20 July 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	11	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
2	4	9	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
3	1	16	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
4	3	12	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
5	5	19	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
6	6	13	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
7	9	8	Addicted to Love	–	Robert Palmer
8	13	7	Dance with Me	–	Alphaville
9	8	14	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
10	14	7	Absolute Beginners	–	David Bowie
11	16	12	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
12	7	18	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
13	10	5	On My Own	–	Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald
14	15	21	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
15	11	19	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
16	12	12	Kiss	–	Prince
17	23	3	A Kind of Magic	–	Queen
18	18	6	There’ll be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry)	–	Billy Ocean
19	26	4	Let’s Go All the Way	–	Sly Fox
20	24	2	Brother Louie	–	Modern Talking
21	29	2	A Love Bizarre	–	Sheila E
22	22	3	I Engineer	–	Animotion
23	17	11	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
24	21	21	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
25	New	1	Look Away	–	Big Country
26	27	5	If You Leave	–	Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
27	19	16	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
28	28	6	Move Away	–	Culture Club
29	New	1	Touch Me (I Want Your Body)	–	Samantha Fox
30	20	15	Sara	–	Starship

After 9 weeks of Rocking Amadeus, we finally saw a new number 1 as The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’ knocked the Falco hit from the top spot. ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ would be the only hit by an Austrian act to top our charts. It dropped to 3 with George Michael’s ‘A Different Corner’ moving up from 4 to 2 to take the place vacated by the new number 1.

Sheila E’s ‘A Love Bizarre’ took the climber of the week award with an 8 place jump from 29 to 21. This was the biggest climb so far by a song where Price had writing credits. It would be equalled, but not beaten. Inside the top 20 Alphaville’s ‘Dance With Me’ and Sandra’s ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ both moved up 5 to be the climbers within the top 20. This was the first time we had seen 2 top 20 biggest climbers from the same non-big 3 nation in the same week.

The other star raters this week were David Bowie’s ‘Absolute Beginners’ (up 4 from 14 to 10), Queen’s ‘A Kind Of Magic’ (up 6 from 23 to 17), Sly Fox’s ‘Let’s Go All The Way’ (up 7 from 26 to 19) and Modern Talking’s ‘Brother Louie’ (up 4 from 24 to 20). All, apart from ‘Absolute Beginners’, were new entries into the top 20.

Starship became the first act to see a fall of 10 or more places twice. They had seen it with their previous hit, ‘We Built This City’ and this week they took the biggest faller award as ‘Sara’ fell 10 from 20 to 30. In total we had seen a drop of 10 or more 40 times. Miami Sound Machine’s ‘Conga’ was the faller within the top 20 as it dropped 5 from 7 to 12. Apart from ‘Sara’, we also saw The Matterhorn Project’s ‘Moo’ and Belouis Some’s ‘Target Practice’ drop out of the top 20.

Feargal Sharkey’s ‘A Good Heart’ spent a second week as the oldest in the top 20 as it moved on to 19 weeks in that part of the chart. It also became the oldest in the top 30 but shared the title with Billy Ocean’s ‘When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going’ with both songs having been in the charts for 21 weeks.

The reason those 2 songs became the oldest was because last week’s oldest, the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’, was 1 of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It had seen a run of 22 weeks in the charts and peaked at 2. We were not done with them though as they would return to the charts shortly.

Also going was Colonel Abrams’ ‘Trapped’ which spent 18 weeks in the top 30 and peaked at 4. This would be his only contribution to our charts.

Big Country had seen 7 hits make the UK charts (the first 5 making the top 20 and the other 2 making the top 30) before ‘Look Away’ came along. However, it would give them their first hit on our charts as it was the first new entry this week. It restored them to the UK top 10 and, peaking at 7, remains their highest showing on those charts. Taken from their 3^rd album, ‘The Seer’, it would top the Irish charts and go top 10 in Finland (#7). It would make all 3 of the local radio charts, peaking at 2 on Radio 702, 3 on Radio 5 and 15 on Capital 604.

