3 December 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	13	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	10	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
3	3	15	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
4	5	9	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
5	4	8	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
6	6	12	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	7	10	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
8	9	9	Call Me	–	Spagna
9	10	14	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
10	14	5	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
11	11	16	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
12	8	7	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
13	13	19	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
14	12	19	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
15	28	4	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
16	15	6	Crazy	–	Icehouse
17	17	9	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
18	16	10	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
19	27	3	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson
20	24	3	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
21	25	3	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
22	29	2	Causing a Commotion	–	Madonna
23	19	7	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
24	New	1	Faith	–	George Michael
25	RE	3	Persona Non Grata	–	Gino Vannelli
26	21	14	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
27	20	28	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
28	22	6	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
29	18	23	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
30	30	2	What Have I Done to Deserve This	–	Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield

Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ became the 45^th song to manage 7 weeks at number 1 as it continued to hold off the challenge from Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ which spent a 3^rd week at number 2. The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ still lurked in the top 3, sitting at number 3 for a 3^rd week.

John Cougar Mellencamp’s ‘Paper In Fire’ set the all time record climb for a song that had previously picked up a biggest faller award as it jump back up 13 places from 28 to 15 this week. It had been the faller of the week the previous week and the climber the week before that and was the 7^th song to have 3 consecutive weeks alternating between climber and faller. It was the 18^th song overall to climb 13 or more in a week and the 9^th to climb 11 or more in 1987, a new record for a calendar year.

There were 5 other star raters and these were Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ (up 4 from 14 to 10), Danny Wilson’s ‘Mary’s Prayer’ (up 8 from 27 to 19), Billy Idol’s ‘Mony Mony’ (up 4 from 24 to 20), T’Pau’s ‘Heart And Soul’ (up 4 from 25 to 21) and Madonna’s ‘Causing A Commotion’ (up 7 from 29 to 23). It was Cliff Richard’s 24^th star rater climb, but he still sat 3^rd overall with Abba on 28 and The Bee Gees on 31 above him. Madonna joined Elton John and Tom Jones 1 behind Cliff on 23. ‘Mary’s Prayer’ and ‘Mony Mony’, along with ‘Paper In Fire’, were the three new entries into the top 20. ‘My Pretty One’ was the climber within the top 20. ‘Mary’s Prayer’ had the honour of being the 3,000^th song to have a star rater climb.

Depeche Mode’s ‘Strangelove’ became the 17^th song to drop 11 or more in a week as it fell 11 places from 18 to 29. It was joined in leaving the top 20 by Depeche Mode’s other hit, ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ and Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’. Depeche Mode were the 5^th act to see 2 songs leave the top 20 in the same week with Connie Francis, Four Jacks & A Jill, Mac Davis and Modern Talking being the others to have suffered this fate. ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ had been the oldest in the top 20 last week and this honour now fell to Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ which had been in that part of the chart for 19 weeks.

‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ did become the oldest in the top 30 (sitting on 28 weeks) as the previous oldest, Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’, was 1 of 2 songs leaving the charts. Last week it had been the climber of the week and was the 9^th song to pick up a climber award and the 6^th to climb 5 or more in its last week on the chart. In total it spent 31 weeks on the charts and peaked at 3. This ended the band’s SA chart career. They had managed 3 hits, spent 68 weeks in the charts and sat at 1 for 2 weeks with ‘We Built This City’. This set a new record for weeks for an act managing 3 hits, going past the 59 weeks that Paul Simon had managed.

Also going was Bananarama’s ‘I Heard A Rumour’ which managed 6 weeks and a peak of 23. It was the first of their 5 hits so far not to make the top 10. They had 1 more hit to come.

We saw George Michael’s 5^th solo hit make our charts in the form of the title track of his album ‘Faith’. His previous hit, ‘I Want Your Sex’ had not performed all that well, only peaking at 23 so he would have been hoping for a better showing from ‘Faith’. George wrote and produced the track which would go to the top of the charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and the US and would go on to be ranked the biggest single of 1988 in the US. In the UK it would spend 2 weeks at 2, stuck behind The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’ (our number 5 hit this week) and would peak at 8 in Zimbabwe. On the local radio stations it had a clean sweep of number 1’s going to the top of the Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts.

Gina Vannelli’s ‘Persona Non Grata’ became the 71^st song to re-enter the charts and it was the first by a Canadian act to do so. This was the 11^th re-entry we had seen in 1987 and this was the second most we had seen in a calendar year with the 13 we saw in 1972 being the record.

Madonna moved into tied 1st place for weeks on the charts by a female act. Her total was now 136 and she joined Barbara Ray in 11^th place overall. However, Madonna still had a bit to go to catch up to Barbara for top 20 weeks as she was on 99 top 20 weeks (and sitting 24^th overall) while Barbara Ray was on 129 weeks.

For a 3^rd week running we saw at least 1 act with songs sitting in adjacent positions in the charts as Michael Jackson sat at 11 and 12 with ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ and ‘Bad’ respectively. This was only the 2^nd run of 3 weeks with an act having songs sitting next to each other. The previous run of 3 weeks would go on to become a 5 week run.

Viktor Lazlo helped moved the Belgian acts on to 41 top 20 weeks in the charts and this moved them level with the Austrians. The two nations sat tied 19^th overall on that list.

Youtube playlist:

26 November 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	12	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	9	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
3	3	14	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
4	5	7	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
5	4	8	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
6	6	11	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	7	9	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
8	8	6	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
9	13	8	Call Me	–	Spagna
10	10	13	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
11	9	15	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
12	11	18	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
13	12	18	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
14	19	4	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
15	18	5	Crazy	–	Icehouse
16	14	9	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
17	16	8	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
18	15	22	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
19	17	6	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
20	20	27	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
21	21	13	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
22	22	5	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
23	28	31	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
24	25	2	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
25	29	2	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
26	23	6	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
27	30	2	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson
28	24	3	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
29	New	1	Causing a Commotion	–	Madonna
30	New	1	What Have I Done to Deserve This	–	Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield

‘La’ Bamba’ moved on to 6 weeks at number 1 but it still had Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ to contend with as this sat at 2 for a second week.

The climbers of the week were Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ and Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ which both moved up 5 to land at 14 and 23 respectively. ‘My Pretty One’ was the climber within the top 20 and it was Cliff’s 8^th award. He was the 20^th and would be the last act to manage this many climbers. He also had by far the highest weeks count for an act getting to 8 biggest climbers as he was on 206 weeks. The next highest had been Abba who took 127 weeks to get to 8. ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ was the oldest in the charts, sitting on 31 weeks and this smashed the previous record for weeks in the charts by a song when seeing a biggest climber. The previous best was 21 weeks which Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ managed. It was also the 5^th star rater climb for the ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ and this was second best with only The Staccato’s ‘Cry To Me’ (which managed 6) having done better. It was also the 31^st song to pick up a climber of the week award after having earned a faller of the week.

Apart from the 2 climbers, we also saw Spagna’s ‘Call Me’ and T’Pau’s ‘Heart And Soul’ make star rater climbs as they both moved up 4 to land at 9 and 25 respectively.

John Cougar Mellencamp’s ‘Paper In Fire’ took the biggest fall as it dropped 4 from 24 to 28. Within the top 20 it was Depeche Mode’s ‘Strangelove’ which fell the most, dropping 3 from 15 to 18.

