Best Song: Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis
This tune was written with the sole purpose of getting to number one, and it did. Timelords were KLF under a different name though this came before any KLF Top 40 hits. This was always my favourite on Now 12 at the time.
Worst Song: Tiffany - I Saw Him Standing There
Many people think of Tiffany as being a one hit wonder. I unfortunately remember otherwise. She had 4 Top 40 hits and this was the 3rd which is a slightly reworded cover of the Beatles song and quite predictably she's completely butchered it.
Top 40 Review
What strikes me about this Top 40 is how much of it is on Now 12 which I used to listen to all the time at the time. There are records on there that probably get full marks simply because of my fond memories of Now 12, so lets start with those.
The opening track to Now 12 was Wet Wet Wet with their cover of "With A Little Help From My Friends". There's also a Maxi Priest cover of "Wild World" by Cat Stevens. Finally, there's yet another cover by Glenn Medeiros of "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You" which was originally by George Benson.
Erasure are in there with "Chains Of Love" which is the only synth pop record I like from this chart. Soul music suffers from being a bit British, just one American soul record in "Roses Are Red" by Mac Band ft The McCampbell Brothers which is OK whilst there's 3 British ones with "Tribute (Right On)" by The Pasadenas being OK and the other 2 being rubbish. Not all British soul is bad, but the Americans do it much better.
We have a 50/50 split between decent rap music and cheesy crap. On the decent side we have "Don't Believe The Hype" by Public Enemy and "Follow The Leader" by Eric B And Rakim. On the cheesy crap side we have the double a-side "Push It/Tramp" by Salt-N-Pepa and "The Twist (Yo, Twist)" by The Fat Boys With Chubby Checker.
Joy Division charted with "Atmosphere" 8 years after it was first released and failed to chart. This coincided with their greatest hits being released and is a great record. Phil Collins re-enters the chart with "In The Air Tonight" 7 years after it first charted and also gets the thumbs up.
Other records I feel I should give a mention to that receive full marks include "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS, "Somewhere In My Heart" by Aztec Camera and "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman.
Aided by my childhood memories, 1988 gets a score higher than most other 80s years.
Score: 17.5
Table
Interesting how the scores generally improve towards the end of the decade, will 1989 follow this trend:
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