The second new entry was ‘Touch Me (I Want To Feel Your Body)’ by Samantha Fox. Samantha had made a name for herself as a topless model, posing for page 3 of The Sun newspaper in the UK. The song would be a big hit, topping the charts in Australia, Canada, Finland, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. It would get to 3 in the UK and 4 in US shifting over a quarter of a million units in both France and the UK. In 2004 Fox teamed up with a Swedish singer called Gunther (who also recorded a song called ‘I’m Not Justin Bieber, Bitch’) to re-record the song. That version did well in the Scandinavian charts, topping the Swedish ones and going to 3 in Finland, 7 in Norway and 12 in Denmark. Despite doing well around the world, Samantha’s version would not make any of the local radio charts.

After dropping below 15 hits in the charts for 2 weeks, the Brits were back up to accounting for at least half the chart as they now had 15 of the top 30. The gap between the total number of hits by Brits and those by US acts was down to 7 with the former on 766 and the latter on 773. We had to go back to 31 January 1975 to see the last time this gap was a low as this.

Sandra saw her weeks count reach 30 and she was yet to have a faller of the week. She was the 35^th act to see a run of 30 weeks with no biggest faller.

Queen moved level with Michael Jackson for weeks on the chart as the 2 acts had both clocked up 126 and sat tied 13^th overall. Diana Ross, meanwhile, moved into the top 20 of the list with her 108 weeks putting her tied 20^th with Leo Sayer. Queen also saw their top 20 points total move past the 1,400 mark and they sat 12^th overall for top 20 points.

Youtube playlist:

13 July 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	15	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	2	10	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
3	3	11	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
4	8	8	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
5	5	18	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
6	4	12	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
7	6	17	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
8	9	13	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
9	10	7	Addicted to Love	–	Robert Palmer
10	15	4	On My Own	–	Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald
11	7	18	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
12	11	11	Kiss	–	Prince
13	13	6	Dance with Me	–	Alphaville
14	14	6	Absolute Beginners	–	David Bowie
15	12	20	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
16	19	11	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
17	18	10	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
18	21	5	There’ll be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry)	–	Billy Ocean
19	17	15	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
20	20	14	Sara	–	Starship
21	16	20	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
22	30	2	I Engineer	–	Animotion
23	28	2	A Kind of Magic	–	Queen
24	New	1	Brother Louie	–	Modern Talking
25	23	18	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
26	29	3	Let’s Go All the Way	–	Sly Fox
27	27	4	If You Leave	–	Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
28	24	5	Move Away	–	Culture Club
29	New	1	A Love Bizarre	–	Sheila E
30	26	22	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys

Before this week, only 12 songs had managed to spend 9 weeks at 1. This week we added Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ to that list as it spent another week at the top of the charts. It was the 7^th of the 13 to manage this that was by a solo male act with 5 having been by groups and Jennifer Rush’s ‘The Power Of Love’ being the only one by a solo female act. The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’ enjoyed a third week at 2.

Animotion had seen 3 biggest climber awards with their first hit, ‘Obsession’. The second hit was in its second week in the charts and was already adding to their biggest climber total as it scooped up the award with an 8 place climb from 30 to 22. Within the top 20 it was Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald’s ‘On my Own’ which saw the biggest climb as it moved up 5 from 15 to 10. George Michael’s ‘A Different Corner’ and Queen’s ‘A Kind Of Magic’ were the only other star raters with the former moving up 4 from 8 to 4 and the latter climbing 5 from 28 to 23.

For a second week running we saw Billy Ocean’s ‘When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going’ take the faller of the week award as it fell a further 5 from 16 to 21. It would be the only song to leave the top 20 this week, but Ocean became the 26^th act to replace themselves in the top 20 as the new entry into that part of the chart was his ‘There’ll Be Sad Songs (To make You Cry)’ which moved up from 21 to 18. There would only be 1 more instance of an act replacing themselves in the top 20.

Dire Straits’ ‘Walk Of Life’ which had the top 20 biggest fall as it dropped 4 from 7 to 11.

The oldest in the top 20 was Feargal Sharkey’s ‘A Good Heart’ which took over the title from the departing Billy Ocean hit. It was on 18 top 20 weeks. The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ was the oldest in the charts overall as it moved on to 22 weeks and enjoyed a 4^th week as the granddaddy of the chart.

