was a great year for #1s, one of my favourites, but between 1982 and ’86 things went a bit gloopy.

And yet. Multiple sources claim 1984 as the best year in pop music history. Rolling Stone, Billboard, and the BBC have all pushed the theory, among several others. And on the surface you can see why: Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson all at the peak of their powers, Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’, the rise of MTV, ‘the second British Invasion’…

There’s only one problem with this. It’s all very US-centric. It didn’t seem to translate back across the Atlantic, at least in terms of number one singles. But maybe if we zoom out a little, and take a random Top 10, I might become a mid-1980s convert. Here then, is the UK Top 10 as it stood on this day in 1984, AKA forty-two years ago.

10. ‘Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)’, by Scritti Politti (up 7 / 8 weeks on chart)

A bit of a litmus test at #10, because this is as 1984-sounding as it gets. I know very little about Scritti Politti, other than they’re the sort of band you might name drop as eighties-by-numbers, like Kajagoogoo or Blancmange. And I’ll admit that this track isn’t converting me to their cause. It’s got an interestingly funky bassline and synth riff, but the vocals are buried in the mix. And where the hell does Aretha Franklin come in…? (Okay, there’s a line in the bridge that alludes to ‘Say a Little Prayer’) Part of my problem with mid-eighties pop is that it took itself very seriously, and I’d say this is an issue here. But this was Scritti Politti’s breakthrough record, and first of two UK Top 10s.

9. ‘Nelson Mandela’, by The Special AKA (non-mover / 6 weeks on chart)

This is a bit more like it. Nelson Mandela was already twenty-one years in captivity when the Specials released this, and brought his name to the wider British public’s attention. Jerry Dammers, who wrote the song, had only found out who Mandela was the year before, when he attended his first anti-apartheid rally. Around the same time as Margaret Thatcher – ever on the wrong side of history – denouncing him as a terrorist.

As protest songs go this is very danceable, with lots of authentic African musical influences. One of the backing singers was Caron Wheeler, who would go on to provide lead vocals for Soul II Soul’s 1989 #1 ‘Back to Life’. It was released as the Special AKA, as The Specials had technically split in 1981, with three members going on to found Fun Boy Three. This was the band’s first Top 10 hit since ‘Ghost Town’, and would be their final UK Top 10.

8. ‘Ain’t Nobody’, by Rufus & Chaka Khan (up 5 / 4 weeks on chart)

Vaulting up into the Top 10 this week, a bona-fide classic. If someone cites a track like this as an example of 1984’s musical pedigree, I will wholeheartedly agree. #8 was this record’s peak, which feels low, though Chaka Khan would outdo it with a chart-topper later in the year.

The enduring popularity of ‘Ain’t Nobody’ is proven by the fact that it has returned to the upper reaches of the UK charts on five occasions over the years through various covers, remixes and samples, including a belated appearance at #1 through LL Cool J in 1997, and a re-peak for Chaka at #6 when re-released in 1989.

I will admit, though, that I always though the ‘Rufus’ credited on the record was a man, Rufus Khan… Chaka’s brother, or husband, perhaps…? Colour me surprised to learn today that Rufus were a funk act with three Top 10s on the Billboard Chart. At least I don’t get paid for this…

7. ‘Glad It’s All Over’ / ‘Damned on 45’, by Captain Sensible (down 1 / 5 weeks on chart)

Captain Sensible, founder of the Damned (releasers of officially the first ‘punk’ record in 1976), had maintained a side solo career since the late-seventies, and had scored an unlikely chart-topper in ’82 with a cover of ‘Happy Talk’. He was also a committed pacifist, and ‘Glad It’s All Over’ refers to the Falklands conflict (more South Atlantic than ‘South Pacific’), making for two protest songs in this week’s hit parade. As nice as the sentiment is, this is a fairly pedestrian number. It could do with some punkish spit and vinegar…

Luckily then we have the flip-side of this double-A. It’s a riff on the popular ‘Stars on 45’ singles, but with a medley of around fifteen Damned and Captain Sensible tunes (including a reprise of ‘Happy Talk’). I’m not going to claim that it works particularly well, or that I enjoyed all seven and a half minutes of it, but at least it injects a bit of variety into this Top 10!

