A Few More Prime Choons From 1988 and 1989... Standing In A Buffalo Stance - Finding Voodoo Ray And A Tower Of Strength - And Not Scared At All...

 

I was going to leave 1988 and 1989 and make my way back to 1987 and 1986, but then I realised there were several top choons I couldn't leave out of my absolute 88/89 faves round-up. Sorry. Please indulge me.

First is the mighty Neneh Cherry, doing her (then) trendy Buffalo Stance in 1988. Fabulous. I wasn't too keen on the Manchild follow-up - I can't bear womansplaining - but the Stance was the biz.

It's so good it can't be left out. Under any circumstances.

In '89, Betty Boo and the Beatmasters couldn't dance to that music many middle of the road radio stations were pumping out. Don't blame them. Go, Betty! Love the revolting 1982 phone in the vid. By 1989, we had better taste (ahem).

Next the ice cool Eighth Wonder with the Pet Shop Boys-penned I'm Not Scared, again from 1988. Haunting, electronic, sinister, beautiful. As a little girl, of course, Patsy Kensit had been the 'Fresh As The Moment When The Pod Went Pop' girl. She'd come a long way.

'88 again: The Mission - Tower of Strength. 'It would tear me apart. To feel no one ever cared. For MEEEE'. 'Nuff said. Got 'em here on Top of the Pops.

Down on the dance floor for Inner City and Good Life. Left or right? Yuppie or protester? C'mon, after the long lean years, didn't most of us fancy a bit of the good life in the 1980s?

Yazz and the Plastic Population - The Only Way Is Up. An anthem from '88 I'll never forget. 

A Guy Called Gerald and the legend that is Voodoo Ray. Need I say more? Acid House at its best. Excuse me, I wanna move...

Next up are 1987 and 1986 - where we meet Boops (with his arms open wide) and discover that New York looks like an apple core... Stay chooned.

Chugging Out Some More Choons From 1988 And 1989... Felly Had Blue Lipstick - But Wasn't Singing... And We Were Pumping Up The Jam, Being Pure, Singing About History, Thrashing Around To Accieed and Getting Back To Life...

 

Felly of Technotronic - her with the blue lipstick on the original album cover. She didn't wanna place to stay, but you could get your booty on the floor tonight and make her day. However, it wasn't really Felly singing. No, Ya Kid K was the one! This was all over the charts and the dancefloors in September/October 1989. I bought the Technotronic album, which contained this and their next few hits towards the end of the year, and was bowled over.

And I still love Felly's lipstick.

And Ya Kid K, of course.

ACCEEED! Love this. The Acid House  scene of 1988 really rattled the establishment and that's never a bad thing, and this vid and song always do my head in. Especially the bit where the bloke's head judders about.

RIGHT ON ONE, MATEY!

This 1988 hit by Breathe is one of my favourite love songs. And the video's so yuppie, but with a splash of delicious working class humour at the end. Gorgeous.

Back To Life... the mighty Soul II Soul in 1989. So beautiful and classic and wonderful and innovative and downright marvellous I actually passed my ciggies around.

1989 - and I was gobsmacked by the transformation of Siobhan Fahey - from Bananarama chorus girl to purring sophisti-cat. This is stunning - Shakespear's Sister, History.

Pure, the Lightening Seeds. One of my themes to the summer of 1989. Released on 8 July, it spent ten weeks on the chart. I was, of course, romantically involved - and this is terribly evocative. Ah, those golden days in Saffron Walden!

We'll carry on our trawl of (just) some 1980s pop brilliance soon. We've started with 1989 and 1988 and next we'll take a peek at 1987 and 1986. We're heading all the way back to 1980 in time. Keep it chooned.

Chugging Out Some 1980s Choons... E-Zee Possee, Desireless, Erasure, Kim Wilde...

 

Love 1980s music. I adore it. Everything from Kelly Marie's It Feels Like I'm In Love in 1980 to these choice tunes from 1988 and 1989. E-Zee Possee... wow. What planet? Planet Ecstasy of course!

Voyage Voyage... Desireless. Beautiful, electronic, haunting... wandering around in '88 listening to this on my personal stereo after a broken romance, gazing at the moon...

The mighty Erasure, Ship of Fools from 1988. Beautiful, loaded with melancholy and, although the song is as '80s as could be, the title fits the situation in 2020/2021 like a tailor-made glove. You do sail on the ship of fools, my friends... but Klaus Schwab, Matt Hancock, Anthony Fauci and the World Economic Forum will take care of you... Just keep watching the telly...

And from 1988 again - gorgeous Kim Wilde and You Came... happy days... Got a sniffle? Blow your nose and get on with your life! xx

1988: Breathe - Hands To Heaven - And An Exorbitant Taxi Fare...