There was no movement on or off the top 20 so Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ enjoyed a 6^th week as the oldest in that part of the chart. It was on 24 top 20 weeks and was the 27^th song to manage this many.

While there was no movement on or off the top 20 we saw 2 songs leave the top 30 and both of them were by Gino Vannelli. This was the 4^th time an act had seen 2 songs leave the chart in the same week. Connie Francis, Four Jacks & A Jill and Mac Davis were the previous acts to see this happen to them. The first of Vannelli’s leavers was ‘Wild Horses’ which managed 23 weeks and spent 1 week at 1. The other was ‘Persona Non Grata’ which managed just 2 weeks and its final position of 26 was the highest it got.

Madonna’s ‘Causing A Commotion’ was the first of the new entries this week and with ‘Who’s That Girl’ sitting at 10, this was her 7^th different pairing of songs in the chart and [spoiler alert] this would be the all-time highest any act would see. It was Madonna’s 10^th hit to make our charts and she was the 25^th act to clock up this many hits and she moved into outright second place for number of hits by a female act, moving 1 ahead of Olivia Newton-John and sitting 1 behind Petula Clark. Like ‘Who’s That Girl’, ‘Causing A Commotion’ was also taken from the ‘Who’s That Girl’ film soundtrack, a film in which Madonna starred. She co-wrote the song with Stephen Bray who had also helped pen her SA chart hits ‘Into The Groove’ and ‘True Blue’. The song just missed out on topping the charts in Belgium, Canada, Ireland and the US, peaking at 2 in all of those nations. It also got close in Iceland, Italy and The Netherlands where it got to 3. In the UK it peaked at 4. It would have better luck on the Radio 5 charts where it did manage to get to number 1 but would only make it to 3 on the Capital 604 charts and not make the 702 ones.

Last week we had seen the end of a 40 week run with a duet in the chart and that drought lasted just 1 week as the second new entry brought together the unlikely pairing of the Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield. Springfield (real name Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien), had seen a string of hits in the 60’s but these had diminished during the 70’s and before ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This’, she had only seen 1 UK hit in the 80’s in the form of 1985’s ‘Sometimes Like Butterflies’ which only got to 83. The Pet Shop Boys’ record label had suggested they team up with Tina Turner or Barbra Streisand and weren’t keen on Dusty, however, the band’s lead singer, Neil Tennant, insisted and they ended up with a number 2 hit on both sides of the Atlantic (stuck behind Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ for 2 weeks in the UK and behind Expose’s ‘Seasons Change’ for 1 week and then behind George Michael’s ‘Father Figure’ for a further week in the US). It did manage to top the Irish charts and had a clean sweep of number 1’s across the Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts. At 48 years and 7 months old, Dusty was the second oldest woman to chart on our charts but was a fair bit younger than Eartha Kitt had been when she charted with ‘Where Is My Man’ back in 1983. Eartha had been just over 57 years old.

The American acts celebrated their 9,000^th week in the chart and, counting from the top down, it was Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ which had the honour of picking up that milestone. This excludes songs where an American act duetted with an act from another nation.

Chris Rea celebrated reaching 30 weeks in the charts, Depeche Mode made it to 60 and The Bee Gees moved on to 210 and sat 2^nd, 27 weeks behind leaders Abba. 88 acts had made it to 60 weeks and 251 to 30 weeks. In terms of percentages, 7.3% had made it to 60 and 20.8% had made it to 30.

For a second week running we saw an act have songs in adjacent positions on the charts and this week it was Depeche Mode who were at 18 with ‘Strangelove’ and 19 with ‘Never Let Me Down Again’.

We had 4 acts now with 2 in the charts (Depeche Mode, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Pet Shop Boys) and this was the 4^th time we had seen this many which was the record to date.

Youtube playlist:

19 November 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	11	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	3	8	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
3	2	13	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
4	4	7	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
5	5	6	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
6	6	10	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	10	8	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
8	14	5	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
9	9	14	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
10	8	12	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
11	7	17	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
12	12	17	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
13	11	7	Call Me	–	Spagna
14	15	8	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
15	13	21	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
16	16	7	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
17	17	5	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
18	22	4	Crazy	–	Icehouse
19	21	3	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
20	18	26	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
21	19	12	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
22	26	4	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
23	23	5	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
24	30	2	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
25	New	1	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
26	29	2	Persona Non Grata	–	Gino Vannelli
27	20	23	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
28	28	30	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
29	New	1	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
30	New	1	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson

Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ enjoyed a 4^th week at the top of our charts but it had a new number 2 song to contend with as Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ moved up 1 from 3 to 2 and the previous chart topper, Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ fell from 2 to 3 after having sat at 2 for 3 weeks.

The climber of the week award was shared between Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ and John Cougar Mellencamp’s ‘Paper In Fire’ which both moved up 6 to land at 8 and 24 respectively. ‘Bad’ would be the top 20’s biggest climber. There were 2 other star raters and these were Icehouse’s ‘Crazy’ (up 4 from 22 to 18) and Living In A Box’s ‘Scales Of Justice’ (up 4 from 26 to 22). ‘Crazy’ was a new entry into the top 20 along with Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ which climbed from 21 to 19.

Falling honours went to Gina Vannelli’s ‘Wild Horses’ which dropped 7 from 20 to 27. He was sitting on 35 weeks in the charts and this was the tied 21^st highest weeks count for an act seeing their first faller award. It was joined in leaving the top 20 by Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Seven Wonders’. The faller within the top 20 was Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ which dropped 4 from 7 to 11.

There was no change in the oldest song in the top 20 and the top 30 with Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ being the oldest in the top 20 on 22 weeks and Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ being the top 30 granddaddy sitting on 30 weeks. It was the 10^th song to reach the milestone of 30 weeks in the charts.

Dionne Warwick and Jeffrey Osbourne’s ‘Love Power’ was the first of 5 songs to leave the charts this week. It had been with us for 11 weeks and peaked at 19. This would be Osbourne’s only SA chart hit and would mark the end of the road for Dionne Warwick. She had seen 4 hits and spent a total of 49 weeks in the chart with a best peak of 3 which ‘(Theme From) Valley Of The Dolls’ managed. This excludes the hit by Dionne & Friends which if added in gives her 5 hits, 71 weeks and a best peak of 2 which ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ managed.

John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ lasted 22 weeks and peaked at 4. He still had 1 more hit to come.

The last of the leavers was Fine Young Cannibals’ ‘Ever Fallen In Love’ which spent 23 weeks with us, 5 of which were at 1. They too were seeing the end of the SA chart career with 2 hits under the belt and a total of 35 weeks. Their other hit, ‘Johnny Come Home’ had peaked at 12.

‘Mony Mony’ became the 58^th song to chart in 2 or more different versions as Billy Idol’s cover of the 1968 Tommy James & The Shondells hit was the first new entry. Tommy Jones’ version had made it to number 5 in our charts. Idol had originally recorded the song back in 1981, but it was the 1987 live version of it that was the hit which went to number 1 in the US. The earlier version did get to number 7 on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. Elsewhere the live version would get to 8 in Australia, 1 in Canada, 38 in Germany, 89 in The Netherlands, 13 in Switzerland, 2 in New Zealand, 7 in the UK and 11 in Zimbabwe. The only radio chart it would make would be the 702 ones where it got to number 7. This would be Idol’s 4^th SA chart hit.

