Chart Watch UK: Hits of 1989

By James Masterton

From the longest-serving music columnist online comes this comprehensive account of the Top 40 hit singles of 1989. Every artist to land a hit single during the year is documented and every one of their hits is catalogued. A full account of who made the charts, when, and most importantly why. The year which saw Soul II Soul come to prominence, although so did Jive Bunny. The year that unearthed Lisa Stansfield but also Sonia. And the year which began with a star from the sixties at the top of the charts and ended with the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays poised to change the world. The essential guide to a fascinating year in pop music, and the perfect reference book for any self-respecting 80s music fan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Masterton
• Release date: Apr 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463138571

James Masterton

James Masterton is one of the longest-serving music writers online, having written a weekly guide to the UK Charts since 1992. He has written for dotmusic.com, Yahoo! Music and About.com. The column now has a new permanent home at chart-watch.uk, where you can also read the complete archives dating back to the early 1990s. He has appeared on BBC and Channel 4 television as a music critic and spoken on radio stations across Europe about the latest events on the UK charts. He lives in Sidcup, South East London and spends his days making sports radio programmes, although he cannot tell you who won the FA Cup last year.

Book preview

James Masterton

Chart Watch UK - Hits of 1989

FIRST EBOOK EDITION

Copyright 2019 James Masterton. All rights reserved.

No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any form other than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of the author. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

https://chart-watch.uk/books

My grateful thanks to the following individuals for their support, encouragement and fact checking during the extended process of preparing this book: Beverly Norbal, Chris Barratt, Andy Healing, Ludmila Masterton, Matthew Rudd, Lee Thompson, Richard M White and Beverly Anderson

For Nina and Max, my two highest climbers.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The Chart Watch UK: Hits of 1989 is a comprehensive account of almost every single artist and track to make the Official UK Top 40 during the course of 1989. Whether an artist spent an extended period at Number One or a single week at Number 40, they are listed in these pages with each of their chart entries discussed in detail.

To count as a 1989 hit single, the record must have reached its chart peak on the singles charts dated between January 14th 1989 and January 6th 1990.

Each hit single is listed with the date it first made the Top 75 singles chart (at the start of the continuous run which saw it reach its eventual peak), its peak position on the singles chart and the date of the chart on which it did so. For historical reasons, despite being published on Sundays, the UK charts carry the date of the Saturday at the end of the week in which they are published, matching the cover date of the corresponding issue of Music Week. This naturally results in the odd situation of singles being listed on a chart dated a full 13 days after they were first released to the shops, hence the occasional reference to singles having been released in the month prior to the date of their chart arrival.

All chart information is based on the charts compiled by the Official Charts Company and as published in Music Week magazine. Any errors or omissions however are entirely those of the author. Corrections of errors are welcomed with full credit given in future editions.

A-HA

Norway's most celebrated musical export released their third album Stay On These Roads in the spring of 1988. They immediately continued wrestling with the same issues which had dogged them since their commercial breakthrough in 1985. A trio of serious, committed songwriters and musicians, they had nonetheless been pigeonholed as pop sensations for the teenage market - most notably in Britain where the Nordic looks of lead singer Morten Harket had made them the biggest pin-up idols of their age. The singles taken from the album reflected this dilemma. The inspirational and epic title track, and throwaway slice of whimsy Touchy! had each been respectably sized hits. However, the dark and sophisticated The Blood That Moves The Body, a high point of Harket’s songwriting to that point, had become their smallest British hit single to date. The group were facing a growing chasm between where they wanted to be as artists and where their label and fans wanted them to remain.

YOU ARE THE ONE

First charted: 3/12/1988

Chart peak: 13

Peak reached: 14/1/1989

A-Ha’s only hit single of 1989 at least meant such concerns could briefly be set to one side. The final single to be lifted from Stay On These Roads was a chirpy pop record whose opening keyboard riff was a deliberate nod back to the glory days of three years earlier and the tone of the classic Take On Me. Clearly intended as an end of year holiday offering with a late-November release, the bubbly You Are The One actually found itself stranded in mid-table over Christmas 1988. It was only by a stroke of good fortune that the single survived the post-holiday shakeout and climbed the January charts to become the album’s third Top 20 hit. Even so, by their standards a Number 13 peak was disappointingly low, equaling the second-lowest chart position of their career to date. After almost five years of recording and touring A-Ha took a break, inactive for a year before they returned with a fourth album that would once and for all bury their teen appeal - and alas take their consistent singles chart form with it.

