S24 Contemporary Music

[Jonno]

What new music were you listening to in the autumn of 1987? Top of the charts throughout the run of Time and the Rani was Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley which would be the year's biggest seller. Not a particular favourite of mine, so here's my personal favourites that peaked in September 1987 :

What Have I Done To Deserve This? - Pet Shop Boys w. Dusty Springfield (2)
Wipeout - Fat Boys & The Beach Boys (2)
Wonderful Life - Black (8)
Heart and Soul - T'Pau (4)
Bridge To Your Heart - Wax (12)

Particulary annoying that Rick kept Pet Shop Boys and Dusty off the top!

[Andrew Curnow]

September 1987 was when I started my A-Levels, so was the first time I had to 'commute' - my secondary school was just round the corner from home, whereas college was about an hour away on the bus. So although that meant getting up earlier in the morning than I was used to (bus left at 7:45) it also meant I was listening to Radio 1 for an hour in the morning (Mike Smith, then replaced by Simon Mayo) and in the evening (Steve Wright in the Afternoon) every day. I'd never been a big radio/music fan, so I guess this was the first time I'd have really been that aware of what was popular at the time.

Which means I have quite a nostalgic fondness for those songs you mention, and also, later in the Autumn, Fairground Attraction's Perfect, and Rick Astley. Was that the year he released a cover of When I Fall In Love, aimed at the Christmas charts I think, only to have the Nat King Cole version re-released and doing slightly better? Or did I imagine that?

[SiHart]

I bought the single of the Chubby Checker and the Fat Boys song! Great song!

Si xx

[Stephen Morgan]

I suppose it's only natural of me to reply to this thread.
Up to the time I met Viv in late 1986, I was still listening to popular music. Come 1987 though and I was rapidly losing interest in the charts, only buying a few singles or 12" copies of singles. I have in my collection 12" copies of The Pet Shop Boys and Dusty and Wax from this period. I was still buying the odd album or cassette, I seem to recall The Bee Gees ESP album with You Win Again on it around Sept Oct of that year. Viv liked Rick Astley and bought a couple of his singles which are still hanging about here. Sadly though, most of the charts left me cold, looking at them now I can't recall most of them, Housemaster Boyz and the Rude Boy of House, Levert, W.A.S.P. Pseudo Echo???????? they really mean nothing to me. which was a far cry from just a few years previously where I could name every record in the top 40.

[Dino]

I spend most of 1987 ignoring most of the music around me! And to an extent being in school with no access to non-viral music magazines you had to pay for?

There is only one song in that list that registered though, Wax.
What a perfect record! Was it they'd come from a more successful band or made the kids nervous by pressing all the right chord changes and sounds?

I blocked out everything with Jimi Hendrix. What a great time in my life! I was feeling isolated at school and hearing "Existed... nothing but existed..."?

Guns 'N' Roses are a funny one. My brother had the album (and some American indie like Eugene Chadborne) and a few of the banes of my day liked that album as well. When I've heard it played in clubs I've seen people old enough to whoop for it and yet they were the ones in school who didn't deserve to belong to anything in human culture?

I've phrased what I was trying to say sloppily on that last point.
I'm afraid in all the years I've been into music 1987 is the year that Dino forgot and was thankful.

Although if Travellin' Wilburys had their album out in this year then make me look a further hypocrite!

[Stephen Morgan]

There is only one song in that list that registered though, Wax.
What a perfect record! Was it they'd come from a more successful band or made the kids nervous by pressing all the right chord changes and sounds?

Wax were Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold. Gouldman had written hits in the sixties for the likes of The Yardbirds (For Your Love) and then became a member of seventies band 10cc, Donna, Rubber Bullets, I'm Not In Love. Gold had a few hits in his own right, How Can This Be Love and Lonely Boy were his biggest, late seventies hits. Wax's big album at this period of 1987 was called American English, I have it on cassette.

[Jonno]

Stephen - Pseudo Echo did a cover of Funky Town (Lipps Inc, 1980) - I really like both versions!

Andrew - Perfect wasn't this autumn - it was #1 for 1 week in May 88! And Rick Astley did go higher with his cover - 2 weeks at #2 in the weeks leading up to Christmas, then down to #4 on the Christmas chart while Nat King Cole climbed to #7. They then swapped those chart positions on the New Year chart, so for that first week of 1988 Nat did indeed outsell Rick!

