1987

 

6th place - M|A|R|R|S - Pump Up the Volume

 

7.2

 

 

There had been sample-based number 1s before Pump Up The Volume; Steve "Silk" Hurley's Jack Your Body had been at the top of the charts earlier in 1987 and we've already had Paul Hardcastle's 19 featured in this thread, which also hit the top. The difference with Pump Up The Volume was that it was the first to contain over a dozen samples from a variety of sources. Wikipedia lists 26 of them on the 12" version and 21 on the 7".

 

Hip-Hop was going mainstream in 1987 and a prominent feature of hip-hop was its mélange of sampled beats, breaks, vocals and riffs. The purpose of Pump Up the Volume was to emulate that mix of sounds and add a house beat. Indeed, several hip-hop songs were sampled for Pump Up The Volume - Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC all had their work pilfered, along with the most sampled man in the history of music - James Brown.

 

Pump Up the Volume was a one off project of musicians on the 4AD record label, A.R. Kane and Colourbox, with contributions from DJs Chris Mackintosh and Dave Dorrell. It hit number 1 in five countries and went top 10 in a further eleven. Unusually, for a hugely successful record there was no pressure from the record company for a follow up, making it a one hit wonder.

 

While it was by no means the first track created in this fashion, its success ushered a new period in dance music. Its influence is hard to overstate. By the time we got to 1988, songs consisting of collages of samples were common place in the Top 40 enabling dance music and acid house to explode into the mainstream.

 

At the time, I didn't really like it and it was slow to grow on me in the intervening years but listening to it now is a revelation. Just knowing the context of its release and what it must have meant for dance music is easy to appreciate, even now.

 

Tenth best seller of the year.

Edited November 11, 20204 yr by Colm

^I'm the same, I like it now but don't think I appreciated it back in the day, guess it's not really music for kids :D

 

love the samples, some are genius, especially Ofra Haza

Me too. When I first heard it I just thought it was pretty boring and glossed over it, it definitely has improved with age. I'd say your score is about right for it Colm.

Certainly not as hooky as Beat Dis or Doctorin' the House,

1987

 

5th place - T'Pau - China In Your Hand

 

7.4

 

 

T'Pau brought something slightly different to the power-ballad table. An intriguing, lush layer of counterpoint vocals here. A dash of Celtic instrumentation there.

 

They'd released their debut single, Heart and Soul in early 1987, which flopped, totally. All was not lost, though. The song was picked up by Pepe Jeans in the US for their ad campaign which ran in the Summer of that year. It became a top 5 hit there, when released as a single. This prompted a re-release in the UK where it matched its number 4 position that it achieved across the Atlantic. Debut album, Bridge of Spies was ready in September to take advantage of this success and was a modest hit, hanging around the lower half of the top 40 for a number of weeks.

 

The follow up to Heart and Soul was an easy decision. The band chose to release China in Your Hand, the stand-out track on their album, but not before it was re-arranged and re-recorded for an October release. It wasted very little time racing to number 1, where it lodged for 5 weeks, matching Rick Astley's stint at the top of the chart a few months earlier - the longest of 1987.

 

Singer, Carol Decker was none-too-shy about self promotion and a year later claimed that Enya had ripped off China in Your Hand for her number 1 hit, Orinoco Flow. While there's only a passing similarity in the re-recorded version, the album version does bear more resemblance.

 

I love this song. This was my first year of being a chart watcher and I was thrilled when this showed no signs of dropping from number 1 for weeks.

 

Fifth best seller of the year.

Edited November 12, 20204 yr by Colm

1987 is such a strong year for big sellers.

Oh I do like China In Your Hand. As you say, it brings something different to all the power ballads that had gone before it. I love the background instrumentation - that I'm only just hearing Orinoco Flow in for the first time :o - and of course a sax solo is always welcome!

Love China In Your Hand - such a late 80s classic.

Did you try the album version, Dandy? That's where Orinoco Flow is most obvious.

 

I image that sax solo was detested by all the cool kids who were into The Smiths and The Cure back then. 😃

"China In Your Hand" was recognised at the time as the 600th UK Number One.

 

It is in my Top 50 of all time.

