Now That's What I Call A Music Blog

Tag: Robert Palmer

  • NOW! 19 – Not quite the time of your life

    NOW! 19 – Not quite the time of your life

    Now 19 cover1991 was to prove to be a game changing year for NOW. Hits was now dead in the water and to celebrate NOW would unveil an exciting, sexy new look. That, however, would have to wait, as the year began with a continuation of the dreadful pub wallpaper, shouty brash styling of its predecessor, but at least NOW 19 is a huge improvement. Oddly, although it contains five number ones, I suspect many people would struggle to remember them from the track listing, and would probably misidentify a couple of songs as chart-toppers that weren’t.

    The advert, which chooses to highlight some odd selections, mentions six number ones. I wonder if they are cheekily including The Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, which was a number one in 1965, but only number 3 on it’s 1990 re-release.

    We start with one of the ones that DID hit the top spot at the time, with the peerless The Clash and their denim-flogging Should I Stay or Should I Go. A brilliant song, no doubt, but should such an old song (from an advert no less) be opening the album? What used to be the prime slot of a NOW album, usually reserved for the biggest track available, it was increasingly being used as brinkmanship and devoted to artists the labels wanted to plug the most. The fact that The Clash was licensed from WEA for inclusion makes this doubly strange as none of the NOW labels benefit from additional sales. Maybe it was considered a big enough hit to warrant a negotiation with WEA to get it front and centre.

    Adding to the mystery is the fact that the rest of side one is almost exclusively dance orientated. But none of this is as odd as the second track, a tune I’ve spent 20 years trying to decide if I like or not, and I’m still not sure. Much like Candy Flip’s Strawberry Fields Forever, Scritti Politti’s take on the Fab Four’s She’s a Woman (a lesser known mop-top track, being the B-side to I Feel Fine) is a ridiculously contemporary take on a Beatles’ track, so over-produced, bleeding-edge and, frankly, camp, that you wonder if it’s not all some elaborate joke at the listeners’ expense. Add in everyone’s favourite homophobic rapper, Shabba Ranks (making his UK chart debut), and you have the perfect punchline. Seeing Green Gartside in the video looking like Richard Madeley doing his Ali G impression, wearing a very hot-looking tracksuit and baseball cap (right way round, thankfully) is something to behold. It’s not a bad track, not by a long shot; it’s just so wonderfully odd. I’ve had my doubts before about how seriously The Politti’s take themselves (see NOW 12) so I’m happy to assume that, like The Beautiful South, they’re happy for people to take their songs how they hear them and not sneer at them for ‘not getting it’. It’s one of the lowest charting tracks on NOW 19, reaching only number 20.

    Shabba!
    Shabba!

    Just two songs in and we next get one of the best songs on the album with You Got the Love. The track has a massively convoluted genesis which I won’t delve into here, but needless to say the vocal is old (around 1986) and this arrangement was a re-working of a previous bootleg release (1989). Even this 1991 release appears in various different guises. The one on NOW 19 is the one I remember from the charts at the time, but has subtle differences to the one more commonly played on the radio now and heard on 90’s compilations (the track has been remixed and re-released so many times, it’s impossible to know which version you’re going to get).

    So things are shaping up nicely, a drop must be due, surely? Well, not yet there isn’t. The KLF’s 3AM Eternal is next, somehow managing to sound like a perfect fusion of rap, dance and rock and simultaneously sound like it’s sending it all up. That’s followed by C and C Music Factory with Gonna Make You Sweat (still a pop-tastic floor-filler) and Nomad’s I Wanna Give You Devotion. In NOW 19’s only sop to the alternative scene we get EMF’s I Believe, a fine follow up to megahit Unbelievable, and 808 State’s In Your Face, probably the hardest track featured on a NOW album. It’s the kind of thing that people say isn’t music, it’s just noise. It’s not quite as teeth-shattering as Cubik from the previous year, but it gives the bass a good rattling. Amazingly this was a top ten hit. Good, because it’s great.

    Side one has been pretty damn good, it has to be said, but it saves the best until last, with, in my opinion anyway, the best track featured in the whole series, Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy. It’s simply one of the most perfect records released in my lifetime: a subtle sample, a wonderful vocal, great lyrics, and more atmosphere than the best of Russ Abbott’s parties. It still gives me chills and stops me doing whatever I’m doing when I hear it. It’s so perfect it’s hard to believe it’s actually on a pop compilation and had it not been for this blog I would never have known that it appeared on a NOW album. It reached a sorry number 13 in the charts, a fact I feel the country as a whole should hang its collective head in shame for. Its inclusion does however cement in history a moment of BBC craziness which has been long forgotten. As the single was released at the height of the Gulf War (part 1) Auntie took it upon itself to ban, edit and rename a whole list of songs and artists (including the Happy Mondays, whose track Loose Fit lost a line about blowing up an air force base and wiping out your race; they didn’t have a problem with the lines about getting stoned though). As such Massive Attack were persuaded, through their record company, to lose the ‘Attack’ or risk not getting any airplay, unfortunately making them Massive, and sounding like any number of generic Belgian DJs then cluttering up the lower reaches of the chart. It’s under that name that they appear here.

    "Vindaloo! Vindaloo! Vindaloo! Vindaloo! ... and we all like vindaloo!"
    “Vindaloo! Vindaloo! Vindaloo! Vindaloo! … and we all like vindaloo!”

    So, as good as side one is, it’s inevitable that it would have a bad and evil twin. Side two is that twin. Well, to be fair, it’s more that the bad ones are SO bad, they taint the rest of the side. The only track on side two I would choose to listen to is Kylie’s What Do I Have To Do?, part of her sexy re-invention phase. It’s one of the weaker efforts from this period, paling in comparison to Shocked or Better The Devil You Know. Of the rest, Kim Appleby’s G.L.A.D. is fun without scoring as highly as Don’t Worry. Wiggle It, from 2 in a Room, just sounds creepy (and I could have sworn was released a couple of years later than 1991). McHammer’s Pray is poor and only here because if he had a single out it had to be included to make up for the fact that NOW missed out on U Can’t Touch This.

    Vanilla Ice and Hale and Pace (featuring Brian May!) slug it out for worst track on the album. I hadn’t heard either Play That Funky Music or The Stonk since 1991 and a bloody good thing too. If any excuses can be made for these, at least Vanilla Ice’s was never meant to be anything other than a pocket-money grabbing, quick buck follow-up to Ice Ice Baby. The Stonk has no such excuse. I hate the idea that charity records, and particularly Comic Relief records, are allowed to be rubbish because the music isn’t the point. Don’t release a record then! Release a comedy video instead, release a book, do a comedy telethon (oh, for the days when Comic Relief actually featured comedy rather than just Children in Need with swearing). The Stonk is a foul, festering boil of a song. Badly written and with little talent on show, either comedically or musically, it is possibly the worst comedy record of all time. It’s certainly the worst one to get to number one. You bloody idiots.

    Entertainment, 1991 style!
    Entertainment, 1991 style!

    Side two does finish off with a few interesting tracks (no doubt considered mere filler by the compilers of the day). Jesus Loves You was Boy George’s return to the charts, and Bow Down Mister is nowhere near as awful as I remember it from back in the day. In fact its hymn to Hare Krishna actually sounds much more worthwhile now. Enigma’s Sadness Part 1 is one of the oddest number ones we’ve seen so far, mixing monks, pan pipes and a dance beat. I’ve never liked it, for I blame it for introducing us to the endless stream of compilations of Pan Pipe Moods, Chill Out Moods, Moods Moods and Moods. If I want to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit played on pan pipes I’ll go back to University thanks.

    The final track of side two is the real curve ball though, and perhaps best sums up how ephemeral the charts were becoming: Only You by Praise. Ring any bells? It didn’t with me, even though it was a top 5 single. No? Was featured in a car advert? Maybe that’s jogged a few memories. As soon as you hear the opening, ghostly female moan bouncing from one speaker to the other you’ll recognise it. In a similar vein to Sadness, but much more atmospheric, better produced and likely to still sound contemporary for many years, this is a tune ripe for rediscovery. Or is it an embarrassing mix of would-be spiritualism, dolphin noises and with a whiff of the Ikea catalogue about it. It’s one or the other.

    The decision to top load the album with the dance tracks (with the odd exception of The Clash) does the job of making NOW seem trendy again and down with the kids. What it conversely does it make the second half incredibly dreary by comparison, filled as it is, once again, with old timers, covers and re-issues. A quick glance at the line up for sides 3 and 4 turns up just two tracks I’d choose to listen to, and one of them is Chris Rea!

    Not an auberge
    Not an auberge

    We are definitely in black and chrome dinner party mode to start things off. Oleta Adams’ Get Here shows off her vocal skills admirably but it is a boring bank advert soundtrack (actually I think Royal Mail ended up using it in a TV commercial, with crushing inevitability). Rick Astley’s Cry For Help was an admirable attempt to demonstrate he could still operate without SAW pulling the strings (he grew his hair long and everything) and it’s nice, if uneventful. The public, of course, wanted the funny little dance, so this would be his last major hit. The cheese is supplied by Robert Palmer, this time wasting his talents on a dreary cover of Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me and I Want You, combining the two songs to no noticeable effect.

