- Robin Beck: First Time
- INXS: Need You Tonight
- Chris de Burgh: Missing You
- Salt 'n' Pepa: Twist and Shout
- Yazz: Stand Up for Your Love Rights
- Iron Maiden: The Clairvoyant
- Pet Shop Boys: Left to My Own Devices
- Deacon Blue: Real Gone Kid
- Brother Beyond: He Ain't No Competition
- Kylie Minogue: Je ne sais pas pourquoi
- Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True
- Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal
- Enya: Orinoco Flow
- Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: 1-2-3
- Robert Palmer: She Makes My Day
- Phil Collins: Two Hearts
- Barbara Streisand & Don Johnson: Till I Loved You
- Rick Astley: Take Me to Your Heart
- Bomb the Bass featuring Maureen: Say a Little Prayer
- Bananarama: Nathan Jones
- Tiffany: Radio Romance
- Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together '88
- Traveling Wilburys: Handle with Care
- Marillion: Freaks [live]
- Hithouse: Jack to the Sound of the Underground
- The Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones: Kiss
- Mica Paris: Breathe Life Into Me
- D Mob featuring Gary Haisman: We Call It Acieed
- Tanita Tikaram: Twist in My Sobriety
- Humanoid: Stakker Humanoid
- Sigue Sigue Sputnick: Success
- Womack & Womack: Life's Just a Ballgame
- Angry Anderson: Suddenly
- Royal House: Can You Party
- The Bangles: In Your Room
- Erasure: A Little Respect
- Prince: I Wish U Heaven
- Whitney Houston: One Moment in Time
- Samantha Fox: Love House
- All About Eve: What Kind of Fool
~~~~~
Close to a quarter of this week's chart is made up of new entries, a sign that the race for the Christmas number one was on. Some were heavy hitters of the time - Pet Shop Boys, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Rick Astley, er, Marillion - but all were destined to come up short as the three chief contenders were still awaiting release. Strange to think if all nine newbies figured they stood a decent chance of topping the Yuletide chart since few, if any, seem to be obvious contenders. Were they all lurching on daytime kiddie TV talk shows or on obscure provincial radio stations much like the character of Billy Mack in Love Actually as he desperately tries to convince someone - anyone - to give his "festering turd of a record" a shot? (And, hey, at least our Billy got the chart topper in the end)
Having a Christmas smash may have clearly been on the minds of the likes of Collins and Astley but it couldn't have been further from the thoughts of two of this weeks lower new entries. In at thirty is Stakker Humanoid, a dark rave-up from the UK's then popular (and increasingly controversial) acid house scene. I have yet to get into anything about acid house but I probably ought to at this point because it was just about at the end of its commercial significance. There had been singles on the charts over the past few months that were labelled acid house - often fronted by a DJ boffin sporting a long sleeve t-shirt with the genre's trademark yellow smiley face - but it was sometimes difficult to differentiate from its myriad cousins in the house scene. The Sun got blamed for creating hysteria surrounding its connections to drugs which, in retrospect, ought to have been obvious given its name. What seemed to go unmentioned was that it was increasingly being exploited by opportunistic types trying to latch on to the latest fad. D Mob's attempt We Call It Acieed hit the top 3 a few weeks earlier - and was promptly put on airplay embargo by the BBC following The Sun's allegations it promoted drugs - but it smacked of bandwagon jumping. Others, too, attempted to cash in on the acid house phenomenon: one of this week's climbers was Jack to the Sound of the Underground, a crass, over-sampled mess with some aciddy squelching in the background; similarly, Page 3 It Girl Samantha Fox's Love House throws in some beeps and boops nicked from the scene. (On the other hand, attempts on the part of both Pet Shop Boys - The Sound of the Atom Splitting, the b-side of their sublime new entry Left to My Own Devices - and New Order - with a forthcoming single that I'll get to before long - rank with the very best that acid house had to offer)
Many of the DJ's of this time seemed to have pop ambitions and I think that helps make a lot of late-eighties house so appealing: though they had lengthy 12" mixes to put together for the burgeoning club scene, they seemed to put equal care into shaving them down into 7" chart hits. But the dark and brooding Stakker Humanoid is where things begin to go awry. This is house music with little interest in wooing eleven-year-olds such as myself, a lamentable quality that only increased as the years went on. House music became stratified: some talented DJ's took the more hardcore approach and confined themselves to the clubs and raves while others pursued the cheap techno pop that came to dominate the nineties.
