Jason’s Jukebox Volume 33

Jason Maloney reviews

JASON’S JUKEBOX
V o l u m e # 3 3 Chart Date: 13th September 1986 Online Date: 16th September 2004

The Very Best Of
Jimmy Somerville The record at #1 in the UK this week 18 years ago was also the biggest-selling single of 1986 overall. Don’t Leave Me This Way, climbing a notch to the top, gave the Communards their one and only chart-topper. Originally recorded by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, it provided simultaneous Top 20 hits for Melvin and a rival cover version by disco queen Thelma Houston in early 1977.

The Communards’ ascent to the summit ended the 3-week reign of Boris Gardiner‘s lovers rock classic I Want To Wake Up With You, which swapped places with Jimmy Somerville’s new band by falling to #2. Jermaine Stewart‘s anthem of restraint We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off, subtly shortened to We Don’t Have To… so as not to offend anyone (!), was stuck at #3.

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The Best Of
Cutting Crew Frankie Goes To Hollywood had blazed a trail through 1984’s pop landscape, dominating the UK Top 40 with a trio of #1s. Then came the slight disappointment of a #2 with fourth single Welcome To The Pleasuredome, before an 18-month hiatus ensued while the band wrote and recorded their second opus outside of the UK for tax reasons (a common practice for the 80s popstar). Rage Hard was the first single to be taken from the upcoming Liverpool album; a typically brazen tour-de-force but lacking the killer appeal of their breakthrough hits, it debuted at #6 and now moved up to its peak of #4. Barring a glut of crass remixes in the 1990s, it would be the last time FGTH reached the Top 10.

Aside from seminal eighties soft-rock classic (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight by Cutting Crew up to #8 (DVDfever Dom adds: “…and taken from the very underrated ‘Broadcast’ album”) and The Human League‘s poignant Jam & Lewis-penned Human falling to #10, the rest of the Top 10 was occupied by the likes of Modern Talking, Peter Cetera, Sinitta and, soaring 17 places to #6, MC Miker G & DJ Sven‘s wretched mauling of Madonna’s Holiday entitled Holiday Rap.

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The Voicce of
Michael McDonald Moving on quickly, at #11 was the first record from the emerging Chicago House scene to crack the UK chart; Love Can’t Turn Around by Farley Jackmaster Funk featuring the vocals of Darryl Pandy. A little further down at #15 was the equally groundbreaking collaboration between Hip-Hop masters Run DMC and has-been rockers Aerosmith, Walk This Way (up from #37). The track became a huge US smash and effectively ressurected Aerosmith’s career, but the album from whence it came – Raising Hell – proved to be Run DMC’s finest hour. Another of 1986’s cutting edge releases was Word Up by funk veterans Cameo, climbing 15 to #13 on the chart of September 13th.

Bon Jovi‘s debut Top 40 hit You Give Love A Bad Name was moving up 8 to #14 at the same time as Eurythmics’ last major UK hit single Thorn In My Side was on its way towards the Top 5, advancing 13 places to #16. Sweet Freedom, taken from the film Running Scared, provided Michael McDonald with his first solo hit on these shores by entering at #27. McDonald had previously sung on the Doobie Brothers‘ What A Fool Believes (#31 in 1980) and duetted with James Ingram on Yah Mo B There (#12 in 1985), but his US Top 5 success with I Keep Forgettin’ in 1982 had failed to translate into UK chart action.

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The The: Infected Hollywood also had a helping hand in finally taking the Pyschedelic Furs’ Pretty In Pink into the Top 40; re-recorded for the John Hughes movie named afer the song, it surpassed the #43 peak of the 1981 original and was moving #38-25 en route to the Top 20. Also moving in the right direction were Genesis (In Too Deep up 2 to #23), Huey Lewis & The News (Stuck With You likewise to #24) and Samantha Fox (Hold On Tight rising from #39 to #26). The The‘s Heartland was in temporary decline, slipping from #34 to #35, but a week later it would rebound to a high of #29.

New to the chart were Five Star with future #2 hit Rain Or Shine, Timex Social Club with the salacious Rumors at #34 (they would soon be forced to drop the Timex part of their moniker), O.M.D. at #38 with Forever Live And Die, and at #39 the unlikely combination of Meatloaf in tandem with St. Elmo’s Fire-man John Parr on the rowdy Rock’n’Roll Mercenaries.

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