Two songs fell out of the charts and the first of these was Double’s ‘Captain Of Her Heart’ which had seen a run of 13 weeks and a peak of 14. It would be their only SA chart entry. This also brought to an end the only run where we had 2 hits by Swiss acts in the chart. The other hit by a Swiss act, The Matterhorn Project’s ‘Moo’, was sitting at 19.

Also going was Mr Mister’s ‘Kyrie’ which managed 8 weeks and a peak of 21. This ended their SA chart career with 2 hits to their name, a total of 18 weeks spent in the chart and their other hit, ‘Broken Wings’ just pipped ‘Kyrie’ for a peak position as it made it to 20.

Modern Talking returned to the charts after a 10 week absence. Their new one, ‘Brother Louie’, was their 4^th to make our charts and the 44^th  by a German act (Germany were the top non-big 3 nation and were now 4 ahead of Canada who were the second highest). Like their previous 3 SA chart hits, ‘Brother Louie’ would also top the German charts. It would give them their highest peak to date in the UK charts where it got to number 4 and remains their only top 50 hit there. Apart from ion their native Germany, it would top the charts in Israel, Spain and Sweden and would just miss out in Austria, Ireland and Switzerland where it peaked at 2. It wouldn’t chart on any of the local radio charts.

The second new entry was ‘A Love Bizarre’ by Sheila E (full name Sheila Cecilia Escovedo). Sheila wrote the song along with Prince and the latter would play and share vocals on the track but wasn’t given a credit as artist. Sheila had played on Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ album and it was during the tour to promote that album that she and Prince got together after a show to write the song which was originally over 12 minutes long, but was edited down for radio play. It would appear in the film ‘Krush Groove’ which was about the early days of the Def Jam record label and featured Sheila along with The Fat Boys, Run DMC and New Edition. ‘A Love Bizarre’ would get to 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and top the Hot Dance Play tracks chart there. It managed to get to 76 in the UK and fared a bit better in parts of Europe, getting to 4 in Germany, 7 in The Netherlands and 14 in Austria. It nearly managed a 5 on 5, 6 on 6 and 7 on 7, getting to 5 on Radio 5, 6 on Capital 604, but its peak of 3 on 702 spoilt the sequence, but did give her the best peak of the 3 radio station charts.

Both Feargal Sharkey’s ‘A Good Heart’ and Billy Ocean’s ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’ reached 20 weeks in the charts and they were the 147^th and 148^th songs to manage this. It was Ocean’s second hit to make 20 weeks (‘Loverboy’ having managed 24) and he was the 16^th act to see 2 songs get to this milestone.

David Bowie became the 23^rd act to reach 100 weeks in the charts. He was the 5^th British male to manage this with Cliff Richard, Tom Jones, Elton John and Leo Sayer being the other 4. He also celebrated reaching 800 top 20 points while Diana Ross hit 900. Ross sat 32^nd overall for top 20 points while Bowie was 46^th. Alphaville celebrated 50 top 20 weeks while Billy Ocean saw his 60^th week in that part of the chart.

Youtube playlist:

6 July 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	14	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	2	9	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
3	3	10	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
4	5	11	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
5	4	17	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
6	6	16	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
7	7	17	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
8	11	7	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
9	12	12	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
10	15	6	Addicted to Love	–	Robert Palmer
11	10	10	Kiss	–	Prince
12	8	19	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
13	16	5	Dance with Me	–	Alphaville
14	20	5	Absolute Beginners	–	David Bowie
15	24	3	On My Own	–	Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald
16	9	19	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
17	13	14	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
18	17	9	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
19	19	10	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
20	14	13	Sara	–	Starship
21	22	4	There’ll be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry)	–	Billy Ocean
22	25	8	Kyrie	–	Mr. Mister
23	18	17	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
24	27	4	Move Away	–	Culture Club
25	21	13	Captain of Her Heart	–	Double
26	23	21	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys
27	28	3	If You Leave	–	Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
28	New	1	A Kind of Magic	–	Queen
29	29	2	Let’s Go All the Way	–	Sly Fox
30	New	1	I Engineer	–	Animotion

Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ joined 21 other songs in having clocked up at least 8 weeks at 1 as it held on to the top spot for another week. The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’ spend a second week at 2 and Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Love Missile F1-11’ was also unmoved at 3.

Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald’s ‘On Your Own’ was on its own as the climber of the week. It moved up 9 from 24 to 15 and was also on its own as the only new entry into the top 20. Within the top 20 it was David Bowie’s ‘Absolute Beginners’ which took the climber award as it moved up 6 from 20 to 14. Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted To Love’ was the only other song climbing 4 or more and it moved up 5 from 15 to 10.

Billy Ocean’s ‘When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going’ was the faller of the week in both the top 20 and the top 30 as it dropped 7 from 9 to 16. It was his 8^th time with the award, and he was the 20^th act to see this many biggest fallers. His hit was, however, the oldest in the top 20 sitting on 18 weeks in that part of the chart and enjoying its second week as the oldest. Someone who was not experiencing the biggest fall was Prince and he was the 34^th act to see a run of 30 weeks without picking up a biggest faller award.

The oldest in the top 30 was the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ which sat on 21 weeks in the charts and was enjoying its 3^rd week as the oldest overall.

As noted above ‘On My Own’ was the new entry into the top 20 and it took the place of Colonel Abrams’ ‘Trapped’ which dropped from 18 to 23.

‘Hipsway’s ‘The Honeythief’ became the 55^th song to spend 1 week at the bottom position of the chart as it was a new entry in to the charts at 30 last week and was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart this week.

Also going was ELO’s ‘Calling America’ which had seen a run of 8 weeks and peaked at 23. This brought the curtain down on their SA chart career. They had seen 10 songs make the charts, spent a total of 81 weeks with us and managed 1 number 1 with their first hit, ‘Livin’ Thing’ which lasted just 1 week at the top of the charts.

Queen became the 23^rd act to see 10 hits make the charts as they brought us the first of the new entries in the shape of ‘A Kind Of Magic’. The song was taken from the film ‘Highlander’ which starred Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery. The band also contributed ‘Princes Of The Universe’ to the soundtrack and their later hit, ‘Who Want’s To Live Forever’ (a number 24 hit in the UK, but didn’t make our charts) was inspired by the film. The title of ‘A Kind Of Magic’ comes from a quote that Connery’s character makes in the film which Roger Taylor, who wrote the hit, particularly liked. It would Queen a number 3 hit in the UK and also went top 5 in Spain (#1), Ireland (#3), Switzerland (#3), The Netherlands (#4) and France (#5). Closer to home it made 10 in Zimbabwe and topped the Radio 5 charts, but strangely not make the Radio 702 nor the Capital 604 ones.

The second new entry marked the return of Animotion to the charts. They had seen 1 hit previously make the charts (‘Obsession’) and their new one was called ‘I Engineer’. The song was written by Bernie Taupin, Mike Chapman and Holly Knight. It gave Chapman his 28^th hit as a songwriter and this moved him level with Terry Dempsey at the top of the list for number of hits by a songwriter. It was an 11^th hit for Taupin and he was the 31^st act to clock up this many. Holly Knight had only 1 previous credit on a charting hit and that was with Scandal’s ‘The Warrior’. ‘I Engineer’ would only get to 76 on the US but was popular in Germany where it got to number 2 and Switzerland where it made number 6. On the local radio charts it made it to 16 on Radio 702, 5 on Radio 5 and 4 on Capital 604.

After 3 weeks with 15 or more in the charts, the UK acts dropped below accounting for half the chart as we were down to 14 of the top 30 being by Brits.

Queen moved ahead of Joe Dolan for weeks in the charts. Their total was now 124 and they made 14^th place on the list their own while Dolan dropped into 15^th spot.

The average number of weeks the top 30 songs had been with us worked out to exactly 10. It was the 49^th time this average was an exact number and it had been 125 weeks since it last worked out to be a round number (it was also 10 last time).

In terms of top 20 weeks we saw Austria catch up with Belgium as both nations had seen 33 weeks each. Belgium’s had come from 1 hit by Telex and 1 from the Klaxons while Austria’s had been a combination of Opus and Falco who had managed 1 hit each. The 2 nations sat tied 19^th overall for top 20 weeks.