Three spots below Humanoid sits the dentally-challenged Aussie singer Angry Anderson with a number that couldn't be more different from Stakker Humanoid. Soundtrack to the wedding of Neighbours characters Scott and Charlene that had been broadcast earlier in the month and watched by nearly twenty million people in Britain, it was as inevitable as Jason Donovan's mullet that Suddenly would have a serious chart run. While the single's sleeve was an unsubtle attempt to increase its sales, Mr Anderson himself wasn't doing much to promote the record, as evidence by his rather unconvincing performance on Top of the Pops. Still, I have a guarded fondness for it. Part of it might be the aforementioned bit of TOTP miming: whereas Robin Beck winked to the camera and tried to make herself look cool to the kids in the audience, here was Angry Anderson, bald, pudgy, clearly not having put the least bit of thought into presentation. "This is who I am, this is my record, like it, loathe it, I don't care," seemed to be what he was saying. Suddenly you're seeing me just the way I am...indeed.
On our first visit to London back in August I happened to notice a double-decker bus pass us as we were checking out Trafalgar Square. Actually, being the gawking, clichéd tourist in the British capital that I was, I doubtless took note of every double-decker bus I happened to see. But there was one particular iconic mass transit carriage that stood out: the one that had the words LONDON DUNGEON in a scarily blood-red font on an otherwise entirely black bus. LONDON DUNGEON: whatever it was I knew I had to go there.
Now I don't recall incessantly badgering my parents into taking us but I suspect I did as much for two reasons: (1) because I certainly wasn't above such behaviour and (2) that's precisely where we went on a rainy Sunday in November when we had nothing better to do.
We couldn't have picked a better day to visit a museum devoted to grizzly murders, plagues and torture devices. As I just mentioned, it rained a lot, giving London an appropriately grim feel to it. Plus, it was Sunday. Though we'd taken in a handful of cities and towns on a Sunday - York, Southend, Maldon - this was the first time it struck me how all-changing the day of rest's trading laws could make a place. Southend's status as a faded seaside attraction was not the least bit dimmed by a few closed up Boots stores (if anything they probably added to it), York still had some life to it even if the townsfolk weren't heading to the shops; London, by contrast, seemed abandoned, seemingly devoid of purpose on a day without commerce. The character of the city seemed to vanish along with consumers: is London really still London when you can't buy a Bumming Around London postcard?
The lack of people out and about on a wet and dreary Sunday might help explain the lack of punters inside the London Dungeon. It would be nice to think that the museum's emptiness made it scarier but there was little about it that was especially terrifying. I'm sure there was a chamber of horrors and a freaky Jack the Ripper display but my real takeaway was reading about the Great Plague and Great Fire and getting a sense that London's eminence comes from its many traumatic events. Oddly, London Dungeon gave me an appreciation for the city's history in a way that the Tower of London was unable. I was slowly growing to love London and I think this great tourist trap with few tourists played a small part in it. The soggy, empty London that awaited us outside didn't do quite as much for me.
Another week at school came and went and then we were off to Norwich on Saturday. My memories of the East Anglian city are all about wandering around in search of a place to eat. My mum and dad were determined to find a nice pub where we could enjoy our dinner but the publicans of Norwich had other plans, preferring their guests consume a strict liquid diet. We seemed to cover a pretty hefty chunk of the city's streets - some on foot, others in the car - but saw little save for a number of food-free pubs. In the end my parents gave up and we ended up in the safe hands of a Pizza Hut (combining that with the McDonald's we had for lunch ensured that I was quite pleased with our day's eats, even if Mum and Dad couldn't hide their bitter disappointment). We then went back to our rather dank B & B to watch an episode of Blind Date with Cilla Black. This was where we were on this cold November night: going around but not seeing anything, staying at an inn with no more charm than our home back in Laindon, watching the same trite Saturday evening TV that we always did. England, Bill Bryson-style if you will.
~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: He Ain't No Competition
older Paul's retro pick: Left to My Own Devices
Having a Christmas smash may have clearly been on the minds of the likes of Collins and Astley but it couldn't have been further from the thoughts of two of this weeks lower new entries. In at thirty is Stakker Humanoid, a dark rave-up from the UK's then popular (and increasingly controversial) acid house scene. I have yet to get into anything about acid house but I probably ought to at this point because it was just about at the end of its commercial significance. There had been singles on the charts over the past few months that were labelled acid house - often fronted by a DJ boffin sporting a long sleeve t-shirt with the genre's trademark yellow smiley face - but it was sometimes difficult to differentiate from its myriad cousins in the house scene. The Sun got blamed for creating hysteria surrounding its connections to drugs which, in retrospect, ought to have been obvious given its name. What seemed to go unmentioned was that it was increasingly being exploited by opportunistic types trying to latch on to the latest fad. D Mob's attempt We Call It Acieed hit the top 3 a few weeks earlier - and was promptly put on airplay embargo by the BBC following The Sun's allegations it promoted drugs - but it smacked of bandwagon jumping. Others, too, attempted to cash in on the acid house phenomenon: one of this week's climbers was Jack to the Sound of the Underground, a crass, over-sampled mess with some aciddy squelching in the background; similarly, Page 3 It Girl Samantha Fox's Love House throws in some beeps and boops nicked from the scene. (On the other hand, attempts on the part of both Pet Shop Boys - The Sound of the Atom Splitting, the b-side of their sublime new entry Left to My Own Devices - and New Order - with a forthcoming single that I'll get to before long - rank with the very best that acid house had to offer)
Many of the DJ's of this time seemed to have pop ambitions and I think that helps make a lot of late-eighties house so appealing: though they had lengthy 12" mixes to put together for the burgeoning club scene, they seemed to put equal care into shaving them down into 7" chart hits. But the dark and brooding Stakker Humanoid is where things begin to go awry. This is house music with little interest in wooing eleven-year-olds such as myself, a lamentable quality that only increased as the years went on. House music became stratified: some talented DJ's took the more hardcore approach and confined themselves to the clubs and raves while others pursued the cheap techno pop that came to dominate the nineties.