The second new entry was British band T’Pau’s ‘Heart And Soul’. The band took their name from one of the Vulcan elders in the TV series ‘Star Trek’. ‘Heart And Soul’ would gain popularity in the US after being used in an ad for Pepe Jeans and climbed to 4 on the charts there. Only after this US success did it make the UK charts (about 3 months after it entered the US charts) and would also climb to 4 there. Elsewhere it fared well in Canada, going to number 1 there as well as peaking at 10 in Germany, 4 in Ireland, 9 in New Zealand and 9 in Switzerland. It got to 3 on the Capital 604 and Radio 5 charts and peaked at 5 on the 702 charts.

The final new entry was Danny Wilson’s ‘Mary’s Prayer’. Despite the act’s name, they were a group and not a person and on top of this, none of the members in the band were called Danny or Wilson. The band initially called themselves Spencer Tracey, but when the actor of that name objected, they renamed themselves after the lead character played by Frank Sinatra in the film ‘Meet Danny Wilson’. They would call their debut album ‘Meet Danny Wilson’ and it contained the song ‘Mary’s Prayer’. The song required 3 releases in the UK before making the top 10 there. It peaked at 86 first time around, then 42 on the second attempt and finally reaching number 3 in the April of 1988, but its SA success was probably due to it reaching number 23 in the US in the September of 1987. It would also go top 10 in Ireland (#5) and Israel (#4). It would have a peak record of 1, 2, 3 on the radio charts with it topping the Radio 5 charts, going to 2 on 702 and 3 on Capital 604.

The departure of ‘Love Power’ from the charts brought to an end a 40 week run with at least 1 song by a duet in the charts which also included Aretha Franklin and George Michaels ‘I Knew You Were Waiting’, Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman’s ‘All I Ask Of You’ and James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt’s ‘Somewhere Out There’. This was the 4^th longest run we had seen with duets in the charts with 2 previous runs lasting 46 weeks and the record run being 63 weeks.

Michael Jackson moved 1 week ahead of Modern Talking and now sat 6^th on his own on the overall weeks count list. He was on 145 weeks. Similarly Madonna moved 1 ahead of Elvis Presley. She was on 132 weeks and sat 13^th on her own now. She also became the 26th act to clock up at least 1,000 top 20 points as she ticked over to 1,004. She was the 3^rd highest woman on the list with Barbara Ray on 1,358 and Olivia Newton-John on 1,451 being above her.

This week saw the 3^rd occasion where we had 2 acts with hits in adjacent positions on the charts as Michael Jackson sat at 8 and 9 with ‘Bad’ and ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ respectively and Gino Vannelli was at 26 with ‘Persona Non Grata’ and at 27 with ‘Wild Horses’. The previous 2 occasions where we had 2 acts with songs in adjacent positions were on 30 December 1966 when Tommy Roe and Donovan managed it and then on 17 October 1969 when it was The Archies and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The observant amongst you would note that we never saw this in the whole of the 70’s.

Modern Talking saw their top 20 weeks total reach 100. They were the 23^rd act to reach this milestone and the 4^th from a non-big 3 nation with Abba, Boney M and Joe Dolan being the other 3.

Youtube playlist:

12 November 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	12	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
3	3	7	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
4	5	6	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
5	10	5	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
6	6	9	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	4	16	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
8	7	11	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
9	9	13	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
10	12	7	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
11	11	6	Call Me	–	Spagna
12	8	16	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
13	13	20	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
14	22	4	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
15	16	7	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
16	18	6	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
17	15	4	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
18	14	25	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
19	19	11	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
20	17	22	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
21	28	2	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
22	26	3	Crazy	–	Icehouse
23	25	4	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
24	21	23	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
25	20	22	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
26	27	3	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
27	29	11	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne
28	23	29	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
29	New	1	Persona Non Grata	–	Gino Vannelli
30	New	1	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar

It was now 4 weeks at 1 for Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ and 4 weeks at 2 for the previous chart topper, The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’. Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ still lurked as a challenger for the number 1 place as it was unmoved at 3.

Michael Jackson picked up his 11^th biggest climber award with ‘Bad’ moving up 8 from 22 to 14. He was the 8^th act to accumulate as many as 11 biggest climbers. The other star raters this week were The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’ (up 5 from 10 to 5 and the climber within the top 20), Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ (up 7 from 28 to 21) and Icehouse’s ‘Crazy’ (up 4 from 26 to 22). ‘Crazy’ had now gone past Icehouse’s previous best showing in the chart which had been ‘No Promises’ peak of 24.

Falling honours were share between John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ and Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ which both dropped 5 to land at 25 and 28 respectively. ‘You’re The Voice’ was the only song leaving the top 20 and it was replaced by ‘Bad’ (mentioned above) while ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ continued as the oldest in the chart, moving on to 29 weeks in the charts. The fallers within the top 20 were Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ and Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ which both fell 4, landing at 12 and 18 respectively. ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ was still the oldest within the top 20. It was on 22 top 20 weeks. Houston had just clocked up 30 weeks in the charts and was yet to see a biggest faller. She was the 45^th act to manage this.

We saw 2 songs leave the charts this week. The first of these was ABC’s ‘When Smokey Sings’. It had spent a total of 6 weeks in the charts and peaked at 20. It was the 5^th song, of those that would spend 5 or more weeks in the charts, that would debut at its peak position. Only John Edmond’s ‘Pasadena’ had a higher debut position of those 5 songs as it arrived at 17, but that was in the top 20 era. ‘When Smokey Sings’ was the highest for the top 30 era and would end up being the second highest.

We also bid farewell to A-ha’s ‘The Living Daylights’. It lasted 17 weeks and peaked at 5, the best performer of their 5 hits so far both in terms of weeks and peak. A-ha would return, but this would be the last we would see of a Bond theme tune on our charts. In total we had seen 6 Bond themes make the charts (this includes Herb Alpert’s ‘Casino Royale’, the theme to the unofficial Bond film which starred Robert Niven as Bond). They had clocked up 64 weeks in the charts and Duran Duran’s ‘A View To A Kill’ had the best peak, going to number 3, but in terms of points (using a top 30 basis), then the best performer was ‘The Living Daylights’ with 283 points and ‘A View To A Kill’ was second with 269 points.

Gino Vannelli became the 105^th act to see 2 or more hits in the charts in the same week as his ‘Persona Non Grata’ arrived at 29 this week and joined his ‘Wild Horses’ which was at 20. With Depeche Mode and Michael Jackson also having 2 in the chart, this was the 24^th time we had seen at least 3 acts with 2 or more in the charts with 3 of those weeks seeing 4 acts having more than 1. Gino was the second Canadian act to manage this with Lucille Starr being the other one. Overall this was the 43^rd song by a Canadian act to chart. They still sat 2^nd for number of hits by a non-big 3 nation and now sat 7 behind leaders Germany who were on 50 hits. Like his other 2 SA chart hits, ‘Persona Non Grata’ was written by Vannelli and Roy Freeland. It would not chart in his native Canada and the only national charting I can find for this is in The Netherlands where it went to 44. However it was well liked by the Radio 5 and Radio 702 DJs as it topped both those charts, but didn’t feature on the Capital 604 ones.