    Next is a bunch of old tracks: I’ve Had The Time of My Life gets the reissue treatment following Dirty Dancing’s TV premiere (!). Berlin’s Take My Breath Away had similarly gone stratospheric following Top Gun’s TV debut, but luckily that wasn’t included for a second time. The Righteous Brothers record company had followed up Unchained Melody (the best-selling track of 1990) with the infinitely better You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling to keep the Greatest Hits album sales ticking over. This was a double A side release with the even better, but less well-known Ebb Tide. The radio only ever played the more famous track though. Shame.

    Seal then pops up to tell you the world is doomed in Crazy. I never quite understood why we have to get crazy in order to survive, but there you go.

    Finally a good song arrives. It’s still a little on the maudlin side, but Banderas deserve to be better remembered than they are, at least if This Is Your Life is any kind of evidence. It hasn’t aged that well, but its left-field and dancey approach to the ‘state of the planet’ song so popular at the time is far more appealing than Seal’s diatribe. It’s one of the lesser known tracks on here and needs a wider audience.

    It’s followed by a song I swear I had never heard before in my life, this despite the fact it reached number six at a time when I still had a vague passing interest in what was in the top ten: The Postman Song by Stevie B. It is bloody awful and genuinely sounds like it could have been a massive hit at any point in the past 20 years (I suppose that’s some kind of compliment but it’s not meant to be). Lyrically naive, as if written by a child, it’s also musically bland (horrible electronic piano abounds), over produced (quite odd considering how sparse it is) with far too much echo on the trying-too-hard vocal. Mr B (probably no relation to Derek or Radio 1 DJ Emma) clearly fancies himself as a successor to Jacko, but that rhotacism does creep in occasionally, making his cries of “because I love you” sound like Kim Jong Il in Team America. So ronery.

    The sound of side three
    The sound of side three

    Side four, thankfully starts off well, with two solid songs. Chris Rea’s Auberge has always been a song I’ve had a fondness for because I’m a sucker for a good horn section (ooh, cheeky). No idea what it’s about but his gravelly voice suits it perfectly and I remember there was an amusing video which helped a lot too. Chris Issak’s Blue Hotel is the long-forgotten follow up to his massive Wicked Game. As good as that song was I’ve always preferred this. This kind of stuff was so rare at the time it was refreshing to hear someone who wasn’t ashamed of being considered old fashioned (Harry Connick Jr was breaking at the same time with his crooner revival). The charts were full of old songs at the time anyway, like Free’s All Right Now, clogging up the top 5 like so much swallowed chewing gum. Never understood the attraction of this sweaty slice of 70s cheese and that hasn’t changed with age.

    The rest of side four returns to NOW standard and meanders its way home with the off-cuts, forgotten tracks and artists that needed a push (sometimes off the roster). And Queen.

    While INXS didn’t really need a push, the album X wasn’t selling as well as anticipated. Disappear was a weak track and the chart position it reached reflected this. Falling by the wayside for a second time was Belinda Carlisle, with the dull Summer Rain. Also rans in attendance also include The Railway Children (the odd Every Beat of My Heart drifts between Aztec Camera, House of Love and Johnny Hates Jazz without coming close to any of them, not even the latter) and Thunder (one of those bands, like Runrig and Wildhearts, who always seem more popular than their record sales suggest, failing to score big hits but selling out Wembley for a week).

    But the strangest song is saved for last: Queen’s Innuendo. It’s probably their most successful attempt to recreate the template for Bohemian Rhapsody (something they’d been trying to do since 1975) but that does not make it any good. It ain’t. In fact it’s one of their worst singles ever, so quite why it became only their second number one after Rhapsody is completely beyond me. Radio 1 certainly helped. The old guard were still holding court but were faltering and most (DLT especially) just seemed to doing whatever the hell they liked by this stage. I remember Simon Bates, who had the mid-morning show, was going to give the record its first airing. Not only did he play the whole song (all six and a half minutes) with a reverential silence unheard of other records, he then declared it a masterpiece and played the whole thing again! It’s no masterpiece: it sounds like the darker cousin of their 1989 minor chart fancier, The Miracle, with an added Spanish guitar and castanets wig-out halfway through, and a truly odd rock opera interlude. It’s the kind of thing Muse aspire to now, but at least you think they are aware of their own ridiculousness. At least I do.

    Minipops Queen
    Minipops Queen

    A few years earlier, Innuendo would have opened a NOW album, but Queen (number one or not) were not relevant to the NOW buyers anymore. Despite the abundance of re-releases on show, dance music now dominated the teenager’s music choice. NOW, the charts and Radio 1 were going to have to adapt to the new order.

    The other thing to change, for NOW, would be look of the thing. The new 90s look needed a refresh and after just two outings the brash, gaudy look (along with the exclamation mark) would be ditched in favour of something far more refined, stylish and NOW.

     

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 19

    Release date

    25th March 1991

    Biggest tracks

    Should I Stay or Should I Go – The Clash

    You Got The Love – The Source feat. Candi Stanton

    Unfinished Sympathy – Massive

    Crazy – Seal

    Lost gems

    This Is Your Life – Banderas

    She’s A Woman – Scritti Politti feat Shabba Ranks

    Forgotten tracks

    Only You – Praise

    Because I Love You (The Postman Song) – Stevie B

    Worst Tracks

    The Stonk – Hale & Pace and The Stonkers

    Play That Funky Music – Vanilla Ice

    What’s missing?

    Grease Megamix – John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

    Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter – Iron Maiden

    Hippy Chick – Soho

     

    Track listing

    Side one
    Should I Stay or should I Go The Clash
    She’s A Woman Scritti Politti feat. Shabba Ranks
    You Got The Love The Source feat. Candi Stanton
    3 a.m. Eternal The KLF feat. The Children Of The Revolution
    Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) C+C Music Factory pts. Freedom Williams
    (I Wanna Give You) Devotion Nomad feat. MC Mikee Freedom
    I Believe EMF
    In Yer Face 808 State
    Unfinished Sympathy Massive Attack
    Side two
    Pray M C Hammer
    G.L.A.D. Kim Appleby
    What Do I Have To Do (7 Mix) Kylie Minogue
    The Stonk Hale & Pace & The Stonkers
    Wiggle It 2 In A Room
    Play That Funky Music Vanilla Ice
    Bow Down Mister Jesus Loves You
    Sadness Part 1 Enigma
    Only You Praise
    Side three
    Get Here Oleta Adams
    Cry For Help Rick Astley
    Mercy Mercy Me/I Want You (Medley) Robert Palmer
    (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes
    You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ The Righteous Brothers
    Crazy Seal
    This Is Your Life Banderas
    Because I Love You (The Postman Song) Stevie B
    Side four
    Auberge Chris Rea
    Blue Hotel Chris Isaak
    All Right Now Free
    Disappear INXS
    Summer Rain Belinda Carlisle
    Every Beat Of The Heart The Railway Children
    Love Walked In Thunder
    Innuendo Queen

     

    Note: NOW 19 was the first album not to have an accompanying VHS release.

  • NOW! 18 – The pompatus of love

    NOW! 18 – The pompatus of love

    Now_18In some ways the much-derided (by smart arses like me), and often ignored (by everyone else) re-vamp of the NOW design is nice and simple. No one was calling the albums by their full name, so why bother putting the whole title on the cover? They barely bothered with NOW 17, but retained the iconic balls for one last round. Also, the series had been going for so long now, surely everyone had given up on the numbering by now? The latest release would be just another NOW album, people will flock to buy it anyway, it doesn’t matter what number it is. We’ll keep the number, but we’ll hide it on the sleeve, like a game, or like some cryptic cigarette ad. With NOW 18, the balls were chopped off in their prime and replaced by what I can only compare to old pub wallpaper, with the word NOW! emblazoned across the front (note also the addition of the kiddie-friendly but otherwise useless exclamation mark). It’s breathtakingly dreadful. Even as a teenager I knew this was a horrible design, mainly because it looks cheap and generic. Add some band photos down the side and it’s not a million miles away from the rip-off Out Now! series Chrysalis and MCA records briefly released in the mid 80s.

    This might be excusable if NOW 18 bestrode the charts like a sales statistic behemoth (whatever one of them might look like) but it doesn’t, and I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s me or the music. This blog was a direct result of me wondering if pop music got bad or did I just get old. The question I forgot to ask myself was, do we only like the pop music from when we were kids? Does every generation think their music was the best?

    NOW 18 is certainly not short on number ones; side one kicks off with three in a row, and features a further three later on. The Beautiful South’s A Little Time, Steve Miller Band’s The Joker and Reg Dwight’s first UK number one, Sacrifice, represent probably the lowest key opening to a NOW album so far. Strange that they re-brand, presumably, to appeal more to a hip, happening teenage market (it’s unlikely many who bought the first NOW were still buying them by this stage), and then they choose to open the album with some of the most insipid, turgid, beige-sounding songs of the year. The Joker in particular, featured in a Levis ad, so a nailed on number one, really perplexes me now. What was it about this song (apart from its ubiquity on the TV) that made it so popular, particularly when it failed to score on its original release in the 70s? Lest we forget this is the song that stopped Deee-Lite’s Groove Is In The Heart from reaching number one. Elton John’s song is a mystery too, since Sacrifice and it’s double A side brother, the much better, Healing Hands, had BOTH been released as singles the year before, and neither had charted!