Three spots below Humanoid sits the dentally-challenged Aussie singer Angry Anderson with a number that couldn't be more different from Stakker Humanoid. Soundtrack to the wedding of Neighbours characters Scott and Charlene that had been broadcast earlier in the month and watched by nearly twenty million people in Britain, it was as inevitable as Jason Donovan's mullet that Suddenly would have a serious chart run. While the single's sleeve was an unsubtle attempt to increase its sales, Mr Anderson himself wasn't doing much to promote the record, as evidence by his rather unconvincing performance on Top of the Pops. Still, I have a guarded fondness for it. Part of it might be the aforementioned bit of TOTP miming: whereas Robin Beck winked to the camera and tried to make herself look cool to the kids in the audience, here was Angry Anderson, bald, pudgy, clearly not having put the least bit of thought into presentation. "This is who I am, this is my record, like it, loathe it, I don't care," seemed to be what he was saying. Suddenly you're seeing me just the way I am...indeed.
On our first visit to London back in August I happened to notice a double-decker bus pass us as we were checking out Trafalgar Square. Actually, being the gawking, clichéd tourist in the British capital that I was, I doubtless took note of every double-decker bus I happened to see. But there was one particular iconic mass transit carriage that stood out: the one that had the words LONDON DUNGEON in a scarily blood-red font on an otherwise entirely black bus. LONDON DUNGEON: whatever it was I knew I had to go there.
Now I don't recall incessantly badgering my parents into taking us but I suspect I did as much for two reasons: (1) because I certainly wasn't above such behaviour and (2) that's precisely where we went on a rainy Sunday in November when we had nothing better to do.
We couldn't have picked a better day to visit a museum devoted to grizzly murders, plagues and torture devices. As I just mentioned, it rained a lot, giving London an appropriately grim feel to it. Plus, it was Sunday. Though we'd taken in a handful of cities and towns on a Sunday - York, Southend, Maldon - this was the first time it struck me how all-changing the day of rest's trading laws could make a place. Southend's status as a faded seaside attraction was not the least bit dimmed by a few closed up Boots stores (if anything they probably added to it), York still had some life to it even if the townsfolk weren't heading to the shops; London, by contrast, seemed abandoned, seemingly devoid of purpose on a day without commerce. The character of the city seemed to vanish along with consumers: is London really still London when you can't buy a Bumming Around London postcard?
The lack of people out and about on a wet and dreary Sunday might help explain the lack of punters inside the London Dungeon. It would be nice to think that the museum's emptiness made it scarier but there was little about it that was especially terrifying. I'm sure there was a chamber of horrors and a freaky Jack the Ripper display but my real takeaway was reading about the Great Plague and Great Fire and getting a sense that London's eminence comes from its many traumatic events. Oddly, London Dungeon gave me an appreciation for the city's history in a way that the Tower of London was unable. I was slowly growing to love London and I think this great tourist trap with few tourists played a small part in it. The soggy, empty London that awaited us outside didn't do quite as much for me.
Another week at school came and went and then we were off to Norwich on Saturday. My memories of the East Anglian city are all about wandering around in search of a place to eat. My mum and dad were determined to find a nice pub where we could enjoy our dinner but the publicans of Norwich had other plans, preferring their guests consume a strict liquid diet. We seemed to cover a pretty hefty chunk of the city's streets - some on foot, others in the car - but saw little save for a number of food-free pubs. In the end my parents gave up and we ended up in the safe hands of a Pizza Hut (combining that with the McDonald's we had for lunch ensured that I was quite pleased with our day's eats, even if Mum and Dad couldn't hide their bitter disappointment). We then went back to our rather dank B & B to watch an episode of Blind Date with Cilla Black. This was where we were on this cold November night: going around but not seeing anything, staying at an inn with no more charm than our home back in Laindon, watching the same trite Saturday evening TV that we always did. England, Bill Bryson-style if you will.
~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: He Ain't No Competition
older Paul's retro pick: Left to My Own Devices
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