The second new entry was a 3^rd hit for John Cougar, although he was going under the name John Cougar Mellencamp at that time. Mellencamp was his real surname. (Note: I have left it showing as John Cougar in the listing above as this makes life easier for my stats workings). John had last been seen on our charts on 1 April 1983 with ‘Jack And Diana’ a gap of 241 weeks. He wrote the song after being inspired by reading the book of Ecclesiastes in the bible and in particular chapter 7 verses 5 – 6 which reads: “It is better to be criticized by a wise man than to be praised by a fool! For a fool’s compliment is as quickly gone as paper in fire, and it is silly to be impressed by it.” This divine inspiration gave him a number 1 hit in Canada. It would also chart in Australia (#13), New Zealand (#16), The Netherlands (#29), the UK (#86) and the US (#9). Locally it would top the Radio 5 charts, get to 2 on the Capital 604 ones and 4 on the Radio 702 ones.

Last week we saw the UK and US acts have the same number of hits in the top 30 after the US acts had led the way for 9 weeks. This week the US acts once more took the lead with 12 of the 30 being by Americans with 10 being by Brits.

Viktor Lazlo helped move the Belgian acts on to 43 weeks in total and this meant that Belgium was now tied 19^th with acts from New Zealand for weeks on the charts. Modern Talking moved on to 143 weeks in the charts but were unmoved at 6 on the overall weeks count list, however Michael Jackson, who had 2 in the charts, also moved on to 143 and joined Modern Talking in 6^th place. Madonna joined Elvis Presley in 13^th place on the list with both acts on 131 weeks.

Youtube playlist:

5 November 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	11	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
3	4	6	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
4	3	15	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
5	7	5	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
6	6	8	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	9	10	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
8	5	15	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
9	8	12	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
10	16	4	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
11	17	5	Call Me	–	Spagna
12	12	6	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
13	10	19	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
14	11	24	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
15	19	3	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
16	13	6	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
17	14	21	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
18	18	5	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
19	20	10	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
20	15	21	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
21	21	22	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
22	24	3	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
23	22	28	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
24	23	17	The Living Daylights	–	A-Ha
25	29	3	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
26	26	2	Crazy	–	Icehouse
27	30	2	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
28	New	1	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
29	25	10	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne
30	27	6	When Smokey Sings	–	ABC

Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ moved on to 3 weeks at 1 while the previous chart topper, The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ had been at 2 the whole time. Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ was looking like a possible candidate to dethrone ‘La Bamba’ as it moved up from 4 to 3.

The climber of the week award was shared between The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’ and Spagna’s ‘Call Me’ which both moved up 6 to land at 10 and 11 respectively. It was The Bee Gees’ 14^th time with the award and they were the 4^th act to accumulate this many with Neil Diamond and Abba sitting on 15 in total and Tom Jones leading with 16. ‘You Win Again’ and ‘Call Me’ were the climbers both within the top 20 and the top 30. There were 2 other star raters and these were Depeche Mode’s ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ (up 4 from 19 to 15) and Bananarama’s ‘I Heard A Rumour’ which climbed 4 from 29 to 25.

The biggest faller was John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ which dropped 5 from 15 to 20, taking the award for both the top 20 and the top 30.

There was no movement on or off the top 20 which meant that Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ clocked up its 3^rd week as the oldest in that part of the chart, moving on to 21 top 20 weeks. The oldest in the top 30 was also unchanged as Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ ticked over to 28 weeks, 5 of which had been as the oldest in the chart.

We entered the 14^th run with no local hits in the charts as the last local song on the charts, Pocket Lips’ ‘The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)’ dropped out of the top 30 after a run of 15 weeks and a peak of 6. This would be their only SA chart hit. It was the only song leaving the charts this week.

Cliff Richard extended his lead at the top of the list of number of hits as he saw a 26^th hit make the charts in the form of ‘My Pretty One’. It was an 11^th hit for songwriter Alan Tarney and the 6^th which had been a Cliff Richard hit. Tarney would also produce the track which would give Cliff a number 6 hit in the UK. It was his 98^th hit to make the UK charts and would be the 53^rd of those to go top 10. It would make it to 4 in Ireland and also chart in Australia (56), Austria (20), Belgium (36), Germany (31), The Netherlands (92) and Zimbabwe (2).

After 9 weeks of there being more hits by US acts in the chart than those by UK acts, we saw this change as we now had 11 each from both nations. The run of 9 weeks that the Americans had seen was the longest one nation had dominated for over a year with the previous run of 9 or more weeks being the 21 week run where the UK acts had dominated and which ended on 5 October 1986.

Bananarama celebrated 60 weeks in the charts while Madonna moved on to 130 and Michael Jackson jumped past 140 as he moved on to 141. Madonna was now in tied 13^th place on the weeks count list, sitting next to Boney M, while Jackson sat tied 7^th with Neil Diamond.

Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ became the 75^th song to clock up 300 top 20 points. It was the 12^th song by a female artist to manage this feat.

Modern Talking saw their top 20 points total move past 900 and they sat 38^th overall. They were the 4^th highest placed act from a non-big 3 nation but were some way behind Ireland’s Joe Dolan who sat in 3^rd place with 1,657 points.

We now had 5 of the top 20 acts on the weeks count list in the chart and this bolstered the average number of weeks the acts on this week’s top 30 had accumulated to 52.77. This was the first time this figure had gone over 50 since 3 October 1980 a total of 370 weeks ago and it was a new record high. The 5 acts were The Bee Gees (at number 2), Cliff Richard (at 3), Modern Talking (at 6), Michael Jackson (at 7) and Madonna (at 14).

Youtube playlist:

29 October 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	10	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
3	3	14	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
4	5	5	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
5	4	14	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
6	9	7	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	17	4	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
8	7	11	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
9	8	9	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
10	6	18	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
11	10	23	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
12	13	5	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
13	16	5	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
14	11	20	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
15	12	20	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
16	20	3	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
17	22	4	Call Me	–	Spagna
18	18	4	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
19	29	2	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
20	14	9	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
21	15	21	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
22	21	27	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
23	19	16	The Living Daylights	–	A-Ha
24	24	2	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
25	23	9	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne
26	New	1	Crazy	–	Icehouse
27	26	5	When Smokey Sings	–	ABC
28	25	15	The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)	–	Pocket Lips
29	30	2	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
30	New	1	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box

Having grabbed the top spot last week, Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ set about consolidating its dominance and was at 1 for a second week with the previous chart topper, Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ sitting at 2 where it had dropped to last week. Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ became the 7^th song to spend 5 straight weeks at 3. Of those 7 songs, only George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ could boast a longer run as it had managed 7 straight weeks at 3.

We had 2 songs in the charts whose title started with the word ‘never’ and these 2 shared the climber of the week award with Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ moving up 10 from 17 to 7 and Depeche Mode’s ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ climbing from 29 to 19. They were the 143^rd and 144^th songs to climb 10 or more in a week and this was the 19^th time we had seen more than 1 song climb 10 or more in a week. Depeche Mode now had 2 hits in the top 20 and they were the 89^th act to manage this.

The Bee Gees now sat in the lead on their own for star raters as ‘You Win Again’ climbed 4 from 20 to 16 to give them their 29^th star rater and this put them 1 ahead of Abba. Spagna’s ‘Call Me’ was the only other star rater this week with a 5 place jump from 22 to 17. ‘Call Me’ and ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ were the new entries into the top 20.