6. ‘People Are People’, by Depeche Mode (down 2 / 4 weeks on chart)

In some ways, Depeche Mode are as ‘eighties synonymous’ as Scritti Politti. However, Depeche Mode outlasted their new-wave roots to become one of Britain’s most succesful chart outfits. I’ve already covered them in my ‘Never Had a #1’ series, as one of the non chart-topping acts with the most Top 10 singles, and this #4 hit remains their joint-highest hit.

Why? Well, I’d say contrast this clanking, choppy, industrial hook-filled track to the weedy ‘Wood Beez’ further down the chart. Yes it’s very of its time in terms of its sound and production – your tolerance for harsh mid-eighties synths will determine if that’s a positive or not – but it’s undeniably catchy. And it’s another somewhat political number: People are people so why should it be, You and I should get along so awfully…?

5. ‘I Want to Break Free’, by Queen (up 13 / 2 weeks on chart)

Breaking into the Top 5 this week, and on its way to a #3 peak, it’s one of Queen’s most famous songs. Famous because it’s a catchy hit, but probably more so because the band do drag in the ‘Coronation Street’ inspired video. In the US this video is widely blamed for ‘ending’ their career – until Wayne’s World resurrected them in the early ’90s – as Reagan-era Americans just couldn’t handle men in dresses (luckily we now live in much more enlightened times…) I don’t know if that narrative is all completely true, as Queen were never guaranteed hit makers in the States, with some smashes alongside a lot of misses. It was banned by MTV, though.

And it could be argued that this is yet another political statement of a song, and not just because of it’s gender-bending. In South America and, in particular, South Africa the I want to break free… refrain was taken up in various fights against repression.

4. ‘Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)’, by Phil Collins (up 4 / 3 weeks on chart)

Two classics of the decade in a row then, as here comes eighties chart mainstay Phil Collins with one of the ultimate power-ballads, in an era chock full of fist-clenchers. The moment before the second verse, when the drums come clattering in, is hard to deny even if you find the rest of the song overwrought.

I’d say that this song has lasted far longer in the public imagination than the Rachel Ward and Jeff Bridges film of the same name, the soundtrack to which this comes from. We have of course already met a cover version of this at #1, from Mariah Carey and Westlife, and we have another chart-topping cover to come very soon. Can’t wait!

3. ‘A Love Worth Waiting For’, by Shakin’ Stevens (down 1 / 5 weeks on chart)

Of course, Britain’s highest selling singles act of the entire decade had to put in an appearance! Shakey might have been beyond his ’81-’82 heyday here but he was still good for a big hit, and this one had been at #2 the week before.

Without doing any research on it, I was convinced that this must be a cover of an oldie by someone like Emile Ford. But no, it’s an original. Which in my opinion makes all the cheesy old rock ‘n’ roll flourishes less enjoyable. Had Emile Ford released this in 1959, I’d have enjoyed it. For Shakin’ Stevens to have churned it out in 1984 feels… meh. Still we can’t knock Shakey too much. This was his 13th of twenty-five career Top 20 hits, and he remains a legend of British pop.

2. ‘You Take Me Up’, by The Thompson Twins (up 1 / 4 weeks on chart)

Like Scritti Politti, the Thompson Twins exist to me as an act that evoke a distant vision of the mid-eighties, rather than as an act I’ve ever really listened to. I can’t help but pin this song as the biggest disappointment in this entire Top 10. In 1984, the year in which I was promised Prince, Madonna, Springsteen and/or Michael Jackson, I ended up with Scritti Politti and the Thompson Twins.

No, I don’t particularly like this. The overwrought vocal delivery, the clunking beat, the processed harmonica… All very of their time. I think that this might also be political in theme, especially going by the video featuring chain gangs, and lyrics about working in a factory. What was it about the 1980s that made everyone take themselves so seriously?