Sandra celebrated 10 consecutive weeks with 2 in the charts and was the 11^th act to manage such a sequence. Only Jennifer Rush of those 11 acts had managed it twice.

Youtube playlist:

29 June 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	13	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	3	8	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
3	2	9	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
4	4	16	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
5	7	10	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
6	6	15	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
7	5	16	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
8	8	18	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
9	9	18	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
10	10	9	Kiss	–	Prince
11	13	6	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
12	14	11	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
13	11	13	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
14	12	12	Sara	–	Starship
15	17	5	Addicted to Love	–	Robert Palmer
16	22	4	Dance with Me	–	Alphaville
17	16	8	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
18	15	16	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
19	19	9	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
20	28	4	Absolute Beginners	–	David Bowie
21	18	12	Captain of Her Heart	–	Double
22	25	3	There’ll be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry)	–	Billy Ocean
23	20	20	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys
24	26	2	On My Own	–	Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald
25	21	7	Kyrie	–	Mr. Mister
26	23	8	Calling America	–	Electric Light Orchestra
27	30	3	Move Away	–	Culture Club
28	29	2	If You Leave	–	Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
29	New	1	Let’s Go All the Way	–	Sly Fox
30	New	1	The Honeythief	–	Hipsway

Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ became the 42^nd song to clock up at least 7 weeks at 1 as it saw off the challenge from Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Love Missile F1-11’ which dropped from 2 to 3 and swapped placed with The Bangles ‘Manic Monday’.

David Bowie set a new record for weeks in the charts when picking up a 4^th biggest climber award as he was on 98 weeks and his ‘Absolute Beginners’  gave him his 4^th award with an 8 place climb from 28 to 20. The previous recordholder was Joe Dolan who was on 91 weeks when he picked up his 4^th biggest climber award. Bowie’s 98 weeks would be the all time record for a 4^th climber.

The biggest climb within the top 20 was only 2 places and Diana Ross’ ‘Chain reaction’, George Michael’s ‘A Different Corner’, Boom Boom Room’s ‘Here Comes The Man’ and Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted To Love’ all managed this as they moved up to 5, 11, 12 and 15 respectively.

Alphaville’s ‘Dance With Me’ made a star rater climb of 6 places from 22 to 16 and along with ‘Absolute Beginners’ made up the 2 new entries into the top 20.

Mr Mister’s ‘Kyrie’ was the faller of the week as it dropped 4 from 21 to 25 and within the top 20 it was Colonel Abrams’ ‘Trapped’ which dropped 3 from 15 to 18.

The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ and Double’s ‘Captain Of Her Heart’ were the 2 songs leaving the top 20. This meant that the oldest in the that part of the chart was now Billy Ocean’s ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’ which was on 17 top 20 weeks.

‘West End Girls’ was still the oldest in the top 30 as it became the 146^th song to reach 20 weeks in the charts. It had shared the title with Bronski Beat’s ‘Hit That Perfect Beat’ last week, but the latter was 1 of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It had managed a run of 19 weeks and peaked at 5, the best performance of their 3 hits to date. They had one more hit to come.

We also bid farewell to Tom Inglis’ ‘What Have We Done to the Song’ which managed 13 weeks and a peak of 11. He also had 1 more hit to come, but his departure from the chart meant that we were once more with no local hits in the charts and this was the start of the 11^th such run.

The first new entry was ‘Let’s Go All The Way’ by a band called Sly Fox, essentially a duo consisting of Gary “Mudbone” Cooper and Michael Camacho. Copper had been the vocalist for funk bands Parliament, Funkadelic and Bootsy’s Rubber Band. ‘Let’s Go All The Way’ did so in Canada if the title refers to going all the way to the top. Elsewhere it got to 7 in the US and 3 in the UK as well as going top 10 in Ireland (#4) and The Netherlands (#5 or #6 depending on which chart you look at). The only local radio chart it made was Capital 604 where it got to number 13.