Breathe was an English pop band formed in 1984 who gave us the unforgettable and thoroughly 1980s video and ballad you can see and hear above. A sorrowful tale of yuppie parting, it seems. He's obviously just back from a hard day on the stock exchange and she's flouncing about, artily displaying her despair at their parting, which looms on The Dreadful Morrow.
It's actually a beautiful song. In 1988, I was growing tired. I'd lived a little too hard during my late teens and early twenties and most of my blood seemed to have turned to high fibre (see the F-Plan Diet) and Stella Artois (Reassuringly Expensive).
The song was soothing and as I was in a nightmare relationship that I knew must end, but somehow didn't want to, held resonance for me. Maybe, if I ended it, one day it might be possible to resume it? Things might improve?
Never seen the video before. Adore the surprise humorous ending!

Fashion Trends Of The 1980s: Doorknocker Ear-Rings - Modelled Here By Neneh Cherry...

Here's Neneh Cherry giving us her BRILLIANT Buffalo Stance and sporting a pair of 1980s doorknocker ear- rings.

'80s ear-rings were often a nightmare - there was the putrid, coloured plastic variety; the axe head variety (looked very brutal indeed) and the studded doughnut (often black, but appeared to be studded with metal- went well with studded black lycra).

And then there was the doorknocker.

Who's looking good today?
Who's looking good in every way?

Er, Neneh, I hate to tell you...

But back in 1988 Neneh looked very, very trendy indeed.

1988 - Wicked! Gel 'N' Mousse, Designer Stubble, Ripped Jeans, Party People And Boxer Shorts...

Let's take a look elsewhere... Ah, here's Blue Jeans, April 1988. Imagine coming across this girly in an English country garden - or anywhere!! She looks mighty daft by today's standards. In 1988, she looked pretty OK.

More from Blue Jeans - and Star Trek - The Next Generation is available on video. And then there's 30 things you didn't know about Curiosity Killed The Cat. What are you waiting for?

Ooh, those clothes! As I recall, they were very much of the era, and would not have looked at all out of place, but nowadays those girlies would be far more likely to be laughed off the rink because of their clothes than for any lack of skating skills. Mind you, maybe not. I've seen a lot of '80s gear in the last ten years or so worn by the young and the trendy: foul ra ra skirt and black leggings combinations, lovely jackets with pushed up or turned back sleeves (the turned back sleeves having the inner striped or other patterned material), permed and scrunched hair, bulldog clips, blonde streaks/highlights, shutter shades, jelly shoes, colourful trainers, wonderful clothing colour schemes - and more... 

Makes me feel old to see it back again.

A glimpse of two fabulous Blue Jeans photo stories - one of them called I Should Be So Lucky. There's novel.

I loved the droll irony contained within '80s teen mags, probably started by Smash Hits earlier in the decade. There's a fine example in this 1988 Blue Jeans reader's letter and editor's reply featured on the page above:

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In Carly Simon's song "Coming Around Again" what is Mummy doing when Daddy "breezes in" and also why did the baby sneeze?

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Curious BJ Fan, Bucks.

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"Baby sneezes, Mommy PLEASES, Daddy breezes in." I've really no idea why the baby sneezes, perhaps it was sitting in a draught or it had just had a very cold drink of Pepsi or it had been for a brisk walk in the bracing air. Just use your imagination. Please!

-

Magic. And don't miss Freeda The Frog declaring her undying love for Gordon the Gopher.

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"Bright and cheery" nail varnishes tested by Blue Jeans...

Kylie squashed a 1988 silly season rumour: word was floating around that if you played her records at 33 RPM (vinyl was still pretty "in" in 1988, as were cassettes, CD players cost a packet) it revealed that Rick Astley was actually singing, not Kylie. SCANDAL! Not true, said tongue-in-cheek Kylie, SHE was actually the singer on her own AND Rick Astley's records.

And here IS Rick. What's to look forward to in the next 1988 edition of Blue Jeans? A feature on stars in suits? Hands To Heaven Breathe? A Phillip Schofield pin-up? Oh come on. Is this a joke? Have I been sold a spoof mag?

No?

Flamin' Nora...

I liked Sinitta's camp, hi-N-R-G pop. Here she is (with her toyboy?), revealing that sometimes he's a trendy boxer shorts man. What was all this with boxer shorts? Well, for years, medics had been fussing over we men's personal bits, claiming that they got a little too overcrowded and overheated in briefs and Y-fronts and that they really weren't good for our fertility.