1. ‘Hello’, by Lionel Richie (non-mover / 7 weeks on chart)

Speaking of taking things a bit too seriously… My original post on Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello’ details why I dislike this song, and why I named it as one of my Very Worst Number Ones. It really is tripe. I’ve never been able to enjoy it ironically even, like so many power ballads of the time, because there is nothing, not even a glimmer, in this song (and the preposterous video) to suggest that it isn’t intended as 100% sincere. Yet here it stands, in its fifth of six weeks at #1.

Lionel Richie is a name that sits in the eighties pantheon, at least, alongside Phil Collins and Queen elsewhere in this countdown. They were perhaps what I might have expected to find in this Top 10. Of course, a random week does not sum up an entire decade, but this hasn’t gone any way to explaining why 1984 is considered by many to be the Best Year in Pop Music History.

What is interesting, though, is the fact that two of these songs are overtly political, while three more can be argued to have political (or at least somewhat provocative) themes. That’s half the Top 10! Apartheid and the Falklands conflict are mentioned explicitly, while it’s clear that the Cold War and the Thatcher government were on many musicians’ minds (either side of this Top 10 we had ’99 Red Balloons’ and ‘Two Tribes’ hitting the top of the charts…) I’m not one to argue that pop music shouldn’t be political, as art will always end up reflecting the values of the people making it, but at the same time I’m not one to accept something ‘deep’ as automatically being ‘better’. The mid-eighties does feel like a time when pop acts tried to go ‘deep’, for better or worse. Compared to modern pop music this feels unusual. But also, look ten years further back, to the mid-seventies and the height of glam, and you’d see a chart full of shallow but catchy pop. These things are never linear.

One other notable thing about this chart is that there is only one chart-topping single in it, but seven of the acts in the Top 10 are chart-topping acts.

So, if 1984 has not proven itself to be my favourite year for music, then what is…? In terms of chart-toppers – which is what this blog is all about after all – I have a Top 3, and a definite bottom. I’m planning to reveal them in a special post when we get to the 1000th #1. In the meantime, let me know what your best musical/chart-topping years are!

On This Day… 6th December

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Time for another look back at a date in chart history. What were the songs and the stories at number one on December 6th through the years…

On this day in 1980, ABBA were about to begin their thirty-first and final week on top of the UK singles chart with ‘Super Trouper’. My favourite ABBA chart-topper probably changes on a weekly basis, and I could make a case for all of them (apart from ‘Fernando’, sorry). ‘Super Trouper’ is a late-era classic, with that perfect balance of upbeat melancholoy. Songs about how tiring it is being famous can be, well, tiring; but this is a colossus of the genre. I was sick and tired of everything, When I called you last night from Glasgow… is a quintessential ABBA opening line: slightly odd, poetic, beautifully to the point.

Eleven years earlier, on this day in 1969, the Rolling Stones headlined the infamous Altamont Free Concert in California. Supposed to be the West Coast’s answer to Woodstock, it ended up becoming synonymous with the end of the swinging sixties and the death of the hippy dream. Violence which had been brewing throughout the day erupted during the Stones’ delayed set, and ended in the death of an eighteen year old spectator, Meredith Hunter, stabbed by one of the Hells Angels who had been brought in as security.

The Stones are perhaps the perfect band to encapsulate that loss of ’60s innocence, as they had never been particularly innocent, and had struggled with the psychedelic, hippy side of things. Also, they’re the sixties juggernaut that has lasted, and lasted, and lasted, far beyond the decade that birthed them… Here then is their big hit from earlier that year, their final UK #1, and perhaps the ultimate rock and roll tune, ‘Honky Tonk Women’.