ABC

Following a mid-80s hiatus, while lead singer Martin Fry recovered from some health issues, ABC had made a surprise and rather pleasing comeback in 1987 with their fourth album Alphabet City. The Bernard Edwards-produced collection was host to the memorable hit singles When Smokey Sings, and The Night You Murdered Love, the former ending up one of their biggest worldwide successes for some time. By now reduced to a duo of Fry and founder member Mark White, ABC had one final album to deliver for their contract with Phonogram Records. With one eye on the prevailing musical trends of the previous two years, the pair elected to take on the new generation of musical stars at their own game.

ONE BETTER WORLD

First charted: 27/5/1989

Chart peak: 32

Peak reached: 3/6/1989

Hence ABC’s first brand new single in two years saw them adopt a startling change of style. Gone were the symphonic overtones of both their earlier Trevor Horn years and their more recent Chic-inspired sound. Instead, One Better World was an upbeat and catchy house and soul crossover replete with a driving piano riff and Frankie Knuckles-esque lyrics built around the universal themes of peace, love, and sharing. To critique the track severely is perhaps to give ABC too little credit for their willingness to innovate and stay relevant, but the real fact of the matter was that record buyers were mostly unconvinced. Hardened dance music fans were unimpressed with the prospect of veteran performers trying to hang with the cool kids, and while One Better World at least worked as a radio-friendly pop record, it was hard not to view it as a pale shadow of the classics the group had been producing only a couple of years previously. This minor Top 40 entry was followed in short order by a second single The Real Thing, but this fared even worse and stalled at Number 68 in September. The fifth ABC studio album Up was released with little fanfare a month later and was purchased by few outside the group's most loyal fans. Martin Fry would continue to record and perform as ABC well into the 1990s, but one of the most iconic groups of the early 1980s would never again reach the British Top 40.

ABDUL, PAULA

Born in California in 1962, Paula Abdul translated the dance training she received as a child into a coveted place as a member of the cheerleader team of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers. After joining the dancers at the age of 18, just one year later she had taken over as their choreographer, organising the group into a true crowd-pleasing spectacle and the most highly regarded performers of their era. It wasn’t long before the music business came calling, and having impressed members of The Jacksons when they sat in the crowd she was invited to be the choreographer for their 1984 Victory tour. Over the next few years she would work with several different artists as well as working in Hollywood - iconic dance scenes from movies such as Big, The Running Man and Coming To America were all her work. She had by this time earned enough money to be able to pursue a dream as a singer, spending money on voice training and calling in enough favours to land a recording contract with Virgin Records. Her vocals remained as slight as she was but, and crucially for the image-obsessed MTV era, Abdul was able to put on enough impressively visual performances to not only overcome her vocal shortcomings but also achieve a concentrated burst of quite phenomenal international success.

STRAIGHT UP

First charted: 4/3/1989

Chart peak: 3

Peak reached: 8/4/1989

Paula Abdul’s first British hit was actually her third American single, a track which was only lifted from the album when a San Francisco radio station began airing it in place of her label’s choice of The Way That You Love Me. Its British chart debut neatly coincided with the rise of the funky R&B track to the very top of the Hot 100 meaning she could be pushed hard as the latest chart-topping sensation from America. Straight Up may not have been the most earth-shatteringly brilliant pop record of its era but it was easy enough on the ear and sufficiently radio-friendly to ensure it enjoyed a positive reception. This was enough to propel the single in short order to a berth in the Top 3 the week after Easter. Her debut album, Forever Your Girl followed it a week later and made a comfortable Top 5 debut, although its full potential would have to wait a year to be unlocked.

FOREVER YOUR GIRL

First charted: 3/6/1989

Chart peak: 24

Peak reached: 17/6/1989

Paula Abdul’s second British hit single was her album’s title track and the hit record which for a long time would remain her personal signature. A breezier and somehow less intense pop record than its predecessor, Forever Your Girl was blessed with a charm and a warmth which in theory should have made it all but irresistible to record buyers and radio programmers alike. In America, this was indeed the case, and the single flew to the top of the Hot 100 to give the dancer turned singer back to back Number One hits and establish her as the most exciting new pop talent of the year. That all makes the single’s relative failure in Britain slightly harder to fathom, the track making little more than a token chart appearance, peaking six places above its initial chart entry point after a two-week climb and then vanishing quickly from sight. Musically, the song remains one of her career high points, and the accompanying video has remained a point of interest ever since, thanks mainly to the presence of an eight-year-old Elijah Wood as one of the gaggle of child dancers Paula Abdul is putting through their paces during the clip. Her next single was the UK release of her American debut (It’s Just) The Way That You Love Me, but it was largely ignored, limping to a miserable Number 74 in mid-November. She would storm back to prominence in some style in early 1990 - all thanks to an animated cat.