Underwear had become very brief in the 1960s, but in the mid-to-late 1980s, made acceptable by the likes of Nick Kamen, boxers were on the rise again. A healthier, "stylish" alternative. Yes, probably, as regards the former, but as regards the latter - PURLEASE!! Compare this 1988 trend with skimpy 1982 - here.

Nick Berry - a Blue Jeans pin up in 1988, complete with designer stubble.

Were these "trusty 501's" ready for the dustbin? Are you kidding?

The label on that top recommended hand washing in luke warm water with Dreft. But would the girly listen? Would she heck - she was too busy moussing her hair up.

My mother was a "child of the '60s" and sported a huge beehive hairdo back then which took about eighteen cans of hair spray to create. Even in the 1970s, she would gas us with hair spray fumes, creating a more modest hair style, before going to the local Labour Club for bingo on Friday and Saturday nights.

-

In the 1980s, as concern for the ozone layer took hold, we youngsters gleefully grasped hold of new kind-to-ozone products like hair gel and mousse so that we could perform evil experiments on our own crowning glories.

Lovely.

Stars out and about in July 1988 - from the News of the World Sunday Magazine. Prince Charles shows off his chest, "Loadsamoney" Harry Enfield does his Stavros bit, being all caring and sharing over a kebab, Samantha Fox hitches a ride with Simon Climie of Climie Fisher and Ben Vol-au-Vent (as we always called him) of Curiosity Killed The Cat wears weird footwear with band mate Migi.

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Meanwhile, Linda Gray takes a break from Sue Ellen, Jim Davidson's still about, and Arnold Schwarzeneggar takes a stroll with Danny DeVito.

In youth terminology, "wicked" was suddenly a very excellent thing to be. But what was "gnarly"?

Er...

"Tubular"?

Double er... 

By 1988 I was getting a mite raddled, and wasn't as "with it" as I once had been... Oh for the days of Toto Coelo!

More About Acid House - What The Establishment Thought, 1988, And A 1989 Rave...

This is Acid House 1988... still stirs the blood and gets me moving... how far we'd come from Adam and the Ants, Bad Manners and Madness...


Footage from a 1989 Rave...

House music was a brand new electronic music genre born in Chicago USA in the early 1980s (for those desiring a more specific timeline 1983 is often referred to as "Year Zero"). We got our first taste of House here in England in 1986 and, following hot on its heels, in 1988, came Acid House - with its attendant Raves and new drug culture ("What planet are you on?" "Planet Ecstasy"...).

The only drawback with ecstasy - or E as it was known - was the chance that it could do you serious harm or even kill you if you happened to pop a bad one! It was a small risk, but still off-putting to many people. Mind you, the music and atmosphere of an Acid House rave could still be enjoyed without popping anything!

The distinctive Acid House sound came from the Roland TB-303 Bass Line synthesiser, which was first released in 1982.

Acid House had the establishment seriously rattled - the bloody kids were acting up again - and saw bitter rival football fans peacefully dancing and chatting together under the effects of ecstasy.


What the tabloids and elders thought... BBC news footage from 1988. The stance taken by the BBC in this clip seems as impartial as the stance the organisation took (and still takes given half a chance) towards Reagan and Thatcher! Didn't they interview anybody in favour of Acid House?!

More '80s Actual Acid House here.

Voyage Voyage - Desireless

This brings back memories of me, steeped in heart-wrenching misery at the end of yet another broken romance, strolling round on warm summer evenings in 1988, gazing at the stars and the moon, sometimes quietly crying, with my personal stereo blaring away in sympathy. Loved this song back then. Still do.

Voyage Voyage, sung by Desireless - Claudie Fritsch-Mentrop - is in French and I don't speak French, but somehow this only added to the appeal of the song for the love-lorn 23-year-old lad, seeking not words but mood, I was back then.

The original version of the song had been written and recorded a year or so before (some sources say 1986, others 1987), but fame took time to spread. My favourite version was the 1988 Britmix - remixed by Pete Hammond and Peter Waterman. Google it and you may find it on-line.

Wonderful.

And what I wouldn't give to be 23 again.

Even if I was love-lorn at times.

Acid House

One of the big "things" in 1988 and 1989 - the smiley face! Created in the 1960s and long associated by us plebs with kids' badges and jolly tea mugs, the face was suddenly the symbol of a rather frantic and frankly rather naughty progression from the House Music scene called Acid House. I was confused. House music had been created in Chicago - 1983 was 'Year Zero' for House - and the sound had not begun to go wide until midway through the decade.

And now we had ACID House. Say what?!

The smiley face was soon cropping up on T-shirts everywhere, accompanied by the slogan "Right On One Matey!" The elders got themselves into a right old stew about it all, whilst many youngsters, bored with being garishly posh, gothy, Indie or synthy, eagerly embraced the chance to get sweaty under strobe lights, and move about to weird electronic noises and samples.