Fleetwood Mac set a new record for biggest gap between biggest faller awards as ‘Seven Wonders’ dropped 6 from 14 to 20 to take the award. It had been 951 weeks since their last such award which their ‘Man Of The World’ picked up on 8 August 1969. ‘Seven Wonders’ shared the award with Fine Young Cannibals’ ‘Ever Fallen In Love’ which dropped from 15 to 21. It was joined in leaving the top 20 by A-ha’s ‘The Living Daylights’. ‘Ever Fallen In Love’ had been co-oldest in the top 20 last week with Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’. The Whitney hit was now on 20 top 20 weeks (the 104^th song to manage this milestone) and enjoying its second week as the oldest in the top 20.

Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ moved on to 27 weeks in the charts and enjoyed its 4^th week as the oldest in the top 30.

Two songs left the charts and the first of these was Club Nouveau’s ‘Lean On Me’ which had managed 20 weeks and peaked at 2. This would be their only SA chart hit.

The Helicopters’ ‘Whisper Your Secret’ also left the top 30. It had seen a run of 19 weeks and a peak of 6. This ended their SA chart career with 2 hits and 26 weeks to their name. Their only other hit, ‘Mysteries And Jealousies’ managed a peak of 23. We were now down to just Pocket Lips flying the local flag in the charts and their ‘The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)’ dropped 3 to 28 so it was not looking good on the local front.

Icehouse’s ‘Crazy’ was the first of the new entries and their second SA chart hit. It was taken from their ‘Man Of Colours’ album. The band filmed 2 different videos to promote the song, one in Sydney which was used for the Aussie market and one in New South Wales which was loosely based on the film ‘Play Misty For Me’ (which starred Clint Eastwood) for the US and international market. It would get to 14 in the US which would be their best showing there until 1988’s ‘Electric Blue’ went to number 7. ‘Crazy’ would peak at 4 in their native Australia and make the top 10 in New Zealand (#10) and 9 in The Netherlands. It was the 39^th song by an Aussie act to make our charts and this put them in 6^th place on their own on the hits by acts from a nation list as they moved 1 ahead of the Dutch acts. They sat 3 behind 5^th placed Canada. ‘Crazy’ would top the Capital 604 charts and get to 7 on Radio 5 but not make the 702 charts.

Living In A Box missed replacing themselves in the charts by a week as their ‘Scales Of Justice’ arrived this week with their ‘Living In A Box’ having left the charts the previous week. ‘Scales Of Justice’ was their 2^nd SA chart hit and was written by band members Marcus Vere and Richard Darbyshire. In the UK it was not as successful as their first hit, only going to 30 where ‘Living In A Box’ had managed to get to 5. The only other placing on a national chart that I can find for the song was a peak of 30 in Germany. It would make it to 2 on the 702 charts and 4 on Radio 5 but failed to crack the Capital 604 ones.

Both Gino Vannelli’s ‘Wild Horses’ and John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ made it to 20 weeks in the charts. ‘Wild Horses’ was the 3^rd song by a Canadian act to manage this while, surprisingly, ‘You’re The Voice’ was the first by an Australian act to do so. Air Supply’s ‘Making Love Out Of Nothing At All’ had come closest, getting to 19 weeks.

For the past 8 weeks, the gap between the total number of hits we had seen from US acts and those by UK acts had been in double figures, but it dropped to 9 this week with the Americans having brought us 826 to the Brits’ 817.

Norway caught up with Greece for weeks in the chart by acts from those nations. The 2 sat tied 13^th overall.

Modern Talking made 6^th place their own on the overall weeks count list as they moved 1 ahead of Neil Diamond to 141 weeks. Similarly Michael Jackson moved ahead of The Rolling Stones and The Hollies on to 139 weeks and had 8^th place for himself. As he had 2 in the charts, he was now 2 ahead of The Stones and The Hollies.

Youtube playlist:

22 October 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	7	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	1	9	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
3	3	13	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
4	5	13	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
5	14	4	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
6	4	17	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
7	7	10	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
8	6	8	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
9	13	6	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
10	8	22	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
11	9	19	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
12	10	19	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
13	16	4	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
14	11	8	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
15	12	20	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
16	17	4	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
17	25	3	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
18	18	3	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
19	15	15	The Living Daylights	–	A-Ha
20	27	2	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
21	19	26	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
22	21	3	Call Me	–	Spagna
23	23	8	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne
24	New	1	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
25	22	14	The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)	–	Pocket Lips
26	26	4	When Smokey Sings	–	ABC
27	20	19	Whisper Your Secret	–	Helicopters
28	24	20	Lean on Me	–	Club Nouveau
29	New	1	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
30	New	1	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama

After 4 weeks at 1, The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ gave way to Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ and this meant that the Americans once more had the outright lead for number of chart toppers with this being the 119^th compared to the 118 that the Brits had managed. Last week the Brits had closed the gap in terms of weeks at 1 to 14 (418 for the Americans and 404 for the Brits), but this gap now widened to 15. ‘La Bamba’ was the 38^th song to top our charts that would also top the UK and US charts.

Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ picked up the 23^rd bigget climber award for a song by an Australian act as it moved up 9 from 14 to 9 to be the climber both within the top 20 and the top 30. It was only the 4^th time a song by an Aussie act had climbed 4 or more in a week with The Seekers’ 12 place climb with ‘Walk With Me’ (way back in 1966) holding the record so far. The other star raters this week were Atlantic Starr’s ‘Always’ (up 4 from 13 to 9), Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ (up 8 from 25 to 17) and The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’ (up 7 from 27 to 20). It was The Bee Gees’ 28^th star rater climb and this equalled the record so far which Abba had managed. ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and ‘You Win Again’ were the new entries into the top 20.

The faller of the week was The Helicopters’ ‘Whisper You Secret’ which dropped 7 from 20 to 27. It was joined in leaving the top 20 by Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’. This started the 18^th run with no local hits in the top 20. The biggest faller within the top 20 was A-ha’s ‘The Living Daylights’ which fell 4 from 15 to 19. The Helicopters had clocked up 26 weeks in the charts and this was their first biggest faller award. It was the 6^th highest weeks count for a local act seeing their first faller award with John Edmond’s 36 weeks being the record.

‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ had been the oldest in the top 20 and that honour was now shared between Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ and Fine Young Cannibals’ ‘Ever Fallen In Love’ which were both on 19 top 20 weeks. ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ was still the oldest in the top 30, sitting on 26 weeks and enjoying its 3^rd week as the oldest.

U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ was the first of 2 songs to leave the charts. It had seen a run of 2 weeks in, then 3 weeks off then a further 3 weeks on the charts. Of those 5 weeks, 4 were spent at 30 and 1 was spent at its peak of 29. This was the new record lowest peak for a song lasting 5 week in the charts. It also brought to an end U2’s SA chart career with 2 hits and 21 weeks to their name. Their other hit, ‘With Or Without You’ had managed to get to 11. U2’s departure also heralded the end of the SA chart road for acts from Ireland. They had seen a total of 33 hits, spent 375 weeks in the charts, seen 9 chart toppers (6 by Joe Dolan and 1 each for The Nolans, Chris de Burgh and The Boomtown Rats). These 9 chart toppers spent a total of 30 weeks at 1 with Chris de Burgh’s ‘The Lady In Red’ spending the record for an Irish act of 9 weeks. Joe Dolan managed 18 weeks in total with The Boomtown Rats coming in with 2 and The Nolans just 1.