    Lord Baldy Reg

    The dirge doesn’t stop there. It Must have Been Love isn’t a bad ballad (and I was sure it had been a chart-topper but it stopped at number 3), but following on from Baldy Reg (still in hat-wearing rather than bad weave mode) just demonstrates why you shouldn’t pack all your smooch songs too close together. Four songs in and NOW 18 is making me reconsider whether this blog will ever get finished. A lively horn section and a small orchestra jerk me back into action. Sadly it’s courtesy of Phil Collins’ Something Happened On The Way To Heaven, surely one of the worst song titles of all time. The song’s alright, nothing special, but I’m probably giving it an easier ride because of what came before it. Collins somehow manages to snag himself a prime location as the first artist name on the cover, a spot normally reserved for the coveted side one, track one artist.

    Just as side one is starting to feel like a complete washout, NOW 18’s first forgotten gem arrives. Last year Wilson Phillips’ Hold On got itself a bit of a mini revival thanks to the awful Bridesmaids movie (a film whose best scene features a group of ladies in wedding dresses suffering explosive  diarrhoea…), but listening to it again here it still generates that “I haven’t heard this for years” feeling. Given they are the daughters of various Beach Boys and Mamas and Papas, it shouldn’t surprise that they can hold a cracking pop tune. It’s ridiculously uplifting and nice in a fun way rather than being nice because it’s not dreadful.

    The mood then drops immediately, but to be fair, it is for one of the best songs on the album, if not the whole of the 90s: Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O’Connor. Given its release date, this really should have featured on NOW 17, and one can only suspect it was held back so as not to affect sales of Ms O’Connor’s album (which sold very well, thank you very much). As breathtakingly good as the song is, it brings to a close the least inspiring side of NOW I’ve experienced thus far.

    And things don’t improve on the flipside either, at least not at first. Thanks to the movie Ghost, Unchained Melody found itself vying with The Joker for the title of Biggest Selling Re-release of 1990. The Righteous Brothers were victorious, becoming the biggest selling single of the whole year into the bargain. I’ve always found this endlessly popular (and endlessly covered) song to be a bit of a slog and in the Righteous Brothers discography I’ve always preferred You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling and the less well-known Ebb Tide, both of which were released as a double A-side later in the year, but performed less well.

    Now That's what I Call a Pop Group Publicity Photo. I love this a bit too much.
    Now That’s what I Call a Pop Group Publicity Photo. I love this a bit too much.

     

    An act whose chart career seemed to end almost at the same time as the the 80s was Belinda Carlisle. Her chart placings had been steadily declining since she burst onto the scene at the tail end of 1987, with successive singles registering lower and lower, so it was a bit of a surprise that the fifth (FIFTH!) single from her Runaway Horses album would not only be a hit, but would be her biggest hit since Heaven Is A Place on Earth. It’s not that much of a surprise though when you learn that single was the car- flogging We Want The Same Thing. Now regarded as one of her best-loved songs, the single version was a radical reworking of the version on the album, at least that’s what Wikipedia says. Not having a copy of the album to hand I can’t verify this, and the interwebs are no help either, offering only this, more famous version. It follows the template of Heaven to a tee, and is a brilliant pop single as a result. A number six finish seems a bit harsh now for such a great pop nugget, but the charts were much tougher in those days.

    Sadly, the charts weren’t quite tough enough to prevent Status Quo’s Anniversary Waltz from reaching number two! Obviously conceived to try and cash in on the success of Jive Bunny the previous year, The Quo take a three-chord-wander their way through a succession of 50s rock n’ roll standards with all the enthusiasm of a pub band on a wet Tuesday night. Dreadful. Much better is INXS’ Suicide Blonde. The first new single after the massive success of the Kick album, this was always going to be a tricky prospect. Luckily, it still sounds pretty damn good, though that harmonica does have a tendency to wow and irritate in equal measure. INXS takes us into a cul-de-sac of ‘indie’ tunes, but with baggy imploding as quickly as it started, it’s left to two old hands and one doomed new act to provide our left-field choices this time around.

    Public Image Limited’s (PiL) Don’t Ask Me is the big “huh?” on NOW 18. Never a big hit (and PiL were never more than critically-acclaimed rather than chart successes) it is a pretty good tune. Not as good as This Is Not A Love Song or Rise, this does strike me as filler for a NOW album. Were Virgin really trying to sell PiL to the kids of the early 90s? One band that definitely was successfully sold back to the kids was Talk Talk. Never as successful as they should have been, a greatest hits album led to a couple of top 20 hits with It’s My Life (on show here) becoming their biggest ever hit, 6 years after its original release. Such a brilliant track, it opened up the band to whole new audience (myself included) who had not been aware of them. Listened to now it’s easy to spot Talk Talk’s influence over so much of the alternative scene in the intervening years, it’s shameful it took a contract-fulfilling compilation to get them noticed in their own country.

    You mean I could have my landline, broadband and TV all handled by just ONE 80's experimental rock band?
     I could have my landline, broadband and TV all handled by just ONE 80’s experimental alternative rock band?

    The La’s also never got their dues and are more widely regarded as one hit wonders. Due to its ubiquity, it may be hard to fathom that There She Goes only reached the dizzy heights of number 18 and remains their only top 40 single. Despite it being a wonderful piece of jaunty pop fluff (allegedly about heroin addiction) I’ll gladly never hear it again. If you like it, I implore you to buy their debut (and to date, only studio) album. There at least five songs on it better than this.

    Side two then finishes itself off with the seemingly obligatory inclusions for Tina Turner’s Be Gentle With Me Baby (kind of like The First Cut Is The Deepest by way of Stay With Me Baby) and Robert palmer and UB40’s I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, which is playful if not exactly good. Palmer helps a lot.

    Perhaps reflecting the shift in sales to CD’s, there seems to be a definite attempt to theme the halves of the albums now, with, usually, sides three  and four given over to dance music, as is the case here. This reflects the charts at the time, but it’s telling that five of the number ones on NOW 18 were on the first half, in with all the rock and pop, while the second half, almost exclusively dance-orientated features just the one, which we’ll come to in a moment. The Pet Shop Boys return with So Hard, and ‘proper’ bands get a brief look in thanks to the wonderful remix of  The Cure’s already wonderful Close To Me, and the dreadful Ben Liebrand remix of Sting’s already dreadful An Englishman In New York. There’s also the jaw-droppingly simple but effective remix treatment given to Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner, which still impresses.

    Producer-led dance was taking over though: Fascinating Rhythm from Bass-o-matic (which I always thought was a great name for a washing machine) sounded great in 1990, but sounds awfully generic now. It’s probably no fault of the song, but the endless, pointless samples are over the top and irritate enormously. Soul II Soul’s Missing You is pretty ropey stuff compared to their 1989 vintage, despite the presence of Kym Mazelle on vocals. This should have made for a stronger vocal than Carol Wheeler, but somehow it ends up sounding even weedier. Also disappointing is Neneh Cherry’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin; a self-conscious attempt to re-write Prince’s awesome Sign o’ The Times, it fails completely. Cherry’s vocal is fine, and the subject is laudable, but it feels contrived and cheap. Blue Pearl’s Little Brother is only here in anticipation of it being as big a hit as its predecessor, Naked In The Rain. Not a chance, but it’s not as bad as I remember considering it’s a very difficult song to remember.

    Please tell me this image doesn't need a caption...
    Please tell me this image doesn’t need a caption…

    Side four feels like it will be the proper party side, kicking off with Kylie’s Step Back In Time (a change in chart fortunes no doubt prompting her re-appearance, two years after I Should Be So Lucky appeared on NOW 11). Kim Appleby’s Don’t Worry is one of the best songs on NOW 18. Lyrically it’s about getting over a bloke, but everyone knew it was really about the tragic death of her sister, Mel. For a floor-filler it’s genuinely moving stuff. The public agreed pushing it to a number two slot that, sadly, subsequent releases couldn’t match. It was produced by Ken from Bros, fact fans!

    Next we get two absolute jokes of tunes. Technotronic’s Megamix (I can’t believe that’s the title, but that’s how it’s credited… just Megamix) is one of the most shameless rip-offs I’ve ever heard from the music industry. Having sold the public the same song four times (only Rocking Over The Beat showed any sign of variety) they then cut all four together, along with a fifth, unidentified track, and sell it back to the kids again! It’s like KFC taking all your left over bones and bits of skin, re-heating them and then selling them back to you as “Spicy Scraps” or something. And given that all the songs are bloody identical, it couldn’t have been too much of a chore to mix them all together. One point of mild interest comes from the fact that MC Eric (pfft) is rapping a different lyric from This Beat is Technotronic. Meh.

    Next comes the gobsmackingly awful Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Polka Yellow Dot Bikini from Bombalurina (aka Timmy Mallett, crazy name, crazy guy). You all know this, don’t you? Bloody awful… number one all summer… novelty crap… Well, I’m shocked to report that you are wrong. All of you. It’s actually pretty good. I don’t mean in a Pet Sounds/ The Queen Is Dead sense of the word good. We’re not talking about topping a Q magazine list of the greatest number ones of all time. I mean, it’s good in a good, fun pop song kind of way. On NOW 12 there was some discussion (in my head) of the KLF’s Timelords project and how it was a cynical attempt to ‘create’ a number one record. They succeeded. I see Bombalurina   as an attempt to use the same principles but to create, not a deliberately bad record but, a good fun pop record. It samples The Incredible Bongo Band, Holly Johnson, Gil Scott Heron and that “ah yeah” heard on every record in 1990. Mallett can’t sing but holds the whole thing together. And let’s not forget, the song is not some great work of art to start with; it’s pop fluff, Mallet just updated it, retaining the fun (an aspect of pop that was slowly being eradicated) and having a massive hit into the bargain. And all power to him. The man was one of the greatest kids TV presenters ever and by all accounts is a thoroughly decent gent. I’ll not hear a word said against him.