The second new entry was Hipsway’s ‘The Honeythief’. The band featured ex-Altered Images guitarist John McElhone (Altered Images had a number 2 hit on our charts in 1982 with ‘Happy Birthday’) who penned the song along with his new bandmates. The song was produced by Gary Langan who was a member of The Art Of Noise. ‘The Honeythief’ had moderate success getting to 17 in the UK and 19 in the US. It also charted in Canada (#49), Ireland (#20), Italy (#17), The Netherlands (#33) and New Zealand (#26). Hipsway would manage a total of 5 UK hits and ‘The Honeythief’ would be their only one to crack the top 40 there. It also remains their only US hart hit. It would get to 5 on Radio 5 and 17 on the Capital 604 charts.

Dire Straits celebrated clocking up their 50^th week in the charts and they were the 108^th act to manage this milestone.

Youtube playlist:

22 June 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	12	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	3	8	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
3	6	7	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
4	2	15	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
5	4	15	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
6	5	14	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
7	7	9	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
8	8	17	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
9	9	17	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
10	13	8	Kiss	–	Prince
11	11	12	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
12	10	11	Sara	–	Starship
13	19	5	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
14	14	10	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
15	12	15	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
16	18	7	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
17	22	4	Addicted to Love	–	Robert Palmer
18	17	11	Captain of Her Heart	–	Double
19	20	8	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
20	15	19	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys
21	21	6	Kyrie	–	Mr. Mister
22	25	3	Dance with Me	–	Alphaville
23	23	7	Calling America	–	Electric Light Orchestra
24	16	13	What Have We Done to the Song	–	Tom Inglis
25	27	2	There’ll be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry)	–	Billy Ocean
26	New	1	On My Own	–	Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald
27	26	19	Hit That Perfect Beat	–	Bronski Beat
28	28	3	Absolute Beginners	–	David Bowie
29	New	1	If You Leave	–	Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
30	30	2	Move Away	–	Culture Club

‘Rock Me Amadeus’ by Falco spent a 6^th uninterrupted week at 1. It had a new number 2 to contend with as Sandra’s ‘(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena’ dropped from that position to 4 and Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Love Missile F1-11’ moved into second place.

George Michael picked up his 3^rd biggest climber award as ‘A Different Corner’ moved up 6 from 19 to 13 to be the climber both within the top 20 and the top 30. It was the second award for the song with ‘Careless Whisper’ having bagged George his other one. The only other star rater climb this week was Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted To Love’ which moved up 5 from 22 to 17 to be the only new entry into the top 20.

The song leaving the top 20 was Tom Inglis’ ‘What Have We Done To The Song’ which was also the faller of the week. It dropped 8 places from 16 to 24. This set off the 14^th run with no local hits in the top 20.

Within the top 20 it was the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ which was the biggest faller as it dropped 5 from 15 to 20. It was, however, the oldest in the top 20, moving on to 18 weeks in that part of the chart.

The oldest in the top 30 was Bronski Beat’s ‘Hit That Perfect Beat’ and the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’, both on 19 weeks. They took over the title from Hazell Dean’s ‘They Say It’s Gonna Rain’ which was the first of 2 songs leaving the top 30 this week. It had seen a run of 22 weeks and spent 1 of those weeks at 1. There was still 1 more hit to come from her.

Also going was Snowy White’s ‘For You’ which spent 9 weeks in the charts and peaked at 17. This ended his SA chart career with 2 hits to his name and a weeks total of 25. His other hit, ‘Bird Of Paradise’ had the better peak as it got to 13.

The first new entry was Patti Labelle & Michael McDonald’s ‘On My Own’. Patti fronted the group LaBelle which had a hit with ‘Lady Marmalade’ while McDonald had been in the Doobie Brothers (who had seen SA chart action with ‘Long Train Runnin’ which got to 11 and ‘What A Fool Believes’ which peaked at 7). McDonald had seen a song writing credit on ‘What A Fool Believes’ and was the 46^th person to chart first as a songwriter, then as an artist and the 21^st of those who had been a member of the group where their earlier song writing credit appeared. ‘On My Own’ gave Burt Bacharach his 13^th SA chart hit as a songwriter and Carole Bayer Sager her 8^th and the 2 also produced the track. It was originally recorded by Dionne Warwick for her ‘Friends’ album, but that version was not released. The Labelle/McDonald version would top the US charts for 3 weeks as well as going to number 1 in Canada and The Netherlands. It spent 3 weeks at 2 in the UK stuck behind Spitting Images’ ‘The Chicken Song’. It would top the Radio 5 and Capital 604 charts but only get to 17 on the Radio 702 ones. In Zimbabwe it would peak at 2. In 1995 country singer Reba McEntire took a version to number 20 on the US Hot Country Songs chart.