ADEVA

Patricia Daniels began her musical career as the director and vocal coach of her local church choir in her hometown of New Jersey. Turning professional in the mid-1980s, she quickly turned heads with a robust and startlingly bass-rich vocal tone, one which lent itself perfectly to the R&B and club hits which were fast becoming in vogue. Adopting the name Adeva (an obvious and slightly presumptuous play on words), she released her first single In And Out Of My Life on a small independent label 1988. Although a relative failure, it was enough to bring her to the attention of major record labels, and it was the UK-based Cooltempo Records who won the race for her signature and began the process of turning the newly minted diva into a major European star.

RESPECT

First charted: 14/1/1989

Chart peak: 17

Peak reached: 4/2/1989

Adeva’s debut chart single was a bold choice of material. Soul classic Respect was originally composed by Otis Redding but far and away its most famous version was the 1967 rendition by Aretha Franklin. Her take on the song had been enough to make it more or less untouchable by anyone else. But this was no straightforward remake. Adeva’s recording of Respect was a tightly produced track in a style which would soon come to be termed garage house, driven by clipped keyboards and a tightly edited bass groove. It was a subtle backing track which allowed her strident and distinctive voice to power through. Helping no end was the singer’s image, appearing stern and unsmiling in pictures, her hair cropped and shaped into a severe wedge cut. Yes, it was an aggressive female image borrowed straight from Grace Jones, but it all helped to define Adeva as a lady with a plan and an attitude, and someone who was going to bludgeon her way to success whether you liked it or not. Respect won as much praise for its production as the singer’s vocals and was a respectably sized hit, even if the Number 17 peak was slightly out of step with its universally positive reception.

WARNING!

First charted: 12/8/1989

Chart peak: 17

Peak reached: 2/9/1989

Adeva’s second chart appearance was as a guest on someone else’s record, her vocal performance on Paul Simpson’s Musical Freedom (Moving On Up) had helped the club track to a Number 22 peak in the spring. She resumed her solo assault in the summer with a single that was only ever going to cement her image as one of the fiercest women in music. Warning! was a brutal, uncompromising and assertive track in which the singer urged a wannabe suitor in the strongest possible terms not to continue leading her on. Entering the charts at the height of summer, the single embarked on what appeared to be a steady climb only to peak at the exact same position as her solo debut at the start of the year. The Paul Simpson single aside, it meant she had opened her chart account with two successive Number 17 hits. Surely Adeva wasn’t destined for a third.

I THANK YOU

First charted: 21/10/1989

Chart peak: 17

Peak reached: 28/10/1989

Yet astonishingly she was. Following the release of her self-titled debut album which had a brief Top 10 run in September, Adeva released another potential hit single. I Thank You was more measured and altogether more accessible single that in theory was her best chance yet of landing a more significant share of singles chart spoils. But once again the track stalled in mid-table, this one after just two weeks on sale. To the bemusement of everyone with half an eye on her chart form to date, Adeva landed her third Number 17 hit of the year. This almost perfect run was alas spoiled by her final single release of 1989, December release Beautiful Love stalling at Number 57. Nonetheless, she had not gone unnoticed back home, and Adeva's European success finally persuaded an American label to take a chance on her and release her album in her home country early the following year. She remained a much bigger star in Britain and would continue to land sporadic chart hits well into the 1990s. Even if none of them came close to surpassing or even equaling a Number 17 chart peak.

SEE ALSO: Paul SIMPSON

AEROSMITH

The career of one of the world’s biggest-selling rock bands of all time can be roughly divided into three distinct eras. There was their 1970s imperial phase when they were rightly regarded as rock Gods and recorded a string of classic albums. Then there were the early eighties addiction and wilderness years, swiftly followed by a celebrated comeback and by the end of the decade elevation to the status of respected veterans. It is, however, a strange curiosity that Aerosmith, in common with other American rock contemporaries such as Kiss, remained largely a well-kept secret as far as the British public were concerned. Their classic material from the height of their fame had been all but ignored on these shores with not one of their singles or albums reaching the charts. The first time mainstream British audiences became fully aware of the work of Steve Tyler, Joe Perry et al. came in 1986 when they teamed up with rap group Run DMC for the groundbreaking remake of their own classic single Walk This Way. Further progress, however, was still frustratingly slow. The big Aerosmith comeback album Permanent Vacation did at least become their first ever British chart record upon release in 1987, but its two American hit singles Dude (Looks Like A Lady) and Angel both failed to reach the Top 40.

LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR

First charted: 9/9/1989

Chart peak: 13

Peak reached: 30/9/1989

The chart success of Love In An Elevator, the first single to be taken from their tenth album Pump, was therefore nothing less than a watershed. Charting at Number 34 in its first week on release, at a stroke the raucous and raunchy track had handed the group their first ever ‘solo’ Top 40 hit single. Within a fortnight the Bruce Fairburn-produced recording was a Top 20 hit single, and it's Number 13 peak was a chart position it would take them almost a decade to surpass. The parent album followed at the end of September and charted at Number 3 to become in an instant the most successful Aerosmith album in Britain to that date. Further progress in this commercial breakthrough turned out to be harder to achieve and the album’s acclaimed second single Janie’s Got A Gun failed to duplicate its American success and narrowly missed the Top 40 in November. Aerosmith’s next hit single would not come until spring 1990 when the British arm of Geffen Records elected to revisit the older Permanent Vacation album to finally force its own classic single into the visible end of the British charts.

THE ALARM

Having begun life as a punk band called The Toilets, by the early 1980s The Alarm were considerably more flush with success, having morphed into what would become one of the most celebrated new wave rock acts of their era. Led by the distinctive voice (and haircut) of lead singer Mike Peters, the group’s unique selling point was to be Welsh and proud, with their music and lyrics steeped in the history and culture of the Valleys. Their highest charting and most famous hits had come in the first part of the decade, with enduring classic 68 Guns reaching Number 17 in 1983. The group returned to the Top 20 in late 1987 with the single Rain In The Summertime, taken from their third album Eye Of The Hurricane. This renewed success meant that the release of the follow-up two years later was eagerly anticipated.

A NEW SOUTH WALES (featuring THE MORRISTON ORPHEUS MALE VOICE CHOIR)/THE ROCK

First charted: 4/11/1989

Chart peak: 31

Peak reached: 11/11/1989

The first single from their fourth studio album Change had however been something of a disappointment. Although the group remained a huge draw in their native country, it just wasn’t enough to lift Sold Me Down The River any higher than Number 43 nationally. The single did at least make chart history of its own by featuring the same song in their native language on the b-side, effectively making it the first Welsh-sung hit in British chart history. Slightly better things were in store for the album’s second single, one which featured its most lavish production values and which was the group’s unabashed attempt to create a modern-day Welsh anthem for the ages. A New South Wales featured musical backing from the Welsh Symphony Orchestra as well as a vocal turn from the celebrated Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir (who also qualified for a full artist credit on the single). The result was a majestic, sweeping and at times almost ludicrously overblown patriotic hymn which of course played beautifully to their core audience at home but which was only ever going to be of passing interest to the rest of the country. A small acknowledgement of this came with the inclusion of The Rock (also taken from Change) which was listed as the official double A-side, but it was still A New South Wales which received the bulk of the attention, for good or ill. In a sense, it is a shame that the single could only limp to Number 31 and remains something of a footnote in the chart career of The Alarm. It was a brave move and a bold single release and one which in both concept and delivery almost without parallel. A New South Wales also featured on the simultaneously released Newid album, featuring the same tracks as Change but performed entirely in Welsh (this title translating as Hwylio Dros Y Môr). In either version, it would also be the last Top 40 single for the original incarnation of the group who dissolved in 1991 following the release of the album Raw. Although that was by no means the end of the story.

ALL ABOUT EVE

Formed by former music journalist Julianne Regan and bassist Andy Cousin, All About Eve had first made a name for themselves in 1988 with their highly-regarded self-titled debut album. Angrily fighting off the label of being goth rockers, the group charted with minor hit singles such as Every Angel and Wild Hearted Woman but saw their most significant success in the summer with the gentle ballad Martha’s Harbour which gave them their only Top 10 hit single. The group spent the early part of 1989 recording their second album Scarlet And Other Stories, a much darker-themed collection which nonetheless reached the Top 10 with some ease upon release and which also produced its own set of low-level chart hits.

