The Final Pick Of The Pops From 1986 And 1987 - Love Can't Turn Around, Jack Your Body, Animal, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Boy In The Bubble, Get Fresh At The Weekend, Human, Wonderful Life, The Way It Is...

Love Can't Turn Around - Farley Jackmaster Funk with Darryl Pandy on vocals. House music: Year Zero 1983 - the very beginning. 1986 - house music beginning to burst out. This is legendary - the very first house music hit in England.

More House - Jack Your Body - Steve 'Silk' Hurley from 1987 - simply fabulous. Gives me a happy glow even now as I teeter past my mid-fifties... not so bad getting older when you have music like this to bring the memories of youth flooding back.

 1986 and Bruce Hornsby and The Range railing against social injustice - beautifully. The Way It Is.

I'm not really a 'rock' man, but this sublime 1987 hit from Def Leppard pushed my buttons. Somehow rockin' but also dancey... Happy nights.

The wonderful Whitney Houston - with the ultimate feel good pop/dance hit. This was 1987 - and it's as good today as it always was.

Wonderful life - a gorgeous summer hit from 1987. A walk in the sunshine, weighed down by melancholy... Once again, I was having a crisis - the (then) love of my life had just walked out. This song suited me down to the ground.

Boy in the Bubble - Paul Simon, 1986 - from his Graceland album. This song tapped into a feeling I had at the time. There was a sudden onrush of new technology - either things just becoming affordable and widespread - like the VCR and microwave oven - or brand new launches like the mobile phone and the Apple Mac. The world was buzzing - and there were millionaires and billionaires and sophisticated weaponry and lasers in the jungle... Probably.

 It was a vibrant time, but it felt somehow frantic and topsy turvy. A very transient era - rather like my youth. Bright and shiny and fresh with loads of new things happening. But was the sudden onrush of technology going to turn out a good thing? I mean, can you imagine making a phone call while you are walking down the street?

Who was the boy in the bubble? David Vetter, born in 1971, died in 1984, who had to live his life in a highly sterile 'bubble' environment due to severe combined immune deficiency. And the baby with the baboon's heart? Baby Fae born in October 1984. She lived until November.

Get Fresh At The Weekend. Lovely Mel and Kim. I saw these two being interviewed by Andrea Arnold, who played Dawn, on Saturday morning kids' show Number 73 and could have sat down and joined in the chat. Down to earth English girls - cockneys in fact - with a great sense of fun (not like the characters in EastEnders at all!). I really liked them. And the more 1980s music banged and clattered, the more I loved it.

The Human League, Human. When Phil Oakey spotted those two girls dancing at the Crazy Daisy Nightclub in October 1980, a legendary alliance was formed. This song is beautiful - with a great twist at the end.

Coming soon, we trip back to 1985 (the first year of the second half of the 1980s) and 1984 (the last year of the first half of the 1980s) to discover The Man With The Power That Promised You The World...

More Pop Picks from 1987 and 1986... Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent, With Or Without You, I Love To (Listen To Beethoven), Criticize, U Got The Look and Sometimes...

 

Lovely Gwen Guthrie from 1986 with Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent. This is the extended version. Another clattering, clumbering, clanging '80s dance track from the decade's huge stable of brilliance. I adored this. On the surface, it appeared to be a song about a hard-hearted woman looking for a free meal ticket, but watching Gwen on the video made it tremendously likeable to me. Slightly tongue in cheek, I fancy! Sadly, Gwen's no longer with us, but the music - and the happy memories of getting on the dance floor to this - remain.

With Or Without You - U2, 1987. The 1980s were so stuffed full of brilliant music, anything more would have been greedy...

Erasure's breakthrough hit Sometimes from 1986. This is fantabulously wonderful. Vince Clarke was straight and a synth wizard. Having been a founding member of Depeche Mode in 1980, he moved on to form Yazoo with Alison Moyet, and then Erasure with Andy Bell. Andy, gay, outgoing and with a fabulously soaring voice, was the perfect musical partner for Vince. Legends, the pair of 'em.

