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Post by evansabove on Aug 18, 2011 17:34:06 GMT 1
I remember being a bit perplexed when i first heard Batdance but in the context of the movie and the soundtrack it works perfectly
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Aug 18, 2011 17:49:29 GMT 1
8TH JULY- SONG FOR WHOEVER- The Beautiful South (1 week)
There are two schools of thought on the Beautiful South. They are either the writers of wry, witty, observant pop, or purveyors of bland music that wouldn't be out of place in an elevator, frankly I'm (in the main) in the former camp. "Let Love Speak Itself" is in my opinion their most touching tender moment but in hitting No 51 it's also one of their lowest charting tracks, meanwhile debut hit "Song For Whoever" was one of their biggest, a song about a pop writer who dates woman as a source for their records it was typical of the unusual tales and themes that dominate their music. It isn't the most wryly observed of their records but it was unusual enough in 1989 to garner notice in the charts and it's a good little choon if a little uninspiring, its role call of girls names was changed by us crazy cats in school to girls in our class (surely we weren't the only ones?).
Consistantly under-rated I think the group finally gained recognition with 1994's "Carry On Up The Charts" a greatest hits set which sold over 2 million copies in the UK and surprised even me with the quality of the singles when they were lined up one after another, and whilst they did score a No 1 in 1990 with "A Little Time" it's just a little bit of shame that this is the song (out of all their cannon) to make our thread....
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 18, 2011 18:09:46 GMT 1
I'm no Prince fan as you may know, but this is a MESS of a record even by his standards. That's probably why it's my favourite Prince track. It's because it's a real Jackson Pollock of a record, all sorts of things flung in to see if they stick...something about its adventurous nature that appeals to me. Q.v. "White Punks On Dope" by The Tubes, similar mood shifts.
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Post by evansabove on Aug 18, 2011 18:29:32 GMT 1
Beautiful South were a bit hit and miss. Song For Whoever is a bit twee for me but A Little Time and Perfect 10 are fab
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vya
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Post by vya on Aug 18, 2011 22:12:05 GMT 1
Beautiful South did some great stuff - the album "Miaow", in particular, is fab from start to finish; the strong songwriting and male-female harmonies worked well for most of their career. ("Pretenders to the Throne" is a great lost single, and "Bell-Bottomed Tear" is a wonder, too. I also agree that "Let Love Speak Up Itself" is a lovely thing) They did get a bit tired later on, (the drinking/depression thing became too overwhelming), and were always a bit hit-and-miss ("Back to bed, back to reality". I don't think so) and probably split up just in time. All that said, "Song For Whoever" is my least favourite of their three 1989 singles. It's a bit too twee and clever-clever.
The Cliff Richard track was written by Richard Marx - before he'd had any hits here (although a constant fixture on the local commercial radio stations, certainly in Essex and Kent). Not unpleasant, but barely memorable.
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Post by Earl Purple on Aug 18, 2011 22:52:23 GMT 1
Richard Marx will make his own appearance shortly...
Beautiful South compete with Mike & The Mechanics for me for #2 of the year. Primarily a "spoof", posing as a love song with lyrics about how much money they are making as people will buy songs for all stupid reasons e.g. having their name mentioned in it. The fact that Paul Heaton was known from the Housemartins did help too, of course.
I'll Sail This Ship Alone was a very bitter song at a very hard time for me. Shocking then really that it broke their run for me, but that may be why, I was just too depressed at the time to listen to it or I may really have ended up burning myself alive.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 19, 2011 6:38:56 GMT 1
To remind people of one of the allusions of the Beautiful South video...
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Post by Earl Purple on Aug 19, 2011 13:50:06 GMT 1
Bros will be coming back again in 2 songs time so just to pre-empt that, today is 19th August, 22 years since the date of their big Wembley concert that was much hyped up. I went to that too - primarily to see Debbie Gibson because I was a big fan of her at the time (and sadly she falls way short of this list, and in the USA she had no #2 hits either, although she did have two #1s). I seem to recall the London Boys made a small appearance at that gig too, doing one of their famous onstage dances with backflips (possibly to Requiem). I wait to see how you greet them in a moment. By the way, I much preferred Requiem to London Nights.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Aug 19, 2011 17:50:45 GMT 1
22ND JULY- LONDON NIGHTS- London Boys (1 week)Ok i'm trying to keep calm but this record is bloody GREAT. The London boys had been peddling their wares since the mid 80s without muhc success until "Requiem" exploded into the top 10 in Apr 89, and this was the follow up, the fantastic "London Nights" For all that it contains the basic elements of a "gay" record (if such a thing exsists) being in the Hi-NRG field of pop music and performed by two muscle mary's I don't actually find the record THAT gay. It's a surprisingly dark ominious song i've always thought, the beat swells and pumps beneath the synth line, the Pet Shop Boys had long been the masters of creating ominious synth line, and you can easily imagine this song on TOTP and being a PSB record minus the back flips and the gymnastics obviously. It may be the half spoken verses like a narrative talking us through the dark streets of the capital, it may be the semi angelic bells that start the record but it's not the euphoric track it pretends to be on the surface. The notion of them as popstars is of course ludicrous, they're clearly front men used to present the songs, but they are entertaining....
