Girls on Top!
There are few summers as hot and as fuelled by Pop as those very few,
special ones. One such summer I remember was 1988. I’ll come back to 1995
another day as that was even better, but discussion of 1988 fulfils my
current ‘80s criteria very nicely, thank you very much.
The hits of the late ‘80s had a refreshingly sunny disposition about them.
On further thought, I have to admit some of them seem more vacant and
uncreative than anything released in the early part of the decade. Most of
them seemed to feature horrible tinny drum machines. Not to mention plenty
of film samples of people shouting "Aye-Yeahhh!!!" and "This is a journey
into sound…S-s-s-s-tereophonic sound!" After 18 months certain trends can
really get on your wick, I can tell you.
I always think of 1988 being the year when the single started to die. By
the end of 1989 New Kids on the block managed a number one hit on the
least copies since the chart began. In 1991 Iron Maiden made another
dubious record by spending the last weeks on the chart with a number one
single. But then again, that was Maiden who’s loyal (but finite) fan base
had pushed them up there in the first place, creating the 5 week wonder
that was "Bring your daughter (to the slaughter)".
But in 1988 the single still ruled, but the signs were there that big
changes were afoot. The bands that had held the charts in their grip had
let go by then. The boys were struggling. Duran Duran did have a top
twenty album and single later that year, but it felt like an anomaly that
already had the feeling of a first revival. A-ha, who had been massive
from ’85-‘87, were producing sub-standard cheese like "Touchy". Wham! had
disbanded in 1986 and by ’88 George Michael was making records that were
probably more worthy but generally not as fun.
The big difference about the charts in 1988 was that they
were overrun with teenage girls. Remember them? "Neighbours" era Kylie,
Vanessa Paradis, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Patsy Kensit (in Eighth Wonder),
Sabrina, to be followed by Sonia the next year. Also, Bananarama were
having a reversal of fortune and Sinitta was still around. This was the
time of contrived, conveyer belt pop. The ingredients were pretty girls
and catchy tunes. Yep, we can count Big Fun in there as well. Although
Rick Astley had a deep voice, so I suppose he must have been a boy. The
factory producing this sweet, aural toffee was that of Stock, Aitken and
Waterman, who produced much of the hit quotient that year. From 1987-89 it
was like SAW were the milk chocolate covering the nougat filling of the
top 40. Something sweet like that, anyway.
1988 is often referred to as "The second Summer of Love". For those
completely ignorant of pop culture, this is a reference to 1967 when
certain people took to wearing flowers in their hair, getting into Indian
music and wearing kaftans. Some of them actually enjoyed doing this. I
read that somewhere. Anyway, the connection between the two years was
illicit drugs, albeit two notably different substances. To a then 15 year
old, none of this would impact (personally) for another two or three
years. But the seeds of the early ‘90s dance music scene were sown in the
late ‘80s; and the drug known as ‘E’ became as synonymous with it as LSD
had been with the hippies of the ‘60s.
In some ways the late ‘80s seem more synthetic than anything from the
first half of the decade, and no drug ever seemed so synthetic than "E".
Yet for all this talk of drugs and the club scene, the change in the
charts was more subtle. Foam parties may have been going on in Manchester
but for most the city was the same as ever. But underground, beneath the
SAW chocolate factory, a new revolution was starting and the heat of "Acid
house" slowly began to melt their dominance of the chart. By
1991 dance music normally heard in the clubs was rife in the charts, and SAW’s grip on the top ten had ended. Things had come a long way since the
emergence of House music in the mid ‘80s.
In the charts, during the summer of 1988, there were several hints of this
sun soaked hedonism going on in Ibiza. Mark Moore’s S-Express scored a
no.1 with "The theme from.." which was full of retrospective leanings.
This marked the first sign that the 1970s were going to be troubling us
again, but was quite welcome for my generation. Nostalgia sells. D-Mob and
Salt n’ Pepa were making ridiculous noises in a slightly fashionable way,
but by the autumn even the rappers were back to being fairly
uncontroversial, for a while at least. The Wee papa girl rappers were
certainly not Public Ememy. A new mainstream hope did appear though, in
the shape of the wonderful Neneh Cherry.
So I don’t really have a point to reminiscing about 1988, apart from to
say the memories are fairly vivid and so was the music. Most of the chart
fodder was so cheesy, I’m surprised the NOW compilation covers don’t have
holes in them.
Yet most of it is quite charming and always cheery. But
most of it would drive you insane if you had to endure it, Chinese water
torture style. Still, it’s a time when pop had found a magic formula and
felt no reason to cast any other spell. So what if they all sounded the
same? When the boys had been relegated to second place, it was the girls
that were on top. I think a lot of people quite liked that.
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