1991 – All bound for Mu-Mu land

Strife was still bubbling around the world in 1991. The break-up of Communist Eastern Europe hadn’t settled revolutionary fervour. In June, Slovenia and Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia, laying the foundations for the appalling war there in the following few years. President Gorbachev survived a coup in the Soviet Union but, understandably fearing for his life and opting for a quieter (and more lucrative) retirement, finally jacked it in at Christmas. But the worst violence was the preserve of a UK-US alliance.

Operation Desert Storm began on 16^th January, heralding six weeks of carnage as our forces blitzed Iraq to rubble in retaliation for the invasion of Kuwait. Talking of slaughter, Iron Maiden made the cunning and cheeky calculated move of releasing ‘Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter’ at the perfect time to displace holier-than-thou Cliff Richard from the number one spot in the New Year. While they didn’t stay at the top for the Iraq War, the hostilities were instead accompanied by the rise of Enigma’s contrasting ‘Sadness Part 1’!

Metal tracks rarely registered with me, but several monsters did register in the upper echelons of the chart. In January, Queen channelled their inner Led Zep in their six-minute single ‘Innuendo’, crashing straight in at number one. At the time, I described it as “such a slovenly mish-mash of HM posturing, flamenco guitar (!) and sub-Bohemian Rhapsody effects”. In many ways my contemporaneous opinion still holds water, but I might now replace the word ‘slovenly’ with ‘oddly appealing’! 

It certainly wasn’t the best year for the band, but then Freddie Mercury’s health, like their music, was in rapid decline. I was shocked to see Freddie’s skeletal appearance in the video for the awful ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’, and so the news of his death in November from “an AIDS-related illness” came as no surprise. Neither did the consequent surge to the Christmas number one slot of a re-released ‘Bo-Rhap’, twinned with the new and grossly inferior ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’. When the following Easter, Mercury’s life and music were celebrated in a Wembley fundraising mega-concert, it was only fitting that ‘Innuendo’ was sung by Led Zep’s Robert Plant.

Metallica also featured heavily in that show but at the time their brand of chugging guitar rock in hits like ‘Enter Sandman’ wasn’t to my taste. The same went for Nirvana, whose sensational ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ assaulted the top ten in November. It was another year or two before I came to appreciate Kurt Cobain et al and buy not one, but two Nirvana albums – and then he went and shot himself…. I like to think the two events are unconnected.

U2 went ‘Rock’ in the autumn, too. Releasing ‘The Fly’, they announced it would be available for three weeks only. Would it have topped the chart otherwise? Maybe, but it ranks as one of my favourite U2 tracks of all time, from one of my favourite albums by any artist, Achtung Baby. This also kicked off the band’s predilection for extravagantly-staged multimedia event shows, beginning with the ZooTV tour in 1992-93. I just wish I’d grabbed the opportunity to see it for myself instead of just on video. 

It was another good year for the rock ballad. Guns ‘n’ Roses seemed more appropriate interpreters of ‘Live and Let Die’ than Paul McCartney ever did, while Extreme temporarily went acoustic for the memorable romantic number two song ‘More Than Words’.  1991 also saw German behemoth band The Scorpions go global with the stirring power ballad ‘Wind of Change’.

Of course, I had never heard of them, but this record was to become one of the world’s biggest-selling singles in history, not just in Germany. Forever associated with the country’s reunification – and a million times better than David Hasselhoff’s crass, but for some reason hugely popular ‘Freedom’ – it was actually written about the fragile political situation in the Soviet Union. Yet the precise political inspiration behind the song is unimportant; it just works wonders as a glorious emotional ode to the human spirit.

However, where sales are concerned, it paled into insignificance compared with the UK’s biggest seller of 1991. Following the previous year’s Ghost supremacy, it was the turn of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves to attract hordes into cinemas and enjoy Kevin Costner and his Merrie Men fight in the forest and ultimately kill Alan Rickman’s gloriously over-the-top Sheriff. From the film came Bryan Adams’ even more all-conquering track ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You’. It was number one for an unbelievable sixteen weeks, spanning July to October. For all its irritating longevity, it remains one of the all-time best movie love songs, perfectly structured with its piano intro, climactic crescendo then final breakdown. I wasn’t aware at the time, but the incessantly-broadcast Julien Temple video was mostly filmed not in glamorous California but in little ol’ West Somerset. Take a bow, Kilve beach.

In the days before she sold her songs to some of the biggest stars on the planet, Norwich’s Cathy Dennis enjoyed a modest solo career of her own. Her dance tunes were instantly forgettable but I have fond memories of the less successful ballad ‘Too Many Walls’. Terry Wogan seemed impressed, too! 

I’ve never liked Spandau Ballet’s over-rated ‘True’, but I have to admit the simple guitar motif sounds much better on PM Dawn’s ‘Set Adrift on Memory Bliss’. Another American hip-hop single which effortlessly evokes the emotions of West Coast sultry dog days was ‘Summertime’ by Jazzie Jeff and the Fresh Prince. I never watched the latter’s Bel Air sitcom but Will Smith was a rapper I could listen to. Occasionally. 

From hip-hop to trip-hop. I suppose it got its name from mixing hip-hop and Acid House beats and 1991 gave us one of the best examples in the form of Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’. With its sumptuous strings, minor synth chords, Shara Nelson’s soulful vocals and the ‘heyyy hey-hey heyyy’s, together with the groundbreaking single-shot video in non-descript LA, it all felt so American; yet it was a very British, ney Bristolian, production. Seal was another domestic star with a transatlantic sound. His biggest hit ‘Crazy’ went silver early in the year, making him more than just ‘that bloke with the facial scars who sings on Adamski’s ‘Killer’’. Like ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, it possesses a smooth, chilled, almost ambient style. Not quite a ballad, not quite pure dance, not quite a political statement, it nonetheless successfully fused elements of all three, and it was one of my favourites of ’91. 

Trip-hop was also to the fore in the work of the most successful, possibly the weirdest and definitely the most controversial singles artists of the year. The KLF wasn’t the first project created by thirty-somethings Jimmy Cauty and A&R man Bill Drummond. They had already topped the chart as The Timelords but in 1991 they blew us away with something very different.

The coming together of hip-hop, trance, soul and a punkish attitude was altogether too much for me at the time. When ‘3am Eternal’ went to number one in February, I described it as “awful claptrap”. Kind of Snap! meets The Prodigy meets The Clash. What was all this nonsense about The Justified Ancients? MuMu Land? I never understood it then and I still don’t. ‘Last Train to Trancentral’ was more of the same but, when they flew to number two in December, I began to appreciate their music a bit more. ‘Justified and Ancient’ must go down as one of the most bizarre collaborations in pop history, marrying Drummond’s offbeat take on music with the country legend Tammy Wynette!  How did that happen? Well, according to the lyric: 

“They called me up in Tennessee
They said "Tammy, stand by The Jams"
But if you don't like what they're going to do,
You better not stop them 'cause they're coming through” 

Apparently Drummond was a Country fan. Whatever. It was a chart-topper in eighteen countries and refreshed the career of Wynette, introducing her to a whole new generation of listeners and rave-goers for whom breakbeats and wacky lyrics (“They’re justified and they’re ancient And they drive an ice cream van”. I mean, really?!). And that proved to be their final single. Their outlandish thrash metal performance of ‘3am Eternal’, climaxing with Drummond firing a machine gun at the incredulous audience of suited and booted record industry execs at the 1992 Brit Award ceremony, proved to be a dramatic suicide note for the duo’s musical life.  

Many artists have proclaimed they are the people to revolutionise the music business, overthrow the status quo and go out on a high. The KLF are the only ones who succeeded, if only for one year. They proceeded to delete their entire back catalogue and move into arthouse territory, culminating in the public burning of a million pounds. Did they make a statement? Oh yes. That Drummond and Cauty were a couple of obnoxious mad numpties with more money than sense.  Mind you, I believe their subversive anarchistic attitude hasn’t extended to a boycott of Spotify, and 2017 saw them dip a toe back into the public eye..

Speaking as I was of The Clash, the veteran punk rockers finally hit the top with Mick Jones’ ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’, thanks to Levi’s latest TV ad campaign. Not, in my view, their finest musical moment. I much preferred the rawer Strummer sound of ‘Rock the Casbah’, the re-release of which peaked at a mere fifteen. Not quite ‘London Calling’, but in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, it had an apt contemporary political comment to make. 

The Sixties were re-born in the guise of Cher’s monotonous ‘Shoop Shoop Song’ (aka ‘It’s In His Kiss’), a massive hit from the ‘Mermaids’ soundtrack. The comedian Vic Reeves later teamed up with the ubiquitous folk/alt rock outfit The Wonder Stuff to update Tommy Roe’s ‘Dizzy’ while The Doors’ brooding ‘Light My Fire’ blazed into the charts on the coat-tails of Oliver Stone’s biopic of the original stoner band. I have never understood why this had failed to light up the UK charts back in ’67 but for all the media obsession with recreational drugs, the sound didn’t quite chime with the early Nineties scene. Good, though! 

I couldn’t say the same about other songs prominent that year. I really detested Crystal Waters’ ‘Gypsy Woman’, Kiri Te Kanawa’s ‘World in Union’ (part of ITV’s commercial blitz surrounding the Rugby World Cup) and The Simpsons’ ‘Do the Bartman’. Back then, Sky TV was in its infancy, with an audience still largely comprised of white van men’s families keen to adorn their terraced homes and flats with the latest hideous satellite dishes. Was I just being a snob? Most definitely. I therefore tarred the unfamiliar cartoon comedy with the same contemptuous brush. Consequently, any associated single never stood a chance with me. After The Simpsons appeared on BBC2, bringing it within my reach, I realised that instead of being brash American trash it was in fact rather brilliant, probably the funniest sitcom I’ve ever seen.

Strangely enough, it later transpired that Bart’s anthem was written by superfan Michael Jackson! He had kept it quiet so as not to interfere with the promotion of his new album Dangerous. I didn’t particularly like his number one single ‘Black or White’. I considered it ironic given that Wacko Jacko had by this time become more white than black. 

Jackson could no longer guarantee outselling everyone else; not in the UK anyway. His latest effort was easily eclipsed by an act I found it hard to like.  Simply Red’s fourth album Stars was released in September and took a grip on the album chart for well over a year, eventually selling well over 3 million copies. I wasn’t one of the buyers. Mick Hucknall may have boasted ginger hair and left-leaning politics but his brand of pop/soul wasn’t my thing at all. For me, Stars was the ultimate dinner party record. Too slow to dance to, too boring to listen to, it was fit only to play in the background while you ate and nattered, twinkling gently and inoffensively overhead while more interesting things were happening on the ground. ‘Something Got Me Started’ did at least have a bit of drive to it but the title track epitomised everything that was wrong – yet also right – about Simply Red. It was inescapable throughout December. Searching desperately for positives, I must admit it was preferable to ‘Fairground’, the group’s only number one from 1996. I hated that one! Maybe it was because I wasn’t really a dinner party person either.

MoR was beginning to grow, while Dance was starting to take itself less seriously, and not in a good way. However, there were some enjoyable tracks around. Candi Staton’s ‘You Got the Love’ was given a toe-tapping trancey update by British DJ/producer The Source. Florence and the Machine’s more recent high octane version is perhaps better known over here, and there have been other dance remixes but I still love The Source’s bubbly synths.

K-Klass went to number three with ‘Rhythm is a Mystery’, probably forgotten by everyone except me. I shamefully recall having it as an answer in a Rotaract pop quiz at the time, with only one team knowing it. I still wake up in a cold sweat remembering what a ridiculously difficult quiz I devised. Lessons were learnt, of course. They never let me fly solo writing all the questions again, and rightly so.

Now for the sillier songs. Oceanic’s ‘Insanity’ sold surprisingly well, its House piano bed and catchy chorus making it a popular party anthem before the term was ever used. It also helped to have your act name beginning with the number two. 2 in a Room’s ‘Wiggle It’ and 2 Unlimited’s ‘Get Ready For This’ were great for Rotaract discos – and were indeed played at quite a few! - but not much else.

I tend to think of Erasure as an Eighties band, but they probably enjoyed more success in the Nineties than they did in the previous ten years. In ’91, ‘Chorus’ was the biggest hit but the more memorable one was ‘Love to Hate You’. Not so keen on the echoes of ‘I Will Survive’ but otherwise definitely one for dancing to. REM first appeared on my radar, too. Not their utterly brilliant ‘Losing My Religion’, but the top-tenner ‘Shiny Happy People’. Back then, Michael Stipe could actually pass for being of a sunny disposition!

Later I would ponder on the likelihood of the song being about something far more miserable and depressing. Yet the lyrics are simply full of ‘happy’s. Lots of them. Speaking of misery, Morrissey’s fave Manchester band (apparently) and one-time ‘baggies’, James, took ‘Sit Down' to number two, with a gloriously upbeat rhythm and vocal. Yet its theme was supposedly that of mental illness. In the words of Kurt Cobain: oh, well, whatever, never mind! It became a song we could enjoy at discos while, well, sitting down. Also Tim Booth was to become one of my favourite singers.

Some front men and women have truly amazing voices. I’m thinking Freddie Mercury, Karen Carpenter, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison. Others are memorable for being uniquely bizarre: I give you Kate Bush, Noddy Holder, Rod Stewart. However, Booth comes into the category of just sounding wonderful for no apparent reason whatsoever. James didn’t quite repeat the success of ‘Sit Down’ but the follow-ups and his occasional appearances on 'Later… with Jools Holland' cemented Tim Booth’s as one of my all-time top voices.

There was plenty of sex in the charts and on TOTP. Color Me Badd wanted to sex me up while Salt n’ Pepa insisted: ‘Let’s Talk about Sex’. No, let’s not! However, one of the most entertaining three minutes of music came courtesy of a camp couple of Putney gym club owners with little hair but a twinkle in the eye. Richard Fairbrass had you from the unaccompanied baritone monotone opening lines:-

“I'm too sexy for my love
Too sexy for my love
Love's going to leave me”

And just kept going! Even the band’s name, Right Said Fred, possessed just the right sense of fun and comedic nostalgia, while ‘I’m Too Sexy’ was one of the rare tracks you could jig along to with a stupid grin on your face. Bryan Adams kept it at number two for a record-equalling six weeks but it outsold all but three singles in the UK and even scooped an Ivor Novello songwriting award. I suspect that was merited by one of the finest finales of any song ever. It simply ends with:

“I’m too sexy for this song”.

That’s all, folks! It had ‘one-hit wonder’ stamped all over it and yet for all its novelty value, ‘I’m Too Sexy’ was not the beginning and end of RSF’s musical career. I actually preferred the Christmas follow-up, ‘Don’t Talk, Let’s Kiss’ while the following Spring, ‘Deeply Dippy’ presented them with a number one success, and a second Ivor Novello. But it was the first single which remains unforgettable. Let’s face it, we’ve all strutted around the living room singing “I’m too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts”, haven’t we. Haven’t we? Oh, maybe it’s just me then, but I don’t care.

1985 - I’m Tired of dancing here all by myself

While I was busily filling tapes with tracks taped off the radio, the year also marked a personal metamorphosis. For the first time in years, I could boast a genuine social life! For that, I had Billericay Rotaract to thank. A club for 18-30 year-olds eager to combine social, sporting and community/charity activities, it also shifted my relationship with music.

I had yet to become educated in the subject of musical theatre, but there were a few disco parties in which I could let my hair down. I recall my first Rotaract event aimed at new members. I may have been the only recruit in that particular drive but that did mean the existing Rotaractors made a fuss of me. It must have worked because I ended up staying for nine years and I’m honoured to count some of those present as my oldest friends three decades later.

On that occasion, I remember dancing to the likes of Mai Tai’s ‘History’ and Prince’s ‘1999’ although I probably sat out the slowies like Foreigner’s ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’. Rotaract also reintroduced me to cinema, beginning with the contemporary hit comedy ‘Beverley Hills Cop’. Besides being won over by young Eddie Murphy’s incredibly energetic performance, the film was also one of the first non-musicals I remember to feature a pop soundtrack. Glenn Frey’s ‘The Heat Is On’ and The Pointer Sisters’ ‘Neutron Dance’ did well in the UK charts, but most memorable of all was Harold Faltermeyer’s synth instrumental ‘Axel F’.

Later in the year, I was to go with friends to see ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’, iconic mid-Eighties movies both, with music which captured the flavour of 1985. I never saw ‘The Breakfast Club’. However, apart from making stars of the ‘Brat Pack’ (Estevez, Ringwald, Sheedy et al), it belatedly brought Simple Minds to the attention of the Yanks. ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ was probably my favourite song of the year and won them a great spot at Live Aid. I was already a fan, of course, but their music was beginning to acquire an epic kind of sound, which didn’t always work for me. ‘Alive and Kicking’ seemed more designed for the 12” single market. I actually bought it but regretted it soon afterwards. ‘Don’t You’ feels a bit dated now, but back then it was a song which always made me stop what I was doing and listen.

‘Miami Vice’ was the TV cop show if you were into pastel jackets, flash yachts, sports cars and soft rock. Yes, I watched it. Some of the stories were quite good, too. However, the soundtrack became almost as important to its popularity as the super-cool stars Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. Jan Hammer went to number five with his fast and furious theme tune in 1985. The sublime ‘Crockett’s Theme’ took a further two years to be a big hit, though. 

The programme lost its way a bit when guest stars found their way on to the cast list. In one 1985 episode Phil Collins played – guess what! – a cheeky London con man. But then our Phil was everywhere that year; five Top 20 singles in the UK are testament to that. His ‘No Jacket Required’ album was the second biggest-seller and his ‘Easy Lover’ duet with Philip Bailey topped the singles chart for four weeks in the spring. Then, of course, he appeared on Live Aid not once, but twice! Here he is with 'In the Air Tonight'. Many of us were wishing he’d get back with Genesis to save us from more sickly songs aimed at the American MoR market.

I wasn’t too enamoured of Prince or Bruce Springsteen either. Alost as ubiquitous as Mr Collins, neither hit the spot for me. The whole ‘Purple Rain’ package left me grey, and ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ just made me mad. Bruce may be a living legend, but ‘Dancing in the Dark’ was merely boring and ‘Born in the USA’ was just our denim-clad hero shouting on and on. And on and on….. At least the flip side gave us something a bit more to my taste: the softer, subtler ‘I’m On Fire’. I know Bruce engenders adoration like few others but I just feel unable to identify with his tales of blue-collar industrial Americana. There, I’ve said it.

There were great songs from all around the world in ’85. Pop was definitely going global. It wasn’t just the Americans saying ‘We Are the World’. A young Canadian rocker Bryan Adams finally made it over here with the exciting ‘Run To You’. Strangely, his next three releases – arguably amongst his most famous tracks – failed to crack our Top 30. I only heard the exquisite anthem ‘Heaven’ on Radio 1’s US Chart show, while the immortal ‘Summer of 69’ passed me by for several years thanks to its lowly chart peak of 42. Like Phil Collins, I consider his early stuff far superior to his later, massive-selling soft-rock duets. Yuck! 

Holland gave us the aforementioned Mai Tai; Ireland, Feargal Sharkey’s solo number one ‘A Good Heart’; Germany, the dynamic electro-pop ‘Duel’ by Propaganda, and Italy, the rip-roaring summer Euro-dance hit ‘Tarzan Boy’ (a real guilty pleasure if ever there was one).

Then there was Norway. A-Ha were certainly way off my radar until about October 1985. Their single ‘Take on Me’ had flopped the previous year but once you’d seen the new video, life would never be the same again. A stunning combination of pencil-sketch animation and live action made the jaw drop. It illustrated a four-minute fantasy romance, in which lead singer Morten Harket pulled a girl into her comic book and into a scary race for her life. Would she survive? Would she get back to the real world? Would she end up with Morten? The story kept us guessing right to the final frame... well, what do you think?! Actually, for all the repeated viewings, for all the technological advances in video production, ‘Take On Me’ still stirs emotions in me. It’s just one of the greatest synth pop records. 

It just failed to top the chart here, but made number one in an incredible 36 countries. Early the next year, ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV’ did go all the way in the UK, and both ‘Train of Thought’ and the ballad ‘Hunting High and Low’ also pierced our top five. I even bought a copy of the album, signed by the trio at an event at HMV in Oxford Street. It was surprisingly good! What I liked about A-Ha, and Harket in particular, was that they were Anglophiles. Morten often supported local charity runs in Wickford, Essex, and he’s still going strong. I don’t know whether he still possesses that extraordinary vocal range. The chorus of ‘Take On Me’, from lower register winding up to such a shrill falsetto, was impossible to replicate. Believe me, I tried!

For all their Scandinavian heritage, A-Ha weren’t quite the new Abba. The super-Swedes had long been retired, but in 1985, their genius writers, Bjorn and Benny, returned to the spotlight in a different format. Aided by experienced lyricist Tim Rice, they managed to construct a musical around – of all things - a Cold War chess rivalry. Yet their golden touch hadn’t deserted them. The show’s big ballad, ‘I Know Him So Well’, sung by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson, was the year’s second biggest-seller, and ‘One Night in Bangkok’ also did well for Murray Head. I enjoyed seeing ‘Chess’ in the West End in 1986, when Paige and Head were still in the cast, but it ran for only three years. At least ‘Mamma Mia’ did rather better in the twenty-first century.

The Paige/Dickson duet wasn’t the top love song of the year, though. They were trumped by Jennifer Rush’s million-selling ‘The Power of Love’, a song I have always hated. In contrast, I loved Phyllis Nelson’s smoochfest ‘Move Closer’. Sadly I never got to slow dance with anybody to this one-hit wonder (sigh!), but its romantic lyrics left little to the imagination.

Many women would have liked to move closer to Bryan Ferry. He had become known as the Face of the Eighties, and with songs like ‘Slave to Love’, his voice and smart fashion sense, he was often on the magazine front pages. Personally I found his smooth persona too cloying – and that was before his right-wing politics placed him beyond the pale. 

There were other, more charming Brits in the charts. I really enjoyed Kirsty McColl’s upbeat version of Billy Bragg’s ‘A New England’ and Marillion’s power ballad ‘Kayleigh’. Singer Fish was often on TOTP that year, even brandishing lyric cards for the follow-up ‘Lavender’ when he had a bad throat. Huh? We all knew he was going to mime anyway. 

Eurythmics released their masterpiece ‘There Must be an Angel’ in the summer. It was, and still sounds so lush, a near-perfect parcel of Annie Lennox’s diamond-studded voice, Dave Stewart’s multi-layered synth production and even a harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder. The Cure were at their poppiest with ‘In Between Days’ and Go West briefly promised to be the next Big Thing on the back of ‘We Close Our Eyes’ but I was becoming more fascinated by the growing cult of The Smiths. 

In February, they appeared on TOTP performing ‘How Soon is Now?’ Its disturbingly deep repetitive tremolo guitar hook and Morrissey’s melancholic opening words: 

“I am the son, and the heir, of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir, of nothing in particular”

were like nothing I’d heard before. The track trundles on a bit too long – probably why it peaked at a mere 24 – but, alongside ‘The Boy With a Thorn in His Side’, it motivated me to buying their compilation of singles, B sides and Radio 1 session tracks, ‘Hatful of Hollow’. Poor Morrissey. He has divided the nation’s critics more than just about anyone else. I am firmly in the ‘pro’ camp. Yes, he always sounds so morose, miserable, mad even. But the UK music world would be so much poorer without his contribution of lyrics and insightful quotes. Johnny Marr’s melodies are, of course, also crucial to The Smiths’ success, but the Mozmeister from Davyhulme takes some beating when it comes to my, and many others’ musical influences.

1985 was also a huge year for two other British bands. Tears For Fears were back with a grander sound, which helped them break America. Roland Orzabal’s rich angst-ridden vocals were to the fore on ‘Shout' and ‘Head Over Heels’ while Curt Smith sang on the number two hit ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ backed by a catchy shuffle beat and some memorable guitar riffs. I liked them all. 

Dire Straits had been around for several years. Some singles I’d liked (‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Sultans of Swing’) while others left me cold or just neutral (‘Private Investigations’, ‘Twisting by the Pool’) In 1985, I became exposed to some of their album material thanks to my friend Phil Polley. The band’s early albums and ‘Alchemy Live’ were often on his car cassette player during Rotaract days out. I even bought the latter myself but probably never played it more than twice. That’s the trouble with live albums. The quality is never as good as on the original recordings and unless you actually saw the act in concert, hearing it on a tape or record player just doesn’t strike an emotional chord.

The new medium of compact disc was only just beginning to gain a foothold in the market. Its rapid expansion in 1985-86 probably owed more to Dire Straits than anyone else, and their Brothers in Arms album in particular. Like millions of others, I was powerless to prevent myself from buying the 12” LP, with its sky blue cover framing Mark Knopfler’s vintage silver guitar. Actually, I didn’t like most of the tracks, a strange brew of rock’n’roll, jazz, country and pop. However, their big ’85 hit ‘Money For Nothing’ was unavoidable throughout the summer, but in a good way! Sting’s falsetto ‘I want my MTV’ intro, Knopfler’s fuzzy guitar and the groundbreaking video, complete with state-of-the-art computer-generated animation, proved irresistible.  

The irony of a top rock band raking it in with a song about a working man’s envy of a rock band’s easy lifestyle wasn’t wasted on anyone, and probably not the group themselves. MTV loved it, too, of course, and it was more successful in the US than here. How would they follow Brother in Arms? They couldn’t. They didn’t even try. But it wasn’t a bad way to bow out of the album market. My favourite Dire Straits number was, and remains, the artfully atmospheric anti-war title track which for some ludicrous reason progressed no higher than 16.  

The horrors of war were also highlighted on one of the most extraordinary hits of that or any other decade. You could describe Paul Hardcastle’s ‘19' as a dance single, and you’d be right. But it was so much more. The vocals were simply American news clips strung together, the video a montage of Vietnam images, the music a mishmash of synthesizer hooks, but somehow the various elements came together in a powerful package. It also spawned a divertingly amusing comedy parody ‘N-n-n-Nineteen Not Out’ in which a 21 year-old impressionist Rory Bremner detailed England’s cricketing woes as The Commentators, including John Arlott:- 

                        “It’s a long, slow, lazy delivery. 

    But it's the best I can do…”

Classic!

1985 probably launched the term ‘Stadium Band’. It was intended to hurt, a derogatory term aimed at the likes of Simple Minds, Genesis, Queen et al. Yet it was a cheap jibe. After all, these bands, once the darlings of rock critics, were just as good as they ever were, it’s just that they had grown so popular that they needed to book the biggest venues to give their expanding fanbases more chance to see them perform. Hardly their fault. 

And there were no stadium concerts bigger than the multi-venue Live Aid on 13^th July 1985. After so much preparation, it finally came to fruition on a hot day in both Wembley and Philadelphia. The  mega-gig has been widely slated for its focus on white acts (Stevie Wonder and Jacko refused to be involved) and, quite frankly, a lot of craggy, creaking old rockers like Led Zep, Dylan, Beach Boys, The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. However, I was totally exhilarated by the whole extravaganza.

I recall travelling to Romford that morning to collect some car insurance documents on behalf of Dad. I was desperate to return home before the midday start. Armed with a Daily Mirror ‘special’, complete with running order and likely song choices (mostly wrong, as things transpired) I was mightily relieved that the trains behaved and I could set up my cassette ready for recording likely highlights from Radio 1’s broadcast and watching the whole show on BBC1 TV. If Mum or Dad had favoured anything on another channel, they didn’t dare let on. This was one day when I seized control of the remote.

I did contrive to miss a chunk in the afternoon, and I lacked the stamina to stay up beyond about 1am for the final hours of the American leg. Nevertheless, I gorged myself on the ‘global jukebox’, from Richard Skinner’s immortal introduction and Status Quo’s opening rendition of ‘Rocking All Over the World’ to the McCartney-led London finale. Stevie Wonder did have a point about the lack of black artists. Indeed, the Philly gig was a mediocre affair, enlivened only by Madonna, and Phil Collins’ second performance of the day, thanks to the wonder of Concorde. There is a degree of irony in that in an event designed to raise money to fight poverty, I highlighted boring, balding Phil flying on a supersonic toy for millionaires, and the Material Girl, who would become a symbol of Eighties consumerism!

In retrospect, without the benefit of my rose-tinted specs, it’s evident that much of the Wembley pageant was blandly banal. Status Quo were there only because ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’ was such an obvious way to start such a global event. The Boomtown Rats were predictably lame, Adam Ant’s single song was a mystery to everybody and the likes of The Style Council, Spandau Ballet and, sadly, Nik Kershaw proved they were totally unsuited to an occasion of this magnitude. 

For others, though it was their opportunity to shine in the summer sunshine and the spotlight of an unprecedented worldwide audience. Sting’s dazzling white ensemble stood out and David Bowie’s stagecraft was effortless. He also earned extra Brownie points for sacrificing one song to allow the screening (in the UK at least) of another heartbreaking film of starving African children, to the soundtrack of The Cars’ ‘Drive’. This short segment, along with Geldof’s exhortation: “Give us your focking money!” nevertheless proved to be the most lucrative in terms of donations. 

However, the acts who emerged as stadium superstars were U2 and Queen. The former only performed two tracks, including ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ (which I’d never heard) and a seemingly endless ‘Bad’, featuring an extravagantly-mulleted Bono slow-dancing with a girl from the audience who he’d observed suffering in the crush.

Queen’s set an hour later, between Dire Straits and Bowie, was to go down in rock folklore. This was Freddie Mercury’s stage, strutting up and down, brandishing the mic stand in ever-more risqué poses. And then there was his imperious voice, belting out the biggest hits. For all that, I’d say the band were at their rockiest best for ‘Hammer to Fall’.

How could anything follow Live Aid? I know it was mostly middle-class music by the middle-aged for the middle-aged but nevertheless I wasn’t buying the ‘Death of rock’n’roll’ epithet – and still aren’t. It was more a case of how would the record-buying public react? Other charity mega-gigs have followed and on each occasion it’s undeniably a win-win situation. Participants boost their sales and the organisers raise millions for the nominated charities.

Before the days of instant downloads, the charts weren’t so sensitive. If you were blown away by Neil Young or Hall and Oates, and headed straight for Woolworth’s, there was no guarantee there would be a copy of ‘Helpless’ or ‘Maneater’ on the racks. In terms of the UK charts, it took several weeks before the re-release of ‘Drive’ zoomed up to the top five again. Similarly it was not until September when the bawdily bumptious cover of ‘Dancing in the Street’ by Bowie and Mick Jagger, shown during Live Aid as a video, reached number one. David looked a bit distracted but fortunately Mick seemed to inject some energy into it all.

That August, we went on holiday to Ibiza. Not for us the bright lights and hedonistic haunts of San Antonio; we were based in the more family-friendly resort of Portinatx. One evening, we ventured to a fish restaurant overlooking the picturesque bay. Music played from a speaker and I recognised music I’d heard on a TV show a few months earlier. Was it by Talk Talk? I liked it enough to follow it up on our return home, identifying the track I’d heard as ‘It’s My Life’. I ended up buying the album, which served as my favourite for months to follow. The single had bombed but did at least enjoy a more successful revival in the Nineties. 

‘Life’s What You Make It’ made the top 20 early the next year, and I made it two Talk Talk purchases with the ‘Colour of Spring’ album. It, too, contained some really good pop tunes and longer-form ballads. Two years later, I didn’t wait for singles releases before shelling out my £6.99 (or whatever) on the follow-up, Spirit of Eden. Just as well, as I’d have been waiting a long time! It proved to be a dreaded ‘experimental’ record. Critically acclaimed, perhaps, but to me one long yawnathon. Nevertheless, I have fond memories of Mark Hollis’ band and their mid-Eighties New Wave pop, sparked by a random listen on a quiet corner of the Balearics. 

While away in the Med, Madonna was sweeping all before her in the UK. She’d already made a substantial impression on the singles charts, but ‘Into the Groove' was her first number one, dominating August. A cracking dance number driven by a booming bass synth line, this was a record which practically defined what a 1985 pop song should sound like. That month, Ms Ciccone also occupied the number two position with the re-released ‘Holiday’. Another ideal track for the heady days of summer.

Yet these were just two of eight (yes, EIGHT) singles which peppered the top five in 1985, mostly culled from her Nile Rodgers-produced Like a Virgin album. The slowie ‘Crazy For You’ had peaked at two in the spring but wasn’t on the LP. ‘Material Girl’, ‘Angel’, ‘Gambler’, ‘Dress You Up’, the list went on and on. Madonna was sassy, sexy, outspoken and highly marketable. Buoyed further by her Live Aid performance, she was undoubtedly the star of ’85, and of course this was just the start. The Age of Madonna was upon us!

1984 - Are we living in a land where sex and horror are the new Gods?

1984 was not one of those personal milestone years but in my opinion was a vintage one where pop was concerned. I think there were no fewer than six million-sellers. Quite extraordinary! However, it was the supporting cast of singles that made it so memorable. That, and my long delayed entrance into the dodgy world of recording tracks from the radio. Well, everybody else was doing it, so why couldn’t I? Over the next few years, I amassed at least sixty C60 or C90 TDK cassettes of random songs taped from Radio 1, Capital, Essex FM and even the terrible Medium Wave pirate station Laser 558.

I’m not sure whether I was still listening to the Jimmy Savile show but now I wasn’t just listening to past hits; I realised I could save them for posterity without – er- paying for them. I do recall being racked with guilt on hearing Steve Wright on a Brit Awards broadcast admonish illegal tapers. Guilt, but not so much that I stopped doing it. However, I did start buying a few greatest hits tapes or 12” albums, or borrow some from the library to – um- record at home. As Steve said at the time, wagging his finger: “Naughty, naughty!”

Inevitably 1984 was greeted by a welter of articles about Orwell and gratitude that we weren’t living in a world of constant war and surveillance. Ahem.  Weren’t we? The Cold War was playing out in all its grim glory, but a man called Mikael Gorbachev was approaching the supreme Soviet stage from which he could finally bring down the Iron Curtain by the end of the decade. At home, we didn’t have Big Brother, but Big Sister Margaret Thatcher pushed the UK darned close to a police state during the 12-month miners’ strike.

The long-standing USA-USSR stand-off was the inspiration behind Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Two Tribes’, which topped the charts for nine weeks in the summer. Yet that wasn’t even the group’s biggest hit of the year. Re-wind to January, and that new song languishing in the thirties. A lot of post-Christmas airplay and a TOTP performance advanced it to number six, at which point R1 breakfast show presenter Mike Read observed the record sleeve and, suddenly horrified at the explicit lyrics and fetishist imagery, priggishly imposed a ban on the song. The network fell in behind him and ‘Relax’ duly leapt to the top. When ‘Two Tribes’ was released, it crept back up the chart to the point where Frankie occupied the top two berths around the time of my birthday.

It wasn’t just their music which was everywhere. The ‘Frankie say RELAX’ T-shirts were commonplace, and the establishment was in uproar. Here was an obvious hymn to gay sex, just as AIDS was reaching pandemic status around the world. The video even provocatively portrayed an S&M orgy, yet civilisation didn’t collapse. Indeed, Holly Johnson and his mates proceeded to release one of the most beautiful songs of all time, ‘The Power of Love’. With its sumptuous Nativity video (angels, shepherds, Magi on camels…!), it was tailor-made for a Christmas number one, only to be tossed aside when Band Aid and Wham delivered their charity fund-raising double-whammy. However, it did touch the top for one week, thus elevating the band to the elite few to have made number one with their first three releases. The following year, ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ came within a whisker of making it four in a row, but within two years the band imploded and in any case the Frankie flame had already burnt itself out.

Two chart veterans were also enjoying a new purple patch. Elton John’s ‘Sad Songs’ and ‘Passengers’ continued a good run of top ten singles while Queen were back to their best on their album The Works. I couldn’t help liking Roger Taylor’s paeon to the wireless, ‘Radio Gaga’ and Eric Deacon’s ‘I Wanna Break Free’, featuring the infamous but undoubtedly entertaining cross-dressing opening to the video. I wasn’t so fussed on Freddie Mercury’s solo material like ‘Love Kills’. The Queen magic was missing.

Two sassy Americans with close associations with New York burst onto the K music scene. You really believed Cyndi Lauper when she shrilled ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. The official video was deliberately cheap but I mainly remember her miming the song leading a sort of conga around the TOTP studio! The far more subtle ‘Time After Time’ also did well in July. And then there was Madonna Louisa Ciccone.

‘Holiday’ had done OK in February, but surely it should have been released during the summer. Never mind; it would have another day in the sun. Instead it was the arrival of ‘Like A Virgin’ just before Christmas which really brought Madonna to our attention. While you couldn’t really believe the sexy singer-dancer was a virgin, that wasn’t the point. It was a great record which offered something I hadn’t heard before. There would be plenty more where that came from…..

This side of the Atlantic, we had a few promising young female vocalists, too. Alison Moyet lent her big soulful voice to songs like ‘Love Resurrection’ and ‘All Cried Out’ while another product of Essex, Sade, won critical acclaim here and in the States with her album 'Diamond Life’. I hated her breathy ‘Your Love is King’ but ‘Smooth Operator’ was more up-tempo and– well – super smooth. She may have been born in Nigeria but I loved the fact that she we went to school in Clacton.

It wasn’t just Sade wowing them Stateside. The big Brit bands were coining it in, too. Duran Duran were starting to go a bit over the top for me. ‘The Reflex’ was a reasonable number one (their last) but ‘Wild Boys’ was pompous rubbish, with an even stupider video and Simon Le Bon’s wince-inducing attempts at the high notes. The Human League didn’t soar to the heights in the UK but I enjoyed the rocky ‘The Lebanon’ and, in particular, ‘Louise’. It’s such a simple romantic story with a gentle, low-key synth production that I was entranced. Still am. I didn’t realise at the time that Phil Oakey wrote it as a follow-up to the characters in ‘Don’t You Want Me’, but that made no difference. It also transpired that she still didn’t want him.

Melle Mel’s deep rap voice was often on the radio. His anti-drugs song ‘White Lines (Don’t Do It)’ stayed in the charts for several months and he cropped up again in the intro to Chaka Khan’s chart-topping ‘I Feel For You’. I quickly tired of the video on TOTP and the song wasn’t my cup of tea. It turned out that it had been written by Prince, whose ‘When Doves Cry’ went to number four in the summer. I know I may be in a minority here, but his follow-up, ‘Purple Rain’ is one of my most hated songs of the ‘80s.  

Mind you, there was some serious competition in 1984. Black Lace’s version of an old French ditty sold shedloads in the second half of the year but ‘Agadoo’ has become a by-word for irritating pop ever since. OK, so it’s not The Birdie Song, but when you factor in the bleach-blond spiky hairstyles and cheesy grins of the duo, the result is truly terrible. I wouldn’t ordinarily associate Stevie Wonder with crap compositions but when he brought out ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’, his reputation took a massive jolt. Not so, his bank balance! Like most awful pop, it was extraordinarily catchy in melody and lyrics and – horrors of horrors! – proceeded to sell more than two million in this country alone.

At Christmas, another giant of twentieth-century music also blotted his copybook in terms of quality. Paul McCartney had started the year at the top with one of his trademark mediocre ‘let’s all love one another’ songs: ‘Pipes of Peace’.  He then partnered Michael Jackson on ‘The Girl Is Mine’ and reached two with his ‘No More Lonely Nights’. But when he was joined by Rupert Bear and a cartoon Frog Chorus in December, the depths were well and truly plumbed. Yet, of course, it was aimed at the seasonal family market and Macca struck gold.

Sixteen years earlier he had written one of the greatest Beatles songs, ‘Hey Jude’, inspired by Julian, the son of John Lennon.  1984 proved to be the time when Julian emerged briefly from his late dad’s lengthy shadows to have a hit of his own. Despite being an odd blend of pseudo-ska, Country and pop, I quite liked ‘Too Late for Goodbyes’. The face and voice was uncannily similar to John’s but probably the family connection was more burden than boon; this single was his only top 10 hit in the UK. 

Two great British bands were at opposite ends of their major principal chart careers. Madness delivered one of my favourites in ‘Michael Caine’ a rarity in that it was Chas Smash and not Suggs on lead vocals. The golden age of humorous videos had passed, and they were entering a more reflective phase before their first break from the business.

On the other hand, The Smiths were garnering rave reviews for their rather different rock sound. They had four top 20 singles in 1984, although one, ‘Hand in Glove’ was officially credited to guest vocalist Sandie Shaw. Read Morrissey’s remarkably candid and eccentric autobiography – no phoney phantom ghost writer here - for his less than enthusiastic opinions on that issue. Of the four, the one appealing to me most was ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’. Yes, I know the singer-writer practically invented pop ‘miserabilism’, but wouldn’t you feel under the weather if you had a bunch of gladioli stuffed down your trousers? 

There were some cracking ballads peppering the pop scene in ’84. Lionel Richie not only had the year’s biggest-selling album (Can’t Slow Down) but also his only UK chart-topper in ‘Hello’. That video of the beautiful blind girl sculpting teacher Lionel’s head in clay by touch alone became rather annoying on TOTP after six weeks at the top but it was a winning combination of sentimentality, tunes and Richie’s peerless voice. He even kept from the top perhaps Phil Collins’ second finest moment as a solo artist. ‘In The Air Tonight’ had been an impressive debut but ‘Against All Odds’ was an above-par movie theme song. The film itself was pretty crap, even if it did star Rachel Ward, one of the most gorgeous stars back then. It also set in train a second, parallel career path for Collins, who seemed to be ever-present in the Eighties singles charts either with Genesis or another soporific solo or duet Hollywood hit. I found it hard to hate him, for all his success, but nevertheless the run of boring ballads severely tested our artist-listener relationship!

The Yanks couldn’t get enough of the chirpy London accent or his lucrative line in cinema lullabies but then there were quite a few American artists I enjoyed hearing, too. I’ve mentioned a few already but in addition Kool and the Gang were doing well. ‘Joanna’ represented a shift towards the Phil Collins market (as was ‘Cherish a few years later) but ‘Fresh’ was more like their old disco thang, and all the better for it. Sister Sledge sang ‘Thinking of You’, both Van Halen and The Pointer Sisters were in the top ten with very different songs boasting the same title, ‘Jump’.  

I also enjoyed ZZ Top’s debut record ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’. It wasn’t just about the Gibbons brothers’ mighty beards; it was the whole blend of Rhythm and Blues (in its true sense) and those growled vocals by Billy Gibbons. The videos had a visual brand all of their own, too: long-legged blondes, scruffy blokes in denim and vehicles with ludicrously over-sized wheels. It was a winning formula, but the first single was their best. 

In 1984, there were a mere four channels on British television. However, the infant Channel 4 had expanded the opportunities many-fold to watch pop music. I rarely watched The Tube, largely because it was too early in the evening but also as it clashed with the News. However, what made it stand out was the exposure it offered to many new bands, and that many of them performed live. Barring the occasional three-minute gem on TOTP, the BBC featured very little live contemporary music. Which is why, one summer evening in 1984, I managed to get my way with the TV remote and watch BBC1’s broadcast direct from, I think, Wembley. 

The concert was by Billy Joel, whose An Innocent Man album had yielded a few decent singles including ‘Uptown Girl’. I’d been aware of several of Joel’s songs without generating much in the way of devotion, but this hour or so won him at least one new fan! Even Dad watched with me, but I don’t think Mum was present; must have been her bath night! I think only the first half was transmitted live, with part two recorded for the following night. Put together, the programme not only included some familiar hits but also introduced me to longer tracks like ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’ and ‘Goodnight Saigon’ which made a huge impression on me. Joel’s piano-playing, gift for melody and observations on social issues and vignettes of ordinary New York lives were outstanding and I embraced the live experience, albeit from the small screen in the corner of our lounge.  When his Greatest Hits Volumes 1 and 2 came out the next year, I actually sought it out to catch up with the songs I’d heard in that TV simulcast or just missed over the previous decade. In 1990, I grabbed the chance to witness him live for myself at the Wembley Arena. And a fab show it was, too.

It wasn’t just the Americans invading our charts. Even Germany supplied some pop songs which appealed to me. Nena was a kind of brunette Kim Wilde who achieved something that our Kim never did: a UK number one single.  '99 Red Balloons’ toppled the mighty ‘Relax’ with a jaunty synth-heavy song inspired by Cold War paranoia. In 2016’s German TV spy thriller Deutschland 83, centred on the same theme, the original hit ‘Neunandneunzig Luftballons’ was a perfect choice to set the cultural and political scene for the drama, which turned out to be extremely watchable, even with subtitles. As for Nena in Grossbritannien 84 I remember at the time the tabloids focussing crassly on the singer’s armpit hair (!) but that was just their way of ridiculing anything foreign.

I also enjoyed a record by New Wave band, Alphaville. Unbeknowns to me at the time, ‘Big In Japan’ was apparently about heroin-addicted lovers longing for a drug-free future but to my naïve ears, it was simply an addictive four-minute slice of mid-tempo electro-pop It sold zillions across Europe but unsurprisingly peaked only at eight this side of the Channel. Only in doing some research on the band have I discovered that Alphaville were the composers of the classic power ballad ‘Forever Young’, a track I’d always associated with Laura Branigan. Surprisingly the original barely made a scratch on our Top 100.

Other random songs that floated my boat that year included Blancmange’s ‘Don’t Tell Me’. Perhaps best known for ‘Living on the Ceiling’, their Indian-influenced sound transferred quite well to mid-80s electropop. So did Bronski Beat’s. They made a stunning arrival with the dreamy but sad ‘Smalltown Boy’. A serious tale about homophobia and bullying (“Alone on a platform, the wind and the rain on a sad and lonely face”) its memorable synth riff, minor chords, lovely tune, dance beat and Jimmy Somerville’s falsetto were irresistible. It was far more than a gay anthem, and took Europe by storm.

Paul Weller has made a career of being a miserable git but even he has his romantic side. This came to the fore with ‘You’re the Best Thing’, a top five hit with Mick Talbot as The Style Council. They made quite a few chart appearances around that time but, just ahead of ‘Shout to the Top’, this soulful ballad has to be the highlight. Much as I like ‘Long Hot Summer’, I wish he’d chosen to perform instead this 1984 love song in his Cardiff show I attended in 2015.

Whilst ‘Smalltown Boy’ and The Style Council were necessarily short of laughs, there were some conspicuously shameless comedy records in 1984. To such a degree that the 1985 Brit Awards, forerunners of today’s Brits, featured a Best Comedy Song award. Surely the first and only time that happened. Weird Al Jankovic’s Michael Jackson parody, ‘Eat It’ and Alexei Sayle’s manic ‘Ullo John, Got a New Motor?’ (best line: “What’s that button there for? What’s that button there for? Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!”) were nominated, but the deserved winner was Neil’s very funny version of hippy anthem ‘Hole in My Shoe’. Nigel Planer’s character from BBC’s cult comedy The Young Ones let rip, and even John Peel seemed to like the subversive performance on TOTP. Neil/Nigel was thwarted by ‘Two Tribes’ but he did eventually top the chart, along with the rest of the Young Ones – plus Cliff Richard – two years later. Heavyyyy!

Paul Young may have won the Brit Award for Best British Male, but in my mind Nik Kershaw was robbed! A talented writer and multi-instrumentalist, his look of a teenage boy rabbit caught in the headlights may have held him back. Early releases flopped but when the wonderful ‘Wouldn’t it Be Good’ soared to four, the re-releases made him one of the most successful artists of 1984.

‘I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me’, a jaunty appeal against nuclear war (“forefinger on the button” was a genuinely scary and real prospect in ’84) went to number two, although his haunting ballad ‘Human Racing’, written as a teenager, was less successful. Stupendous chord changes and vibrant vocals clearly weren’t enough for the wider public. Their loss! Nik proceeded to finish the year on another high, releasing an even better song, but what was it about? Contemporary commentary had it that it was about the Northern Ireland Troubles. I couldn’t fathom that interpretation, but the lyrics seemed to mean nothing. I guess that’s why Kershaw called it ‘The Riddle’. Who cares? It’s a brilliant song. A few more hits followed, my favourite being the little-remembered ‘Elizabeth’s Eyes’. I was delighted to find him supporting Elton John several years later at Wembley Arena. The venue was mostly empty at the time but I preferred Nik’s set to Elton’s.

Much as I loved Nik Kershaw’s material, 1984 gave me what was, and remains one of the tracks I most enjoy hearing. I mentioned U2’s ‘New Year’s Day’ contribution to 1983 but when ‘Pride(In the Name of Love)’ entered the chart at eight in mid-September, the Irish band ascended to an altogether higher plane. From The Edge’s chiming guitar intro to the anthemic “Oh oh-oh oh” chorus for the fade-out, via Bono’s impassioned vocals, Larry Mullen Jnr’s heavy drums and Adam Clayton’s insistent bass, everything I could ask for in a rock classic is there. And then there’s the subject itself. Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’ had been a memorable appeal for Martin Luther King’s birthday to be commemorated as a national holiday. And with ‘Pride’ on his side, there was no doubting MLK’s elevation to true world icon, not just a troublesome US civil rights leader of the Sixties.

I bought the album The Unforgettable Fire off the back of the single. The title track and ‘Bad’ also worked for me, and of course there was plenty more from U2. Their Live Aid performance transformed them into stadium superstars and also into my new favourite band.

Nobody I knew could possibly admit to loving Wham. Nevertheless, George Michael and Andrew Ridgley (plus backing singers Pepsi and Shirlie) were just as part of the 1984 pop scene as Frankie Goes to Hollywood. They topped the chart twice with ‘Wake me Up Before You Go-Go’ and ‘Freedom’ and came close with the perennial Christmas weepie ‘Last Christmas’. That wasn’t enough for George. Even hearty heterosexuals like me couldn’t fail to be impressed by his solo effort, ‘Careless Whisper’, and then he took one of the most important segments of Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’. Given that he wrote most of these hits, Mr Michael was becoming a very rich young man indeed, as well as a sizzling sex symbol amongst teenage girls….  More than that, his 1984 soundtrack singles combined to encapsulate everything that pop is supposed to be about: two up-tempo, apparently throwaway dance numbers, a mature ballad, consummate Christmas perfection and perhaps the most politically and financially successful humanitarian musical venture in history.

Of course, George didn’t write ‘Do They Know….?’. That accomplishment belongs to Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. Their respective bands had been experiencing different career arcs. The Boomtown Rats were no longer the force they had been in the late Seventies, but Ultravox were still selling singles, including ‘Dancing With Tears in My Eyes’ and – a guilty pleasure of mine – ‘Love’s Great Adventure’. Band Aid was certainly the most inspiring collective – and song – I can remember. Geldof’s anger at the injustice of the Ethiopian famine resulted in the roping in not only the Ultravox front man but also dozens of the biggest names in UK contemporary pop.

Bob’s job was to harangue the names in his contacts book and rattle cages throughout the industry, not to mention the incumbents of the House of Commons. However much she tried, Prime Minister Thatcher could not sweep this scruffy, potty-mouthed Irish rock star under her luxurious deep pile Conservative carpet. The last thing she wanted to do was encourage giving money to millions of poor black people. Third World poverty merely helped support military dictatorships friendly to her own regime. But she under-estimated Geldof. Meanwhile Midge was left to handle the back-room musical roles, and his contribution to the Band Aid enterprise should never be forgotten.

After all, it was actually quite a good song – a million times better than the Jacko-Richie composition that followed the next year, which just sounded cheap and exploitative. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so critical. Anything that gets Yanks to spare even a solitary thought for people beyond their own borders, let alone raise $63 million, deserves some credit.  The era of the charity single had begun. There have been many feeble, yet well-intentioned imitators. The initiators and humanitarian pop campaigners like Bono and Geldof have been pilloried in the Press. Why? I have no problem with musicians using their fame and influence to support worthy causes. Better that than lazy journos and politicians trying to ignore or belittle issues we should be angry about! If the music itself merits repeated listening, it becomes even more powerful.

With so much free publicity and promotion on every radio station, TV channel (all four of them!) and in all kinds of retail outlet, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ could easily have become tedious, turning such a force for good into a negative. Yet it made us feel good about ourselves and, as a musical soundtrack to December ’84 will linger for ever. What could Geldof and Ure do to top that? Surely they couldn’t develop the theme from a three-minute single into a massive, multi-artist concert? It could never be done! Such negativity was simply a red rag to the stubborn bull that was Mr Geldof. The seeds were already sown for the extraordinary extravaganza that was to be Live Aid.

1975 – It’s just a silly phase I’m going through

There was a distinct shift of power in the pop charts in 1975. That perspective can come only from the future, of course, but I remember feeling that something was missing. Maybe it was the death of Glam, maybe my attaining the grand old age of 14, grieving for lost youth as I started my O Level courses. I have read an article by Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley who wrote in passing that 1975 was one of a few years notable for the awfulness of their music. A subjective viewpoint, of course, but it’s  interesting to see a respected musician and journalist supporting my humble opinion.

Despite never attending a proper disco in my school life, there was no excuse for being unaware of the genre. Songs like ‘Disco Stomp’ (Hamilton Bohannon) and ‘Disco Queen’ (Hot Chocolate) did what it says on the tin. However, I preferred other records which didn’t try so hard.  The Bee Gees reinvented themselves with the funky ‘Jive Talkin’’ and Hot Chocolate released the immortal ‘You Sexy Thing’. It would have topped the chart were it not for possibly the greatest record ever made, Shit happens, Errol!

I remember returning from our summer holiday on Mallorca, always eager to find out what had been happening in the UK charts while in our Balearic bubble. The major movement was the rise of two great songs from the USA. George McCrae’s ‘It’s Been So Long’ was my favourite of the year, and it competed for the number four spot with KC and the Sunshine Band’s finest moment on vinyl, ‘That’s the Way I Like It’. Just watch this clip and try resisting the temptation to dance and join in the “Woo-oo-oo”s at the beginning and the “uh-huh”s during the chorus. Dig that brass section, man! I liked it in ’75 but it’s improved with age.

I also enjoyed Van McCoy’s ludicrously catchy semi-symphonic ‘The Hustle’, which made number three in June. It had the edge over that other dance move of the year: ‘The Bump’ by Kenny! The group’s children’s TV presenter-style clothes and bouncy performances were simultaneously irritating and fun.

There were no disco chart-toppers over here but the Philly sound was more successful in the form of The Stylistics. As more singles were released, their chart positions seemed to improve slowly and in 1975 the jaunty ‘Sing Baby Sing’ reached three. This was trumped by the magnificent ‘I Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love)’ in August. Russell Thompson Jnr’s falsetto soared wider even than his afro!

David Bowie had morphed into the Thin White Duke but I didn’t like his soul era. Thank goodness for the re-release of ‘Space Oddity’ which went to number one that autumn. This used to be one of my all-time favourites but has since slipped down the list. Still great, though: and a successful musical story with a sad ending is so rare.                                                  

It was also a big year for Country and Western, as we then called it. Oh, C&W. All that drawlin’ and mewlin’ about lervin’, cheatin’, drinkin’ and a-prayin’ by rednecks who think the world is a poorer place since the abolition of slavery. And then there are all the ‘yee-hahs’. Aarghhh! Yet, strangely 1975 gave us a few Country songs I – er - actually quite liked.

Not Tammy Wynette’s awful ‘Stand By Man’, which took the UK by storm in the Spring. In a year when gender equality took a giant leap closer thanks to the Sex Discrimination Act, the sentiments seemed slightly at odds with the mood of the times. In contrast, two other songs surprised me by sounding rather good. First, Ray Stevens stopped streaking and returned to his Country roots by delivering a rollicking piano-banjo version of ‘Misty’. Later, I also found myself enjoying the be-permed Billy-Jo Spears’ ‘Blanket on the Ground’. Fortunately that was pretty much it as far as good Country & Western was concerned. Sorry, Dolly, but normal service was quickly resumed!

Northern Soul was gaining in popularity and, as with so many local ‘underground’ musical movements, related record sales took the genre into the national mainstream. I’d no inkling of what Northern Soul was. I don’t suppose I’d have recognised the term even if I’d lived next-door to one of the hotbeds of the movement, Wigan Casino! Apparently, revivals such as ‘Ghost in My House’ owed their success to Northern Soul DJs and, in turn, future stars like Soft Cell would create new audiences for mid-‘70s songs such as Gloria Jones’ ‘Tainted Love’. 

Had I been sufficiently motivated to read more about it I’d have worked out why two artists in the 1975 charts had Wigan in their names. Wigan’s Chosen Few were created to accompany the instrumental dance track ‘Footsie’ and, more my cup of tea back then, Wigan’s Ovation recorded the more ‘poppy’ ‘Skiing in the Snow’. I never did reconcile a song about winter sports with an industrial town in the North West! Regardless, both made Top of the Pops and did well. 

South East England experienced a notable heatwave that summer and, for me, three records represent those weeks spent sweltering in the classroom or sitting at home, windows wide open. Brian Hyland’s early Sixties hit ‘Sealed with a Kiss’ was suitably slow and sultry, and one-hit wonders Typically Tropical (how apt!) topped the chart with ‘Barbados’. I’ve never been to the island personally but that August, we had to improvise and make some subtle alterations to the lyrics: “Woah! We’re going to Mallorca!” And we were “flying away on Britannia (not Coconut) Airways”. 

At the time of my fourteenth birthday, 10cc were back at the top with the ageless ‘I’m Not in Love’. A few months earlier, I’d enjoyed the punning whimsy of ‘Life is a Minestrone’ but this was a whole new ball game. It was such an innovative sound, with those painstakingly multi-tracked and looped “aaahhhhhhh”s behind Eric Stewart’s electronic piano, gentle vocals and subtle sentiments expressed in clever lyrics. Just imagine a hot Sunday afternoon with that ‘choir’ wafting softly on a light breeze; ‘I’m Not In Love’ would be perfect. 

1975 was the year Rod Stewart armed himself with eyeliner and other cosmetics, and made his Atlantic Crossing to conquer America. The first step was, appropriately enough, the single, ‘Sailing’, which became the second biggest seller in the UK.  It wasn’t my favourite, but it’s an example of how simplicity works. By coincidence, ‘Sailing’ kept another nautical song at number two, ‘The Last Farewell’ by Roger Whittaker. Rod was travelling “to be near you, to be free” but Rog seemed to be sailing home, leaving his love behind. In his chart hits, he always seemed to be off somewhere: leaving Durham Town, heading “over the sea to Skye”. Never mind; you couldn’t dislike Roger Whittaker. He’d been on children’s TV quite a bit, usually showing off his whistling skills, and he had the kind, avuncular appeal of an unpretentious entertainer, certainly not a pop star! Oddly, ‘The Last Farewell’ did much better in the States than ‘Sailing’ but Rod hasn’t looked back since! 

There were other slowies which I didn’t much like but were hard to avoid. Ralph McTell’s ‘Streets of London’ was more to Mum’s taste than mine, and Minnie Ripperton’s ‘Lovin’ You’ – including those irritating chirping birds and eye-wateringly high notes – was possibly better suited to canines. Then there was ‘If’ by Telly Savalas. It was a big year for the American TV cop show ‘Kojak’ but for some reason its star believed he could be a serious recording artist, too. Women did seem to find his deep speaking voice rather sexy but I found a whole song of him intoning the lyrics sheer hell! If Telly’s musical career encouraged William Shatner’s similar move, then ‘If’ has even more to answer for than I originally thought. 

In the credit column I would place the number ones, the dreamy ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ by Art Garfunkel and Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel’s delightful ‘Come Up and See Me, Make Me Smile’ (I love that acoustic middle eight). Meanwhile John Lennon took ‘Imagine’ to number six, well before it attained classic status. 

Fox were a band with a different vibe, mostly down to the voice and hippyish poses of singer Susan Traynor. I liked their number three hit ‘Only You Can’ and their 1976 effort, ‘S-s-s-single Bed’. One of my faves of the year was ‘If You Think You Know How to Love Me’ by Smokey (later re-named Smokie, after Smokey Robinson threatened legal action!). They’d apparently been around in some form or other for years but once Chinn and Chapman sprinkled their writing/production stardust, they broke through at last. Chris Norman’s croaky vocals, the acoustic guitar, backing harmonies and quality songs made for a winning formula, repeated on the follow-up ‘Don’t Play Your Rock’n’Roll to Me’. Smokie are probably best known for ‘Living Next Door To Alice’, but only because it was appropriated and desecrated years later by Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. I insist that their 1975 singles are far superior.

At the start of the year, Mum liked Pilot’s ‘January’ so much we actually bought it for her birthday. For me, the only memorable thing about it was the double-necked guitar they played on TOTP! Singer-writer-bassist David Paton had apparently been part of the Bay City Rollers a few years earlier but I’m not sure he fitted in with the new incarnation of the Rollers, who stood head, shoulders and platform shoes above the rest. 

They’d been building their reputation amongst teenage girls throughout the previous twelve months but as soon as Les McKeown sang the first line of ‘Bye Bye Baby’ in early ’75, they went stratospheric. ‘Rollermania’ out-did anything generated by the Osmonds, David Cassidy or indeed any band since The Beatles. Girls burst into tears at the very thought of Les, Eric, Woody, Alan and Derek. Boys didn’t get a look-in! I hadn’t been aware of The Four Seasons’ original, but the Rollers sold a million in no time at all. 

‘Give A Little Love’ was their summer love song, a chart-topper while I was confined to bed ill at Uncle David’s. However, when they released ‘Money Honey’ in the autumn, it already felt like their day had gone. They never had another number one single and Britain was faced with a pile of unwanted plaid. Modern girls whose mums and grandmothers roll their eyes at their obsession with One Direction, Justin Bieber or whoever, should just ask about that box of yellowing posters and tartan scarves in the attic….. 

Another of my picks from the year’s pop crop was Carpenters’ ‘Please Mister Postman’. As with ‘Bye Bye Baby’, I was ignorant of the song’s origins, but it didn’t matter. However, the passing years have not been kind to this record. It’s that dreaded Country vibe again; give me one of their straightforward ballads any day. 

Researching for this memoir when my own mind failed me led me to the opinion that 1975 must have had more comedy or novelty records than possibly any other. As with anything in life, humour can be very personal and subjective, and so these humorous songs were very hit and miss. I can’t say I was a fan of Windsor Davies and Don Estelle’s ‘Whispering Grass’ yet, performed as their characters from BBC sitcom ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’, it was curiously engaging and was the fourth biggest seller of the year! “Sing, Lofty!” It wasn’t strictly speaking a comedy record. Estelle sang it straight in his impeccable tenor but Davies brought his Sergeant-Majorly Welsh baritone to the spoken section and OTT gurning to their TOTP performances. 

Billy Connolly was just beginning to make a name for himself as a comic and actor but the trouble was that his Glaswegian accent was almost incomprehensible to anyone south of Hadrian’s Wall. His re-write of Tammy Wynette’s ‘D.I.V.O.R.C.E.’ proved a major step towards his achieving eventual national treasure status. However, hearing the song again reminded me that the song wasn’t funny at all. Forget the words and simply watch Billy; he just made you want to laugh. 

Meanwhile, Max Boyce managed a feat that even Billy Connolly couldn’t: a number one album. The charismatic musician and songwriter had become an icon of South Wales and, boosted by a few late-evening network TV series, had spread his fanbase way beyond Cardiff, Swansea and the Valleys. Everyone was going “Oggi oggi, ogg, oi, oi, oi!” even if we didn’t know one end of a (giant) leek from the other. Max didn’t just write rugby-related crowdpleasers or humorous tales; there were also a lot of wistful ballads reflecting his own mining community heritage. Dad and I had become so enamoured of his showmanship and mix of musical material that I actually bought his ‘The Incredible Plan’ LP. From its success, obviously I wasn’t the only one. 

At Christmas, I also purchased the single of Laurel and Hardy’s ‘Trail of the Lonesome Pine’, ostensibly for Mum and Dad but really for me. To be honest, for all their comedy genius, I’ve never been a fan of the musical bits in their films; they just get in the way of that wonderful slapstick and looks to camera that left me helpless with laughter. This excerpt from ‘Way Out West’ was an exception. There were bits we could all act out, and it had the temerity to hit number two in the chart. 

Now if ‘disco’ in the title meant you had to dance, then ‘funky’ signalled the opportunity to laugh. Two top five songs demonstrated that it was working. Neither song contained anything resembling actual funk, unless the ‘k’ is silent! First, The Goodies transferred their TV popularity to Top of the Pops with ‘Funky Gibbon’. Completely pointless, but as with much of Bill Oddie’s musical contributions, who cared? Here were grown men from Oxbridge dressed in colourful clothes prancing around like apes, and we loved it! Brummie ‘stand-up’ Jasper Carrott was less familiar to me, featuring mainly on ITV. That changed when he released ‘Funky Moped’. Essentially a silly tale of a girlfriend lost to another bloke with a bike, it was a decent semi-rock record you could dance to. Also, you can’t beat lines like:- 

        “As soon as me moped’s front mudguard is fixed,

        Gonna find the creep and put him down (down, down…)”! 

A lot of comedy doesn’t stand the test of time. After all, once you’ve heard a punchline, or the twist in a tall tale, it’s lost the element of surprise. But if you have a funny song without jokes, you have an enduring winner.

As in the previous year, my 14 year-old self didn’t really pick out any authentic classics in 1975. Until the end of November, that is. That was when I and all my contemporaries were first exposed to the jaw-dropping promo film for the new single by Queen called ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. From the opening silhouettes to the man with the gong, I remember being enthralled. I had no clue what it as about. “Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard…”? All those Galileos and Piccolos? Four decades of documentaries and interviews with Freddie, Brian, Roger and Eric, and countless listens haven’t really enlightened me, either. But so what? All the effort required to write and record it certainly paid off. It was number one for nine weeks, then for a further five upon its re-release in the wake of Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991. ‘Wayne’s World’ then gave us the immortal headbanging in the car scene, but ‘Bo Rhap’ still looks and sounds fresh.  

Records commonly touted as The Best Ever usually have a negative effect on me yet I cannot think of another which combines melody, mood, rhythm, rock, innovation and invention in such an unforgettable way. Brian May recently said that he still enjoyed listening to the track when it came on the radio, and it wasn’t just ego talking. For all Bohemian Rhapsody’s history and intellectual dissection, I absolutely agree with him. It sounds as absorbing as it did the first time I heard it. Click on this reference link to remind yourself of Queen’s six-minute magnum opus and the film which launched the whole pop video industry.