Also going was James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt’s ‘Somewhere Out There’ which managed 14 weeks and a peak of 20, the all-time lowest peak for a song spending 14 weeks in the charts. It ended the SA chart careers of both act with it being the only hit for James Ingram while Linda Ronstadt had seen 2 other hits and her weeks total was 37. Her best peak was 4 which her first hit, ‘It’s So Easy’ managed.

The last of the leavers was Living In A Box’s ‘Living In A Box’ which, unlike the other 2 leavers, was neither their final hit, nor was it the lowest peak for its weeks total. It managed 15 weeks and peaked at 14 (the tied 4^th lowest peak for a song lasting 15 week if you must know).

Michael Jackson saw his 2^nd pairing of songs in the charts as ‘Bad’ joined ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ in the top 30. He was the 32^nd act to see at least 2 different pairings of songs in the charts. ‘Bad’ was the title track of the album it came from and the second off that album to make the charts. The song was based on a story Jackson had read about a young guy from the ghetto who managed to go to a private school in an attempt to get away from his life of poverty but ended up being killed when he returned home for Thanksgiving. An 18 minute short film directed by Martin Scorsese was made around the song and it featured Wesley Snipes in his first acting role. This was Michael Jackson’s 11^th SA chart hit and he was the 18^th, and would be the last, act to manage this many. The song would top the charts in Belgium, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway Spain, the US and Zimbabwe. It would get to 3 in the UK and just miss out on a clean sweep of 1’s on the radio charts, topping the Radio 5 and 702 ones, but faltering at 21 on Capital 604. In 1988 Weird Al Yankovic followed up his parody of ‘Beat It’ (called ‘Eat It’) with a parody of ‘Bad’ called ‘Fat’. This came from Yankovic’s album which he called ‘Even Worse’.

Depeche Mode also now had 2 in the charts, although this was a first time for them as ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ joined ‘Strangelove’ in the top 30. The song was taken from their ‘Music For The Masses’ album and, according to the band, drew influences from Led Zeppelin and Soft Cell. It would go top 10 in Finland (#5), Poland (#8), Spain (#5), Sweden (#7), Switzerland (#7). In their native UK it would only get to 22 and peaked at 63 in the US. It was their 6^th SA chart hit and it got to number 5 on the 702 charts but failed to make the Radio 5 or Capital 604 ones.

The final new entry was Bananarama’s 4^th SA chart hit, ‘I Heard A Rumour’. It was a 9^th SA chart hit for the production team of Stock, Aitken & Waterman and their second with a Bananarama hit (‘Venus’ being the other one). The song would feature in the film ‘Disorderlies’ which starred Ralph Bellamy and the rap group The Fat Boys. ‘I Heard A Rumour’ would go top 10 in Canada (#2), Finland (#10), Ireland (#9), New Zealand (#8), Sweden (#10), Switzerland (#10) and the US (#4). It would only get to 14 in the UK. It would top the Radio 702 charts, get to 13 on Radio 5 and 28 on Capital 604.

Club Nouveau clocked up their 20^th week in the charts, Gino Vannelli his 30^th, Depeche Mode their 50^th, A-ha their 70^th and Modern Talking hit 140. Vannelli was the 44^th act to see 30 weeks without ever having a biggest faller. A-ha were the 68^th act to reach 70 while Modern Talking’s 140 put them just 1 behind Neil Diamond. They were 7^th overall with Diamond in 6^th place.

With 2 in the charts, Michael Jackson jumped up from tied 11^th place last week in to tied 8^th place with his 137 weeks putting him level with The Rolling Stones and The Hollies. Madonna moved into outright 2^nd place for weeks by a female act and 15^th place overall with her 128 weeks putting her 1 ahead of Olivia Newton-John.

Gino Vannelli’s ‘Wild Horses’ clocked up the 400^th week in the top 20 for Canadian acts. They sat 5^th overall, 150 behind the Germans who were 4^th and were the leading non-big 3 nation.

Youtube playlist:

15 October 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
2	2	6	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
3	3	12	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
4	4	16	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
5	9	12	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
6	10	7	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
7	8	9	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
8	7	21	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
9	6	18	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
10	5	18	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
11	14	7	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
12	11	19	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
13	15	5	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
14	18	3	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
15	12	14	The Living Daylights	–	A-Ha
16	21	3	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
17	25	3	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
18	23	2	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
19	16	25	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
20	17	18	Whisper Your Secret	–	Helicopters
21	24	2	Call Me	–	Spagna
22	13	13	The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)	–	Pocket Lips
23	26	7	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne
24	19	19	Lean on Me	–	Club Nouveau
25	28	2	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
26	RE	3	When Smokey Sings	–	ABC
27	New	1	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
28	20	15	Living in a Box	–	Living in a Box
29	22	14	Somewhere Out There	–	James Ingram & Linda Ronstadt
30	30	5	I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For	–	U2

For 4 weeks in a row now those Pet Shop Boys had been confessing that ‘It’s A Sin’ to be at the top of the charts as the song held on to the number 1 spot. Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ was frustrated, spending a second week at 2 after a big jump to get there last week.

Viktor Lazlo’s ‘Breathless’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 8 from 25 to 18. It was 1 of 3 new entries into the top 20 with the other 2 being Terence Trent D’Arby’s ‘Wishing Well’ and Modern Talking’s ‘Jet Airliner’ which both made star rater climbs of 5 to land at 16 and 18 respectively. There were 3 other star raters this week and they all shared the climber in the top 20 award. These were Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’, Madonna’s ‘Who’s That Girl’ and Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ which all moved up 4 to land at 5, 6 and 14 respectively.

Pocket Lips’ ‘The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)’ was the faller of the week as it dropped 9 from 13 to 22. It left us with just The Helicopters’ ‘Whisper Your Secret’ as a local song in the top 20 and that had fallen 3 to 20 so we were perilously close to having no local hits in the top 20 again. We also saw Club Nouveau’s ‘Lean On Me’ and Living In A Box’s ‘Living In A Box’ leave the top 20. The biggest faller inside the top 20 was John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ which dropped 5 from 5 to 10.

Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ was the oldest in both the top 20 and the top 30 having spent 23 weeks in the former and 25 in the latter. It was its 5^th week as the oldest in the top 20 and its second for the top 30.

Mango Groove’s SA chart career ended up being surprisingly short as ‘Move Up’ left the charts after just 2 weeks and a peak of 27. It would be their only hit to make our charts. Last week would be the last time we would see as many as 3 local hits in the charts.

Another act who would only see 1 hit make the charts was Jody Watley who’s ‘Looking For A New Love’ was also a leaver this week. It managed a total run of 12 weeks and a peak of 22.

ABC’s ‘When Smokey Sings’ became the 10^th song to re-enter the charts in 1987 and this was only the second year that this stat had been in double figures with the 15 we saw in 1972 being the only other year to manage this. In total 71 songs had now re-entered the charts with 6 of them having done so twice.