    Legend
    Utterly utterly utterly utterly brilliant

    Fun pop continues with Betty Boo’s wonderful Where Are You Baby?, which is still brilliant, and Dirty Cash from The Adventures of Stevie V. Not a favourite of mine back in 1990, listened to now (for the first time in two decades) it’s actually rather splendid. Dark, moody and still danceable, it’s just a shame about the incongruous rap that appears halfway through. It’s completely out of place, but luckily, quite short.

    The whole thing finishes off with a couple of smoochers. That old Scottish rapper McHammer deconstruction of The Chi-Lites’ Have You Seen Her? deserves little mention, but Jimmy Somerville’s To Love Somebody is rather special. Giving his best vocal performance for years, it somehow manages to make white-boy reggae listenable again. Compared to UB40 this feels a lot more heartfelt and honest. But it’s another notch on the cover version/re-release bedpost, taking NOW 18’s total to a whopping 16 songs! It’s a pleasant end to the album but one which is indicative of the album’s underwhelming whole.

    An underwhelming hole, yeaterday
    An underwhelming hole, yesterday

    In NOW 18’s defence (a bit) 1990 was far from a banner year for pop music, and was definitely a transitional year. Stock, Aitken and waterman were on their way out, with ‘purer’ dance music coming to the fore, mainly from Europe. It wasn’t all good, far from it, but it was to become the dominant sound of the charts and arguably still is today. It should be no surprise to learn that NOW only had two regular releases in 1990, but there were three NOW Dance releases (I may come to NOW Dance at a later date). Indie took a bath, and it would be a few more years before it would re-emerge in any meaningful way in the NOW universe. The notable absence is rap. While the charts today are happy to mix hip hop with chart regulars, the record buyers of 1990 were notably unsure, and after a few fruitful years, it too seemed to be on the wane in the mainstream.

    NOW 18 is a fair reflection of its cover: shouting from the rooftops about good it is, and how big its hits are, just like the Hits Album used to, but just like Hits, it flatters to deceive. There is some absolute class on show here, but it’s suffocated by old songs, insipid ballads, poor programming and a lack of innovation. Ironic given its ‘innovative’ new look.

     

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 18

    Release date

    19th November  1990

    Biggest tracks

    Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor

    It Must have Been Love – Roxette

    Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers

     

    Forgotten tracks

    Little Brother – Blue Pearl

    Missing You – Soul II Soul ft Kym Mazelle

     

    Hidden gems

    Hold On – Wilson Phillips

    Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini – Bombalurina (seriously… try it again)

    To Love Somebody – Jimmy Sommervile

     

    What’s missing

    King of Wishful Thinking – Go West

    Kinky Afro – Happy Mondays

    The elephant on the room is the best single of 1990…

    Groove is in the Heart – Deee Lite, which had sadly snapped up for The Hit Pack, the latest incarnation of the Hits series.

     

     

     

    Track listing

    Side one
    A Little Time The Beautiful South
    The Joker Steve Miller Band
    Sacrifice Elton John
    It Must Have Been Love Roxette
    Something Happened On The Way To Heaven Phil Collins
    Hold On (Single Edit) Wilson Phillips
    Nothing Compares 2 U Sinéad O’Connor
    Side two
    Unchained Melody The Righteous Brothers
    (We Want) The Same Thing Belinda Carlisle
    Anniversary Waltz (Part One) Status Quo
    Suicide Blonde INXS
    Don’t Ask Me Public Image Ltd
    It’s My Life Talk Talk
    There She Goes The La’s
    Be Tender With Me Baby Tina Turner
    I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight Robert Palmer Featuring UB40
    Side three
    So Hard Pet Shop Boys
    Fascinating Rhythm Bass-o-Matic
    Missing You Soul II Soul Featuring Kym Mazelle
    Tom’s Diner DNA featuring Suzanne Vega
    An Englishman In New York Sting
    Close To Me The Cure
    I’ve Got You Under My Skin Neneh Cherry
    Little Brother Blue Pearl
    Side four
    Step Back In Time Kylie Minogue
    Don’t Worry Kim Appleby
    Megamix Technotronic
    Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini Bombalurina
    Where Are You Baby Betty Boo
    Dirty Cash (Money Talks) The Adventures Of Stevie V
    Have You Seen Her M C Hammer
    To Love Somebody Jimmy Somerville

     

  • NOW 13 – Don’t worry, be crappy

    NOW 13 – Don’t worry, be crappy

    Now_13Why, in the winter of 1988, it was decided to base a cover of NOW 13 around a charmingly retro spaceship design, I do not know. But it’s a fab design and, even better, features roman numerals for the first time since NOW 2, sorry NOW II. NOW 13 was a huge release, reaching the top 5 selling albums of the year despite being on sale for only the last six weeks of the year. As my quick look at the Hits albums explained, this may in part have been helped by that rival series’ near suicidal rebranding. But surely there’s more to it than that? What about the tunes?

    Well, erm, maybe NOW 13’s success lays absolutely on the fact that Hits shot itself in the foot, because this is a pretty shocking affair. Dreary, uninspiring and, in some cases, simply embarrassing. The highlights are all dance tracks, house, hip-hop and rap (whatever the difference between those two is, I’ve never been entirely sure). These genres were now firmly established as pop and chart mainstays and would be for the foreseeable future.

    As if to demonstrate, Yazz’s The Only Way Is Up, the killer track of the year, rightly opens the album. It’s dance-pop at its best with that wonderful trumpet-train horn intro, its fist pumping chorus and a joyous atmosphere throughout. You really get the impression that Yazz’s grin throughout the video was genuine and had been there throughout the recording sessions as well. It dominated the charts throughout the summer of ’88 and narrowly missed out on being the biggest selling single of the year thanks to the Antichrist’s Christmas single, Mistletoe and Wine. The rest of side one, in comparison, is a very mixed bag, veering from the sublime (Erasure’s A Little Respect) to the, well if not ridiculous, then at least the utterly forgettable (Hands to Heaven by Breathe?).

    Womack and Womack’s Teardrops irritated the piss out of me when it was released, seemingly spending all year stuck at number three. Harvest for the World (The Christians) and Breakfast in Bed (UB40 with Chrissie Hynde) are two of the worst cover versions ever to appear on a NOW album. The Christians were always a bit too worthy for my liking, and UB40, well I think I’ve given them far too much attention on this blog already. But, how on earth do you take a song like that (one of the sexiest ever written when Dusty Springfield sings it), get the Goddess Chrissie Hynde to sing it, and turn it into an insipid pop-reggae dirge like this? That takes skill. In total there are SIX cover versions throughout NOW 13.

    A certain amount of skill was required to keep Hue and Cry out of the charts, but they managed it. Ordinary Angel is one of the best songs on here, but it’s also one of two tracks that failed to make the top 40. Robert Palmer is someone I’ve always had a lot of time for, but not for She Makes My Day, beyond enjoying its odd time structure. The problem is, it’s jazz, and jazz is not pop. Speaking of which, Johnny Hates Jazz went AWOL this time, so the bland, sophisti-jazz-pop slot was taken by the now-long-forgotten Breathe who were almost as hilariously unsuccessful as the turn of the millennium, money-haemorrhaging website that shared their name. Hands to Heaven was their only hit, and I’m sure they still get the odd royalty cheque when it’s used for a montage on some dreadful, low rent US hospital drama, but you never hear it on the radio, do you? There’s probably a very good reason for that.

    Seriously... these guys were briefly pop stars. Smash hits cover and everything. look at them (Watermark supplied by Getty Images)
    Seriously… these guys were briefly pop stars. Smash Hits cover and everything. Look at them (Watermark supplied by Getty Images)

    Side two is, if anything, even worse. Phil Collins begins a dirge-fest with his horrid cover of Groovy Kind of Love. Half of this side is covers and re-releases (Tom Jones’ Kiss, The Hollies’ He Ain’t Heavy, Bryan Ferry’s Let’s Stick Together) while the rest consists of Kim Wilde (having one of her perennial ‘comebacks’; You Came has not aged well, unlike Ms Wilde herself), Bobby McFerrin (who most definitely did NOT kill himself after recording Don’t Worry Be Happy) and Bother Beyond, who, oddly, are not dreadful. The Harder I Try’s low-rent Motown sound is actually quite pleasant. Nathan Moore can’t sing, but it matters not. Fancy that.

    For some reason, in the midst of all this is an absolute diamond: Bomb the Bass’ Don’t Make Me Wait. A cracking follow-up to Beat ‘Dis, it was a double A-side with the equally awesome Megablast, but it was obvious that this track was the single, and it should have been as big a hit as its predecessor. If you want to be picky (and what are sarcastic blogs for, if not to be picky), you could argue the vocal is a little weak, but it’s a brilliantly produced piece of dance-pop, cut from a slightly harder, rougher cloth than Yazz and her Plastic Population. Maybe that was why it wasn’t as successful.

