Jason’s Jukebox Volume 14

Jason Maloney reviews

JASON’S JUKEBOX
V o l u m e # 1 4 Chart Date: Week Ending 19th April 1986 Online Date: 20th April 2004

The Breakfast Club
Original Soundtrack In league with his old schoolfriend Andrew Ridgeley, George Michael had enjoyed huge chart success as Wham!; nothing the duo ever officially released would fail to hit the UK Top 10. Wham! dealt entirely in uptempo pop-soul, however, and George needed an outlet for his more reflective material. In the summer of 1984, a solo single Careless Whisper was released and became a million-selling #1 in both Britain and America (where it was credited to “Wham! featuring George Michael), and two years later A Different Corner interrupted Wham!’s final brace of chart-toppers I’m Your Man and The Edge Of Heaven. A Different Corner climbed from #2 to the summit 18 years ago this week in 1986.

No fewer than five of the Top 40 singles were movie-related tracks: the highest at #4 was A Kind Of Magic by Queen, taken from the epic Highlander starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery although the film itself would not arrive in UK cinemas until late July. Absolute Beginners, the notorious Julien Temple-directed fiasco which sank the British studio which made it, provided two simultaneous hits; David Bowie‘s magnificent title song (a former #2 now at #21) and The Style Council‘s Have You Ever Had It Blue? (down a notch from its peak of #14).

The latter had also been featured on their 1985 studio album Our Favourite Shop with a different set of lyrics and titled With Everything To Lose. Bryan Ferry was up 7 places to #22 with Is Your Love Strong Enough, taken from Ridley Scott’s fantasy flop Legend. A year earlier, Ferry had been the intended choice to record Don’t You Forget About Me, for the soundtrack to Bratpack flick The Breakfast Club. The ex-Roxy Music frontman declined and the track was eventually passed on to Simple Minds, who duly scored an American #1 with the song. Completing the quintet of film tie-ins, Huey Lewis & The News‘ The Power Of Love (from Back To The Future) was coming to the end of its second chart run, dropping 7 places to #35.

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Through a Big Country:
Greatest Hits Those photogenic Scandanavians a-ha had been the year’s third #1 when The Sun Always Shines On TV hit the top at the end of January, but its follow-up Train Of Thought was at its high of #8 this week, having entered at #23 and then leapt to #9. One place below them, Simple Minds were up from #15 with All The Things She Said, the third single from Once Upon A Time. Not to be confused with the debut hit of the same name by faux-lesbian Russian schoolgirls t.A.T.u., it was Simple Minds’ fourth Top 10 success in a row, after Don’t You Forget About Me (#7), Alive & Kicking (also #7) and Sanctify Yourself (#10). Their compatriots Big Country, meanwhile, were on course for a career-best of #7 with Look Away, which was climbing from its entry position of #18 to #10. It would prove to be the last time they scaled such heights.

The writing/production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis was arguaby at its zenith during 1986. Initially breaking through with the brilliant Just Be Good To Me by the SOS Band in the Spring of 1984, they went on to make further waves within the Dance fraternity in 1985 courtesy of outstanding albums for Alexander O’Neal (an eponymous debut that included If You Were Here Tonight) and Cherrelle (High Priority, featuring the #6 smash Saturday Love). Jam & Lewis’ 1986 began with Saturday Love in the Top 10, but it was their work for Michael Jackson’s then little-known kid sister Janet which put them firmly on the mainstream pop map. The first fruits of their collaboration with Miss Jackson, What Have You Done For Me Lately (soaring 21 places to #16), effectively invented today’s pop-dance genre while its strikingly-choreographed video did likewise for the medium. All of this rather overshadowed another Jam & Lewis creation, The Finest, which returned the SOS Band to the UK Top 20 after a two-year absence by advancing 6 places to #17.

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Suzanne Vega: Retrospective Bronski Beat had survived the loss of vocalist Jimmy Somerville, who departed less than amicably to form The Communards in 1985, and appeared to be in rude chart health when Hit That Perfect Beat made #3 shortly after. With new singer Jon Jon, however, continued Top 40 action would be short-lived; the second post-Somerville single C’Mon C’Mon ditched their trademark synth sound to a less than enthusiastic response, peaking this week at #20, and bar a one-off comeback in the 90s with Eartha Kitt the Bronski boys never reached the UK Top 40 again.

At the opposite end of the career spectrum, Suzanne Vega was making her first foray into the British Singles chart with Marlene On The Wall, up 13 from #40 to #27. Aside from DNA’s 1990 remix of her 1987 track Tom’s Diner, which made #2, Marlene On The Wall’s eventual high of #21 still stands as Vega’s most successful single.

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It’s Immaterial:
Life’s Hard And Then You Die Whitney Houston‘s cover of the George Benson ballad The Greatest Love Of All made its bow at #33, and would quickly become her third consecutive Top 10 hit, but the two highest debutants – the Grange Hill Cast (in at #26 with the anti-drug charity record Just Say No) and It’s Immaterial (new at #28 with Driving Away From Home) – would join the ranks of one-hit wonders, as would UK soul duo Aurra (debuting at #39 thanks to future Top 20 hit You And Me Tonight).

Maxi Priest (entering at #36 with Strollin’) would go on to score a handful of other hit singles, but Some People (a new entry at #38) would be Belouis Some‘s second and final brush with chart fame and This Is Love was one of Gary Numan‘s last chart hits before his recent commercial rehabilitation brought him back from the Top 40 wilderness.

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