The new entry this week was The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’. The Brothers Gibb had last been seen in our charts on 1 June 1979 and this gap of 437 weeks between hits was the 26^th biggest we had seen. We had seen a number of their composition chart in the interim. ‘You Win Again’ was written by the 3 brothers and this moved Barry on to 28 and into tied 1^st place with Mike Chapman and Terry Dempsey on the list of number of hits by a songwriter. Robin sat on 26, the second highest total and was tied with Mike Chapman’s writing partner, Nicky Chinn. Maurice had the 3^rd highest total of 22 and was on his own on that figure. It was the 18^th hit for The Bee Gees and they joined Tom Jones and Abba in tied second place for number of hits with Cliff  Richard on 22 being the leader. ‘You Win Again’ would top the UK charts making The Bee Gees the first group to have a chart topper in 3 consecutive decades, having already topped the charts in the 60’s and the 70’s. At that point only Cliff Richard (who was not a group) had managed 4 consecutive decades and was the only other act to manage at least 3 consecutive decades. Cliff went on to an amazing 5 consecutive decade run. Subsequently Elton John, who topped the UK charts every decade from the 80’s to the 10’s has been the only act to manage more than 3 consecutive decades (at the time of writing he had not yet managed a number 1 in the 20’s). ‘You Win Again’ would also go to number 1 in Austria, Ireland, Germany, Norway and Switzerland. It would manage a clean sweep of number 1’s across the Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts.

The Pet Shop Boys celebrated 30 weeks in the charts and they were the 43^rd act to reach this total without ever seeing a biggest faller. Michael Jackson moved into tied 11^th place with Queen on the weeks count list with a weeks count of 135. Madonna ticked over to 127 weeks and was now tied 15^th with Olivia Newton-John. Barbara Ray was the only woman above these 2 on the list.

Youtube playlist:

8 October 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	7	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
2	6	5	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
3	3	11	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
4	2	15	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
5	7	17	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
6	4	17	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
7	5	20	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
8	8	8	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
9	9	11	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
10	13	6	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
11	10	18	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
12	12	13	The Living Daylights	–	A-Ha
13	11	12	The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)	–	Pocket Lips
14	19	6	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
15	23	4	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
16	14	24	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
17	15	17	Whisper Your Secret	–	Helicopters
18	18	2	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
19	16	18	Lean on Me	–	Club Nouveau
20	17	14	Living in a Box	–	Living in a Box
21	21	2	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
22	20	13	Somewhere Out There	–	James Ingram & Linda Ronstadt
23	New	1	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
24	New	1	Call Me	–	Spagna
25	25	2	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
26	30	6	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne
27	26	12	Looking for a New Love	–	Jody Watley
28	New	1	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
29	27	2	Move Up	–	Mango Groove
30	29	4	I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For	–	U2

It was now 3 weeks in a row at 1 for the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ although it was coming under significant pressure from Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ which made a star rater climb of 4 from 6 to 2. ‘La Bamba’ had topped both the UK and US charts. So far 31 of the 68 songs that had made our charts and topped those 2 charts had also gone to become a number 1 hit in SA so, based on past performance, there was a 45.68% chance of ‘La Bamba’ getting to number 1, but you know what they say about statistics.

The climber of the week was Atlantic Starr’s ‘Always’ which moved up 8 from 23 to 15. It was the only new entry into the top 20, replacing James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt’s ‘Somewhere Out There’ which dropped from 20 to 22. ‘Somewhere Out There’ was the 5^th song to spend just 1 weeks at 20 since the top 30 began and the 40^th song overall to have a top 20 run of just 1 week at the bottom of the charts.

The climber within the top 20 was Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Seven Wonders’ which moved up 5 from 19 to 14. Apart from the 2 climbers and ‘La Bamba’ mentioned earlier, the only other star rater was Dionne Warwick and Jeffrey Osbourne’s ‘Love Power’ which moved up 4 from 26 to 30. It had been the faller of the week last week.

The faller award was shared between Club Nouveau’s ‘Lean On Me’ and Living In A Box’s ‘Living In A Box’. They both fell 3 places and landed at 19 and 20 respectively making them the fallers both within the top 20 and the top 30.

Starship’s ‘Nothing’ Gonna Stop Us Now’ continued its run as the oldest in the top 20 as it moved on to 22 weeks in that part of the charts and enjoyed its 4^th week as the oldest. It also became the oldest in the top 30 with 24 weeks in the charts in total.

The previous oldest in the top 30, Boy George’s ‘Everything I Own’, dropped out of the charts after a run of 26 weeks. It spent 8 weeks at 1. This would be his only solo hit. If one adds together his solo career with his hits as lead singer of Culture Club, his stats read 5 hits, 84 weeks, 2 number 1’s and 10 weeks at 1 with ‘Karma Chameleon’ being the other chart topper.

ABC’s ‘When Smokey Sings’ had a bizarre chart run in that it came crashing into the charts at number 20 two weeks back, then dropped to 24 last week and this week it was off the top 30 after 2 weeks and a peak of 20. We were not done with ABC yet.

We also bid farewell to Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Big Love’ which lasted 15 weeks in the charts and peaked at 11, their tied second best peak to date with their first hit, ‘Man Of The World’ also peaking there, but both being beaten by the number 4 peak that ‘Go Your Own Way’ managed.

Modern Talking saw their 8^th SA chart hit this week as ‘Jet Airliner’ was the first of the new entries. Like all their previous hits, the song was written by band member Dieter Bohlen (the blonde one of the two). It was the 50^th song by a German act to make the charts and they were the 4^th nation (after the UK, the US and SA) to accumulate this many hits. It would give them a number 7 hit in their native Germany and would go top 20 in Austria (#10), Belgium (#13), Sweden (#12) and Switzerland (#12). It was the first single to be taken off the band’s 5^th album, ‘Romantic Warriors’.

Ivana Spagna had seen chart success with 2 hits as a songwriter having co-penned Fun Fun’s ‘Happy Station’ and ‘Colour My Love’. She had also been a member of Fun Fun. This week she became the 49^th person to chart as an artist after first having charted as a songwriter. Going under the name Spagna, her hit was ‘Call Me’ and it was the 16^th hit by an Italian act to make the charts. Italy sat 12^th overall for number of hits but were 5 behind 11^th placed Sweden. ‘Call Me’ would top the charts in Israel and just miss out in Denmark, Italy, Spain and the UK where it peaked at 2. It would make it to 8 on the Radio 702 charts and 12 on the Radio 5 ones. We had seen Blondie’s ‘Call Me’ on the charts in 1980 and this was the 37^th song title that we would see at least 2 different songs chart with.

The final new entry was Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. It was the 8^th SA chart hit for the production team of Stock, Aitken & Waterman and their second where they were the song writers. This was the 70^th song to make our charts which would also top the UK and US charts. Apart from making it to number 1 in those 2 nations it would apparently get to the top of the charts in 25 different countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Zimbabwe. In the UK it sold in excess of 1 million copies. Mike Stock has been quoted as saying that Colonel Abrams’ ‘Trapped’ (a number 4 hit on our charts in 1986) was a big influence in writing ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. Despite its global number 1 success, it only got to the top of 2 out of 3 of the local radio charts with it going to number 1 on Capital 604 and Radio 702, but it stalled at 4 on Radio 5.

Modern Talking moved into outright 7^th place on the weeks count list with 138 weeks to their name. The Hollies and The Rolling Stones on 137 dropped into tied 8^th place. A little further down the list, Madonna was now tied 16^th with Lionel Richie as she ticked over to 126 weeks.