ROAD TO YOUR SOUL

First charted: 30/9/1989

Chart peak: 37

Peak reached: 30/9/1989

Just before the album release came its lead single, a sprawling five and a half minute rock epic replete with a lavish, multi-layered production that stood in marked contrast to the elegant simplicity of their previous work. It was the kind of bold statement of intent that might have pushed the group to the next level of popularity had this been in their destiny. The single was instead little more than a minor Top 40 entry, spending a fortnight at Number 37 before fading away as the album was made available and it became a less essential purchase. Road To Your Soul remains one of the more diverting singles All About Eve ever released and its sheer scale and the level of ambition it represents elevates it to the status of something of a lost classic.

DECEMBER

First charted: 16/12/1989

Chart peak: 34

Peak reached: 23/12/1989

Well if you can't release a song called December at Christmas, when can you do it? With immaculate timing, the second single from the Scarlet And Other Stories album hit the shops in the second week of the month with which it shared its name and had eased its way to another minor Top 40 peak one week before the holiday itself. Another example of the darker, more ponderous nature of the group’s second album, the track invited comparisons with acts such as Robert Plant as far as its production and execution were concerned. All About Eve’s days of recording ethereal tracks about angels were clearly behind them, but it was hard to escape the ugly truth that the hits remained frustratingly small.

ALLEN, DONNA

A mainstay of the Florida music scene for much of the early 1980s, Donna Allen spent time as a performer in local bands such as Hi-Octane and Trama before electing to go solo in search of national success. Her 1986 debut album Perfect Timing spawned the smash hit single Serious which climbed to Number 8 in Britain in the spring of the following year, although the album itself went mostly overlooked and subsequent single releases missed the charts altogether. Her second album Heaven On Earth followed in late 1988, but its initial lukewarm reception suggested it was unlikely to repair the damage and resurrect her chart career.

JOY AND PAIN

First charted: 3/6/1989

Chart peak: 10

Peak reached: 1/7/1989

Salvation came in the form of a suitably inspired choice of cover. Joy And Pain began life as the title track to the 1980 fourth album by noted R&B group Maze. Penned, as was much of the group’s material, by lead singer Frankie Beverley, the track attracted little attention at the time. Donna Allen’s version was nothing less than the rediscovery of a forgotten classic. A respectful updating of the original, her take on Joy And Pain had the enormous good fortune to ride the wave of the soul and house collision which had swept clubland during the summer of 1989 and rose up the British charts with what seemed like effortless ease. A five-week climb saw the single grab a week inside the Top 10 to finally give the American star a follow-up to stand beside her 1987 monster. Oddly enough this was once more a one-off. The Heaven On Earth album remained resolutely unpurchased despite its hit single and Donna Allen’s second single release of the year Can We Talk just missed the Top 75 chart later in the summer. Her next hits would not arrive until 1995, via a somewhat unexpected career revival after her original vocal for Serious was sampled by Strike for their club smash U Sure Do.

ALMOND, MARC

Former Soft Cell frontman Marc Almond released his fourth solo album The Stars We Are in late 1988. Its first single Tears Run Rings had handed him his first Top 30 hit in three years when it reached Number 26 that September, but its immediate follow-up Bitter Sweet had managed a solitary week at Number 40. Lacking a sizable hit single, the album itself had disappointed and had vanished from the charts altogether within three weeks of its release. Hardly the kind of form which suggested that its third single would become the biggest hit of Almond’s post-Soft Cell career. Salvation, and perhaps a tiny bit of magic, came in the form of a brand new contribution from a faded 1960s pop legend.

SOMETHING’S GOTTEN HOLD OF MY HEART (with Gene PITNEY)

First charted: 14/1/1989

Chart peak: 1

Peak reached: 28/1/1989

Chart of 1989: Number 6

Written by the celebrated songwriting team of Greenaway and Cook, Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart had reached Number 5 for American singer Gene Pitney at the tail end of 1967. The version recorded by Almond for his The Stars We Are album was initially a solo turn, but for its single release the inspired decision was made to invite the man most closely associated with the song to perform it as a duet. Gene Pitney and Marc Almond were never in the studio together to record the song, the 49-year-old American star admitting during the promotion of the single that he booked himself into a studio with the backing tape and prayed that Almond’s arrangement remained within his vocal range.