In recent posts I’ve been bemoaning/celebrating the end of the Golden Era of the Boyband, which I think came to an end in late 2002. There are arguments to be had for boybands dating back to the fifties, with the likes of the Teenagers, or to the Monkees in the sixties. New Edition in 1983 and Bros in 1988 could lay claim to being the first modern boyband, but for my money the true holders of that title, and the openers of the floodgates, were New Kids on the Block. Who just so happened to be sitting at #1 on this day in 1989 with ‘You Got It (The Right Stuff)’. They were the first of twelve boybands (fourteen, if we bend my rules and count Hanson and Blazin’ Squad) to provide forty (or forty-two) #1s over thirteen years…

Let’s go way back now, sixty-seven years to be exact. Number one on this day in 1958 is what I called ‘the Scottish #1’ at the time, and which I still intend to make our national anthem when I become First Minister, replacing the dirge that is ‘Flower of Scotland’. The fifties was at times a musical desert, strewn with overwrought ballads, and the occasional rock ‘n’ roll tune. Then there were the novelties. So many novelties. Of which ‘Hoots Mon’ stands out as one of the finest. It’s got a wonderful rock ‘n’ roll energy, but it’s also a relic of a much earlier music hall era, with its singalong spirit and its Hammond organ. It’s based on an old folk tune, ‘A Hundred Pipers’, and features classic phrases such as ‘och aye’, ‘there’s a moose loose aboot this hoose’ and ‘it’s a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht’, none of which a Scotsperson has ever actually uttered.

Finally, 6th December is perhaps best known as a date in music history for being the anniversary of Roy Orbison’s untimely death. In 1988, Orbison was just getting his career back on track through the success of the Travelling Wilburys, his supergroup alongside George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty, whose first album had been released earlier that year. Orbison had also just put the finishing touches to his first solo album in a decade, when he died suddenly, of a heart attack. The album ‘Mystery Girl’, and the lead single ‘You Got It’, posthumously returned him to the Top 10 the following year. But to celebrate his genius, let’s go back to 1960, and enjoy his first of three UK #1s: the hauntingly dramatic ‘Only the Lonely’.

On This Day… 28th August

/ UK #1s blog / 12 Comments

Welcome one and all to our fourth ‘On This Day’ feature, in which we take a look back at chart-topping history through the records which have made #1. (Please feel free to check out the previous dates that we have covered here, here, and here.)

What, then, were the stories atop the UK singles chart on August 28th through the years…?

Well, way back in 1953 Frankie Laine’s ‘I Believe’ was starting its seventeenth of eighteen weeks at number one. That’s a lot of weeks. Amazingly, no other record in the intervening seventy-two years has managed to equal it. The record set by just the 9th number one single – the charts having begun less than a year earlier – still stands! Interestingly, two of the records that came closest – ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’ (16 weeks, and the record holder for consecutive weeks) and ‘Love Is All Around’ (15 weeks) – were also both at number one on this date. The only other 15-weeker, Drake’s ‘One Dance’, was sadly not at #1 on the 28th August. ‘I Believe’ returned to #1 in the nineties ‘thanks’ to Robson & Jerome, but I won’t bother linking to that.

Eleven years later, and sitting at #1 was the Honeycomb’s stomping ‘Have I the Right?’ It was the third and final chart-topper produced by the visionary Joe Meek. Of the three, this is probably the most traditionally ‘pop’ sounding, though it is still crammed with wacky techniques – such as having the band stomping on the staircase outside his studio – and instruments, such as the slicing synths. It hit the charts in that glorious autumn of ’64, one of the most fertile times for British pop with ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’, ‘You Really Got Me’, ‘I’m Into Something Good’, and this, taking turns on top.

28th August is also the birthday of The Honeycombs’ female drummer, Honey Lantree. One of few women to take up the sticks – I can only think of Karen Carpenter and Meg White – she had been discovered while working as a hairdresser. Her salon manager was in a band, let her try out, and was so impressed that he incorporated Lantree and her brother into his group. She retired from music when the Honeycombs split in 1967 following Meek’s death, but she rejoined them every so often for tours right up until 2005.