The second new entry was Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’s (usually referred to as OMD to avoid wearing out your finger tips to type it out) ‘If You Leave’. The song was recorded for the film ‘Pretty In Pink’ which starred Molly Ringwald and Harry Dean Stanton. The song was written in 24 hours following the film’s director John Hughes deciding to change the ending of the film. It also had to be written to the same beats per minute as Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ as it was to accompany a scene where the characters in the film had danced to the Simple Mind track. It was the band’s 16^th UK hit, but only made it to 48 there which was their 3^rd worst showing on those charts to that point. However, it managed to get to number 4 in the US and this remains their only top 10 hit there (they have managed 5 top 100 hits so far). Locally it would top the Radio 702 charts, get to 13 on Radio 5 and 17 on Capital 604.

We once again had groups accounting for at least half the chart. They had dropped below 15 for 2 weeks but were back up to that mark this week. Since the start of the top 30 they had accounted for 15 or more of the weekly chart hits just over 40% of the time which was a fair bit lower than the 52.6% overall figure for accounting for at least half the charts (i.e. 10 or more in the top 20 era and 15 or more in the top 30 era).

Billy Ocean became the 62^nd act to reach 70 weeks in the charts while ELO were celebrating getting to 80 weeks and were the 39^th act to manage this milestone.

Youtube playlist:

15 June 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	11	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	2	14	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
3	4	7	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
4	3	14	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
5	5	13	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
6	12	6	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
7	8	8	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
8	7	16	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
9	6	16	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
10	10	10	Sara	–	Starship
11	9	11	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
12	11	14	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
13	17	7	Kiss	–	Prince
14	16	9	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
15	13	18	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys
16	15	12	What Have We Done to the Song	–	Tom Inglis
17	14	10	Captain of Her Heart	–	Double
18	18	6	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
19	21	4	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
20	20	7	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
21	24	5	Kyrie	–	Mr. Mister
22	28	3	Addicted to Love	–	Robert Palmer
23	25	6	Calling America	–	Electric Light Orchestra
24	19	9	For You	–	Snowy White
25	27	2	Dance with Me	–	Alphaville
26	23	18	Hit That Perfect Beat	–	Bronski Beat
27	New	1	There’ll be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry)	–	Billy Ocean
28	29	2	Absolute Beginners	–	David Bowie
29	22	22	They Say it’s Gonna Rain	–	Hazell Dean
30	New	1	Move Away	–	Culture Club

Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ became the 87^th song to spend 5 weeks at 1 and it was the 77^th of those to manage it in a sequential run. Sandra spent a second week at 2 with ‘(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena’.

The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’ and Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted To Love’ shared the climber of the week award as they both moved up 6 to land at 6 and 22 respectively. The former was the climber within the top 20. The only other star rater was Prince’s ‘Kiss’ which moved up 4 from 17 to 13. This was the second time the song had been a star rater and Prince had seen 2 other star rater climbs with ‘When Doves Cry’ but had never had a biggest climber. He was the 4^th act to get to 4 star raters and never claimed a biggest climber award. The previous acts to manage this were Black Lace, Dan Hartman and The Waterboys all of whom had only managed 1 hit.

Hazell Dean’s ‘They Say It’s Gonna Rain’ fell 7 places from 22 to 29 to take the faller of the week award. This was the song’s second time with the award. Her only other hit so far, ‘Searchin’ spent 15 weeks in the charts, but was never the faller of the week. Within in the top 20 it was Billy Ocean’s ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’ and Double’s ‘Captain Of Her Heart’ which shared the faller award as they dropped 3 to land at 9 and 17 respectively.

‘They Say It’s Gonna Rain’ did become the oldest song in the charts. It was sitting on 22 weeks in total. The oldest in the top 20 was the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ which was on 17 weeks in that part of the chart and enjoying its second week as the top 20 granddaddy.