And if you had to break into somebody else's warehouse or barn to do it, all the better!

Some newspapers seemed alarmed. A new drug culture, and the kids acting up again. Oh dear! Where had Acid House sprung from?

The Observer observed in 1988:

Drugs Fear as the 'acid house' cult revives a Sixties spectre

"Acid house" started in four London clubs... In the past month it has "taken off", spreading to other clubs around the country.

1988 and 1989 were wild. Absolutely evil according to some! The elders were definitely rattled!

From the Sun, August 28, 1989:

More than 25,000 youngsters - some aged only ELEVEN - went wild at a huge acid house party yesterday as the police watched helplessly.

Dozens of evil pushers raked in a fortune openly selling the mind-bending drug Ecstacy at £10 a time - with a bottle of mineral water to wash it down.

A police superintendent and WPC moved through throngs of spaced-out teenagers as dealers chanted "E, hash, weed" to the beat of the music.

School-age children rolled their own reefers.

But the officers were only there to make sure there was no trouble while notices about the noise were served on the organisers.

The 15-hour bash started on Saturday night when hordes of acid house fans converged on the village of Effingham, Surrey.

Cars, coaches and vans poured into Newmarsh Farm for the £30-a-head "Energy Summer Festival".

Youngsters from as far way as Leeds, Swindon and Ipswich screamed "Mental, mental" as lasers lit the sky.

Headlines from the Sun CONDEMMING the drug craze flashed on a huge video screen.

Party organisers made an estimated £500,000 from the bash - which cost about £50,000 to stage.
Police, who only heard of the party hours before, at first stopped youngsters entering the site.
But as thousands joined the crush, senior officers decided it was safer to let them in.

About 70 police were on duty, but there were only seven arrests - two for alleged drug offences.
Police will quiz the organisers and those responsible for the land.

A spokesman said:

* An acid house bash, tagged The Heat, was smashed at the weekend because it was a FIRE RISK.

* Around 10,000 revellers were expected to head for a disused factory at West Bromwich, West Midlands.

* But the local council won an injunction to ban the party after fire experts declared the building unsafe.

* Only 30 youngsters, mainly from London, arrived at the factory, but were promptly turned away by the police.

"There could be criminal charges."

Michael Grylls, MP for North West Surrey, said: "It is a massive indictment of parents that they allow their children to attend this sort of thing."

Fellow Tory Terry Dicks said: "These parents should be fined, if not sent to prison."
Monks at a silent order at West Kingsdown, Kent, were disturbed by 3,000 at a nearby acid house party.

Master of a little-known DJ skill called Transformer Scratching (making a record sound like a robot's voice), James Dorrell was hailed as a pioneer of "English hip-hop". Dorrell, who was also in M/A/R/R/S (Pump Up The Volume), was interviewed in 1988 and said of Acid House:

"It's really crazy, psychedelic music. There's no real tune, just lots of studio technology. You can also scratch other bits of records over the top of the beat and add to the effect. The other day I found an amazing old record by Brian Clough of all people! I used this bit where he says, "He's got a good left foot that lad!" over a serious Chicago House groove. It sounded brilliant!"
Mind you, imagination and originality were needed. Dorrell again:

"If I hear another James Brown yelp or This is a journey into sound again I'll scream!"

Despite the '60s psychedelic references (particularly the return of the lava lamp, which became HUGE in the 1990s, reaching its highest ever sales), the new drug culture (just what was this ecstacy?!) and so on, followers of Acid House were not hippies. From what I saw, they were harder, more streetwise, more working class - "On One Matey!" rather than "Peace Man!" The music too was very different. 20th Century Words by John Ayto, describes it thus:

Acid House n (1988) a type of house music with a very fast beat, a spare, mesmeric, synthesised sound, and usually a distinctive gurgling bass noise. Also applied to the youth cult associated with this kind of music, characterised by a vogue for warehouse parties, a revival of psychedelia, and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs. "Acid" may well be the slang word for LSD, although many cultists claim that it comes from the record "Acid Trax" by Phuture (in the slang of Chicago, where this music originated in 1986, "acid burning" means "stealing", and the music relies heavily on "sampling" a polite word for stealing musical extracts).

Did you join in or want to put an end to the "menace"? From the "Sun", November 18, 1988.

"John Kettley Is A Weatherman And So Is Michael Fish!"

This song, which entered the charts in December 1988, could get stuck in your head on "repeat play". It did in mine - all through my long saved for and much looked forward to holiday in Morocco in February '89. I was "not a happy bunny", as a saying of the time would have it...