August 28th has seen not one, but two versions of ‘I Got You Babe’ sitting at number one in the singles chart. The original was, of course, by Sonny and Cher in 1965…

It was their only #1 as a duo, and Cher’s first of four, spanning thirty-three years. Exactly twenty years later, and a cover by UB40 and Chrissie Hynde was spending its solitary week on top. I gave this record a ‘Meh’ award, and my opinions on it haven’t changed much. It’s still a bit of a slog…

On this day in 1977, and the world still coming to terms with his death aged just forty-two, Elvis Presley’s current single climbed to #1, the first of his record five posthumous chart-toppers. ‘Way Down’ had spent its first two weeks on chart climbing from #46 to #42, so its safe to assume that it wouldn’t have been a massive hit without tragedy striking. However, it would also be wrong to suggest that The King was a spent force at this point in his career, as his previous single ‘Moody Blue’ had made it to #6. In my original post on it, I rejoiced in the fact that fate ensured Elvis’s final single was a rocker, given that he’d spent much of the ’70s releasing schmaltzy ballads. Lyrically, it’s also fitting for the recently deceased star, given that it’s called ‘Way Down’, and compares a woman’s love to prescription drugs… However, fun as the song is, and as lively as Elvis’s perfomance is, the show is stolen by JD Sumner’s astonishingly low closing note.

Finally, on this day in 1993, Culture Beat’s ‘Mr. Vain’ was enjoying its first of four weeks at #1. I bring this to your attention not just because it’s a banger – and it is – but because it was the first chart-topper in forty years not to be released as a 7″ single. Vinyl was on its way out after a century as the medium of choice, to be replaced in the space of twenty years by CDs, then digital downloads, then streaming…

Thanks for joining this delve back through the decades. Next up, we continue our journey through 2001 with a similarly retro reboot…

Today’s Top 10 – January 31st, 1986

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

This is the 4th ‘Today’s Top 10’ that I’ve done, and I’m being fairly self-indulgent with this one. Rather than picking a date that I think was significant musically, I’m picking a date that is significant personally. For today is my 39th birthday, and this was the British Top 10 as I arrived on this planet.

In events of more global importance, this was also the Top 10 on the week of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. My mother insists that watching coverage of the explosion on the news is what sent her into labour. But considering that happened on the 28th of January, and she isn’t featured in the Guinness World Records for the longest period of labour, I think she’s misremembering.

So, anyway, here’s the Top 10 as it stood this week in 1986. Is it any good…?

10. ‘System Addict’, by Five Star (up 3 / 4 weeks on chart)

First up, with their first visit to the Top 10, it’s Britain’s answer to the Jacksons. Well, Five Star were all siblings, at least. ‘System Addict’ sets a tone here, being so fabulously eighties, from the funky bassline, to the synthy parps, and the electronic drums. And I’m feeling very old, watching the video, seeing what passed for hi-tech in January 1986. But the lyrics… System addict, You got the hardware habit, Never can give it up… do feel fairly prophetic given what we’ve become in the thirty-nine years since.

9. ‘Saturday Love’, by Cherrelle with Alexander O’Neal (down 3 / 6 weeks on chart)

Descending from its #6 peak, a slice of smooth, sexy soul-funk. I think I must have been born at the very moment the ’80s peaked, as this manages to outdo even Five Star for period touches. ‘Saturday Love’ has lived on beyond this moment, however, having been sampled over a hundred times, by artists as diverse as 50 Cent and Charlie XCX. The video above is not the original, featuring scenes from the 1991 movie ‘Strictly Business’.

8. ‘Suspicious Minds’, by Fine Young Cannibals (up 2 / 4 weeks on chart)

A fixture on the charts in the second half of the 1980s, Fine Young Cannibals were enjoying their second Top 10 hit from their first album. I admire the confidence it takes to cover an Elvis classic on your debut LP. Peaking this week, their cover of ‘Suspicious Minds’ is fun, with a racing disco beat and falsetto backing vocals from Jimmy Somerville, who would go on to have the year’s biggest hit.

7. ‘West End Girls’, by Pet Shop Boys (down 4 / 12 weeks on chart)

A former number one on its way down the chart, ‘West End Girls’ was Pet Shop Boys’ breakthrough hit and has gone on to become one of the decade’s best-loved songs. As much as I love a lot of PSB’s stuff, I’ve never managed to connect with this one… My loss. Read my original post here.

6. ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’, by Billy Ocean (up 22 / 2 weeks on chart)

A soon-to-be number one charging its way up the charts. We recently suffered through Boyzone’s chart-topping cover, and so it’s nice to hear this much more palatable original. Again, the synths and sax make this sooooo eighties, but it maintains a cheesy charm. Read my original post here.

5. ‘Broken Wings’, Mr. Mister (down 1 / 8 weeks on chart)

I have been accused of unfairly maligning the 1980s more than any other decade. And perhaps sometimes that’s been true. When the eighties were good, they were great. Songs to rank alongside pop’s very best. However, when the eighties were bad, we got songs as dull, as self-important, and as constipated, as Mr. Mister’s ‘Broken Wings’. Utterly joyless.

4. ‘Borderline’, by Madonna (up 11 / 2 weeks on chart)

An almost constant fixture in the Top 10 between 1984 and 1987, Madonna was on her way to #2 here with a re-release of a track from her debut album. ‘Borderline’ had failed to make the Top 50 when first released two years earlier, but that was when Madonna was an upstart from New York rather than the biggest star on the planet. I like ‘Borderline’, but it’s fairly throwaway compared to some of her more impactful early tracks. Still, it’s got a nice catchy synth hook, and a nice re-imagining of disco horns for the electronic age.

3. ‘Walk of Life’, by Dire Straits (down 1 / 4 weeks on chart)

Dropping from its peak of #2, making it Dire Straits’ joint most succesful single, a welcome slice of rockabilly. They didn’t have that many big chart hits, but every one of Dire Straits’ Top 10s brings something different to the party. Following up the era-defining classic ‘Money for Nothing’ – a song that took a swipe at the musical trends of the decade while becoming one of its biggest hits – ‘Walk of Life’ is a much simpler affair, about a busker in a subway, with plenty of charm.

2. ‘Only Love’, by Nana Mouskouri (up 6 / 4 weeks on chart)

Moving up to the runners-up slot, it’s Greek chanteuse Nana Mouskouri with her only British hit. Mouskouri is a seriously impressive individual, having recorded music in thirteen langauges, including Japanese, Mandarin, and Welsh. She represented Luxembourg at Eurovision in 1963, worked for UNICEF, and was elected to the European Parliament in 1994. ‘Only Love’ was recorded as the theme to the TV series ‘Mistral’s Daughter’. It’s a nice enough ballad, fairly syrupy, but I’m grateful for the record below preventing this from being my birthday number one.

1. ‘The Sun Always Shines on TV’, by A-ha (non-mover / 6 weeks)

Despite 90% of the population assuming that A-ha’s sole number single would have been ‘Take On Me’, it is actually this. Is ‘The Sun Always Shines on TV’ a better song than its predecessor, or am I just biased, determined to have been born under a classic number one? There could certainly be worse songs to have as your birth number one, while this record proves once and for all that I was born at the height of what we now think of musically as “the ’80s”. But this is good eighties – compared to the likes of Mr. Mister – with its operatic vocals, its synthy tricks and its scattergun percussion. If only the entire decade had been like this… (read my original post here).

Oh, and good news for those who think ‘Take on Me’ unfairly missed out on number one! We’ll be featuring it soon as we journey through the chart toppers of 2000, in a version that, ahem, really holds its own with the original……….

Cover Versions of Christmas #1s

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

For our last post of the year, let’s take a look at some classic Christmas number ones, but in versions you might not have heard before… Some good, some not so good, some just plain odd.

Starting with the daddy of all festive chart-toppers, Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’. Noel Gallagher recorded a cover for the ‘Royle Family’ Christmas special in 2000 (a sitcom that his band had famously contributed the theme song for). It sounds exactly as you’d expect Noel Gallagher doing a cover of Slade’s Christmas classic would. Except it lacks the raucous energy of the original, instead opting for a woozy drone. And there’s no It’s Chriiiiissssttttmmmmmaaaaasssss…. So shame on you, Noel.