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Aug 19, 2011 18:17:39 GMT 1
29TH JULY- TOO MUCH- Bros (1 week)
Craig's left...did you notice? no? Well the end of Bros had started, they just didn't realise it yet. I recall being very underwhelmed by their return in the Summer of 1989, obviously "Sister" is a forgotten gem but the rest of the second album is largely forgettable, of course this was their first release as duo, and their first single from that difficult second album, and of course it debuted instantly at No 2 behind the mighty Sonia! "Too Much" is not a good song however, the chorus struggles to emerge for the verse almost, Luke's drumming seems to overpower even Matt's fantastic voice on the track and all in all it ends up being a rather empty song, full of yelps and gloriously over the top non sensical lyrics "Escape escape from this tickertape/ god I'm underground oh yeah/ A circle's been drawn it's lonely dawn/ should I pencil in this emptiness?", none of this matters if the melody is strong enough but sadly in the case of "Too Much" isn't.
There were two more top 10 hits to follow in 1989 before the slide really set in and the 1991 comeback whimpered out after the third album "Changing Faces" spent just 2 weeks in the chart before the brothers went their seperate ways. It's a fascinating story though, the breathtaking rise and fall of the phenomenon was a cautionary tale of too much too young and in believing in your own hype, the rise of New Kids On The Block was just months away that would take away a huge proportion of their teen base proving that once you trade on that fanbase you need to make your money fast and get out....
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 19, 2011 18:39:26 GMT 1
I always thought the London Boys were gay, until I saw the tragic news that they had been killed in a car crash in Austria by a drunk Swiss. Along with their wives.
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Post by evansabove on Aug 19, 2011 18:44:38 GMT 1
22ND JULY- LONDON NIGHTS- London Boys (1 week)Ok i'm trying to keep calm but this record is bloody GREAT. The London boys had been peddling their wares since the mid 80s without muhc success until "Requiem" exploded into the top 10 in Apr 89, and this was the follow up, the fantastic "London Nights" For all that it contains the basic elements of a "gay" record (if such a thing exsists) being in the Hi-NRG field of pop music and performed by two muscle mary's I don't actually find the record THAT gay. It's a surprisingly dark ominious song i've always thought, the beat swells and pumps beneath the synth line, the Pet Shop Boys had long been the masters of creating ominious synth line, and you can easily imagine this song on TOTP and being a PSB record minus the back flips and the gymnastics obviously. It may be the half spoken verses like a narrative talking us through the dark streets of the capital, it may be the semi angelic bells that start the record but it's not the euphoric track it pretends to be on the surface. The notion of them as popstars is of course ludicrous, they're clearly front men used to present the songs, but they are entertaining.... Hi NRG has always been associated with the gay scene but this is maybe a little too slow in the beat to be true Hi NRG. My word the performance is incredibly camp. How sad they both passed away at an early age
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TheThorne
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Post by TheThorne on Aug 19, 2011 20:51:07 GMT 1
maybe the 7" version Evan but it had some awesome 12" remixes and of course DJs could pump up the bpms. Loved this song reminds me of my first proper girlfriend,one of the songs we danced to Requiem was brilliant 2 again those 12" mixes!
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Aug 20, 2011 12:19:44 GMT 1
5TH AUGUST- WOULDN'T CHANGE A THING- Kylie Minogue (2 weeks)
In 1988 we established that anything Bros could do so could Kylie and so it proved in 1989, and one week after Bros debuted at No 2 Kylie did. In all honesty "Wouldn't Change A Thing" is not a great record. S/A/W have turned down the BPM and given Kylie a pedestrian Mid tempo which is neither dance nor ballad, it stuck me when I was thinking about it how laboured a theme S/A/W were doing with Kylie. "I Should be So Lucky" "Hand On Your Heart" "Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi" and "Wouldn't Change A Thing" all take as their theme relationships which are flawed or destructive, perhaps it was their intention to paint Minogue as some kind of Diva with tragedy in her pores (Minogue's real life would never really match this stereotype). I recall the summer of 89 seemed to last forever and naturally being a Kylie fan this was one of my records of the summer but as I stated, it's not a song I listen to now sadly and this is probably the first instance of a Kylie record getting as high in the charts purely because of her status rather than any merit in the song. Certainly the song writing prowess of S/A/W was on the wain in general and perhaps "Wouldn't Change A Thing" is just a stop along this route...
