- Gerry Marsden, Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson & The Christians: Ferry Cross the Mersey
- Natalie Cole: Miss You Like Crazy
- Lynne Hamilton: On the Inside
- Kylie Minogue: Hand on Your Heart
- Neneh Cherry: Manchild
- London Boys: Requiem
- Donna Summer: I Don't Wanna Get Hurt
- Edelweiss: Bring Me Edelweiss
- Bobby Brown: Every Little Step
- Madonna: Express Yourself
- Cappella: Helyom Halib (Acid Acid Acid)
- Roxette: The Look
- Tone Loc: Funky Cold Medina / On Fire
- Guns 'N Roses: Sweet Child o' Mine [remix]
- Sam Brown: Can I Get a Witness?
- Deacon Blue: Fergus Sings the Blues
- Chaka Khan: I'm Every Woman '89
- Queen: I Want It All
- Sinitta: Right Back Where We Started From
- Double Trouble & The Rebel MC: Just Keep Rockin'
- Stefan Dennis: Don't It Make You Feel Good
- Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
- W.A.S.P.: The Real Me
- Fuzzbox: Pink Sunshine
- D Mob featuring LRS: It Is Time to Get Funky
- Debbie Gibson: Electric Youth
- The Bangles: Eternal Flame
- Robert Palmer: Change His Ways
- Paul McCartney: My Brave Face
- Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl
- Midnight Oil: Beds Are Burning
- ABC: One Better World
- The Jacksons: Nothin' (That Compares 2 U)
- Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down
- The Beautiful South: Song for Whoever
- Fields of Nephilim: Psychonaut
- Stevie Nicks: Rooms on Fire
- Holly Johnson: Americanos
- Vixen: Love Made Me
- The Beatmasters with Merlin: Who's in the House?
~~~~~
Pet Shop Boys, Deacon Blue, The Wonder Stuff: we've so far encountered on this blog groups that would make up the backbone of my taste in music as I entered my awkward teen years. There's a nice symmetry to this triumvirate: the Pet Shops I liked a bit before we came to the UK, the Deacs I got into while we were there and the Stuffies would have to wait until I was fourteen and ready for them. Only one major group was left though they don't fit in with the above - then again, when your favourite groups are a camp synth-pop duo, a Scots bar band and a pack of mouthy Brummies, how could one be expected to fit in?
The Beautiful South enter this story in a different situation than the other members of this quartet. Whereas the Pet Shop Boys/Dusty Springfield duet What Have I Done to Deserve This? was a big a favourite of mine back in the autumn of '87 and Deacon Blue's Real Gone Kid became the song I could never stop singing along with and The Wonder Stuff's Caught in My Shadow was the soundtrack for my teenage angst, my first impressions of The Beautiful South and their hit Song for Whoever were not favourable. One factor was that the Hull quintet seemed mean, looking very much like those thuggish youths who taunted me outside Laindon Station for wearing a Spurs scarf: even the most trivial indiscretion would set this sort off. Around this time there were reports of ugly confrontations with fans at gigs who seemingly hadn't got over the demise of forerunner group The Housemartins - and this only added to my dubious view of them.
Song for Whoever was itself pretty nasty and hateful. Probably my first exposure to a knowing irony - a redundancy of sorts, I know, but I think it's worth distinguishing between irony that I was aware of and irony that escaped me - and I wasn't terribly impressed. It was clear there was a joke going on in there, it just wasn't terribly funny. I've since come round to it though only up to a point. I'm glad they wrote and recorded it, the tune is nice enough and it works as a statement of intent: whispers that they were the "Pet Shop Boys you can't dance to" were likely being uttered right from the start. Still, it doesn't come close to their best work - I'm Your no.1 Fan is an especially wonderful number of their's and ought to be recognized as an In My Life for Generation X - and, as such, I can't bring myself to anoint it as my weekly retro pick. Besides which, Neneh Cherry and Guns 'N Roses are just too damn strong.
All this is moot during the final week of May '89 because our half-term trip to France and Holland meant we were on a brief chart embargo. We didn't hear Bruno Brookes' Sunday night Top 40 rundown on Radio 1 nor did we get the chance to tune in to Top of the Pops that Thursday - it was as if the charts were on hold that week. We just had to make due with visiting Paris and Amsterdam.
I tend to thumb my nose at people who try to avoid touristy spots. Sure, it's cool to take in some less renowned areas of a famous city but so too is checking out the so-called tourist traps. I've spent enough time in Bangkok to know that a tour of the Grand Palace or the Jim Thompson House is just as pleasant as aimlessly wandering around a quiet neighbourhood or crouching on a milk crate to tuck in to a plate of basil chili rice. Still, I can kind of see their point when it comes to Paris. Our second morning in the French capital was a Monday and we left our hotel just as everyone else was heading to school or work - and I enjoyed passing by all this bustle. We seemed to be soaking in the local culture everywhere we went: open-air cafes, posters shilling French films and bathroom products, working class urchins blowing showers of snot from their nostrils: yeah, Paris had it all. What it seemed to lack was destinations that were equally worthwhile. The Louve was crowded and everyone was there to catch a glimpse of a painting that isn't even very good, Notre-Dame might have been impressive if not for the fact that I had no interest whatsoever in taking in another damn church and the city parks were all devoid of even a solitary blade of grass. Only the Eiffel Tower proved well worth a visit, especially since we were there at dusk and my dad and I descended most of its stairs.
I've always looked back at our four day sojourn in Paris as something I was a little too young for but now I realise that there just wasn't enough time to get all the sight seeing out of our systems allowing us to better appreciate the lovely city. But then, that's only something I've learned to appreciate as I've grown older and travelled around Asia. So maybe I was too young for Paris all along.
From there we were off to Amsterdam by train. Having seen a very lengthy slide show of photos from my grandparents' visit to the Netherlands in 1984, I was expecting to see nothing but canals. It was, therefore, a surprise to be greeted by an endless stream of bicycles almost as soon as we alighted. I was quickly smitten and I hadn't found a city I took to so immediately since our trip to Edinburgh the previous October. The Dutch city seemed better at blending its tourist traps with the local flavours. (Amsterdam was also a city that surprised us. Everyone seemed to speak flawless English ("better than the English," as my dad later remarked), they all seemed to enjoy pouring mayonnaise all over their chips and we only witnessed one gentleman using the canals as a toilet)
As opposed to Paris, however, it's not the sort of place that I feel like I was too young for. I didn't scarf down a plate of hash brownies nor did I explore the notorious Red Light District and I didn't later wish I'd been an unwashed hippie backpacker indulging in such Dutch delights. Instead, I was won over by the superb crepes and the city's relaxed vibe. It seemed like a cool place for a twelve-year-old.
We returned to England on the Saturday for a long ferry journey to Harwich before taking a train into London's Liverpool St. Station only to double back from Fenchurch St. back to Laindon. It was during this final leg that my dad discovered that he didn't have his keys - he must have left them back in our hotel in Amsterdam, he reckoned - and we were locked out of our house. Now, normally we might have welcomed the chance to not have to have gone inside our inhospitable, uncomfortable abode but we were all beat from the long day and it was getting late. My parents were thus forced to knock on the door of our neighbours who kindly invited us to relax in their living room as my dad and the bloke who lived there plotted a strategy for getting in. Happily, our miserable home provided the in we needed: one of the bedroom windows had proved impossible to close which allowed my dad the chance to climb up and sneak in. Breaking in to the home we didn't want to live in: this is what we were reduced to.
~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Sweet Child o' Mine
older Paul's retro pick: Manchild
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