That same year, way over on the other side of the pop spectrum, Steps recorded their own version, and is it wrong that I’m enjoying this version more…? For a start, they lead with It’s Christmaaaaaas… so bonus points there. But there’s also something in the propulsively camp beat, and the faux-Cher autotune, that is more in keeping with the anarchic original.

Or if neither of those straight covers do it for you, then how about this remix that made #30 in 1998? It’s a bizarre record: a fairly anonymous trance beat over which Slade occasionally pop up. Flush were a Swedish act, and this was presumably made with Slade’s permission, given that it’s Noddy Holder’s vocals.

Christmas #1 the year following Slade’s colossus, Mud took a more sombre approach to festive pop on ‘Lonely This Christmas’. In 2013 Traitors! recorded this fun pop-punk version for a charity album called ‘It’s Better to Give than to Receive’. And that’s about all I know. The band don’t have a website or Wiki page, and their only other release seems to have been a four track EP. I don’t even remember where I heard this version first, but it’s been on my festive playlist for a few years now. So thank you Traitors!, whoever you are/were.

Of course, Christmas is actually about more than just presents and gluttony… There’s also ‘Die Hard’. I mean, there’s also the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus H Christ. And sometimes religious songs have made Christmas number one, such as in 1976. Johnny Mathis’s version of ‘When a Child Is Born’ is fairly gentle and respectful, not enough to wake the sleeping babe in his crib. The same cannot be said for larger than life Greek Demis Roussos, who rattles the gates of heaven with his bombastic take. If I were Jesus, I know which approach I’d prefer.

And then there are the times when the festive number one isn’t about Christmas at all. in 1979, Pink Floyd made number one with their first chart hit in over a decade, ‘Another Brick in the Wall Pt II’. In 2004, nu-metal band Korn covered all three parts of the song (Pt II starts around the 1:30 mark). It was described as “one of the worst classic rock covers of all time” by Ultimate Classic Rock magazine, but I suspect they might be a tad biased against anything released post-1980. I’d call it a brutally efficient cover version.

‘Another Brick in the Wall Pt II’ then returned to the charts in 2007 when remixed by Swedish DJ Eric Prydz. His take, ‘Proper Education’, made #2, and gave us an interesting video in which a group of young hooligans break into some flats and… turn off all the energy wasting devices.

Our final cover is a 2015 remake of Shakin’ Stevens’ 1985 Xmas #1 ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’, by Shaky himself. ‘Echoes of Merry Christmas Everyone’ is a completely re-imagined bluegrass version, with lots of banjo and harmonica, recorded to raise money for the Salvation Army, and it’s amazing how a jaunty, slightly irritating original, was transformed into a melancholy, slightly haunting cover.

That’s it from the UK Number Ones Blog for 2024! I’m going to take a couple of weeks off, before returning in the first week of January, when I’ll be launching a couple of new features to mix things up in amongst all the usual chart toppers. I’d like to thank everyone who has read, followed, liked and commented this year, and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Random Runners-Up: ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’, by Deniece Williams

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I hope you’ve enjoyed our latest Random Runners-Up series. We’ve been back to the ’60s, to the ’70s, the ’90s, even the ’50s. For the final runner-up of the weekend, it’s the turn of the 1980s…

‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’, by Deniece Williams

#2 for 2 weeks, from 27th May – 10th June 1984 (behind ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’)

I’m always wary of the term ‘feel good’, as most things specifically designed to make the average person feel good just end up as annoying. But I challenge anyone to hear the intro to ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’ and not feel their heart soar, just a teeny a bit.

It is so 1984. The purest, extra-virgin mid-eighties pressing, mixing together drum machine, squelchy bass, and a synthesised piano line. And when Deniece Williams comes in, you can hear the smile on her face as she sings. My baby he don’t talk sweet, He ain’t got much to say… It’s a riff on the old idea that a guy don’t gotta have money, looks, or charisma, as long as he gives good loving… What he does he does so well, Makes me want to yell…

It would be easy to read a smutty subtext into lines like he’s my lovin’ one-man show… or let’s give the boy a hand… but I’m above that. Plus the rest of the song is so bright and breezy, so gosh-darned wholesome, that it would feel forced. Adding to the eighties-ness of this tune is the fact that it’s from one of the decade’s best-loved films, ‘Footloose’, and was kept off top spot by one of the era’s best-remembered pop hits, Wham’s ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ (what a joyous guilty pleasure of a top two!)

