The A-Z of my singles collection Part 3

Welcome to Part 3 of this trawl through my singles. Straight out of the blocks we have two singles from early 80s soundtrack royalty, Irene Cara, who followed up Number One hit Fame with another Top 5 hit in Flashdance (What a feeling). Rather like other US singers who were chiefly associated with the movies, her non-film songs met with far less success over here. Fame in 1982 and Flashdance in 1983 (which was kept off of the top spot by Baby Jane by Rod Stewart) sandwiched Out here on my own tonight which got to Number 58 and lasted just 3 weeks in the Top 75! Nothing else she released got into the Top 75. It always fascinates me when you see an artist who has massive success but is then ignored. Anthemic chart topper Heaven is a place on Earth by Belinda Carlisle still sounds great today and, to my surprise, turns out to be the only single of hers that I bought. Drive by The Cars was a song that I bought purely because of Live Aid where it memorably soundtracked the harrowing footage of the famine in Ethiopia. The counter point of the song and the images are still burned on my mind and will no doubt be burned on the mind of anyone who saw Live Aid. It was an incredible day of music, even if it lost its way, to my mind, when it started off over in America, a concert that sounded like an oldies music station, with Madonna and Run DMC being the only real nod to the creativity of young artists.

Next up is perhaps the best ballad from an 80s film. Yes, I’m aware that it is a crowded field, and a number of you may disagree, but Peter Cetera, the voice of Chicago, struck gold with the outstanding Glory of Love from Karate Kid II. It is a superb vocal performance and the chorus is a real lighters in the air moment! From the sublime to the Cor Blimey with the rather wonderful Chas and Dave. Although I bought and thoroughly enjoyed Gertcha and Rabbit, it was Ain’t No Pleasing You that was their high point. A superb, aching ballad with the strings lifting an already good song even higher, I guarantee that if it had been sung by a more fashionable artist it would have been considered a classic track and would still be incredibly well regarded. Take another listen, or indeed a first listen, and lose yourself in a marvellous and very sad song about a love gone sour.

Back in 1984, I was a committed armchair fan of Chelsea, so of course I bought Back on the Ball which celebrated their return to the top division as Champions of the old Second division. What can I say? It’s a record made by a football team, and it’s not a patch on their early 70s classic Blue is the Colour, one of the best football records ever. Despite Cher’s long and illustrious career, she only appears once in 7 inch form, but it is with the rather marvellous Shoop Shoop Song from Mermaids. There follows three classic tracks from Chicago. If You Leave Me Now was from another oldies rack and it is one that I remembered well from its original release when it made Number One. I thought, and still think, that Peter Cetera had one of the best voices in music, and no one could put across a ballad like he did. They came back in the early 80s with Hard to Say I’m Sorry which is another cracking song. Now, I was convinced that I had Hard Habit to Break as a single, but obviously not! I checked when it was released and the reason became clear. It was released just before I went into the RAF in November 1984, and, as you can imagine, singles were very much at the back of my mind for six weeks! As some of you may have seen on another post, the last of my Musical History posts, my RAF career was not one that went entirely to plan! I ended up snapping my Achilles tendon, and got a medical discharge in February 1986. I did, however buy the lovely follow up You’re the Inspiration. Finally, in this little section is a trio of top quality tracks from the largely forgotten synth wizards China Crisis who produced singles with real quality and never really got the success that quality deserved. The beautiful Wishful Thinking was their only Top 10 hit and it only made the Top 10 for one week. Black Man Ray and King in a Catholic Style were tracks that crept into the Top 20 but again deserved more. If you take another listen to China Crisis I think you will agree that they are well overdue a renaissance.

When I look at the late 80s and early 90s, one of the trends that becomes clear is the pointless remix! These are songs that the record companies decided to re-release with a slightly different sound or a slightly different tempo. What they all had in common was an ability to make the track far less memorable. It’s a shame, therefore, that my only Hot Chocolate single – and for reasons best known to my younger self they are filed under C for Chocolate! – is this insipid but entirely representative example of the pointless remake. The Clash famously would not go on Top of the Pops, keeping themselves away from the mainstream pigeon holing they wanted to avoid, and they passed me by at the time because I was too young to appreciate punk rock first time round. Anyway, along came a Levi’s advert and they had their first Number One and their only appearance in my singles collection! I had quite forgotten buying Is it a Dream by Classix Nouveaux, and was convinced I didn’t take to it at the time. A little mental detective work gave me my answer. For over two years in the early 90s I worked at the Town Hall in Kidderminster because no one would give me a teaching post. It was one of my favourite jobs ever. Pretty much every day was different, I saw plays, pantomimes, classical and pop concerts and I got to meet a whole range of different people. I loved it! Luckily for me, the occasional jumble sale (as they were called at the time) required a fair bit of setting up and I got first choice of anything I found on the record table! As perks go it may seem like a minor one to you but to me it was like being a teenager at Strood Record Centre again! Suffice to say that other gaps in my collection were filled at the time when singles and albums were being chucked out in the dash to CD. Now on to two generations of a singing dynasty, with the father and daughter Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole. When I first heard Miss You Like Crazy, I had no idea that Natalie was the daughter of singing genius Nat, but it didn’t matter because she produced a ballad that stood out even in an era when they proliferated. I loved her voice then and I love it now, but it was her Dad’s song that captured a proper place in my heart. When I Fall in Love was the 1987 Christmas single from Rick Astley which looked likely to grab the coveted Number One spot from Always on my Mind by the Pet Shop Boys. EMI, who were the label that the Pet Shop Boys were signed to, gave their act the vital advantage in the race with a stroke of genius. They re-released the original! When record buyers heard the definitive version they switched in their droves to the superior original and slowed down sales of Rick Astley’s otherwise very creditable stab at the classic song. I was one of those, and I helped to make Always on my Mind the Number One on the day Janet and I had our first date. Over 35 years later it’s still our song. When I Fall in Love had a similarly significant role in our lives when we chose it as our first dance at our wedding just under three years later. Finally, for this entry, we have a trio of tracks from the sometimes unfairly derided singer/songwriter Phil Collins. During the 80s I would argue that he didn’t put out a weak track and I could have bought all of them as singles if it hadn’t been for the Now compilations. The three solo tracks of his I did buy were all belters with You Can’t Hurry Love being the track that really caught my imagination and turned me into a committed fan, Sussudio an overlooked 80s classic and One More Night, an aching ballad that sounds better every time you listen to it. For what it’s worth, I think that his best track of the decade was Against All Odds, but that appeared on Now 4 so I didn’t need to have that in my singles box.

Next time, I finish the Cs and move on to the Ds, but don’t forget my first accompanying playlist on Spotify which is now complete and contains 30 superb tracks. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4FjFIa3zqlRGgTqpT5swkj?si=e639a316881f40ac