Despite being the product of some creative tape splicing, the resulting track turned out to be something quite magical. The first verse features Almond alone, Pitney gliding into the mix only after a minute has elapsed in a manner which presents him almost as a returning hero. By the song’s climax the voices of the two men have merged into one in a quite spine-tingling manner. Although surely only intended to be a curiosity with its fair share of novelty value, the single somehow captured the imagination of a large audience in the otherwise barren weeks of the new year. After two weeks on sale, the single had reached Number 10 and appeared to have reached its natural peak. Then on Wednesday 18th January, the two men appeared together on the BBC’s Wogan chat show to be interviewed before a performance of the song - famously with Pitney in a white tuxedo and Almond dressed head to toe in leather. The very next day sales of the record shot through the roof, outselling the rest of the singles market for the next three days. It was enough to overwhelm the rest of the competition and send the single soaring to the top of the charts, a position it was to occupy for a month.

For Marc Almond, it was his first Number One hit since Soft Cell’s Tainted Love seven years earlier and in the process made him only the second artist in chart history to top the charts as a member of two different duos (George Michael being the first). The single was a triumphant first chart-topper for Gene Pitney. He’d come close on two occasions, 1964 single I’m Gonna Be Strong, and 1966’s Nobody Needs Your Love had both hit Number 2, but with his last hit single having come in 1974 this was undoubtedly one of the most unexpected comebacks of the decade. With his first hit single charting in 1961, Pitney established a brand new record for the longest gap between chart debut and reaching Number One with a brand new recording. The only artist to wait longer for a Number One hit, Jackie Wilson, had done so posthumously in 1986 with a re-release.

The success of the single turned out to be an unexpected bonus for Almond, the singer subsequently noting with amusement that it resulted in his being approached in public by middle-aged ladies who told him how much they had enjoyed his album. After five years of struggle, he was finally established once and for all as a solo star and much of his subsequent 1990s success can be attributed to this smash hit. Gene Pitney never made the British charts again, but he continued to perform to live audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. He was in the middle of another high profile tour of Britain in 2006 when he passed away from a heart attack in his Cardiff hotel room at the age of just 66.

AND WHY NOT?

Hailing from Birmingham, And Why Not? Were a three-piece band specialising in pop-reggae. A UB40 for a new generation if you will. Snapped up by Island Records, they were seen as a significant priority, lavished with marketing attention and pushed to pop magazines as the next big thing in waiting. All they needed was a sizable debut hit to justify the attention.

RESTLESS DAYS (SHE SCREAMS OUT LOUD)

First charted: 14/10/1989

Chart peak: 38

Peak reached: 11/11/1989

The trio’s first single duly dropped in early autumn with the requisite amount of hype and a suitably lavish budget for the eye-catching video which saw the group moved around on pistons as they sang. Restless Days for all its jauntiness dealt with some quite dark subject matter, the song recounting the inner torment of a schizophrenic woman. After a slow start, one which included two weeks locked at Number 45 and appearing in danger of not making the Top 40 at all, the single finally poked its nose above the parapet only to stall once more. Restless Days has the strange honour of being the only Top 40 hit of the year not to be granted a play on the Radio One chart show, not for any reasons of restricted airplay, but all thanks to a Sunday afternoon fire at the headquarters of compilers Gallup which led to a makeshift chart broadcast with many sales missing. The stopgap listing had Restless Days falling short, the single only promoted to Top 40 status when the full data was available the following day. Had the single climbed it would possibly have merited a chart show play the next week, but instead it stalled in place at Number 38, was ignored by the producers and was destined never to progress further. For And Why Not? it was at least a start, but it was clear this was some way short of everyone's expectations. They would start again from scratch in the new year.

ASTLEY, RICK

The performer of 1987's biggest selling single continued his run of success during the following year. Having exhausted his debut album for potential singles, he released the follow-up Hold Me In Your Arms towards the end of 1988. Its promotional campaign had opened well with two strong Top 10 hit singles in the shape of She Wants To Dance With Me and Take Me To Your Heart, but it was all too apparent that Rick Astley's golden period was drawing to a close. He may well have been one of the first home-brewed discoveries of the Stock-Aitken-Waterman stable, but it was hard to escape the feeling that the songs the trio had contributed to his second album weren’t as strong as before. Rick Astley had spread his songwriting wings this time around well, material which critics saw as even more uneven.

HOLD ME IN YOUR ARMS

First charted: 11/2/1989

Chart peak: 10

Peak reached: 25/2/1989

Not that there was anything wrong with the album’s title track, another Astley composition and one which was elevated to become its third single at the very start of the new year. A sweet soul ballad, very much reminiscent of the work of Gregory Abbott, Hold Me In Your Arms saw the singer in his best crooning mode for a slow jam which may not have been the most immediate of pop smashes but still found a more than enthusiastic audience. At the height of midwinter, the single eased its way to a Number 10 peak, giving Rick Astley his seventh straight Top 10 hit single and maintaining his 100% strike rate - albeit only just. Hold Me In Your Arms would be his final single of the decade, and indeed for the next couple of years. The singer took a break from what had been a relentless schedule and took his time over the recording of his third album, a record which would not appear until 1991.

ASWAD

After over a decade as a highly regarded yet resolutely uncommercial reggae act, Aswad finally went mainstream in 1988. It was primarily thanks to their Distant Thunder album, and in particular, its two Diane Warren-penned hit singles Don’t Turn Around and Give A Little Love, the former rescued from obscurity as a Tina Turner B-side to become a Number One smash hit. With the trio now theoretically fully established as household names, it seemed only appropriate to gather together their past work for the benefit of new fans. Hence the 1989 release of Crucial Tracks which traced their origins from their roots-reggae days in the 1970s to the chart-friendly pop act of the present, although it was beaten into the shops at the end of 1988 by an almost identically-titled compilation by Stylus Records who had cheaply licensed some of the group’s earlier work and quickly cashed in.

BEAUTY’S ONLY SKIN DEEP

First charted: 1/4/1989

Chart peak: 31

Peak reached: 15/4/1989

This new commercial direction may well have irritated longtime followers of the group, but they continued to pitch for mainstream success with a brand new single recorded especially for the newly released hits collection. Beauty’s Only Skin Deep was already an established classic thanks to the version The Temptations had taken to Number 18 in 1966. Aswad’s version theoretically had all the ingredients of a smash hit single: a bubbly synth line, finger clicking rhythms and the effortless appeal of being a well-established pop standard. It all still felt somewhat artificial, a recording which smacked of record company imposition rather than full creative desire. You didn't have to have followed the group's career all the way since the 1970s to come away with the feeling that they were better than this. Despite high levels of airplay the single fell badly short of expectations, limping into the Top 40 at Easter and failing to progress beyond Number 31 during a six-week chart run.

ON AND ON

First charted: 22/7/1989

Chart peak: 25

Peak reached: 19/8/1989

Fortune smiled slightly more broadly on the group’s second single release of the year. Although mostly unfamiliar to British audiences, On And On had initially been a major American hit for its composer Stephen Bishop in 1977. The radio edit of the Aswad version was startlingly close to the acoustic rock style of the original, and indeed could be found on at least one of its formats in a more traditional sounding reggae mix to satisfy those who wondered if the group were determined to abandon their roots once and for all. Number 25 at least made it their biggest hit single since Give A Little Love a year earlier, but it was all too apparent that the pop approach had played itself out. Aswad would return to the charts in 1990 having plugged themselves into the prevailing trends for dance music, reinventing themselves as Ragga stars along the way.

BAKER, ARTHUR AND THE BACKBEAT DISCIPLES

Originally a DJ in Boston, Arthur Baker moved to New York in the 1980s from where he quickly established himself as one of the most influential dance producers of his age. Pioneering the art of sampling, using clips from older singles as the basis for new work, he was at the helm of such seminal classics as Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock and IOU by Freeez. He was also in high demand as a remixer and over the course of the decade had helped to transform records by artists as diverse as Cyndi Lauper, Bruce Springsteen and Hall & Oates as well as working with British acts such as New Order and The Pet Shop Boys. By the late 1980s, the name of Arthur Baker on your record was a guarantee of club play and chart hit potential. In between, he still found the time to make his own music. He had last made the British charts at the tail end of 1987 when as Wally Jump Jnr and The Criminal Element he had landed a Top 30 hit single with a hip-hop inspired cover of Archie Bell’s Tighten Up. In 1989 Baker released the album Merge, performing for the first time in many years under his own name. Alongside the musicians who formed the Backbeat Disciples the album featured a series of guest stars on lead vocals, but it was one of the biggest soul names of all which produced the album's most significant international hit single.

THE MESSAGE IS LOVE (featuring Al GREEN)

First charted: 21/10/1989

Chart peak: 38

Peak reached: 4/11/1989