    It does seem odd to sandwich a hard dance track between Kim Wilde and Brother Beyond, particularly when NOW 13 managed to cobble together a whole dance orientated side, of which a couple of other tracks would have been better suited to sit alongside such pop luminaries, and allow Bomb the Bass to nestle more comfortably amongst its contemporaries. Sadly, compared to NOW 11’s unmatchable dance collection, NOW 13’s end of year vintage in a tad vinegary. At a remove of a couple of decades, only Yello’s The Race and The Beatmasters brilliant Burn It Up (with the legendary PP Arnold on lead vocals!) are worthy of further listening. The Fat Boys try to replicate the success of Wipeout!, by roping in Chubby Checker and covering The Twist (Yo Twist!, as they insist on calling it). For some reason the photo on the sleeve shows them with Freddie Krueger, rather than Mr Checker, a character they had a later, much less successful team-up with. I wonder if a generation of kids grew up thinking that the purveyor of said Twist was the same guy who played a horribly burned, child molesting dream demon. Which does also raise the point, who on earth thought it was a good idea for a comedy rap group, ostensibly aimed at kids, to make a record with as vile a character as Freddie Krueger? In our post-Jimmy Savile world (which will be as epoch-making for the Brits as post-9/11 is for the Americans) the predatory child molester has taken on a rather different public persona that of a wise-cracking murderer. Very odd.

    Next up: Derek B and Stuart Hall with Yo, Knockout!
    Next up: Derek B and Stuart Hall with Yo, Knockout!

    Twisting continues with Salt n’ Pepa’s awful cover of Twist and Shout. It was a much bigger hit in the UK than anywhere else which probably explains a lot about our pop sensibilities in 1988 than any number of my nostalgia-fests could. Wee Rule, by the Wee Papa Girl Rappers, was a song much beloved of my school year and sadly that’s what it still sounds like: a song for kids. This went top five while The Cookie Crew couldn’t buy a hit. It’s a disgrace. Also a disgrace is the shameless bandwagon jumping of D-Mob’s We call It Acieed. Seizing on tabloid headlines about the new ‘horror drug’, that had, of course, been around since (at least) the 60s, and had probably been taken by the same journalists now condemning it. But then it wasn’t about the drugs at all, it’s always about the grownups fear of young people having a good time. So if there’s a musical movement to go along with it, all the better. D-Mob ensured there was, cynically using the media backlash to generate sales from kids too young to go anywhere near an illegal rave, let alone popping pills. And it’s also painful to listen to: name-checking trendy London nightclubs, that awful high-pitched squeal of the title continuously and then one of those dreadful little plastic keyboards that you could blow into… you know the things. Even as a kid I knew that was pretty weak for a supposedly trendy dance track. D-Mob would, briefly, redeem themselves by later introducing the world to Cathy Dennis.

    He calls it acieed too, apparently
    He calls it acieed too, apparently

    The best track on side three, by a mile, is The Beatmasters’ Burn It Up. A brilliant updating of disco (which was still relatively unfashionable despite the best efforts of the likes of S-Express, who are conspicuous by their absence) with the wonderful honey voice of PP Arnold. It shames everything else on this side of the record and so, of course, was one of the least successful tracks on it, reaching just number 14. By contrast, the most successful song on side three was Milli Vanilli’s Girl You Know It’s True, though when NOW 13 hit the shops, the track was still climbing the charts, and none of the later unpleasantness was known about. If you don’t know the story of Milli Vanilli why are you here? Seriously, stop reading this, read about Milli Vanilli then come back. OK? One of the greatest pop stories ever told isn’t it? For all the scandal and tragedy, Girl You Know It’s True was always going to be a hit no matter who the hell was singing it. It’s not good exactly, but it’s efficient, and pushes all the right pop buttons. I’m not sure about that weird burping ‘bah’ noise throughout though.

    Milli Vanilli: Owners of the tightest trousers in pop, until Razorlight stole their crown
    Milli Vanilli: Owners of the tightest trousers in pop, until Razorlight stole their crown

     

    Side four, so often the graveyard of a NOW album, is actually the best side on offer this time. Level 42’s Heaven In My Hands shows a rockier approach from them and is still very listenable. Belinda Carlisle’s former Go-Go cohort Jane Wiedlin makes her sole appearance, with her only UK top 40 hit, the wonderfully saucy Rush Hour, a great tune that should have led to further, and greater success, but strangely didn’t. The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) has of course reached that legendary status reserved for songs you liked but hope to God you’ll never hear again thanks to Peter Bloody Kay. There’s no denying it’s brilliant, but that kind of association is difficult to shake off.

    The rest of album is solid without being outstanding, and features some tracks many will struggle to remember, if you heard them at all. T’Pau’s Secret Garden, their last NOW appearance, is actually a brilliant song that never found an audience. Their fans clearly wanted more power ballads and this jaunty lead off from their second album was a big hit, and the bargain bin beckoned. Shame.

    New on the block were Transvision Vamp. Led by a gobby, nymphette blond, Wendy James (replacing Ms Carlisle in my teenage affections) they scored big with I Want Your Love but failed to immediately follow it up (the next few singles did little business). They basically had to start all over again the following year, with readers of Smash Hits even thinking they were a new band, landing them a spot in the Best Newcomer category at their Poll Winners Party in 1989. Idiots. Far from new, but always seemingly starting over, were Duran Duran. Stung by the relative failure of the singles from Notorious things were going to get a lot worse over the next few years. I Don’t Want Your Love, brilliantly sequenced after Transvision Vamp’s track, did not do well, reaching number 14. The follow up, All She Wants Is, hit the top ten and is featured on NOW 14, but the accompanying album, Big Thing, was dead on arrival and a few fallow years were ahead.

    Don't Google Wendy James. Remember her this way,
    Don’t Google Wendy James, remember her this way

    Other former chart-toppers having trouble were The Human league. Love Is All That Matters was supposed to be the new track with which to plug their Greatest Hits album. While the album did great business, the single became the other track on NOW 13 not to break the magic 40. Another example of the craziness of the charts in 1988, particularly when you consider even All About Eve managed a top ten hit with Martha’s Harbour, a dreamy sea shanty (and probably metaphorically very rude) which is now best remembered for their legendary Top Of The Pops appearance. It was so similar to the dirges they regularly turned out you just wander “why this one?”. It could well be the dullest finish to a NOW album so far, and therefore quite fitting considering what a god awful experience this was.

    NOW 13 promises the the stars and delivers The Daily Star. The decision to revert to three albums a year again has inevitably led to a drop in quality, as seen here and with the previous release, neither coming close to the majesty of NOW 11. But the record buying public are not exactly blameless either. It’s not really Now’s fault that most of the biggest selling singles of the release period are uninspired cover versions, songs from adverts and bandwagon jumping dance tracks. They just reflect the sales. But, of course, they don’t, since they included two tracks that didn’t make the charts. So, the compilers DO have a choice.

    Whatever the reasons, three releases a year would continue into 1989, with similar results. But NOW’s chart dominance would not continue. Despite The Hits series’ implosion, compilation album were now to be banished to their own chart, apparently after upsetting one too many big act, upset that they could never snag the Christmas number one album slot. (I never realised the spot was so coveted; and if that’s the case, can’t they do the same for reality TV show singles at Christmas?) The fact that NOW 13 was, somehow, one of the biggest selling albums of the year, would mean no radical rebrand was needed just yet. But a radical change in quality most defiantly was.

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 13

    Release date

    21st November 1988

    Biggest tracks

    The Only Way Is Up – Yazz and the Plastic Population

    A Little Respect – Erasure

    Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Bobby McFerrin

    Lost gems

    Burn It Up – Beatmasters with PP Arnold

    Don’t Make Me Wait – Bomb the Bass

    Ordinary Angel – Hue and Cry (a lovely version with them performing it with a children’s orchestra, on long forgotten kids show What’s that Noise?, with Pat kane looking suspiciously like Dylan Moran!)

    Forgotten tracks

    Hands to Heaven – Breathe

    Love Is All That Matters – Human League

    The Harder I Try – Brother Beyond

    What’s missing

    Superfly Guy -S-Express

    Nothing Can Divide Us – Jason Donovan

    Tears Run Rings – Marc Almond

     

    Track listing

    Side one
    The Only Way Is Up Yazz & The Plastic Population
    Teardrops Womack & Womack
    A Little Respect Erasure
    Harvest For The World The Christians
    Ordinary Angel Hue And Cry
    Breakfast In Bed UB40/Chrissie Hynde
    She Makes My Day Robert Palmer
    Hands To Heaven            Breathe
    Side two
    A Groovy Kind Of Love Phil Collins
    Don’t Worry Be Happy Bobby McFerrin
    Kiss The Art Of Noise featuring Tom Jones
    Let’s Stick Together Bryan Ferry
    You Came Kim Wilde
    Don’t Make Me Wait Bomb The Bass
    The Harder I Try Brother Beyond
    He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother         The Hollies
    Side three
    The Twist (Yo Twist) The Fat Boys & Chubby Checker
    Wee Rule The Wee Papa Girl Rappers
    Twist And Shout Salt ‘N’ Pepa
    The Race Yello
    Big Fun Inner City
    We Call It Acieed D-Mob & Gary Haisman
    Burn It Up The Beatmasters & P P Arnold
    Girl You Know It’s True          Milli Vanilli
    Side four
    Heaven In My Hands Level 42
    Rush Hour Jane Wiedlin
    I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) The Proclaimers
    Secret Garden T’Pau
    I Want Your Love Transvision Vamp
    I Don’t Want Your Love Duran Duran
    Love Is All That Matters The Human League
    Martha’s Harbour             All About Eve
  • Now That’s What I Call Music 8 – Not perfect, but perfect for you

    Now That’s What I Call Music 8 – Not perfect, but perfect for you

    now 8Welcome to the future!

