19 February 1989: The Turning Point of a Career in Korea Being Insincere

1. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
2. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
3. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
4. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
5. Sam Brown: Stop!
6. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
7. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
8. Holly Johnson: Love Train
9. Yazz: Fine Time
10. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
11. Roy Orbison: You Got It
12. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
13. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
14. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
15. Def Leppard: Rocket
16. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
17. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
18. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
19. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
20. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
21. Morrissey: The Last of the Famous International Playboys
22. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
23. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
24. Simply Red: It's Only Love
25. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
26. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
27. The Style Council: Promised Land
28. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
29. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
30. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
31. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
32. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
33. Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
34. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
35. Debbie Gibson: Lost in Your Eyes
36. Erasure: Crackers International
37. Then Jerico: Big Area
38. Adeva: Respect
39. Pop Will Eat Itself: Can You Dig It?
40. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird

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Living in Korea, I have been amazed at the sheer randomness of some of the music that has managed to break through over here. I've met a few people here who simple revere Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore (more than enough times to make me convinced that it's just a coincidence) and some friends of mine recently told me about how much they used to love Euro-pop duo The London Boys (who we'll be encountering on here soon enough); the latter was especially odd considering they'd just admitted to me that they'd never heard of Milli Vanilli before. 

Which brings us to Stop!, Sam Brown's Top 5 hit from February of '89. It's a song that's had legs over the years. It's been used in movies and soap operas and has been covered by singers all over the world. But here in Korea it has taken on a life of its own. It first began appearing in widely popular Korean dramas, sometimes as a soundtrack to a character's heartbreak but also in scenes depicting the blossoming of romance. Indeed, it has become such a cliche on TV screens here that it has more recently become a joke. Nowadays, you're more likely to encounter it on one of the ubiquitous sketch comedy shows (Gag Concert) or reality variety programs (Infinite Challenge, Running Man, 2 Days 1 Night) in order to farcically send up a love story.

It's an interesting choice of song. A standard almost from the get-go, Stop! has aged well (aside from the singer's bleached-blond hair clashing with her dark eyebrows, very much a throwback), although I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Many critics of the eighties charge that music from the period sounds dated, what with flashy sythns and huge drums being staples. But for those of us who value pop for its nostalgia, there's the danger that timeless music isn't as capable of sending the listener back. Perhaps it even indicates that if it isn't dated then it probably never really captured people to begin with. If we flash forward to the late-nineties we come across a lot of pleasant, still-appealing numbers (Semisonic's Closing Time, The New Radicals' You Get What You Give, Fatboy Slim's The Rockefeller Shank, Catatonia's Road Rage, The Spice Girls' Stop) that nevertheless failed to really make a big imprint on me the time and, as such, aren't quite capable of bringing memories back today. They've lasted - well, some of them have - but that's precisely the point: whereas a period piece triggers a memory, many timeless works exist only in the present.

I spent all this week looking forward to the weekend. (Yeah, that's an awfully trite way to begin a sentence; who doesn't begin getting excited about the following Saturday and Sunday as soon as Monday falls?) I was by now accustomed to going away from our uninspiring Laindon residence as soon as we were finished school on Friday afternoons but this particular weekend was one that got me counting down the days. We were going to a football match.

I think I imagined that football was going to be a much bigger part of my life than it actually was. I've already mentioned how I was hoping to get some pointers on how I might improve my soccer skills only for these hopes to be dashed by having Welsh P.E. instructors wanting to make men of us first years by putting us in a rugby scrum. Football was on the telly but I almost never watched it. Indeed, the part of the November '88 Spurs-Wednesday clash that I always remember stands out mostly because it constituted the bulk of my footie viewing that year. My TV time was filled with pop music, Aussie soaps and quaint sit coms about quirky losers lodging with anal retentive couples to bother with sport.

In any event, I was super excited about going to see a football match and we couldn't have picked a better club to have seen that year than Norwich City. They spent the first three or four months of the 1988-89 season at the top of the old First Division and were still within sight of Arsenal and Liverpool by the time we went to see them. Their opponents were Manchester United. If you'd told me at the time that one of these clubs was going to completely dominate English football for the next two decades I would have likely thought "well, good for Norwich!" Man U were a nothing special side at the time, the likes of Cantona, Giggs, Keane and Beckham being just a glint in the eyes of a pre-knighthood Alex Ferguson. Their's was an organization with a proud history and a very bright future but no present to speak of. Liverpool was the illustrious side of the age and I think I was a tiny bit disappointed we weren't seeing them instead.

Being part of an exchange teacher's group, we got VIP treatment that day at Carrow Road. Beers, cokes and snacks awaited us prior to kickoff in a plain room full of well-to-do Norfolkers. We were then escorted to our seats and I have an either real or invented memory of us taking a few steps on the pitch en route. The seats were choice as well. To my left behind the goalkeeper stood hundreds of fans. I scoffed at their obvious discomfort and piss-poor view of the game.

Gradually, however, I began to glance longingly at the standing room terrace. They didn't get complimentary crisps and peanuts and cups of tea at half time but these people were into the action while all I could do was observe it. Norwich supporters chanted in unison (it wasn't until that summer that I realised how much I hated singing and shouting in a group but at this point it still seemed cool) and they even seemed to move as one. My dad also began glancing their way. We took particular delight in the inflatable bananas and skeletons that dotted the crowd and before long we began to envy them. We would've traded our VIP seats for a place in the terrace. The game itself was good (Norwich won 2-1 in a score that I recall flattered United) but we were missing the experience of the real football supporters. Hopefully, we'd have that chance at some point. We're getting there.

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young Paul's favourite: Help!
older Paul's retro pick: The Last of the Famous International Playboys