The first release from the album “The Dreaming” this is the first of three appearances for Bush in our rundown. Released a whole year before the album was ready, it was the result of Bush taking the helm as writer and producer as she took full control of every aspect of her records.
189. WATER ON GLASS/ BOYS – Kim Wilde (125,000)
RELEASED: 1981
PEAK POSITION: 11
WKS ON CHART: 8
Each of Wilde’s first 4 singles make this rundown evidencing her popularity at the beginning of the decade. Wiki says this is a song about tinnitus- surely one of the more unusual songs in the charts if that’s true, this is Wilde’s second appearance so far, hope you like her there’s many more to come!
Being born Leslie Wunderman a name change to become a popstar was pretty much a pre requisite. What should be surprising and evident already is the great chasm between the UK and US chart in the 80s compared to later decades, here Dayne had only two top 10 hits (this being the second one) whilst in the US all 7 of her first hits made the top 10 including a No 1 in 1990 with “Love Will Lead You Back”.
187. I GET WEAK- Belinda Carlisle (127,000)
RELEASED: 1988
PEAK POSITION: 10
WKS ON CHART: 9
Hot on the heels of chart topper “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” this was Carlisle’s second single here in the UK (her first solo album did nothing here at all) and instantly places her above former co-band member Wiedlin. With a video featuring Tony Ward (who would later play a leading role in Madonna’s “Justify My Love” video) it didn’t disappoint as it kept her run of top 10 hits intact and she remained a star in the UK until the late 90s.
The first of four visits to this rundown for Lauper comes in the form of her 86 comeback single “True Colours”. After a phenomenal first album stateside where she became the first female ever to lift 4 top 5 hits from an album, much was hanging on the second long player from her and this lead single duly obliged her with a chart topping single. In the UK it narrowly failed to give her a third top 10 and she’d end up waiting for a further three years for that, however it remains one of her most remembered hits, mainly due to the plethora of covers that have been done since!
185. I’M EVERY WOMAN (REMIX)- Chaka Khan (128,000)
RELEASED: 1989
PEAK POSITION: 8
WKS ON CHART: 8
This was Khan’s first major cross-over hit when it made No 11 in 1979 and was the precursor to a reasonably successful 80s during which she made No 1 in 1984. A second bite of the cherry came in 1989 when a remix album “Life Is A Dance- The Remix Project” hit the charts enabling this remix (along with “Ain’t Nobody”) to make the top 10 hit and outpeak its original position.
Another artist who had to struggle to final make an impact after initial disinterest from the record buying public, but things got turned around after she was signed to Elton John’s rocket label. In addition to providing backing vocals to many an Elton track, she also started to accumulate hits herself, and of course made the top in 1976 in duet with him on “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. After a quiet period for her she bounced back with this hit in 1981 which you may recall went on to be the theme of BBC’s “Opportunity Knocks” between 87 and 90
183. WHEN I THINK OF YOU- Janet Jackson (129,000)
RELEASED: 1986
PEAK POSITION: 10
WKS ON CHART: 10
Another US chart topper, it’s also another song that just scrapped the top 10 here. Jackson’s third album “Control” provided her with three top 10 hits the smallest of which was 1986’s “When I Think Of You” , and when it hit the top in the US it meant that Jackson and her brother became the first and to date only brother and sister act to have separate chart toppers there.
From what was undoubtedly Ross’s most successful period in the decade, “I’m Coming Out” has a duel meaning. Written and Produced by Chic’s Rodgers & Edwards after they witnessed three drag queens dressed as Ross in a New York Club in 1979, it is naturally a reference to “coming out” and therefore to her large gay fanbase, but also on a personal level Ross was just about to leave the Motown Label so this marked the end of one phase of her life and the beginning of a new chapter. It was the third and final release from the “Diana” album, all of them make this rundown.
181. SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM- Grace Jones (132,000)
RELEASED: 1985
PEAK POSITION: 12
WKS ON CHART: 8
One of Jones’s signature hits, “Slave To The Rhythm” was co-written by Trevor Horn in 1984 and originally penned for Frankie Goes To Hollywood as a follow up to “Relax”. Turned down by the band in favour of their own song “Two Tribes” Horn kept the track convinced of its ability to be a big hit and handed it to Jones in 85 who made it into what we all know now. It’s her biggest hit of the decade and indeed career and made the top 30 all over again in 1994.
After a series of failures Graham eventually made the charts in 1985 in a duet with David Grant (he of “Fame Academy” fame) before continued that success with her new solo releases. “Step Right Up” only peaked at No 15 in the weekly charts but thanks to those Xmas sales it helped to give her her first hit on this chart. She was one of Birmingham’s biggest exports musically speaking, UB40 aside, who incidentally she did backing vocals for on many of their early hits.
179. MY ONE TEMPTATION- Mica Paris (133,000)
RELEASED: 1988
PEAK POSTION: 7
WKS ON CHART: 11
Real name Michelle Wallen, she got her break doing backing vocals for the group Hollywood Beyond in the mid 80s, and whilst she had a good chart span (some 10 years) it belies the fact that she only made the top 20 on three occasions and the top 10 only once, with this track, her debut single. By way of trivia she’s also the cousin of 90s boxer Chris Eubank, something I didn’t know.