I love love love China in Your Hand, song of the year for me, an 11/10, everything is amazing about the song

and the lyrics are the most bizarre thing ever being about Mary Shelley and Frankestein, not your standard love song lyrics

"Pump Up The Volume" was technically a double A-side with "Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)".

 

I suspect not many sales were for the latter.

 

and the lyrics are the most bizarre thing ever being about Mary Shelley and Frankestein, not your standard love song lyrics

 

 

The lyrics are quite original without being pretentious.

Edited November 12, 20204 yr by Colm

so did they ever sue Enya? :o

Edited November 12, 20204 yr by Bjork

Star Trekkin'! First off, it was amusing for the first week, then it became downright annoying and still is, albeit good-humoured...

 

Starship, I liked at the time - certainly a step up on We Built This City - and was happy to see them getting a chart-topper after such a long wait since Jefferson Airplane days, but it's not their best record (That's Jane, or Grace Slick's Dreams), nor is it the best Albert Hammond song, nor Diane Warren song.

 

Rick is a classic pop track, it's overplayed now but it was ignored for 20 years till it found a new younger audience, and it's his best 80's track by some distance.

 

China In Your Hand is a goodie, but I still much-prefer Heart & Soul. Carol Decker can still belt 'em out, caught her the other year, if you get a chance to see her in concert, worth it!

 

Stand By Me slots in here for me, so far.

 

Top one to date is MARRS, as I was grown-up at the time I found it incredibly exciting and inventive, and was clearly ground-breaking for dance music. Still love it. I also loved that it was a marmite record, so many of my generation and older hated it, totally missing the point that it had multiple sampled hooks and played loud it was just fab. People who don't like dance music amusingly don't get that it's supposed to make you want to dance. This makes me want to dance. :)

Think 'China In Your Hand' was like a two finger to the new house dance that was set to take over the charts and was already on the horizon, it was more like a song from the previous decade.

1987

 

4th place - Mel & Kim - Respectable

 

7.6

 

 

 

Stock, Aitken and Waterman have often been accused of producing identikit music using a watered down, uninspiring formula. They did make an effort now and again, and they certainly did that with Respectable.

It's devoid of any of the trudging elements that would later bog down the music of Sonia, Big Fun and a handful of Kylie, Jason and Rick moments.

 

It was their second production to hit number 1 following You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) in 1985. While it doesn't quit hit the heights of that song, it has nothing that would indicate the depths to which they would sink.

 

It helped that, in Mel & Kim, they had a duo with a certain, je ne sais quoi to hand the goods over to - The Reynold Girls could neva.

Of course, none of the tricks were invented by SAW. But they weren't in the business of invention - just hoping to make successful pop music. And some of that also managed to be great - Respectable is a fine example of that.

 

The hook vocal in the intro and the piano break do it for me every time.

 

It finished the year as the 6th best seller.

Edited November 24, 20204 yr by Colm

loved Respectable, it's a great pop song, think SAW were still ok in early 87 but quality went downhill pretty quick

Think slot of the time it depended on the artist as well.

 

Love ‘Respectable’ such a great beat and production! Also sad to think what was to come now looking back

1987

 

3rd place - Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)

 

8.2

 

 

This is 80s pop music at its most bright, effervescent and exciting. Produced by Michael Walden, who also did Starship's Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, I Wanna Dance With Somebody is a showcase of the very best sounds that you could pile on to a mass-appeal pop song in the late 80s.

The intro alone needs to have its own "for 10 hours" version on YouTube. Then we're hit with the one-two punch of that first "wooooo" and a synth blast that remains as head-rush-inducing as it did 33 years ago.

 

From there Whitney treats us to one the most perfect pop vocals ever. After a few verse/chorus sections and a key change, the song dives into a break down of sorts and then heads in the direction of increasingly addictive hooks, all leading inexorably towards that 'don't you wanna dance, say you wanna dance' climax. Utterly joyful.

 

In a year dominated by icons of American pop music, Michael Jackson and Madonna, Whitney holds her own with ease.

 

 

Finished as 3rd best seller of the year.

Edited November 28, 20204 yr by Colm