Youtube playlist:

1 October 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
2	2	14	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
3	6	10	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
4	3	16	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
5	5	19	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
6	14	4	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
7	4	16	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
8	11	7	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
9	7	10	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
10	8	17	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
11	9	11	The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)	–	Pocket Lips
12	10	12	The Living Daylights	–	A-Ha
13	16	5	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
14	12	23	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
15	13	16	Whisper Your Secret	–	Helicopters
16	15	17	Lean on Me	–	Club Nouveau
17	17	13	Living in a Box	–	Living in a Box
18	New	1	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
19	19	5	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
20	21	12	Somewhere Out There	–	James Ingram & Linda Ronstadt
21	New	1	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
22	18	15	Big Love	–	Fleetwood Mac
23	24	3	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
24	20	2	When Smokey Sings	–	ABC
25	New	1	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
26	22	11	Looking for a New Love	–	Jody Watley
27	New	1	Move Up	–	Mango Groove
28	27	26	Everything I Own	–	Boy George
29	RE	3	I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For	–	U2
30	23	5	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne

The Pet Shop Boys spent a second week at 1 with ‘It’s A Sin’ and still had Depeche Mode’s ‘Strangelove’ breathing down its neck as the latter sat at 2 for a second week running.

Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ took the climber of the week award as it moved up 8 from 14 to 6. It would be the only star rater climb we would see this week. This was the 25^th time the biggest climber had been 8 places or more and where it was the only star rater. It would be the last time we would see this. ‘La Bamba’ was the climber both within the top 20 and the top 30.

Dionne Warwick and Jeffery Osbourne’s ‘Love Power’ was the faller of the week, dropping 7 from 23 to 30. Inside the top 20 it was John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ which dropped 3 from 4 to 7.

Two songs left the top 20 and they were ABC’s ‘When Smokey Sings’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Big Love’. They were replaced by Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ (a new entry into the charts – more on that in a bit) and James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt’s ‘Somewhere Out There’ which set the all-time record for weeks on the charts before finally cracking the top 20. It was on 12 weeks. The previous record was 9 weeks which Modern Talking’s ‘You Can Win If You Want’ managed. ‘When Smokey Sings’ had been a new entry into the overall charts last week so it was a big surprise that it dropped out of the top 20 in its second week. It was the 4^th song to spend just 1 week at 20 in the top 30 era. There were 35 songs that spent only 1 week at 20 when it was only a top 20, making the total 39.

The last time we saw 5 songs leave the top 30 in a week was back on 3 August 1986 a total of 62 weeks earlier. This week we saw the 15^th time we had 5 or more go with 2 of the 15 occasions seeing a record to date 6 leavers.

The first song to go was Madonna’s ‘La Isla Bonita’. This lasted 13 weeks and peaked at 10. Of her 7 previous hits, only ‘Live To Tell’ had a worse peak as that only reached 22. Her 9^th hit, ‘Who’s That Girl’ was at 13 this week so could still beat ‘La Isla Bonita’s peak.

We also bid farewell to Freddie Mercury’s ‘The Great Pretender’ which lasted 26 weeks and peaked at 2. This would be his final solo hit, but he would return, but as part of a duet. The departure of ‘The Great Pretender’ meant that Boy George’s ‘Everything I Own’ was the new oldest in the chart. It was on 26 weeks.

Carly Simon’s ‘Give Me All Night’ lasted just 3 weeks and peaked at 14. This ended her SA chart career with 4 hits to her name. She manged 42 weeks and her best peak was with her first hit, ‘You’re So Vain’ which got to number 4.

Mel & Kim’s ‘Respectable’ became the 11^th song to enter the top 20 at 10 or higher but not go on to take the top spot. It managed 21 weeks and peaked at 2. This would be the only SA chart hit for these sisters.

Last of the leavers was George Michael’s ‘I Want Your Sex’ which lasted 8 weeks and peaked at 21, the first of his 4 solo hits not to go top 10 (let alone top 20). He had one more hit to come.

As mentioned above, ‘Funky Town’ by Pseudo Echo was a new entry into the top 30 and the top 20 as it arrived at 18 this week. It was the 57^th song to chart in more than one version as we had seen the original of the song chart for Lipps Inc back in 1980. That version made it to 5. Pseudo Echo’s version was the 38^th song by an Australian act to chart and this moved the Aussies into tied 3^rd place for hits by acts from the non-big 3 nations as they drew level with acts from The Netherlands. Canada on 42 hits and Germany on 49 were above them. Pseudo Echo hailed from Melbourne and had seen some SA airplay for their hit 1984 ‘Listening’ but, despite getting to 4 in Australia, it failed to chart on our radio charts. Their cover of ‘Funky Town’ would also fail to make the local radio charts but did top the charts in Australia, Canada and New Zealand as well as going to 8 in the UK and 6 in the US.

The second new entry was Terence Trent D’arby’s ‘Wishing Well’ which was from his debut album ‘Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby’ which was the most important album to be released since The Beatles’ ‘Sgt Pepper’s’…according to D’Arby. Despite his grandiose claim, the album did produce 4 top 20 hits in the UK with ‘Wishing Well’ earning the second highest peak of the 4 hits getting to number 4 and being out-peaked by ‘Sign Your Name’ which got to number 2. In the US ‘Wishing Well’ would top the charts for 1 week. It would also top the charts in Canada and The Netherlands. It would top the Radio 5 charts and peak at 2 on the Capital 604 ones but not make the Radio 702 charts. The song was produced by D’Arby with the help of Heaven 17’s Martin Ware.

The last song by a Belgian act that we had on our charts spent 7 weeks at 1 (The Klaxon’s ‘Clap-Clap Sound’). The 3^rd new entry this week was the 3^rd by a Belgian act to make the charts and it was Viktor Lazlo’s ‘Breathless’. Lazlo was born in France and her real name is Sonia Dronier. Her parents hailed from Martinique and Granada, but she moved to Belgium and that’s where she made her music, hence the classification. She took her name from the character Victor Laszlo in the film ‘Casablanca’. ‘Breathless’ came from her second studio album, ‘Viktor Lazlo’ and gained popularity after Lazlo (who was fluent in a number of languages) was asked to be one of the presenters of the 1987 Eurovision Song Competition which was held in Brussels. ‘Breathless’ would go to number 7 in Belgium and also chart in The Netherlands where it went to 33.

‘Move Up’ by local act Mango Groove was the 4^th new entry which took the local hit count up to 3. The other 2 local hits were The Helicopters’ ‘Whisper Your Secret’ and Pocket Lips’ ‘It’s Amazing (The Incredible Dance)’. It was Mango Groove’s debut on our charts and ‘Move Up’ was their 3^rd single release (as far as I can tell) following up ‘Two Hearts’ and ‘Love Is The Hardest Part’. ‘Move Up’ would top the Capital 604 charts and get to number 6 on Radio 5 but not make the 702 ones. The song was re-recorded for the band’s debut album entitled ‘Mango Groove’.

U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ became the 69^th song to re-enter the charts It had been absent for 3 weeks and was the 14^th song to have re-entered the charts after a gap of at least 3 weeks. So far it was the only song by an Irish act to re-enter the charts.

On the weeks by acts from a nation list we saw the Aussies pull ahead of the Jamaicans with the former moving on to 322 weeks and making 8^th place overall (5^th place for a non-big 3 nation) their own.

Starship saw their weeks count move on to 60 while Fleetwood Mac were celebrating 40 weeks. We also saw the average weeks count for the artists in the top 30 drop to 27.94. This was the lowest it had been for 97 weeks. The main reason for this drop was that Madonna, Freddie Mercury and George Michael, who all had relatively high weeks totals, all left the charts and the 4 new entries were the first hit for all 4 of the artists.

Youtube playlilst: