Welcome back to our wander down memory lane, where we revisit all of the records in the Now That’s What I Call Music series (until I get bored of writing it, that is). Many thanks too all who left much kinder comments after the last instalment, and especially to JC who flagged to me that former regular Chain contributor The Great Gog, who, if memory serves, had a blog but hadn’t actually gotten round to writing anything back then, is currently writing about old issues of Smash Hits he bought back in the day. If you’re enjoying the nostaglia-fest I write here, you might want to check out his blog Wasting Time in the Study. At the time of writing this, he’s on September 20 – October 3 1979, so I suspect at some point there may well be some synchronicity between his blog and this series.
Since he’s far too modest to self-publicise, I also wanted to flag the Shakedown series JC writes over at his ever-wonderful blog The (new) Vinyl Villain, where he takes a month-by-month “look back at the 45s that were making all the noise in 1979” He’s currently on April, having previously completed the same task for 1983.
Enough with the plugs, although it’s perhaps better if we all promote our peers blogs than when, say, former Prime Ministers attempt to big up their new book (wait for it…):
Let’s get going, shall we? As always, feel free to reveal which of these you bought back in the day via the Comments section, and remember, we’re not here to judge you (although we may take the piss a bit).
Disc 2, Side 1
Now if ever a song deserves to be described as an era-defining greatest hit, it’s probably this one. Relax first entered the UK Top 75 singles chart in November 1983 but didn’t crack the Top 40 until early January 1984. It reached #1 at the end of January, and remained in the Top 40 for 37 consecutive weeks, 35 of which followed a ban by the BBC, following Radio 1 DJ Mike Read getting his knickers in a twist over what he considered to be some rather fruity lyrics. Halfway through playing the single, Read suddenly turned the record off, denouncing the lyrics as ‘obscene’, an account which Read denies, claiminghe only had a copy of the longer 12″ version in the studio, and that his interruption of the record was purely for timing reasons. Whatever the truth is, he is forever associated with it, credited with instigating the ban which the BBC swiftly enforced shortly afterwards.
The lyrics seem rather tame now – certainly I find it less offensive than Read’s own 2014 single UKIP Calypso, which was rightly criticised for being racist, and which Read subsequently withdrew it from sale and apologised – but back then the words “Relax, don’t do it/When you want to sock it to it/Relax, don’t do it/ When you want to come.” were considered shocking. Head Frankie… Holly Johnson contends that the lyric was misheard: the line wasn’t “When you want to sock it to it”, it was “When you want to suck, chew it”, which I’m not sure helped appease those offended, and I’m pretty sure wasn’t meant to.
The BBC ban wasn’t restricted to the radio waves, but to TV too, which led to the farcical position when it reached #1 where Top of the Pops resorted to simply showing a photo of the band at the culmination of the chart rundown, before airing a performance by a non-number one artist.
When follow-up single Two Tribes followed Relax to #1 a few months later, Relax the single re-entered the Top Ten for a further nine weeks, including two spent at # 2, only kept off the #1 slot for a second time by Two Tribes.
Relax eventually amassed a whopping 70 weeks in the uk Top 100 and sold a reported two million copies in the UK alone, easily ranking among the ten biggest-selling singles in the UK.
2. Eurythmics – Here Comes The Rain Again
By the time this came out in January 1984, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were well-established regulars. This was their tenth single, and their fifth to reach the UK Top Ten, peaking at #8.
Eurythimics are one of those bands I’m pretty meh about to be honest. There are some of their singles that I quite liked at the time (only one which I ever purchased), there are some – such as this, and all that had bothered the charts before it – which I hated at the time (the old “no guitars…!!” bias kicking in again) but which I now feel great affection for, and there is one which I hate so much I have to turn the radio off whenever it comes on. Doubtless they will reappear in this series, so I’ll not elaborate further. This is, of course, a painfully transparent attempt to build some tension about which singles I’m referring to.
3. Howard Jones – What is Love?
Second appearance of the 80s synth-pop icon in the series, this was the follow-up to New Song, it fared better in the UK charts than its predecessor, peaking at #2. Jones once said of it: “”I didn’t want to write songs about, ‘I love you, baby, you’ve hurt me and I’m sad.’ I didn’t want to write songs about co-dependency. If I was going to write about love, I wanted to say what do we mean by love? What is it, really? You can’t be dependent upon another person for your happiness. So you’d better question this idea of romantic love pretty soon, otherwise you’re going to be pretty miserable. So that’s really what that song is”, which somehow manages to make it sound even duller than it actually is.
4. The Smiths – What Difference Does it Make?
This is more like it, although despite it having a unique and fabulous guitar-riff courtesy of Johnny Marr, I still didn’t buy it at the time because I, sadly, subscribed to the notion that Morrissey was a miserable sod. I took me a few years to finally “get them”, at which point they promptly split up. I don’t believe these two facts are linked.
I caught an old rerun of Top of the Pops on BBC4 the other week, and it kicked off with Sandie Shaw covering Hand in Glove, with The Smiths, sans Morrissey, as her backing band, and I suddenly felt like Seah Hughes used to when The Smiths came on the radio in his sit-com Sean’s Show. I was particularly struck with just how cool Marr looked at the time; no less so when they opened the show with What Difference... (warning, this clip contains image of The Hairy Cornflake and as such should be approached with great caution):
5. Fiction Factory – (Feels Like) Heaven
This lot were Scottish one-hit wonders, the band reaching #6 in January 1984 with this one, then never bothering the Top 40 again. The (Feels Like) Heaven line and refrain ws nicked and remodelled to advertise mobile phones back in the late ’90s/early 2000s, the “Feels Like” replaced with the word Carphone, if I remember correctly (and I add that caveat as I cannot 100% remember what product was being advertised, which shows how effective advertising can be).
6. Re-Flex – The Politics of Dancing
A song the title of which I recognise, but do I remember the song itself? Nope. I’ve just listened to it. Still, nope.
The band’s keyboard player and song-writer Paul Fishman said the song “… is really about the power of when people come together and express themselves through dancing and letting go. During the ’80s, it was in its very early days but in the latter part of the decade the rave scene was pretty much the message in a nut shell. No, I don’t think people generally understand messages but some get it so that’s alright.” So, that’s him taking credit for the rave scene, whilst calling lovers of pop music thick.
This reached the giddy heights of #28 and then, just like Fiction Factory, their 15 minutes of fame were over.
I should, I suppose, commend the compilers of the Now… albums for not just picking the obvious singles, and trying to include some succesful singles by less well-known acts. Not that they would have known they wouldn’t have continued success at the time, but you get my point.
See also…
7. Thomas Dolby – Hyperactive!
This was the second of two hits by Dolby, although as I write this I find that the first, She Blinded Me With Science, had been released twice previously, reaching #49 the first time, and #56 the second, so not, strictly speaking, a hit going by my definition (a hit = Top 40).
Hyperactive!, however, managed to get to #17, but nearly wasn’t a Dolby single at all: he initially composed the song for Michael Jackson, following a meeting in 1982, but decided to record it himself when he never got any feedback from Jackson after sending him a demo tape. Maybe if he’d put some pictures of young boys on the cover it might have got his attention.
8. China Crisis – Wishful Thinking
Hailing from Kirby, near Liverpool, this was the band’s China Crisis 5th single, but the first to bother the Top 40, peaking at #9. More was to come from the band (including two singles I bought at the time, more of them another time, I imagine) but this, I’m surprised to find, was their biggest hit. I say that not because it’s a bad record, but simply because I thought at least one, if not both, of the singles I bought by them were bigger. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Disc 2, Side 2
A belter to kick off the final side.
I don’t think that, in March 1984, I really understood how important and great Bowie was, my opinion of him somewhat tempered by my dislike of Let’s Dance, which I remember mocking for the suggestion of putting on red shoes to dance the blues.
I loved Modern Love, though. Not enough to actually buy it, mind, but it went a long way to my recognising that maybe this guy was a genius after all, as did the single sandwiched between it and Let’s Dance, China Girl, which like Modern Love got to #2 in the UK Charts, prevented from hitting the top slot by Culture bloody Club’s Karma sodding Chameleon, which you may recall from the first instalment of this series, I hate. Maybe this goes some way to explaining that.
Speaking of whom…
8. Culture Club – It’s a Miracle
Yet another that falls into the category of ones by Boy George and the boys that I quite like, and which I can’t think of anything interesting to say about it, other than that it reached #4 in the UK Charts, and that’s not really very interesting at all, is it?
9. The Rolling Stones – Undercover of the Night
Unlike Bowie, I was very aware of the history and significance of The Stones back in 1984, and this was don to three things: firstly, my brother owned a greatest hits double album called The Story of The Stones, which, of all the Best ofs and Greatest Hits album put out in the band’s name is, for my money, the best one (and when I say ‘for my money’, I meant it, as when I started replenishing my vinyl a few years ago, it was that one which I bought); secondly, some kids at my school put a band together, they performed at a school assembly once, and played Jumpin’ Jack Flash and I thought it was ace; thirdly, as a family we would pick records from my Dad’s collection to play of a Saturday evening, and when the one 7″ single he had by them was selected, my Dad would do a terrible but very funny impression of Jagger along to it. He denied all knowledge of for years, until photographic evidence was finally located and presented to him.
Anyway, Undercover of the Night is no Jumpin’ Jack Flash, but it’s not bad and it did reach #11 and in the UK Charts, and, if memory serves, the accompanying video caused quite a stir at the time, although watching it back now that must have been because of Jagger’s terrible false moustache:
I could have sworn that I owned this, not on 7″ single, but on their 1983 album The Crossing (which I no longer own, I probably flogged it with a load of other records in a moment of madness/skintness); however, on putting this together, I learn that it wasn’t on the album at all, but was released as a stand-alone single in 1984, reaching #8 in the UK Charts. It absolutely sums up Big Country’s signature sound, which is no bad thing in my book.
Heavens above, this is poor. So poor that they couldn’t even be bothered to mis-spell the title.
So, here’s one of Vic & Bob’s Slade in Residence sketches to help ease the pain:
Run Runaway somehow manged to reach #7 in the UK Charts, and would be the final time they bothered the Top Ten (correct at time of writing).
12. Duran Duran – New Moon on Monday
Given the mention of Simon le Bon in that Viv & Bob/Slade clip, it seems appropriate that this lot appear next. Let’s be honest, though, this, which reached #9 in the UK Charts, isn’t their finest moment, although it has proven to be their most culturally significant, given it has an occasional series on some blog or other named after it.
13. Paul McCartney – Pipes of Peace
Another somewhat anti-climactic ending to the compilation, I assume this was placed here to make the songs message of peace more powerful, As with the last two songs, this UK #1 is by no means a classic from Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft, perhaps best remembered for its video, depicting that moment in World War 1 when peace briefly broke out on Christmas Day, and British and German soldiers put down their weapons and played a game of football in No Man’s Land. Germany won on penalties, I’d imagine.
So, after encouraging you all to share which of these records you bought at the time, it turns out I bought exactly none of them. Ho hum. Maybe next time.
(More soon).
A History of Dubious Taste 