    For Christmas 1986, NOW would deliver a lovely shiny package for its fans, because the future is always shiny, isn’t it? NOW 8 is fit to burst with number ones, top ten hits, legendary tracks and a team up between Dr and the Medics and Roy Wood that nobody remembers. It was also bursting with extras too, boasting a competition and the opportunity to purchase official NOW merchandise! NOW was big business and they were going to take you for everything you’ve got.

    But it was still better than Hits 5.

    NOW 8 was the first of the series in which European music giant Polygram was involved; it was the first to be designed by Quick on the Draw (who still design the albums today) and it was the first to be released on a regular CD (after the false start with NOW 4), even if it only featured half the tracks. The idea of a full, double CD release must surely have been contemplated, but given that the core audience for the albums was still teenagers, the thought of them being able to afford such a thing must have been a key factor in delaying their releases for a further two albums. In the mid-to-late 80s a double CD could set you back anything up to £20, depending on where you bought it. That sounds an obscene amount today, let alone 27 years ago! So, clearly, a single CD selection was deemed the preferred option with which to test the water. So four years after a re-issue of an old Billy Joel album became the first commercially available CD (in Japan, at least) NOW finally decided that the time was right, the public was ready and a CD had to be part of their package.

    Not only did they produce artwork to represent this monumental decision, as if the CD had been forged in the artwork itself, the silver, shiny new dawn was also plastered all over the TV ad, featuring, for the first time, the unmistakable tones of David “The now very far from a kid” Jensen.

    Ironically, NOW 8 would have been a great choice with which to launch a full CD release, as the line up is a very strong one, including three number ones. They even got lucky anticipating the hit songs they included before they were released (with one very notable exception). It’s perhaps the purest pop selection so far in the series. Side one is wall-to-wall pop goodness from the leaner, funkier Duran Duran, right through to OMD’s bouncy (Forever) Live and Die, not, as I briefly thought at the time, the theme to a Bond movie I’d heard of but not seen.

    The Duran’s Notorious is simply brilliant and, maybe surprisingly for a lifelong Duranie, I now think it’s their best single. You’ve got to admire their balls, frankly, for going back to the bear pit of the pop charts, no longer the biggest band in the world, and with their tails between their legs after two satisfying, but hardly earth-shatteringly successful side projects, short two members, one of whom is openly malicious and dismissive about you, and carrying a sound unlike anything you’ve done before. Those screaming teenagers didn’t know what hit them, losing both Wham and Duran in a matter of months. Spandau Ballet and the withering Culture Club just didn’t compare.

    Disco king, Nile Rodger’s production adds a whole new level to their sound, sensibly playing up John Taylor’s amazing bass work in the wake of losing a regular lead guitarist. the fact that Notorious made number two in the USA, but struggled to scrape into the top ten here in the UK is a travesty to which, I think, we all should feel a little ashamed.

    The Pet Shop Boys continue to produce wonderfully overblown fluff masquerading as social commentary with Suburbia, which is followed by the still toweringly good Walk This Way, which suffers the same fate as it does on the radio – when should it be faded out? Here they settle for around 3 minutes 30, though officially it can go on for almost another two minutes.

    While Walk This Way is probably the biggest track on offer, in legacy terms, the ACTUAL biggest track here is in fact the biggest track of 1986, as The Communards finally got the success they deserved as they rework, reinvent and rejuvenate Harold Melvin’s Don’t Leave Me This Way. I recently saw a list of “Songs You Didn’t Know Were Cover Versions”, which featured Soft Cell’s Tainted Love. Well, if that’s on there, then this surely should have been included too. This was the sound of late summer 1986, and it still sounds great today (though, as I’m a contrary bugger, I prefer their version of Never Can Say Goodbye, which found itself on NOW 10).

    ian-hislop
    Ooooooh…. baby!

    Swing Out Sister were a new band on the scene in 1986, and newly insurrected Polygram were obviously keen to plug them, including the single Breakout just two weeks after its release (this was back in the days when singles could take weeks to reach their highest position; going straight in at number one, or even in the top ten, was considered a rarity). Luckily for them Breakout‘s mix of pop, jazz and electro was perfectly timed. Despite that description, they never had the feel of the kind of ‘yuppie pop’ tag that ended up tainting people like Sade or Level 42. Swing Out Sister were fun, the way all the best pop is. The same is true of OMD’s (Forever) Live and Die, perhaps not one of their better-known tracks, but still a good pop track.

    Also, surprisingly good (although given his history, perhaps not) is Steve Winwood’s Higher Love. It’s a track I often dismiss as the kind of Dad-rock which became so prevalent as the 80s went on; the alternative scene in the 80s was so far underground, people like Phil Collins, Rod Stewart and Status Quo just kept on having hit after hit. I bracketed Winwood into that camp. I always had a fondness for Roll With It, but maybe because I’m older now (and have a new appreciation for his earlier work) I can now accept something like Higher Love with a new maturity. Genesis’ In Too Deep smells of poo though, something even its association with American Psycho can do nothing about.

    I dread to think what Larry Blackmon’s cod piece smells like, but it’s back on display with the now legendary Word Up. Hard to believe this is the same band who produced the frankly dreadful Single Life on NOW 6 (where I incorrectly stated that it had the same intro as Word Up; turns out, it was the other way around). Both feature samples from Ennio Morricone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack, back when sampling was still in its infancy.

    A codpiece yesterday
    A codpiece yesterday

    And so we find ourselves in the dance zone, this time taking over side two, where it feels a bit more at home, keeping the party going following on from all that pop malarkey (almost ruined by smelly old Genesis). In a touch of creative compiling, Larry Blackmon’s flattop is immediately followed by the same haircut in the shape of Grace Jones’ I’m Not Perfect. It’s a got a similar sound to Notorious, unsurprising given the involvement of Nile Rodgers, but fails to capture that wonderful otherworldliness she can bring to music, as on Slave to the Rhythm. That track could only have been performed by Jones. This could be a Eurythmics b-side. Another track included on NOW 8 before its actual release, it would prove to be a notable flop, failing to make the Top 40. Much better, and more successful is Mel and Kim’s Showing Out, their first single, and the first of four top ten hits (with their only four singles!) before Mel’s tragic illness. Yes, it’s a cynical Stock, Aitken, Waterman production (and they’ll be much more of that over the next few NOW albums) and, surprisingly for that production team, it’s very rough around the edges. Stuff isn’t quite cut together as cleanly as it should be, with notable jerks and slices through the song which once you know they’re there can’t be unheard. Shame as it’s a great dance-pop tune.

    As is Jermaine Stewart’s We Don’t Have To … It’s fluff, but it’s fun. I’m not sure what’s happening with the title here though. At first I thought NOW were being a tad coy with their titling, but there is genuine confusion as my two source books list it differently (The Guinness British Hit Singles as We Don’t Have To… Take Our Clothes Off and The Guinness Top 40 Charts as We Don’t Have To…). The single sleeve shows it as one sentence with no ellipses. I don’t know…

    Jaki Graham is back, for her fourth appearance in a row, and her last. Step Right Up hadn’t been released when NOW 8 hit the shops, but it is pretty forgettable, and would prove to be her final top 40 hit. In contrast Janet Jackson was celebrating her first hit with the still awesome What Have You Done For Me Lately. So different from what her big brother was selling trillions of records doing, it still sounds like it’s about six months ahead of its time, even though, oddly, it was the oldest track on NOW 8, having been released in March 1986, eight months previously.

    The dance side then slows it down for some smooching, with Human League’s Human (which on closer listen is a pretty horrible song about a couple who keep cheating on each other because they’re “only human”…) and Boris Gardiner’s I Wanna Wake Up With You. This wasn’t the guy who parachuted out of a spaceship last year; this is a guy who somehow managed to have a massive number one with a dreary, repetitive love song that sounded like it was recorded in his bedroom with a Casio keyboard. He may also have been a reggae pioneer in the 70s, but on this showing I think that’s a lie.

    Things get a bit serious on side three, as we enter Dad territory. In fact, with the exception of Huey Lewis and the News’ Stuck with You (another song that on closer listen doesn’t sound like the lovely song you always thought it was) this is all very low key and moody. Don’t Give Up and Think For A Minute were clearly only included because of the success of Peter Gabriel and The Housemartins’ previous singles, as neither screams “Top Chart Hit”. Madness’ Waiting For The Ghost Train was a disappointing end to their golden period (it’s billed here as their farewell single), and Status Quo’s In The Army Now snatches the worst song on the album title from Boris Gardiner’s clutches. What was the country thinking sending this to number two (kept off the top by Every Loser Wins, which I’ll deal with in a moment)? Big Country’s One Great Thing is not one of their better tunes.

    status_quo
    In The Army Now got to WHERE in the charts?

    The side closes out with a surprise: Billy Bragg’s single NOW appearance with the wonderful Greetings to the New Brunette. Obviously hoping it would repeat his top 30 showing with Levi Stubbs’ Tears, this equally good tune was included pre-release, but sadly (unbelievably) it failed to dent the magic 40. Not that I’m sure Mr Bragg gave a monkey’s about things like that. Just as I’m sure he wasn’t bothered about being followed by Cutting Crew’s (I Just) Died In Your Arms (it must have been something I ate). Don’t know what happened with them or why the public fell out of love with them so quickly. Maybe the appearance of the near identical Then Jericho the next year had something to do with it.