Deniece Williams had been to the top of the UK charts once, seven years earlier, when the rather more understated ‘Free’ spent a fortnight at #1. This was her fourth and final appearance in the Top 10, but she remains active in her seventies, and in 2021 became one of the first inductees to the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Of course, a song as fun and frothy as this, and with a title like ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’, was always going to become something of a gay anthem. I probably first heard it in what may well be the best episode of ‘Will and Grace’, featuring a ‘sneaky hetero’ Matt Damon.

Up next we return to 1998, and the first solo chart-topper for one of Britain’s biggest ever pop stars…

Cover Versions of #1s – ‘Tainted Love’

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It’s been a while since I did a ‘cover versions’ week, so I thought I’d bring it back to allow us a break from the regular countdown, as we make steady progress through the mid-to-late ’90s. Later on this week I’ll be featuring a cover of one of that period’s most famous hits, but for now we’re focusing on various versions of the same song: Soft Cell’s massive 1981 smash ‘Tainted Love’.

Okay, this means that Gloria Jones’s versions aren’t covers of ‘Tainted Love’… They’re the originals. But it didn’t make #1 either time she recorded it. In fact neither managed to chart at all.

Which is pretty shocking, as the funky, stomping, Motown-influenced track is an instant classic, that should be mentioned in the same breath as The Supremes, the Ronettes, even Aretha. But the charts can be a fickle beast. A decade later, Jones’ original started getting played on the Northern Soul circuit. This encouraged Jones, who had since moved into musical theatre and then into being T. Rex’s backing singer, to have a go at re-recording it in 1976…

The updated version is a bit slicker, a bit less frenetic, and benefits from the advances in recording technology that had taken place. I wouldn’t say it’s an improvement, though I do like the smokiness that Jones’ voice has gained in the twelve intervening years. Jones’ boyfriend Marc Bolan produced the track, but even that couldn’t make it a hit. The following year she was the driver of the car that crashed and killed Bolan, also badly injuring herself. It gave her cause to flee the country (from an impending court case, and from T. Rex fanatics who had looted their house…)

Meanwhile, synth-pop duo Soft Cell heard the song in Northern Soul clubs, and had started incorporating it into their live sets. They were encouraged to record it, released it as their 2nd single, and the rest is chart-topping history, nicely summed up – if I do say so myself – in this post right here. But it seems that ‘Tainted Love’ is a song that demands to be recorded more than once, as Marc Almond also had another go in 1991. This version made #5, and is sometimes mistakenly played as the ‘original’ Soft Cell version (it’s the one with Marc Almond floating among the stars in the video…) God this is a bit complicated…

And then ten years after that, ‘Tainted Love’ returned to the Top 5 with its joint-second most succesful version, from a fairly unlikely source…

Recorded for the soundtrack to the parody film ‘Not Another Teen Movie’, Marilyn Manson scored his/their only Top 10 hit with this industrial-glam cover. In the video, Manson’s band of freaky goths crash a frat party, and mayhem ensues. For me, this version really works, and goes to show the strength of the song that it can still exist in a sound so removed from its original incarnation. I’m a fan of Manson (the band, and the music; not so much the creepy person behind it all) and am glad that this sent them briefly into the mainstream. You could argue that this was sell-out moment for an act that a few years earlier had been terrifying middle-America, even being blamed for school shootings, but this campy cover just goes to show how ridiculous those fears were.

And that wasn’t it as far as ‘Tainted Love’ and the top-end of the charts were concerned. In 2006, Rihanna made #2 with her Soft Cell sampling, electro-pop banger ‘SOS’. Not a cover version as such, but I’m still embedding the video below because it’s a TUNE.

Join us tomorrow for another ‘Cover Versions of #1s’ special, when you’ll get two songs for the price of one!

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…