Gorgeous 80's clattering and clanging soul dance from Alexander O'Neal here. Criticize - oozin' style and big hair video from 1987, and the soundtrack to some fabulous nights out.

Here's the power house of creative talent that was the Eurythmics in 1987. It showcases a bit of Annie Lennox's marvellous acting talent as well as her wonderful voice. Here, we have a discontented English housewife, fancying herself oppressed by her husband, and slowly going crackers as she fantasises about naughty encounters and keeping herself thoroughly in check by not admitting what she REALLY likes - I love to (pause) Listen to (pause) Beethoven. So, she melds together the spoilt child and the masculine within her and goes off on the rampage. Genius. Sadly, Annie is a bit of a Feminist ideologue these days and I can't bear to listen to her one-sided, own-gender-adoring bilge whenever she's interviewed. But back in the 1980s she and Dave Stewart were often simply too brilliant for words.

Ooomph! The mighty Prince meets little Sheena Easton (whose baby took the morning train back in 1980) for a spot of slammin' (oower, missus!) in 1987. U Got The Look. LOVE THIS! 

The fabulous Blow Monkeys - with their very own sophisti-pop sound. To hear this drifting out of an open top car in the yuppie summer of 1986, one might think it was a gorgeously languid and happy song. But the lyrics say otherwise... 

"I just got your message, baby. So sad to see you fade away."

"What in the world is this feeling - catch a breath and leave me reeling." 

"It'll get you in the end it's God's revenge..." (as a vicar had recently said about AIDS). 

Enjoy the music - and listen to those lyrics.

A final visit to the pop charts of 1986 and 1987 will follow soon. I just want to publish this and listen to that music! xxxx

Popping Back To 1986 and 1987 Again... Pump Up The Volume, No More I Love You's, Something Inside So Strong, I Can't Wait And E=MC2...

Wow - 1987 and M/A/R/R/S and Pump Up The Volume. Hugely influential early dance record. And I couldn't get enough. Still thrashing around (although now in my living room) to this brilliance today.

I adored this. Always had an ear for the quirky and the different, not to mention spine tinglingly beautiful... OK, Annie Lennox's cover in the '90s had a far larger cast and her great voice, but the original wins in this case for me, hands down. The Lover Speaks, No More I Love You's, 1986:

'I used to have demons in my room at night. Desire, despair, desire, despair - soooo many monsters...'

House Music had arrived. Year Zero was 1983 and by 1987 it was bursting out. House Nation by Housemaster Boyz and the Rude Boy of House. This sounded so different that at first I hated it. But after my second listen I was hooked. Had it on a compilation cassette and just kept rewinding and replaying it on my personal stereo. Then it was out in the clubs... 

Labi Siffre - 1987 - Something Inside So Strong... Just listen. Enough said. A beautiful and highly meaningful 1980s classic.

 

China in Your Hand - 1987. Wow. Carol Decker's voice is incredible, and watch the sad tale of a yuppie woman who falls in with a bad lad... There are power ballads and then there's this. In a class of its own.

Echoing across the summer of 1986, clonky, clanky and with that all-important '80s stutter. Nu Shooz. I Can't Wait. Dance at its best.

One of the best chart tracks of 1986 - with lyrics which bent my mind into many strange shapes. And made me dance. 'Blood lust, Greek god, go Discovery...' Big Audio Dynamite - E=MC2.

We'll be back in 1986 and 1987 for some more pop picks very soon. I just can't leave that decade alone...

Some Prime Choons From 1986 and 1987... Luka, Making Lots of Money, Corrosion, Boops and Rumours...

Continuing our backwards countdown of some of our ultimate favourite 1980s pop tracks. Incredibly hard to select - so much must be left out!

Anyway, to 1987 and Suzanne Vega's sad and stirring song about child abuse - Luka. 

He lived upstairs from you. 

They only hit until you cry - after that you don't ask why.

A wonderful and moving song. Sadly as relevant today as it was back then.

1987 - Boops - he thinks he's got class, they think he's an ass...

You gotta get here to go...

Boops, my man, listen to the mighty Sly and Robbie.

This was - and is - incredible.

This Corrosion - The Sisters of Mercy from 1987. Rock/dance with a goth atmosphere and a background cast of what appeared to me at the time as New Romantics gone mouldy...

On days like this, in times like these, I feel an animal deep inside...

The Pet Shop Boys tend to be underappreciated - and they were certainly self deprecating - but they did a great deal to advance dance music in the 1980s. In 1986, my neon socks were blown off by this great thrashing, clanging beast of a song, which drew me immediately on to the dance floor every time it was played. This was the era of the remix, and this is the one that was closest to the UK single release - and it's from Top of the Pops.

Opportunities - Lets Make Lots Of Money has become a bit of a 1980s anthem. Can't think why...

The Timex Social Club - Rumors - from 1986. I loved this song so much I bought the twelve inch version - and it was even better! Listen to this and then seek it out. Fabulous. 

The incredible New Order. Substance 1987 is rarely far from my ears. Brilliant song. Brilliant video

I used to think that the day would never come when my life would depend on the morning sun...

We'll delve back into 1987 and 1986 again soon, as we became a H-H-H-H-House Nation... Jack it up out there!

Pet Shop Boys 1986 - "Opportunities - Let's Make Lots Of Money" - Original UK Chart Version?

They met in August 1981. And Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe made a Docklands development-sized impact on the mid-to-late 1980s popular music scene - rich in electronics and deliciously droll irony...

Had an enquiry from Phil:

Hi! I enjoy your 1980s site a lot and have a little question for you. In 1986 I loved the Pet Shop Boys hit "Opportunities Lets Make Lots Of Money". I have searched it out on YouTube and heard some great versions of the song, but I'm sure they are not the same as the version in the UK charts in '86. I seem to remember it being faster and even more electronic. Am I right? And if so, where can I find the chart version?

You are right, Phil! There were several mixes of this song. I have the UK chart entry mix on a 1986 compilation cassette - Now That's What I Call Music 7 - and it has a harder, faster, dancier sound. Do look out for copies of Now 7 on on-line auction sites. Of course, there is no CD version. Perhaps the NOW people might consider rectifying that situation with a release of all the pre-CD NOWs on that format for the thirtieth anniversary of the launch of this legendary compilation series?

1983-2013 - thirty years!! Doesn't seem possible...

Now That's What I Call Music 7 - 1986. The Pig had gone (last appearance Now 5) and for this outing we had a very different design. But then we were S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G. Neil and Chris filled us in in 1987:

 No questions in the house, no give and take
There's a big bang in the city
We're all on the make

We're S-H-O-PP-I-N-G, we're shopping
We're S-H-O-PP-I-N-G, we're shopping

Our gain is your loss, that's the price you pay
I heard it in the House of Commons: everything's for sale

Feel the Quality!

Nick Berry - Every Loser Wins: EastEnders Stars In The Pop Charts 2

Here's Nick Berry, EastEnders Simon Wicks (or "Wicksy"), all togged up in his 1980s gear with a very classy motor.

Simon was, apparently, the son of Pete Beale (Peter Dean) and dad doted on son, until Simon's mother, wicked witch Pat (Pam St Clement), turned up in 1986. She couldn't resist spilling the beans to Simon's proud dad that he wasn't Simon's dad at all. The storyline puzzled me as I always thought that Nick Berry bore something of a resemblance to Peter Dean, and assumed that was partly the reason he'd been chosen for the role.

Simon worked in the Vic, yuppie pub the Dagmar, played the piano, and had a very busy (and, of course, fraught) love life.

Actor Nick Berry became a TV heart-throb overnight. This was one lucky man: he'd been involved in a car crash a few years before EastEnders and, not wearing a seat belt, had been thrown through the windscreen.

Despite suffering a fractured skull, he made a complete recovery.

Here's Nick, complete with designer stubble, on the cover of that record. Every Loser Wins was number one in the pop charts on the day I got the key to the door - my 21st birthday. Actually, I'd had my own key to my own door for several years, but 21 was still special. And this was number one.

I'm very fond of much that went to make up the 1980s, although sometimes I wonder why... Karma Chameleon was at number one on my 18th birthday, and this on my 21st. There were times when the decade was just too, too cruel!

Speaking of Every Loser Wins, Nick Berry was good enough to admit later: "My singing on it was awful."

Oddly enough, back in 1986, I recall actually liking the song.

But I would never admit that to anybody who knows me. Not that I'm a snob, of course.

Perish the thought!

Anyone Can Fall In Love: EastEnders Stars In The Pop Charts - Part 1...

Remember Anyone Can Fall In Love, sung by Anita Dobson, AKA Angie Watts, the flower of Albert Square? Remember those lyrics?

Anyone can fall in love
That’s the easy part you must keep it going

Anyone can fall in love
Over the years it has to keep growing
Sun and rain
Joy and pain
There’s highs - there’s lows
We’ve no way of knowing
Anyone can fall in love
That’s not hard to do it isn’t so clever

Anyone can fall in love
But you must make the love last forever…
Who can say
Love will stay?
It’s up to you
Don’t hide what needs showing

Anyone can fall in love
That’s the easy part you must keep it going
Everyone can fall in love
But you must make the love last forever more.
How do you keep the music from dying?
Love falls asleep unless you keep trying

Anyone can fall in love
Life’s more than that, it’s pulling together
Everyone can share the love
Where we come from friends never say never
Side by side
Satisfied
To stay right here in one square forever

Anyone can fall in love
That’s not hard to do it isn’t so clever
Anyone can fall in love
But you must make the love last forever more.

Acorn Antiques, the excellent Victoria Wood - As Seen On TV skit on Crossroads, also drew inspiration from EastEnders. The show's theme tune was released on vinyl (sadly, only in fiction!) - with Miss Babs warbling a song called Anyone Can Break A Vase over it.

I found the Anita Dobson-related article below whilst browsing through my local newspaper archive!

Ange - A Public Appearance...

The Time: August 1986

The Town: Cambridge

The Venue: A Bingo Hall

"EastEnders" star Anita Dobson planted kisses on a score of faint-hearted admirers last night and told them: "Don't wash for a week!"

The famous landlandy of the TV show's "Vic" pub proved a powerful pulling attraction at the Coral Social Club in Cambridge, where some 400 bingo fans gathered to see her in the flesh.

"EastEnders" addicts cheered and queued for autographs when the 37-year-old arrived at the Hobson Street club.

Dressed in a smart emerald coloured suit, Anita, 5ft 3 1/2 inches of true born and bred cockney said: "There's not any man in my life except my dad - mainly because I haven't the time."

She called the show's "Dirty Den" "a rat" but said: "We have a very good on-screen relationship. I'm going to string him up at Christmas. The real Den is a lovely, nice person."

On Andy O'Brien (Ross Davidson), who in the last episode of "EastEnders" was hit by a lorry, she was giving no secrets away, but said: "It was a pretty nasty accident. It looks pretty bad - I can't say officially."

Anita, who has just signed a new two-year contract for "EastEnders", said she had tried secretarial work and modelling before going to drama school.

She sang in various shows earlier in her acting career, so when she was asked to make a record, she agreed. Her song, "Anyone Can Fall In Love", to Simon May's "EastEnders" theme tune, is now number four in the pop charts and selling 20,000 copies a day.

Anita revealed she is one of the few cast members who can choose her own clothes - the other characters' costumes are bought by the BBC.

Her favourite "EastEnders" character is Angie's daughter, Sharon, played by Letitia Dean."She's a smasher," she said. "I love her to death. Willie the dog is my least favourite character because he smells."

When she's not working - and that's hardly ever - Anita likes listening to light opera, soul, rock and roll, Dire Straits, Queen and Billy Joel.

But hard work has brought money to a girl who started right at the bottom.

"I came from quite a hard background. I am just about to buy my parents their own house. Actually, my mother was so excited and so happy, she was sick."

Afterwards, Martyn Heasman, Coral's assistant manager, a smudge of the star's bright red lipstick on his cheek, said: "I think I'm in love. Someone ring and tell my mother."

The glamorous star made another man's night - Douglas "Curly" Nunn, of Cambridge, who celebrated his birthday with a stage embrace from Anita.

The successful night was a big publicity boost for Coral, who paid £300 for Anita's appearance. The date was planned as a lead-up to the club's £350,000 refurbishments for a relaunch as a cabaret club in November.

Coral had wanted Anita to sing her hit single and do two last bingo calls but the actress refused.

There was another EastEnder in the pop charts in 1986. Find out who here.

"Hold A Chicken In The Air, Stick A Deckchair Up Your Nose..."

"NEW! Non Compact Mono Recording". The 12 Hour Version - featuring the Wet Gits! The Chicken Song from Spitting Image was a scathing spoof of several chart records of (then) recent years (anybody for Agadoo?).

The Chicken Song was a 1986 No 1 - deservedly. All together now...

It's the time of year
Now that spring is in the air
When those two wet gits
With the girly curly hair
Make another song for moronic holidays
That nauseate-ate-ate-ates
In a million different ways
From the shores of Spain
To the coast of southern France
No matter where you hide
You just can't escape this dance...

Hold a chicken in the air
Stick a deckchair up your nose
Buy a jumbo jet
And then bury all your clothes
Paint your left knee green
Then extract your wisdom teeth
Form a string quartet
And pretend your name is Keith

Skin yourself alive
Learn to speak Arapahoe
Climb inside a dog
And behead an Eskimo
Eat a Renault Four
Wear salami in your ears
Casserole your gran
Disembowel yourself with spears

The disco is vibrating
The sound is loud and grating
It's truly nauseating
Let's do the dance again...

Hold a chicken in the air
Stick a deckchair up your nose
Yes you'll hear this song
In the holiday discos
And there's no escape
In the clubs or in the bars
You would hear this song
If you holidayed in Mars

Skin yourself alive
Learn to speak Arapahoe
Climb inside a dog
And behead an Eskimo
Now you've heard it once
Your brain will spring a leak
And tho' you hate this song
You'll be humming it for weeks...

Another goody from the 1986 charts - it's our old mates Chas n' Dave n' the Matchroom Mob...

Snooker loopy nuts are we, me and him and them and me, we'll show you what we can do with a load of balls and a snooker cue...

Here's Su Pollard, good old Peggy from Hi-De-Hi!, charting in February 1986 with Starting Together, the theme to the BBC's documentary (I don't recall us using the term "docusoap" back then) The Marriage.

Nick Kamen strode into a launderette, got his kecks off, and set hearts fluttering. Then he hit the pop charts...

"Wow!!" went just about all the nation's girlies. And a lot of the fellas too, I shouldn't wonder.

"Break my heart, don't break my heart, break my heart, don't break my heart..."

Nick aided men's health no end: for years, medical types had been warning us geezers that our increasingly skimpy briefs did our fertility no good at all. We had not absorbed the message by the early 1980s (see here). But Nick's wearing of those staggeringly wonderful, brilliantly roomy, startingly attractive boxer shorts in the jeans ads helped to propel that style of male knickers to the centre of the style universe. Or somewhere near it. In the late 1980s, boxers were increasingly being seen as a very lovely thing indeed. Even Sinitta liked her toyboy to wear them. See here for more.

Personally, I wouldn't be seen dead in 'em. I'll never be a style icon.

The Land of Confusion

The Land of Confusion by Genesis. And here is Genesis. Or is it? The guys in the picture are the Spitting Image of the boys in the band.

Yoiks - it's Mrs T!!

Watched by President Reagan and a dinosaur, Mr Spock of Star Trek fame takes a screwdriver to his Rubik's Cube...

But even the cool-headed Vulcan loses it with the Rubik's Cube; he punches it and throws it over his shoulder.

Bedtime for Bonzo. And Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

The President wants a drink of water, and presses the bedside call button for his nurse. Or does he?!

"That was some nurse!"

The Blow Monkeys and a Defence of 1980s Pop...

Some people believe that pop music in the 1980s lost touch with politics and reality in general. The fire went out, and pop stars ceased to reflect what was happening in the world - drifting off into a rosy never-never land. Even in the 1980s this complaint was sometimes heard. But I disagreed then and I disagree now.

It is not true to say that the last time in the 1980s the pop charts reflected social/political realities was with the Specials’ Ghost Town in 1981. Anti-Tory as I was, and much as I loved that song, I could see that not everybody was having it grim. Far from it. And as for the “boom town” they sang about, when was that? It certainly hadn’t been in the 1970s.

Billy Bragg, the Smiths, Depeche Mode, Suzanne Vega, amongst others, highlighted political and social concerns in the 1980s, and those swanky “never never land” pop stars, like Duran Duran, reflected the fact that there was then a boom going on. Not everybody benefited, but in the mid-to-late 1980s it was real, it was happening.

I liked both sides of the 1980s pop coin. My youthful, idealistic nature had led me to take up a poorly paid job as a social services residential care assistant, but I loved to pose about in the evenings at my local Nite Spot to the likes of Pet Shop Boys.

But the Pet Shop Boys lyrics were rooted in mid-to-late '80s reality - witty, jaded, often poking fun at the plush world of yuppiedom.

'80s music did reflect '80s realities. As with any pop decade, there are plenty of exceptions, but any serious examination of '80s pop will reveal the social trends of the decade shining through in its music.

I was a great fan of modern folk hero Billy Bragg, but some of my favourite '80s music allowed you to pose whilst also having topical lyrics.

One of the greatest purveyors of what has been described elsewhere as '80s “sophisti-pop” was a band called the Blow Monkeys, which formed in 1981 and took its name from the Australian slang for someone who plays the didgeridoo. One Bruce Robert Howard (known as “Dr Robert”, a nickname from his boarding school days) was the band’s singer/songwriter, with Tony Kiley on drums, Neville Henry on saxophone and Mick Anker on bass. In 1984, the band started recording with RCA records.

The Blow Monkeys found success with their second album Animal Magic in 1986.

Dr Robert was vehemently left-wing and anti-Thatcher and this often came across in his lyrics. The single (Celebrate) The Day After You was banned by the BBC until after the 1987 General Election because of its perceived anti-Conservative lyrics!

The Blow Monkeys allowed me to pose to their music whilst also making me cheer with anti-Thatcher/anti-establishment lyrics. Was irony present? Sure, but the music brought together two sides of mid-to-late '80s life for many teenagers and twenty-somethings - political angst and the powerful desire to pose on the dance floor!

Why did I like to pose on the dance floor and wear “poser” (chain store bought) '80s gear? I put it down to my dog-rough '70s childhood. We were so poor it hurt and so much back then seemed to be about gobbing off - from the football stadium style chanting of glam rock to Punk. For some of us down in the depths the whole thing was just too grim. We didn’t need gobby music to add grit and vigour (what some might call “meaning, darling!”) to our lives. We were too busy worrying over little things - like heat and food.

The “get out there and pose” mid-to-late '80s made a terrific change. I never threw my principles out of the window, but I did love the swank thing. Even today, I’m partial to shoulder pads, colourful jackets and pushed-up sleeves.

Trouble is, if I wore them nowadays I’d get laughed out of town!

It'll get you in the end, it's God's revenge - the "Sun", 1985.

Back to the Blow Monkeys: one of my all-time favourite pop songs is their 1986 hit Digging Your Scene. Luxurious. Polished. Over the top sophisti- pop. In 1986, I often heard the song drifting from open-topped yuppie cars and posh wine bars when I visited London.

The song had charted in March, but was around a lot in the summer. It was perfect warm, sunny weather music…

But listen to some of the lyrics…

“What in the world is this feeling,

To catch a breath and leave me reeling

It’ll get you in the end it’s God’s revenge

Oh I know I should come clean

But I prefer to deceive

Every day I walk alone

And I pray that God won’t see me

I know it’s wrong, I know it’s wrong

Tell me why is it I’m digging your scene

I know I’ll die…”

The song is about AIDS. And yet many people I knew were playing it as “feel good” music, totally unaware of the meaning of the lyrics. And how do you dance to it? I defy you not to pose!