    From all that doom and gloom, we are firmly back in pop wonderland with side four. Kim Wilde’s You Keep Me Hangin’ On is in the same vein (and is arguably as good) as The Communards, in re-visiting classic soul for an 80s audience. Respectful, but also great on its own terms. It Bites would join Cutting Crew in the dumper soon after their only major hit Calling All the Heroes, which, to a kid like me, sounded like the future of pop, but now I realise is a massively pretentious piece of prog-rock, synth, jazz, pop blancmange nonsense. It’s massively over-produced, much like their Wikipedia page, which is bursting with such choice bon mots  as ” a band composed of voracious pop fans with a parallel taste for progressive rock.” No… stop it. That’s just silly. For a band who only had one hit, it’s pretty comprehensive stuff.

    Also very silly is the big boo-boo by the compilers. We’ve noted a couple of early inclusions which proved to be a bit wide of the mark, but Dr and The Medics with Roy Wood just make them look very foolish. I know that everyone reading this has just gone “Wha…?”, I did too when I first saw the track listing, and saw their inclusion with a version of ABBA’s Waterloo. I’ll just repeat that, as it may have trouble settling your brain: Dr and the Medics (as in Spirit in the Sky), with Roy Wood (as in Wizzard, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday), covering ABBA’s Waterloo… NOW certainly thought it was a guaranteed winner, and I shall quote:

    “Roy Wood was number 1 with The Move (Blackberry Way) and with Wizzard (See My Baby Jive & Angel Fingers. Dr and the Medics were number 1 with Spirit in the Sky. Waterloo was number 1 and a Eurovision winner for ABBA. So this new version should get to…”

    That’s the actual blurb on the sleeve, word for word, including the cheeky ellipses. That is utterly ludicrous confidence. And since you’ve probably never even heard it, I should tell you it managed to get to the dizzying heights of number 45.

    More successful was Debbie Harry’s French Kissin’  in the USA and Robert Palmer’s I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On. Oddly not as successful was Paul Hardcastle’s The Wizard, which stalled at number 15 despite weekly advertising as the then theme for Top of the Pops (replacing the epochal Yellow Pearl by Phil Lynott).

    In contrast to the brilliant 80s versions of 60s classics we’ve already seen, Gwen Guthrie’s remodelling of (They Long To Be) Close To You is everything that’s wrong with 80s cover versions; sludgy synthesisers, over-confident crooning, wildly inappropriate backing singers and arrangement, mention of “I love your sexy sexy moves”… it’s a mess. And that’s coming from someone for whom The Carpenters make me want to staple my ears shut. Still at least there’s Nick Berry to look forward too.

    Do you know how much of a disappointment you are to your mother because you are not him?
    Do you know how much of a disappointment you are to your mother because you are not him?

    Everyone who slags off The X Factor or The Voice should be forced to listen to this (along with Anita Dobson and The Banned (Sharon and Kelvin)) and realise that hearing people who can actually sing is a bit of a novelty compared to when any old stage school hack who manages to snag a part in a soap opera managed to get to number one. It wasn’t just Eastenders either (though they were the main culprits). Neighbours of course would provide half of all the top 40 hits between 1988-90, and then there were the hits from Malandra Burrows, Martine McCutcheon, Adam Rickitt and The Cat From Corrie’s Opening Titles; unwanted chart botherers the lot of them. So next time you look at the charts and think “who are these talentless idiots?”, remember they are only following a time-honoured tradition of milking your 15 minutes for all it’s worth. And at least it kept You’re In The Army Now from getting to number one.

    But wait! There’s more!

    With NOW 8 there is also the amazing opportunity to own a piece of pop history! Yes you too could own an official Now That’s What I Call Music sweatshirt! Light in weight but heavy in warmth, they were available in ‘Chinese Jade’ (green) or ‘Electric Blue’ (oo-er!). Made by Le Coq Sportif, they were advertised as being for a limited time only. But then they were still available when NOW 9 came out due to “exceptional public demand”. Not because “we’ve still got a warehouse full of the things”. Not at all. And at £20 a pop I’m not surprised; that’s about £50 in new money. And they were worried about people forking out for a double CD at the same price?

    now-8-sweatshirt

    NOW 8 also featured a competition, which handily also doubled as a plug for all the other great NOW albums still available (and no doubt would make great last minute Christmas gifts). Note that alongside NOW 7, the re-released Christmas Album, and the latest NOW Dance, there’s an anomaly on show: NOW That’s What I Call Music ’86. I’ll come to this in due course, as it is an oddity and one which requires its own post. The CD version of NOW 8 is intrinsically linked with NOW ’86, so I’ll discuss that in more detail there too (everything on the CD is on NOW 8 as discussed above, so you won’t miss out on me being sarcastic about any of the songs, it’s more to do with how the selection of tracks for NOW 8’s CD and NOW ’86 are interlinked).

    now-8-competition

    NOW had embraced the future and was now selling itself to a new market, the upwardly mobile of society. No longer the sole preserve of bedroom-ensconced, pop-loving, but probably spotty and grumpy, teenagers, the CD age was taking NOW to the mobile-phone buying, Porsche-driving, Filofax-touting nouveau riche. NOW 9 would model itself in their image.

     

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 8

    Release date

    24th November 1986

    Biggest tracks

    Walk This Way – Run DMC (Aerosmith are not credited)

    Don’t Leave Me This Way – The Communards

    Word Up – Cameo

    Lost gems

    Greetings to the New Brunette) – Billy Bragg

    Forgotten tracks

    I’m Not Perfect – Grace Jones

    (They Long To Be) Close To You – Gwen Guthrie

    Waterloo – Dr and the Medics with Roy Wood (fair play, the video is fantastic, unfortunately the sound on this is very ropey)

    What’s missing

    All I Ask of You  – Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman

    (I don’t like it, but it was a huge top ten hit)

     

    Track listing

    Side one
    Notorious Duran Duran
    Suburbia Pet Shop Boys
    Walk This Way Run DMC
    Don’t Leave Me This Way The Communards
    Breakout Swing Out Sister
    Higher Love Steve Winwood
    (Forever) Live And Die Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
    In Too Deep Genesis
    Side two
    Word Up (7” Vocal Version) Cameo
    I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You) Grace Jones
    Showing Out (Get Fresh At The Weekend) Mel & Kim
    We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off Jermaine Stewart
    Step Right Up Jaki Graham
    What Have You Done For Me Lately Janet Jackson
    Human The Human League
    I Wanna Wake Up With You Boris Gardiner
    Side three
    Don’t Give Up Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush
    Think For A Minute The Housemartins
    (Waiting For The) Ghost Train Madness
    In The Army Now Status Quo
    Stuck With You Huey Lewis & The News
    One Great Thing Big Country
    Greetings To The New Brunette Billy Bragg
    (I Just) Died In Your Arms Cutting Crew
    Side four
    You Keep Me Hanging On Kim Wilde
    Calling All The Heroes It Bites
    Waterloo Doctor & The Medics with Roy Wood
    French Kissin’ In The USA Deborah Harry
    I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On Robert Palmer
    The Wizard Paul Hardcastle
    (They Long To Be) Close To You Gwen Guthrie
    Every Loser Wins Nick Berry

     

    CD track listing

    Notorious Duran Duran
    Suburbia Pet Shop Boys
    Walk This Way Run DMC
    I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You) Grace Jones
    Showing Out (Get Fresh At The Weekend) Mel & Kim
    Step Right Up Jaki Graham
    Breakout Swing Out Sister
    You Keep Me Hanging On Kim Wilde
    Calling All The Heroes It Bites
    Waterloo Doctor & The Medics with Roy Wood
    French Kissin’ In The USA Deborah Harry
    Stuck With You Huey Lewis & The News
    Don’t Give Up Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush
    (Waiting For The) Ghost Train Madness
    (Forever) Live And Die Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
    In Too Deep Genesis

     

    Video version

    Venus had previously appeared on the album of NOW 7. Sometimes by Erasure would later appear on Now 9.

    Four other tracks do not appear on any NOW album (marked with *)

    Duran Duran – Notorious
    Pet Shop Boys – Suburbia
    Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark – Forever Live and Die
    Erasure – Sometimes
    The Communards – Don’t Leave Me This Way
    Mel & Kim – Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)
    Bananarama – Venus
    Jaki Graham – Step Right Up
    Swing Out Sister – Breakout
    The Housemartins – Think For A Minute
    Madness – Waiting for the Ghost Train
    The Damned – Anything*
    Big Country – One Great Thing
    Ultravox – All Fall Down*
    Status Quo – In the Army Now
    Glass Tiger – Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone)*
    Frankie Goes to Hollywood – Warriors of the Wasteland*
    Kim Wilde – You Keep Me Hangin’ On
    Boris Gardiner – I Wanna Wake Up With You

     

  • Now That’s What I Call Music 5 – Harold Faltermeyer is 5 foot 11 inches tall

    Now That’s What I Call Music 5 – Harold Faltermeyer is 5 foot 11 inches tall

    now 5After losing Christmas 1984 to The Hits Album, NOW! took a short sabbatical in the new year. Clearly they were no longer the only game in town and things were going to have to change. Rather than rush release another NOW! album straight away and try to reclaim the crown quickly, they sat back and watched as Hits strutted its way to Volume 2 in April 1985, attempting to consolidate their position. For NOW! watchers, April brought a surprise in the shape of NOW Dance, a collection of 12″ mixes which would be the first of many ‘special NOW! releases. (NOW Dance would itself become a complimentary series alongside the regular releases. These will be discussed elsewhere.)

    NOW 5 finally arrived in the summer. With no Hits album around the way was clear for NOW! to strike back and make a bold statement that they were still top dog. But in reality, it seems a tad lazy in comparison to some of its predecessors, and, to be fair, even compared to Hits 2, which featured four chart toppers among its fairly strong line-up, compared to just the one on show here (Sister Sledge’s Frankie).

    While initial thoughts are that NOW 5 will be a strong return to form, its deficiencies become apparent pretty soon, on side two, and continue throughout. But before you even get to the music, there’s  the small matter of the artwork, possibly the worst in the entire series.

    Retaining the pig, for what would be his final appearance, seems a solid decision, but the design is dreadful. For the first time in the series, artist photos are ditched in favour of names and logos, which are emblazoned across the pig’s garish stripy yellow shirt (the NOW! balls making up the shirt buttons) whilst shapes, streamers and paint splatter explode in the background, along with a series of incomprehensible arrows. Thankfully the NOW! Balls are also fairly prominent, just in case an unsuspecting record shop patron should mistake the sleeve for some piece of long forgotten pop art, of a kind it so desperately wants to emulate. It’s truly ghastly. The rear of the sleeve replicates the image as if seen from behind. The reversed NOW! logo is a nice touch, but other than that, it just looks like a fat pig in a badly fitting shirt. The theme continues inside the gatefold where a rather creepy looking sketch shows the pig (still in his horrendous shirt) sitting on the edge of a diving board watching someone diving (badly) into, presumably, a swimming pool. But it’s so badly conceived (and the diver appears to have twisted awkwardly mid-dive) that’s it’s hard to know exactly what’s supposed to be going on here. But thankfully, it doesn’t take up much room and is easily missed if you didn’t know it was there.

    Now-5-gatefold

    So does the content do anything to make up for this pictorial abomination? Not really.

    About the only thing people remember about music in the summer of 1985 is Live Aid, so maybe all the big stars were too busy plugging their albums to a worldwide audience… sorry… giving up their free time for a worthy cause to be releasing their biggest and best hits.

    The best remembered songs here, were not necessarily the most successful at the time. Whilst things kick off with A View to a Kill (the last Duran Duran appearance with their original line-up) it’s the other movie theme on side one that is probably the bigger song, Axel F, from Beverly Hills Cop. As the blurb helpfully, and pointlessly, informs us Harold Faltermeyer is “5 foot 11 inches tall”. Slightly more helpfully, it tells us he used to work with Giorgio Morodor and Axel F took four months to reach its number two slot after first charting in march ’85 at a lowly number 73. (Incidentally, that itself was one place higher than that reached by the infinitely superior Fletch Theme, which charted a few weeks after the release of NOW 5. But that’s irrelevant here. Anyway…)

    Scritti Politti finally make an appearance, and would probably have been more successful before The Word Girl if NOW! had given them a bit of a push, and future perennials, Fine Young Cannibals make their debut with Johnny Come Home. Dead or Alive and Stephen “Tin Tin” “Was the singer in Duran Duran before Simon le Bon” Duffy both appear with lesser known as Hits 2 had snagged both You Spin Me Round and Kiss Me earlier in the year. To be fair I’ve always liked Duffy’s Icing on the Cake more anyway, as it sounds like a far more cynical pop song (and attack on the industry) than Kiss Me. If anyone can name another Dead or Alive track, you’ve got one over on me, so I was pleasantly surprised that their In Too Deep was not dreadful, and a perfectly good pop track. Kool and the Gang’s sickly Cherish and Paul Young’s textbook Every Time You Go Away round off things a safe, serviceable way.

    Simon le Bon yesterday
    Simon le Bon yesterday

    Then to side two, where inertia, and a desire to tear one’s own ears off is briefly abated by the soothing sounds of Don’t You Forget About Me and The Power Station’s ludicrously overwrought cover of Get It On. This lovely filling is however sandwiched between Marillion, China Crisis, Phil Collins and David Bowie’s This is Not America, a song I’ve only ever listened to all the way through once. If I don’t want it on a Bowie compilation, I certainly don’t want it here.

    We are into dance territory on side three. The blurb even mentions a “resurgence of dance music” in their piece on The Conway Brothers, who were so ineffectual at following up their number 11 smash Turn It Up, that they haven’t even got a Wiki entry). It’s shrugs all round to be honest, with Mai Tai, Steve Arrington, and more frequent top 40 botherers Loose Ends and Jaki Graham along with the Conway Brothers. Mai Tai’s History is particularly catchy, even if it sounds criminally ripped off from the act that precedes them, Sister Sledge, here ditching their disco roots for possibly the most annoying song on the whole double album, Frankie. Maybe it’s because it was always played at least five times at every school disco I went to, or because it seemed for three years girls would walk around the playground singing it… for whatever reason Frankie is an awful song. The fact that it’s the only number one on show here, proves that no one buying records in 1985 has any taste whatsoever. Graham’s track is pretty decent too, but nowhere near as memorable as her earlier duet with David Grant (later a judge on Fame Academy) Could It Be I’m Falling In Love.

    And why the side finishes with Rory Bremner impersonating Richie Benaud is anyone’s business. It still brings a grin though, and Paul Hardcastle now admits producing the spoof of his own hit, 19 (which, oddly never appeared on a NOW or Hits album).

    The final furlong initially promises things will pick up. A stunning quartet of Unforgettable Fire, Walls Come Tumbling Down, a ruthlessly cut short Walking on Sunshine (which only got to number 9!) and the speaker blowing combination of Gary Moore and Phil Lynott on Out in the Fields. Things mellow slightly with The Damned’s Shadow of Love, another of those odd choices that pepper the series, before the album collapses in on itself. Howard Jones’ dreadful Life in One Day is one of those insufferably chirpy songs you just want to punch in the face (particularly when, like me, you’ve been listening to it on your dreary, snow-delayed commute to work) but unlike, say, Walking on Sunshine, it has a sense of smug self-satisfaction which somehow depresses more than it inspires. It’s astonishing how angry synthesised penny whistles can make you.

    And finally there’s Jimmy Nail absolutely murdering Love Don’t Live Here Anymore. Or at least that’s what I thought from hazy memories of hearing it as a kid, and wandering why that ugly bloke from Auf Weidersein Pet was on Top of the Pops. Nail has got a good voice, like a more delicate version of Joe Cocker, but, although this is much better than I remember it, this is not the right song, and he’s not helped by a smoky, BBC detective drama production going on behind him. Jimmy would have his day in a few years time, which we will come to in due course. But this is a distinctly, almost oppressively, downer ending for a pop compilation. Particularly one that promises so much hot summer fun from it’s cover and equally stomach-churning advert.

    NOW 5 is pretty forgettable all round, its highlights simply enhancing the awful anonymity of the rest. With one side of dreary MOR ballads, and another of forgettable dance music, half the album is written off before you even start. Having stars next single after their big hit has been snaffled by your rival is unfortunate, but that doesn’t mean you HAVE to include them. And maybe, for once, the programming of the tracks seems to have been badly managed resulting in too much of a “side of this” and a “side of that” rather than the melting pot of hits and misses and genres we’d been used to.

    It was time for a re-think. NOW! would need to own Christmas again, and in November they would strike back with a one-two that Hits wouldn’t see coming…

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 5

    Release date

    5th August 1985

    Biggest tracks

    Axel F – Harold Faltermeyer

    Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Simple Minds

    Walking on Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves

    Forgotten tracks

    In Too Deep – Dead or Alive

    Feel So Real – Steve Arrington

    Turn it Up – Conway Brothers

    Magic Touch – Loose Ends

    What’s missing

    19  – Paul Hardcastle

    Head Over Heels – Tears for Fears

    I Feel Love (Medley) – Bronski Beat and Marc Almond

    Track listing

    Side One
    A View To A Kill Duran Duran
    The Word Girl Scritti Politti
    Axel F Harold Faltermeyer
    Johnny Come Home Fine Young Cannibals
    In Too Deep Dead Or Alive
    Icing On The Cake Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy
    Cherish Kool & The Gang
    Every Time You Go Away          Paul Young
    Side Two
    Kayleigh Marillion
    Slave To Love Bryan Ferry
    This Is Not America David Bowie & The Pat Metheny Group
    Don’t You (Forget About Me) Simple Minds
    Get It On (Bang A Gong) The Power Station
    Black Man Ray China Crisis
    One More Night Phil Collins
    Side Three
    Frankie Sister Sledge
    History Mai Tai
    Money’s Too Tight (To Mention) Simply Red
    Feel So Real Steve Arrington
    Round And Around Jaki Graham
    Turn It Up The Conway Brothers
    Magic Touch Loose Ends
    N-N-Nineteen Not Out The Commentators
    Side Four
    The Unforgettable Fire U2
    Walls Come Tumbling Down The Style Council
    Walking On Sunshine Katrina & The Waves
    Out In The Fields Gary Moore And Phillip Lynott
    The Shadow Of Love The Damned
    Life In One Day Howard Jones
    Love Don’t Live Here Anymore          Jimmy Nail
      

    No video version appears to have been released, but if anyone has any information I’d love to know and update this entry.