Si - we must Spotify Wipeout in the future!

[Stephen Morgan]

Stephen - Pseudo Echo did a cover of Funky Town (Lipps Inc, 1980) - I really like both versions!

Yes, I noticed that, it's not a version I'm familiar with though.

[Andrew Curnow]

Thanks Jonno - the memory obviously getting a bit rusty there on my part!!

[SiHart]

I remember my Dad bought a CD player for the first time while this season was on- so we heard alot of Bad by Michael Jackson, Cloud Nine by George Harrison (a fabulous album!) and a Level 42 album.

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I remember that Mars' "Pump up the volume" came out and I quite liked it. But alas there was way too much of that sampled stuff that came out afterwards - not to mention the awful House scene.

Was this the year we all went mad about Curiosity Killed The Cat's "Straight back down to Earth" in the Spring, and they were a forgotten band by the Autumn.

I also have a horrid feeling this was the year that spawned Bros.

[SiHart]

Pump Up The Volume was and is still an astonishing track. It's kind of timeless, because it was made up of so many other things. We were just listening to it a few minutes ago, would you believe.

Bros didn't arrive until 1988, so we're spared them for now...

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

...not to mention the awful House scene.

I quite liked House music myself & Hip Hop.

[duncan]

I have to admit that around this time, having my own money, I was new to the record market and got caught up in the Stock, Aitken and Watermen wave. I'm embarrased by some of the crap in my record collection but I must have loved it at the time.

[Jonno]

Into October 87 now and Pump Up The Volume by MARRS was top of the charts for the first part of Paradise Towers. followed by the Bee Gees with You Win Again for the rest of the story. I'd just started at Polytechnic at this time and within my first week or so there, the charts went through a massive change as the new Top 40 was now revealed on Sunday afternoon (as it still is now) whereas previously it had been revealed on Tuesday afternoons on Radio 1. I'm quite fond of both those #1s with an added nostalgia factor of the excitement of being a student and living away from home.

Other personal favourite tracks that peaked in October included :

Crockett's Theme - Jan Hammer (2)
Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard (18)
Crazy Crazy Nights - Kiss (4)
Brilliant Disguise - Bruce Springsteen (20)
Valerie - Steve Winwood (19)

[MacNimon]

Into October 87 now and Pump Up The Volume by MARRS was top of the charts for the first part of Paradise Towers. followed by the Bee Gees with You Win Again for the rest of the story. I'd just started at Polytechnic at this time and within my first week or so there, the charts went through a massive change as the new Top 40 was now revealed on Sunday afternoon (as it still is now) whereas previously it had been revealed on Tuesday afternoons on Radio 1. I'm quite fond of both those #1s with an added nostalgia factor of the excitement of being a student and living away from home.

Other personal favourite tracks that peaked in October included :

Crockett's Theme - Jan Hammer (2)
Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard (18)
Crazy Crazy Nights - Kiss (4)
Brilliant Disguise - Bruce Springsteen (20)
Valerie - Steve Winwood (19)

There was some good stuff around the charts that year, but in general I found it just not quite as interesting as in previous years. I think that it was just a gradual thing over the years until the mid-90s when I had totally lost all interest.

However, with the exception of Pump Up The Volume, these were among my favourite songs of the year, along with T'Pau's Heart And Soul which tends to be overlooked these days in favour of China In Your Hand, which seems to be what they're remembered for. Didn't we also have Belinda Carlisle making her solo debut with Heaven Is A Place On Earth this year as well?

Other favourites from this year (I think!) included Heart's Alone, Billy Idol's cover version of Mony, Mony, along with songs from Genesis, Prince, Fleetwood Mac and others.

[Jonno]

Yes, I prefer Heart and Soul to China In Your Hand too, Kenny - I name-checked it in my opening post here.

Heaven Is A Place On Earth was a corker too - in the Top 10 at Christmas 87 and it topped the chart in January 88.

[Jonno]

The Bee Gees were still #1 for Part 1 of Delta and for the rest of the season it was T'Pau with China In Your Hand. I like it a lot, but not as much as Heart and Soul.

My personal favourites that peaked in November included :

Barcelona - Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballe (8)
Here I Go Again - Whitesnake (9)
Dinner With Gershwin - Donna Summer (13)