Like the owls in Twin Peaks, this was not what it seemed!

Recently interviewed by the BBC, Dr Robert said:

“'Digging Your Scene' was me tipping my hat to the club scene, and then specifically the gay scene within the club scene that… in the early '80s, that were to me the most exciting thing that was happening at that point in my life. 'Cos I'd kind of broken up with my first wife and I was in-between, and I was kind of enjoying myself. And it was a great scene for me to be involved in. Although I wasn't gay. You know, 50% of the people in there weren't. it was just a really refreshing kind of attitude there. And the song was written basically about AIDS and the way that it was beginning to kind of happen to people that I knew within that scene.”

Digging Your Scene was one of the earliest songs about AIDS - the subject was also alluded to in Bronski Beat’s 1985 single Hit That Perfect Beat (“Touch and kiss a stranger if all else fails - hiding from the danger that’s been sent from hell.”).

The Blow Monkeys had their biggest singles chart success with It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way which charted in January 1987 and peaked at No. 5 (“When you walk out the door, you’re gonna ask for more, from society…”).

The 1980s continue to be a controversial topic of conversation and are often regarded as the “Greed Decade”. Fair enough in some ways. But I can see why the '80s happened - the '70s and early '80s had been hard times indeed. The change of political ethos and sudden influx of money (and new technology bursting into our lives) turned heads. A lot of the posturing and posing was like an over-the-top pantomime.

Some people had it extremely good, some people had it extremely rough, but there is no denying that for a great number of us in the middle life got better. My family and I were as poor as church mice, but still our diets and general lot in life improved tremendously during the 1980s. We weren’t rampantly materialistic, couldn’t afford to be, but changes such as the modernisation of the council estate where my parents lived, which included the removal of the long-condemned (and crumbling) 1950s prefab kitchens attached to the back of each house, a brand new brick-built kitchen, and the installation of central heating, meant far more comfort. And this occurred in 1987 - the peak and start of the meltdown of the 1980s greed era!

There is plenty to criticise about the 1980s. I wouldn't dream of saying otherwise. But the decade is not the root of all evil and I wish that some of the political activism of those days would re-ignite. Some of the acts carried out by the modern day government would have caused a furore in the 80s, but nowadays are allowed to pass virtually unchallenged.

Devolution, for instance, has created dreadful inequalities within the UK.

But people seem too busy rewriting the 1970s as absolutely lovely and the 1980s as greed personified, basically playing “heroes and villains” with past decades, to pay attention to NOW.

It’s a huge shame.

Rock Me Amadeus

Austrian rock star Johann (Hans) Hölzel was Falco, the man behind that brilliant mid-1980s pop stomp Rock Me Amadeus. He was, apparently, one of the first Europeans to incorporate rap stylings into rock and pop music.

Johann Hölzel died in a car accident in 1998.

The Lady In Red Is Dancing With Me...

Take that special lady onto the dance floor and smooch away, or wave your lighter in the air...

Chris de Burgh's Lady In Red was at No 1 for three weeks in August 1986 and some 30 and 40-somethings still get dewy-eyed whenever it is played.

Me? Nah, 'course not...

A Posh Time...

How's this for a swanky mid-to-late 1980s wall clock?

Another Royal Wedding...

The 1986 Royal nuptials - Andy and Fergie - the plate.

Might As Well Face It You're Addicted To Love...

Robert Palmer, who charted with Addicted To Love in May 1986. As you can see, the video featured some very 80s women!

For years, I believed that Mr Palmer was American (there was something about those slick songs and videos!) and I was surprised to read after his untimely death that he was actually English, hailing from the North of the country.

Great entertainer.

-------------------

"You've Got To Have A J-O-B If You Wanna Be With Me..."

Gwen Guthrie's Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent... heard this the other day for the first time in years. It sounded as 80s and as excellent as ever. Tremendously likeable song and video - all rather tongue in cheek, and great fun.

Mexico '86 Panini sticker album. "Hand of God". I'll say no more.