Fine Young Cannibals 'Johnny Come Home'

Chart Peak: 8

YouTube

It's pretty much irrational of me I know, but I've always hated videos set in recording studios. Seriously guys, unless you've got some clever twist going on you're fooling nobody: we know you don't all stand about wearing make up with your back to the drummer (and shouldn't you be singing into a microphone?). I'm prepared to forgive them a little because they probably weren't given much of a location budget for their first single, and they do at least add a little silliness with their dance moves.

It's an interesting metaphor, in a way, because the finished record has a certain lightness of touch and a jolly oomph in the rhythm track. That and Roland Gift's distinctive (if somewhat unintelligible) vocal go some way to sugar-coating the dark subject matter of this song. Johnny is a kid (of not entirely specified age) who's run off to the big city and found it's not all it was cracked up to be. A protagonist implores him to come call his mum and come home - but then also repeats in every chorus that "we're sorry". And somebody's asking "What is wrong with my life that I must get drunk every night?" Perhaps that's Johnny himself reflecting on his troubles, or maybe the narrator of the rest of the song has been driven to drink by his absence... but the more obvious conclusion is that drink has made him(?) do what he's sorry for and occasioned Johnny's departure in the first place. It's to the song's credit though that it doesn't hammer you over the head with this, preferring to let you wonder as you listen to that excellent muted trumpet.

Also appearing on: Now 6, 14, 16 (CD only)
Available on: The Platinum Collection

Harold Faltermeyer 'Axel F'

Chart Peak: 2

YouTube

Needless to say, I wasn't allowed to see Beverley Hills Cop until much later than this, but this instrumental was very familiar to me long before I knew what it was called (and even longer before I knew why). I don't particularly remember it as a hit they way I do with something like 'Crockett's Theme' but I suppose it was used as background music on the telly and stuff like that.

It's an obvious point that I'm sure I've made before, but there's little in the field of human endeavour that seems to stand the test of time less well than mid-eighties synthesiser instrumentals. Such was the march of techology that even by the time this record was ten years old (maybe even five) what was state-of-the art sounded like the sort of thing kids would do at school. Fifteen more years down the line and this sounds almost primitive, the sort of thing that even the smallest portable electronic devices should be able to outdo. In some ways that's a little unfortunate, because melodically it's simple but remarkably effective - one might even say annoyingly effective, so difficult is it to forget. Trouble is, it doesn't really make that much sense when you can't see Judge Reinhold running along during it.

Available on: True Disco (3 CD Set)

Scritti Politti 'The Word Girl'

Chart Peak: 6

LiveVideo

Apologies for the break in transmission, I wasn't feeling too well and thought I should be in full command of my faculties to give this track a sporting chance.

It's a slighty oddity that Scritti's biggest UK hit seems to be about the only one not on YouTube at time of writing (should you be reading this in the future, you can always try your own search).

I'm sure I've said this before, but I never really know what to make of most of Green's work, which it's often easier to be impressed than moved by. There's some clever tricksiness in this song, with the pseudo-Biblical "How your flesh and blood became the word" - this title is apparently to be parsed as "the word 'girl'" rather than being about a word-girl - and the production is so spotless you could eat your dinner off it. But for all the influence of soul and reggae music, the finished article comes over as a bit more of an essay than a pop song. Even though I can appreciate it more fully than I did when I was only seven, I find myself enjoying it less, today at least.

Also appearing on: Now 12, 19
Available on: Cupid and Psyche '85

Duran Duran 'A View To A Kill'

Chart Peak: 2

YouTube

Second time lucky, I'm finally going to tackle Now 5 this time. And maybe that was the right verb, because the very first track made a bit of a dent in my enthusiasm, as I seem to have exhausted my current allocation of Duran Duran tolerance.

'A View To A Kill' has a place in history as the highest-charting James Bond theme in the UK (and indeed in the US, where it got to the very top of the chart), but for all that it doesn't seem the most remembered of them. Nor indeed does the film, which is why I'm not entirely sure whether I've actually seen it: the clips in the video look familiar, but that might just be from seeing the video itself at the time. To be fair, the ridiculousness of the Bond films is a good fit for the band, who I can never take seriously for all the huffing and puffing and earnest psuedo-funk of this track. And to their credit, they seem to have entered into the spirit of things in the aforemented promo video, although I'm not sure whether that beret is supposed to be funny or not. It still feels a bit of a throwaway, but in Duran terms I don't always consider that a bad thing.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 2, 3, 8, 13, 24, 25, 31
Available on: Best of Bond...James Bond

E'Voke 'Runaway'

Chart Peak: 30

YouTube

This record was off to a bad start, because even the name of the act irritated me. I've always found these sort of quirky dance-act spellings a bit of a pain; I can just about forgive N-Trance as a recogniseable pun on the word "trance" but I've never heard of a "voke". It'd be like Jarvis Cocker calling his band P'ulp.

Speaking of N-Trance, this single is a fairly obvious copy of their frequent hit 'Set You Free'. Apparently both of E'voke were actresses, one of whom was in Eastenders for a while, but I don't remember either them or the song from the time. In fact, I barely remember it from ten minutes ago when I last listened to it. It's an underwhelming end to what has otherwise been one of the best albums I've ever covered on here, in my biased opinion. You can find out for yourself with this embedded playlist (may not work outside the UK), which covers as much as I could find of the album.

Free music - Now 32

Available on: Wow (What a Rush) Vol.9

Wild Colour 'Dreams'

Chart Peak: 25

YouTube

The Perfecto production team of Oakenfold & Osborne are behind this massive club cover of the Fleetwood Mac standard 'Dreams'... It is the latest hit for the label who have had a great year with hits from Grace, B.T. and the Perfecto Allstarz amongst others.

I don't suppose you'd expect a lot of modesty from people who adopted the stagename Perfecto, but I presume it's somehow related to the press released that there's no mention of the nominal performer in that sleeve note. There is a picture of a crouching woman with corkscrew hair, who I suppose is meant to be Wild Colour, but no indication of what her name might be. The Internet doesn't seem in any rush to tell me either.

They might have been onto something with the idea of covering this song in a dance style. A couple of years later the Corrs scored their breakthrough UK with their version as remixed by Todd Terry (him again!) whilst Deep Dish went the whole hog in 2006 by bringing in the actual Stevie Nicks to sing it again and were rewarded with a Top 20 appearance. But this attempt peaked one place lower than the original during a far shorter run and without the excuse of coming off a multi-million-selling album. Believe me, I'm no great fan of this song in any version, but whoever the singer is could at best be accused of misreading the lyric, failing even to notice the pseudo-mystical elements of it. And the backing track smacks of hubris, merely recycling the most generic mid-nineties dance production elements. It deserved to be no more of a hit than it was.

Available on: Perfection - a Perfecto Compilation: Mixed Live By Paul Oakenfold

Happy Clappers 'I Believe'

Chart Peak: 7 (original version 21)

YouTube

I could hardly escape remembering this one, as it was a hit three times in four years, and there was the extra aide-memoire of so many other songs of the same title charting around that time. What I hadn't fully recalled was how heavily they laid on the gospel motifs, although that's not entirely surprising given the title.

Of course, it's not really a gospel record, just a dance track that borrows those trappings. Fundamentally, it's much the same idea as The Original - a decent chorus repeated ad infinitum. I have to admit I don't mind this one as much as post, possibly because I can appreciate the joyful mood more in this case. Still not a record I love but it seems more like fun. According to Wikipedia, one of the former Clappers is now a chef who makes a pudding without flour.

Available on: Put Your Hands Up: the Biggest Club Anthems of All Time