- Yazz & The Plastic Population: The Only Way Is Up
- Kylie Minogue: The Loco-Motion
- Brother Beyond: The Harder I Try
- Breathe: Hands to Heaven
- BVSMP: I Need You
- Julio Iglesias featuring Stevie Wonder: My Love
- Fairground Attraction: Find My Love
- Kim Wilde: You Came
- Iron Maiden: The Evil That Men Do
- Tanita Tikaram: Good Tradition
- S'Express: Superfly Guy
- The Four Tops: Reach Out I'll Be There ['88 remix]
- Chris Rea: On the Beach ['88 remix]
- All About Eve: Martha's Harbour
- Robbie Robertson: Somewhere Down the Crazy River
- Big Country: King of Emotion
- Status Quo: Running All Over the World
- Womack & Womack: Teardrops
- The Funky Worm: Hustle! (To the Music...)
- Bomb the Bass: Megablast / Don't Make Me Wait
- Jane Wiedlin: Rush Hour
- Salt 'n' Pepa: Push It / Tramp
- Transvision Vamp: I Want Your Love
- Guns 'N Roses: Sweet Child O' Mine
- Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Anything for You
- a-ha: Touchy!
- Glenn Medeiros: Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You
- Van Halen: When It's Love
- Mory Kante: Yeke Yeke
- The Mac Band: Roses Are Red
- Yello: The Race
- Everything but the Girl: I Don't Want to Talk About It
- Donny Osmond: Soldier of Love
- Europe: Superstitious
- Climie Fisher: I Won't Bleed for You
- UB40: Where Did I Go Wrong?
- Spagna: Every Girl and Boy
- Debbie Gibson: Foolish Beat
- Natalie Cole: Jump Start '88
- Aztec Camera: Working in a Goldmine
~~~~~
Looking back at these early days in England, I'm struck by all the memories that I still retain but how very little music there was to accompany them - and certainly nothing off the charts. Some excellent singles charted but went unnoticed by me for months or, in some cases, years. This week's highest new entry was a Double A-Side by Bomb the Bass, a project headed by DJ Tim Simenon. While Don't Make Me Wait, a superb if somewhat conventional house-based pop song with some furious scratching as its highlight, became familiar to me soon enough, its companion Megablast wasn't something I heard until I was in my thirties. And it's a pity it passed me by at the time since it's a masterpiece of samples and breakbeats done in a playful way that I'm convinced would have captivated my eleven-year-old self.
Similarly, this week's chart topper was largely unknown to me at the time. The Only Way Is Up may well have be the best-remembered number one from our year in England - it has a kind of minor-zeitgeist quality to it: if it wasn't quite a things-will-never-be-the-same-again, it certainly summed up the period pretty well (for more information, please see Tom Ewing's splendid Popular entry) - but it made no impact on me whatever. Though I'm sure it would've been playing in the pub in Maldon or the local SavaCentre or at the Walton-on-the-Naze pier, I certainly wouldn't have been listening.
The great songs that were passing me by at the time stood in contrast to the people I met during that first week in England who I was to have minimal to no further contact with over the remainder of our year. Day five was spent in the lovely town of Billericay where we enjoyed lunch with one of my dad's soon to be fellow math teachers. Sam, a chunky thirteen-or-so nephew of our hosts, took me under his wing, showed me around the town, gave me my first look at my future school and bought me a tube of Smarties. I probably figured I'd be meeting up with Sam on a regular basis; I never saw him again. The next day we ventured up to the northeast part of Essex to visit our distant cousins. Chris, a year my junior, went on a roller coaster with me the above mentioned Walton-on-the-Naze pier, bought me my first ever Milky Bar and introduced me to an Australian soap called Neighbours (he also spoke at length about Bros which meant precisely nothing to me at the time but ended up being my first exposure to the UK charts). As we drove back to Laindon I was doubtless convinced I had a new best friend: we hardly saw each other from that point on. So much for hitting it off.
But it may have been for the best that I was teased with some pretender chums. Right from the start we were all being faced with living in a foreign country, in a less-than welcoming dwelling (more on that later), in a not-exactly picturesque town and we all had to deal with it. While we did our sightseeing, it wasn't until the end of our first week that we bothered going into London. To make some friends - even ones that proved fleeting - was to lay down a sense of permanence that I'm sure I needed at the time. Real friends would be along soon.
~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Rush Hour
older Paul's retro pick: Megablast / Don't Make Me Wait
young Paul's favourite: Rush Hour
older Paul's retro pick: Megablast / Don't Make Me Wait
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