February 22, 20187 yr More of a power ballad than the Sheeran acoustic effforts. Jennifer is no1 in Nov 1985 I think! 1985 as I've said before started the power ballad success with Foreigner, Jennifer Rush and others. But there were some signs of it before - Hello/Against All Odds(this seems bigger now than back then, even tho it charted well)/What's Love Got to Do With It/Drive/ 'If I Was' (number 1 in October 1985) (if it counts as a power ballad) is definitely my favourite power ballad of 1985, and one of my favourite songs of that year. 1987 seems to have been the peak in power ballad popularity! Just looking at the list of UK top 10 singles that year there are quite a few! Edited February 22, 20187 yr by The Snake
February 22, 20187 yr Author If I Was was by Midge Ure. They got the highlight of tonight's show over at the beginning with Marc Almond and Jimmy Somerville. Don't suppose Marc will be performing that at the one-off Soft Cell reunion later this year.
February 23, 20187 yr Perfect is inoffensive; Power Of Love is dreadful in every way. I think predictive text must have changed "insipid" for "inoffensive" accidentally. So annoying when that happens :lol: JRush had some nice synths and a hook to help alleviate the ploddingness. Quite popular with older women at the time I seem to recall....whereas Ed OTOH errr... :D
February 23, 20187 yr If I Was was by Midge Ure. They got the highlight of tonight's show over at the beginning with Marc Almond and Jimmy Somerville. Don't suppose Marc will be performing that at the one-off Soft Cell reunion later this year. If I Was has one of the best choruses ever I think. Oh the I Feel Love medley! :o It is good enough, I like the fact it suddenly speeds up from a slow start! I do prefer Bronski Beat's next song 'Hit That Perfect Beat' though with its crazy sounding production though at the end of the year. Another dancey electronic song with excellent production I hope won't be on the cut episodes is 'It's Called A Heart' by Depeche Mode in August 1985. Edited February 23, 20187 yr by The Snake
February 24, 20187 yr I saw the excellent 19 by Paul Hardcastle at #1 on the latest edition (when pop songs used to be educational and you learnt that the average age of a solider during WWII was 26 and in Vietnam was 19). Of course he went on to produce the theme tune to TOTP later in the decade - which also charted and climbed to #15. VNxzsUWBwz8
February 24, 20187 yr 19 is brilliant, and really opened up the way for more underground dance music to start making the charts eventually from 1987 onwards. His follow up to 19, 'Just for Money' really doesn't sound that far in style from the sample-using house tracks of early 1988. The Wizard is good too, and charted at a time in August 1986 when quite a bit of electronic dance music in various forms was making the chart, Don't Leave Me This Way, Love Can't Turn Around and A Question Of Time also making the charts at this time. Edited February 24, 20187 yr by The Snake
February 24, 20187 yr Didn't know it was Paul Hardcastle who made that totp theme!! When does it become the theme?
February 25, 20187 yr Didn't know it was Paul Hardcastle who made that totp theme!! When does it become the theme? 3 April 1986, an appropriate theme considering it sounded much more modern, less poppy and dancey, showing the direction a lot of electronic music would go towards in the late 80s. Edited February 26, 20187 yr by The Snake
March 4, 20187 yr Depeche Mode were the highlights of this weeks episode presented by Steve Wright - the band have changed ALOT since their first performance in early 81 - and so has the show itself!! Thought they would have avoided totp by this stage - anyone know when their last appearance is?
March 4, 20187 yr Depeche Mode were the highlights of this weeks episode presented by Steve Wright - the band have changed ALOT since their first performance in early 81 - and so has the show itself!! Thought they would have avoided totp by this stage - anyone know when their last appearance is? I prefer their following single 'It's Called A Heart' and its weird techno production to 'Shake The Disease', although it is still a very nice song imo. Maybe they will still have TOTP appearances in the early 90s when they had a bit of a singles chart position revival? Edited March 4, 20187 yr by The Snow ❄️
March 4, 20187 yr From what I can see of the chart history they consistently returned to the chart each album even with lower peaks and shorter chart runs - so I imagine they didn't have totp performances for these. No more 40 min shows for 11 years now as I seen Zenom confirm on twitter this weekend!
March 4, 20187 yr From what I can see of the chart history they consistently returned to the chart each album even with lower peaks and shorter chart runs - so I imagine they didn't have totp performances for these. No more 40 min shows for 11 years now as I seen Zenom confirm on twitter this weekend! No they did better in the 90s in the singles charts again, went top 10 in the UK singles chart with 5 singles and an EP in the 90s.
March 10, 20187 yr Just watching that latest episode now on the iplayer 'In The Fields' by Gary Moore and Phil Lynott which kicked off that latest show I haven't heard before but is a good bit of 80s stadium rock! That Propaganda song 'Duel' is nice but not a patch on Dr Mabuse. As for the snippets of new entries they played, that Sister Sledge song Frankie is so cheesy but nice enough :o Madonna's 'Crazy for You' is a lovely song. Its a pity that Marillion weren't able to perform Kayleigh live, and the video had to be played. The version of 19 at the end sounds slightly different in parts to the one I know, maybe its just me thinking that though! Excellent though! Edited March 10, 20187 yr by The Hissmobile
March 10, 20187 yr Author There were several remixes of 19 released. That's what helped keep it at number one for five weeks.
March 10, 20187 yr Marillion performed Kayleigh in the studio last week which is probably why the video was shown this week. I agree that Duel by Propaganda isn't as good as Dr Mabuse. It's still a great song though with several different remixes.
March 15, 20187 yr Author TOnight's episode featured UKIP's Mike Read failing to understand how radio works by telling us that we had seen his co-presenter on Radio 1. It also saw a shortened version of the number one - The Crowd's You'll Never Walk Alone - because it featured contributions from Rolf Harris and Dave Lee Travis.
Create an account or sign in to comment