178. CIRCLE IN THE SAND- Belinda Carlisle (133,000)
RELEASED: 1988
PEAK POSITION: 4
WKS ON CHART: 11
Carlisle had a phenomenal 1988 with the first three releases from the album “Heaven On Earth” making the big 10 (we’ve already had “I Get Weak” at No 186) and that was followed into the upper echelons of the chart by this in June 1988. Thomas Dolby provided the keyboards to the song which became the second highest peaking single of her career- a perfect summer tune!
177. NOTHING’S GONNA STOP ME NOW- Sam Fox (138,000)
RELEASED: 1987
PEAK POSITION: 8
WKS ON CHART: 9
The first of many S/A/W produced hits comes in the form of former page 3 glamour girl Sam Fox. At just 16 she appeared topless in the Sun before going on to win “page 3 girl of the year” for three consecutive years 84-86 before giving up the game and moving into pop, and for her second album she enlisted the help of the hottest producers in the UK who gave her this single which became her third and last top 10 hit. A disastrous performance at hosting the 1989 BRITS award put paid to her career and the hits dried up, Fox spending the 90s and beyond starring in reality programmes and having hits on the “continent” as they say, as well as being a lesbian.
So much about Maria Vidal I never knew! She’s married to Rick Nowels whom you may not know but you certainly know his songs. He wrote or co-wrote “White Flag” for Dido, “The Power Of Goodbye” for Madonna, “Life Is A Rollercoaster” (Ronan Keating) and “I Turn To You” (Mel C) amongst many others, even Vidal has got into songwriting helping to pen Ace Of Base’s “Everytime It Rains” and Belinda Carlisle’s “Summer Rain”. This was Vidal’s only real hit in this country from the film of the same name, a forgotten gem.
175. SHAKE YOUR LOVE- Debbie Gibson (138,000)
RELEASED: 1988
PEAK POSITION: 7
WKS ON CHART: 8
Yes the 80s Britney is back with her biggest hit of her career. Her first big hit this made No 4 in late 1987 stateside making her a teenage sensation at the time and true enough UK success wasn’t long in following with the track making the top 10 in Feb 1988. Gibson made pop history in the US when “Foolish Beat” became the first chart topper to be written, produced and performed by a teenager. The video incidentally is once again choreographed by Abdul who seemed to be doing virtually every video in the late 80s, and made Gibson the cutest thing in pop for about a month before Kylie came along and blew her out of the water. Younger readers may know her better as Katy Perry’s mother in the video for “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)”.
Real name Michelle Wallen, she got her break doing backing vocals for the group Hollywood Beyond in the mid 80s, and whilst she had a good chart span (some 10 years) it belies the fact that she only made the top 20 on three occasions and the top 10 only once, with this track, her debut single. By way of trivia she’s also the cousin of 90s boxer Chris Eubank, something I didn’t know.
RELEASED: 1984/85
PEAK POSITION: 17
WKS ON CHART: 15
Believe it or not but Patricia Andrzejewski was one of the biggest stars of the brand new world of MTV back in the 80s dominating rotation lists in a pre Madonna world. She only decided she wanted to become a popstar after seeing a Liza Minelli Concert in 1973 and it was 6 years before she signed a contract and a further 5 years before she scored a big hit with “We Belong”. That song failed to make the top 20 here but “Love Is A Battlefield” certainly made that mark (after a re-release), with an equally controversial video in which she basically becomes a prostitute and leads a revolt against their pimp through the medium of dance (I can't count the times that's happened) Anyway no song on this rundown peaked as low as this did.
173. I DON’T WANNA GET HURT- Donna Summer (138,000)
RELEASED: 1989
PEAK POSITION: 7
WKS ON CHART: 9
Summer was back big style in 1989! Hurtling her chartwise were of course unofficial rulers of the chart S/A/W, Waterman had always wanted to produce Summer since her heyday back in the 70s. The album they made for her “Another Time & Place” produced three top 20 hits, this was the second one making the top 10 in June 1989, but it debuted at No 19, at the time the second highest debut EVER for the 70s legend after the fabled “I Feel Love” in 1977 which went in four places higher.
Born Katherine Quaye, Taffy was long a star in Italy where the hits had started in 1984 but it wan’t until this piece of daytime pop that she broke in this country in 1987. “I Love My Radio” was a hit in France in 1985 and took a while to cross the Atlantic, the song was lyrically about a DJ she was in love with who broadcast in the small hours, something that was common on the continent but virtually unheard of in the UK at the time.
171. CROSS MY BROKEN HEART- Sinitta (140,000)
RELEASED: 1988
PEAK POSITION: 6
WKS ON CHART: 9
There are a total of 19 S/A/W productions on this rundown, one of their more reliable deliverers of hits was Simon Cowell’s ex Sinitta. She was a Hot Gossip dancer and part time pop star since 1983 when she entered song for Europe in 1984 but failed to make it to the Eurovision Song Contest Final, before appearing in the video for “Rock The Boat” by Forrest in 1983. She was also a bit of celebrity dater having gotten through Brad Pitt and David Essex by the end of the 80s but still found time to grab herself 6 top 20 hits during the decade.