Jason’s Jukebox Volume 12

Jason Maloney reviews

JASON’S JUKEBOX
V o l u m e # 1 2 Chart Date: Week Ending 8th April 1989 Online Date: 08th April 2004

Madonna:
The Immaculate Collection Madonna had taken a sabbatical in 1988, after a rather mixed 1987 that yielded a pair of chart-toppers but also two of her least emphatic entries from the disastrous Who’s That Girl film soundtrack – Causin’ A Commotion and The Look Of Love – the latter of which barely scraped into the Top 10. The break certainly revived her fortunes; the epic comeback single Like A Prayer not only marked a considerable artistic achievement but it debuted at #2 before easing its way past Jason Donovan‘s Too Many Broken Hearts to the summit where it now remained for a 3rd and final week.

The PWL hit factory had four of the Top 10 singles in the UK on this week; in addition to Donovan’s former #1 (still tenaciously holding on to the #2 spot) there were Stock Aitken Waterman productions at #4 (Donna Summer‘s This Time I Know It’s For Real down a notch from its #3 peak) as well at numbers 9 and 10 with the best-forgotten Pat & Mick‘s I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet and one-hit-wonders The Reynolds Girls‘ anti-Fleetwood Mac sentiment I’d Rather Jack.

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Eternal Flame:
The Best of the Bangles The most successful acts Stateside during 1989 were Paula Abdul and Bobby Brown, both scoring a run of major hits from their albums Forever Your Girl and Don’t Be Cruel respectively. In the UK, Abdul was making her breakthrough with Straight Up, the album’s second single which was now at a high of #3. Brown had already made #6 in February with Don’t Be Cruel’s introductory single My Prerogative, but its follow-up – the title track – was inching up from #14 to #13 and never went any higher.

One of the slowest British #1s eventually overhauled Like A Prayer; The Bangles‘ Eternal Flame – up 14 places to #5 – was released on January 30th but had taken six weeks to crack the Top 40. Once there, however, it dramatically gained momentum; its progress of #19-5-1 after a protracted attempt to reach the main chart recalling that of Dead Or Alive‘s You Spin Me Round some four years earlier.

Come the year’s end, London collective Soul II Soul were established as a major and, for a while, influential force. In April 1989, their first Top 40 hit Keep On Movin’ – sung beautifully by Afrodiziak’s Caron Wheeler – was at #6, down a place from its peak position. Wheeler, also featured on Soul II Soul next smash hit Back To Life, flew the nest shortly after but she didn’t fare so well on her own, managing just a handful of modest hits from her UK Blak album between 1990 and 1991. The UK club scene was also represented by Coldcut, whose People Hold On (up 3 to #12) introduced a female singer by the name of Lisa Stansfield. A solo #1 and a platinum debut album would be hers in late 1989. Meanwhile, Paul Simpson‘s Musical Freedom launched the brief chart career of its guest vocalist Adeva.

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Fuzzbox:
Rules and Regulations
to Pink Sunshine When the decade’s most explosive phenomenon imploded in early 1987, Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s frontman Holly Johnson took his time before emerging with a solo project. Frankie’s swansong was the #28 hit Watching The Wildlife, a peak which continued their swift fall from grace, so for Johnson to reach the top 10 first time out with Love Train was not entirely guaranteed. It did, however, and second single Americanos (moving #28-#14) emulated the feat. After a such a promising start, including a #1 album with Blast!, his solo career fell away even more swiftly than Frankie’s did.

Steve Lipson, the producer of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ill-fated second and final album Liverpool, was at the helm for the bid at mainstream popstardom by onetime indie favourites We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Use It. International Rescue, stuck at #11, was the first of three sprightly Top 30 hits in 1989 for the band, but their fourth single of the year on WEA – a cover of Yoko Ono‘s Walking On Thin Ice – missed the Top 75 altogether.

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Essential Yello Transvision Vamp, despite what the revisionists would have us believe, were huge in 1989. A chart-topping album Velveteen was on the horizon, and its introductory hit Baby I Don’t Care was biggest climber of the week by moving #33-#16. Other notable progressions were The Cult‘s Fire Woman up 7 to #15, The The (with ex-Smith guitarist Johnny Marr now on board) breaching the UK Top 20 for the first time with the sly The Beat(en) Generation at #18, a re-issued Can You Keep A Secret by Brother Beyond climbing 12 to its peak of #22, the Bono-penned She’s A Mystery To Me taking the recently-deceased Roy Orbison from #38 to #27 and the underrated Swiss duo Yello enjoying an all-too-rare foray into the Top 40 with the delicious Of Course I’m Lying, rising 8 to #32.

Newcomers to the chart included Mystify, the fifth single to be lifted from INXS‘ 1987 album Kick, at #21 and two places higher a future #2 smash for Simply Red in the shape of their version of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes’ 70s classic If You Don’t Know Me By Now.

Page Content copyright © Jason Maloney, 2004.