It's a Sin :wub:

 

I can't quite remember it from the time but it must have sounded so utterly unique at the time - and still does now to be fair. It's just so wonderfully OTT in the best possible way as everything about it from the lyrics to the synths are all just so maximalist. A truly amazing single.

 

I've always thought The Sun Always Shines on TV has similar sounds.

Oh..it was ACR when I read it.

 

sorry, always thinking of the accelerated ratio ACR these days :D

 

87 is probably my fav 80s year in terms of #1s, don't think 88 is gonna be that great but not sure what made the top 10 other than Kylie :o

 

 

Looking at the list for 88 - it looks poor.

 

But the I listened and it wasn't so bad. Still not great.

Can’t remember much but can’t imagine it’s that good - early house and SAW!

I think it was only Kylie from SAW doing well in 88

when I think 88 I think cheesy ballads like Glenn Medeiros etc and covers like Phil Collins and Wet Wet Wet

there were some great pop singles that I hope made the top 10 but probably missed

like Belinda Carlisle, Fairground Attraction, Push It

Hey leave Glenn alone, great track!!

 

Always feels like the last real year of the 80s, even watching the old TOTP episodes as the old main stage changed for the first tome since 1980!

1988 is a struggle. None of them are truly awful so it will come down to taste and others will no doubt disagree with my ranking.

 

In other exciting news, the top 2 switched places today, during the latest replay. :o

Edited December 6, 20204 yr by Colm

1988

 

10th place - The Hollies - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

 

4.3

 

 

For the second year running an advert-related re-release starts us off in 10th place. This time it was larger brand Miller Lite that prompted the re-issue.

 

I kinda feel like I'm disrespecting the Hollies by putting this at the bottom of the list. Perhaps with a different vocalist it may not grate as much. They spent years 1963 to 1967 as one of the most consistent chart acts hitting the top 10 eleven times out of 12 releases. Only the Stones, Beatles, Cliff and Elvis could match them.

 

The song was a cover and the puzzling title had been a phrased first uttered in 1924 when a someone related the story of a young Scottish girl who looked like she was struggling to carry her younger, unwell brother. She was said to have replied that he wasn't heavy because he was her brother, implying that the burden of carrying him was no burden because she loved him. And that's rather beautiful. :wub:

 

It was last in the chart when The Justice Collective took it to the Christmas number 1 position in 2012.

 

 

Eighth best selling single of the year.

 

 

 

1988

 

9th place - Wet Wet Wet - With A Little Help From My Friends

 

4.8

 

 

And here we have another cover (there's 4 more to come).

 

I can't say I really like very many Beatles song. Most of them are rather pleasant and this one of them. To his credit, Marty doesn't blot his copybook with a decent vocal. The Wets were a wise choice for this Childline charity single being one the few bands with a charismatic/showbiz-grinning front man that year that had any commercial appeal. I can't image Bros or Climie Fisher being asked.

 

It was a double A-side coupled with a cover of Sgt. Pepper album track She's Leaving Home by the slightly less picturesque Billy Bragg, accompanied by Cara Tivey providing chorus vocals and piano. It's beautiful.

 

 

Ninth best selling single of the year.

Edited December 6, 20204 yr by Colm

1988

 

8th place - Cliff Richard - Mistletoe and Wine

 

5.4

 

 

I figured that this would be an automatic 10th place finisher, due to the fact that it's Cliff and that it was a Christmas song but it skips up to 8th place based purely on nostalgic feels. It's certainly better than Saviour's Day and Millennium Prayer.

 

Bells + Choirboy = Crimbo magic.

 

Best seller of the year.

1988

 

7th place - Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan

 

5.7

 

 

 

Rumour has it that this wasn't Christmas number 1 in 1988 because there just weren't enough copies in the shops to challenge Cliff. It was sold out in many places, and that is borne out by the fact that demand didn't drop off until the end of January 1989.

 

It's a soppy pop ballad and I am very hard to please when it comes to soppy pop ballads. Hardly anyone can carry them off with enough star power to make it playable many years after initial release. An unpopular opinion, no doubt.

 

Fourth best seller of the year.

ouch hated that Cliff song, a 0/10 for me... the Wet Wet Wet cover was kinda meh

 

disagree about the Hollies song, love it, would definitely place it much higher

1988

 

6th place - Glenn Medeiros - Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You

 

5.9

 

 

 

And another cover. This time a 3 year old George Benson single.

 

Scanning through the lyrics for this song, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a Jason Donovan album track. It reeks of the SAW formula.

 

It's one of a handful of songs that leaped to number 1 from outside the Top 10. While reading up on this rather pedestrian singer I did not expect to read these words in this exact order "Glenn Medeiros Featuring Bobby Brown". It appears Glen had a new jack swing number 12 hit in 1990 with Mr Brown called She Ain't Worth It. I must have been asleep for a while that year.

 

He was rather easy on the eye in the video for that video.

 

The internet is trying to tell me that Glen looks like this now

 

 

Sixth best selling single of the year.

 

Really like the Glenn Mederios track. Also like Cliff and The Hollies but the charity release is awful. Was there not a

B-Side with Billy Bragg?

Yes. I mentioned that.

I don’t really care for anything so far in 1988. Nothing is really diabolical but they’re all pretty much just kinda there for me.

I totally agree.

the Glen Medeiros song was too sappy, as bad as Mistletoe and Wine

 

I liked the Kylie & Jason song as a kid, less so now :o

Why do we feel this was the case by 88?

It's A Sin is pop perfection and the best record of 1987 to top the charts. The only better track that year overall was...Pet Shop Boys What Have I Done. It's what the phrase OTT Epic Production was invented for. 1987 was their year, it wasn't even close.

 

1988...hmmm. Mixed. Glenn M was bland pop, She Ain't Worth It was much better. Mistletoe & Wine just so sick of it, though I liked it for a few weeks at the time. Especially For You was a terrific old-fashioned male-female duet with a great melody, still very fond of it. Check out awful cover versions to realise the charms of the original. Talking of awful cover versions, Wet Wet Wet. Worst track on the list, not helped by the Billy Bragg murdering of the exquisitely beautiful and heartbreaking She's Leaving Home. How to do a great cover version? Inject passion, see Joe Cocker version of With A Little Help. The Hollies is the best track on the list, 1969 or not. Timeless message, The Hollies knew how to do ballads and pop, both.