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Post by raliverpool on Aug 20, 2011 12:33:55 GMT 1
I'm loving reading this thread. But come 1987-1989 I would have been a lot more savage with regards my opinions on a lot of these appropriately named #2 hits, as I thought by then mainstream pop music had gone tits upwards compared to 1978-1985.
By then SAW had become a conveyor belt of largely uninspired music fodder; I never liked Bros when they were huge as I thought their records were horribly produced (I will concede they had some good lyrics (especially Cat Amongst The Pigeons); ditto London Boys; Milli Vanilli; etc .... just compare the acts on the original Band Aid (1984) vs Band Aid II remake (1989) and it makes me want to weep.
Still by then as an 18 year old I was expanding a retro music collection and listening to Radio 1 in the evenings, especially "St" John Peel (the patron saint of music IMHO) show and getting into the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Wedding Present & early Madchester ....
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Aug 20, 2011 12:55:38 GMT 1
19TH AUGUST- FRENCH KISS- Lil Louis (1 week)Following on from the emergence of dance music as a commercial force Chicago Born DJ Louis Sims was responsible for "French Kiss"- imagine a 1989 version of "Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus" and you're probably there. Apparently this is now considered a dance classic but as a 13 yr old this song bored me- I suspect it may have fallen foul of my dislike for instrumentals, but I do remember this being a rather raunchy controversial song, though clearly by the late 80s Radio One had realised banning was completely pointless after FGTH and George Michael and I recall it having no problems being played weekly on the chart show (though perhaps not it's full 8 minute version). I realise that without such records as this some of the great dance records fo the 90s may not have been possible, but really the attraction of "French Kiss" escapes me, it seems to be a record that attracted due to its depiction of a female "enjoying" herself, I'm not even sure HOW you would dance to this and I've never heard it being played anywhere out and about (though obviously I wasn't going clubbing in 1989) so really its puling power is somewhat beyond me.....
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Aug 20, 2011 12:58:56 GMT 1
I'm loving reading this thread. But come 1987-1989 I would have been a lot more savage with regards my opinions on a lot of these appropriately named #2 hits, as I thought by then mainstream pop music had gone tits upwards compared to 1978-1985. By then SAW had become a conveyor belt of largely uninspired music fodder; I never liked Bros when they were huge as I thought their records were horribly produced (I will concede they had some good lyrics (especially Cat Amongst The Pigeons); ditto London Boys; Milli Vanilli; etc .... just compare the acts on the original Band Aid (1984) vs Band Aid II remake (1989) and it makes me want to weep. Still by then as an 18 year old I was expanding a retro music collection and listening to Radio 1 in the evenings, especially "St" John Peel (the patron saint of music IMHO) show and getting into the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Wedding Present & early Madchester .... I Think here is the perfect difference between being a 13yr old in 1989 and an 18 yr old
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 20, 2011 13:51:52 GMT 1
I'm not so sure...when I was 7 or 8 most people at school liked acts that would be considered extreme by today's standards but were mainstream at the time (Madness, Specials, Adam & The Ants...imagine today ska and African drumbeats being given airplay room). The teenyboppery of Modern Romance was excoriated by EVERYone. There was a definite downturn in quality as hype overtook ability.
It's like looking at any random top 20 from any week between about 1961 and 1984. Anyone today could pick out at least half-a-dozen tracks they liked. Since then, not so much.
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Post by evansabove on Aug 20, 2011 14:07:50 GMT 1
I bought Lil Louis on 12" and it was probably one of my first purchases in that format. Not much in the way of orgasmic noises on the radio edit but it was plenty suggestive on the 10 minute version
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Post by Earl Purple on Aug 20, 2011 23:23:01 GMT 1
Strange here the love of the London Boys. I didn't think enormously of London Nights but Requiem peaked at NM #2. I don't think "Too Much" was that bad by Bros standards but just the Bros standards weren't that high at any point. That the teeny fanbase deserted them for New Kids and subsequently them for Take That showed that unfortunately hype was far more important at the time than substance.
I am truly thankful for the next #2 coming up though.
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