Snowy White’s ‘For You’ was the only song leaving the top 20 and it was replaced by George Michael’s ‘A Different Corner’.

Starship’s run with 2 in the chart came to an end after 9 weeks as ‘We Built This City’ dropped off the charts. It had been in the top 30 for 22 weeks and spent 2 of those at number 1. They still had ‘Sara’ in the charts, sitting at number 10 this week.

Also going was last week’s oldest in the charts, Lionel Richie’s ‘Say You Say Me’ which was with us for 30 weeks and 5 of those were spent at the top spot. There were still a few more hits to come from him.

With both of the leavers being ex-chart toppers, this was the 26^th time we had lost 2 previous number 1’s in the same week. We would never lose more than 2 in a week.

Billy Ocean became the 96^th act to have more than 1 in the chart in the same week as his ‘There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)’ joined ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’ in the charts. This was his 5^th hit to make our charts and he was coincidentally also the 96th act to manage this. Of all the acts that had seen 5 hits or more, Ocean was out in front for the longest song titles as he averaged exactly 25 characters per hit (excluding spaces and punctuation). The next highest were The Mamas and Papas who averaged 20.17 over their 6 hits. Andy Williams and Donna Summer were next, averaging 20 characters. ‘There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)’ was written by the same team who brought us ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’, that being Ocean himself along with Wayne Braithwaite and Barry Eastmond. Apparently Eastmond got the idea for the song at a party where a friend’s wife, who had just broken up with her husband, began crying when Billy Ocean’s ‘Suddenly’ started playing. ‘There’ll be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)’ had the honour of being the 600^th song to top the US charts, spending 1 week at 1 there. It would also top the Canadian charts, but only get to 12 in the UK. It would get to 2 on Radio 702 and peak at 4 on both the Radio 5 and Capital 604 charts.

The second new entry was Culture Club’s ‘Move Away’. Written by the band along with a guy called Phil Pickett (who had been in Sailor and they had a number 11 hit on our charts in 1976 with ‘A Glass Of Champagne’), the song would give them a number 7 hit in the UK and a number 12 hit in the US. It would be their last (to date) US top 40 hit and they wouldn’t see top 10 action in the UK again until 1998. The band would perform the song when they had a guest starring role in the TV show ‘The A-Team’.

With both new entries being by UK acts, we now had 16 of the top 30 by British artists and this was the first time they had accounted for at least half the charts in 44 weeks.

Sandra saw her weeks total reach 20 while both Miami Sound Machine and George Michael were celebrating getting to 30 weeks. Miami Sound Machine were yet to see a biggest faller award and they were the 33^rd act to see a run of 30 weeks without picking up a faller award.

Youtube playlist:

8 June 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	4	13	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
3	2	13	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
4	8	6	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
5	6	12	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
6	3	15	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
7	5	15	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
8	11	7	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
9	7	10	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
10	12	9	Sara	–	Starship
11	9	13	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
12	16	5	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
13	10	17	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys
14	14	9	Captain of Her Heart	–	Double
15	13	11	What Have We Done to the Song	–	Tom Inglis
16	17	8	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
17	20	6	Kiss	–	Prince
18	19	5	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
19	18	8	For You	–	Snowy White
20	24	6	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
21	26	3	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
22	15	21	They Say it’s Gonna Rain	–	Hazell Dean
23	21	17	Hit That Perfect Beat	–	Bronski Beat
24	25	4	Kyrie	–	Mr. Mister
25	28	5	Calling America	–	Electric Light Orchestra
26	22	30	Say You, Say Me	–	Lionel Richie
27	New	1	Dance with Me	–	Alphaville
28	29	2	Addicted to Love	–	Robert Palmer
29	New	1	Absolute Beginners	–	David Bowie
30	23	22	We Built This City	–	Starship

Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ moved on to 4 weeks at 1 but had a new number 2 to contend with in the shape of Sandra’s ‘(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena’ which moved up from 4 to 2, knocking Dire Straits’ ‘Walk Of Life’ from second spot as the latter dropped to 3. This was the 55^th week we had seen where the top 2 spots were by acts from the non-big 3 nations. 16 of those 55 weeks had seen the all-time record of the top 3 being by non-big 3 acts.

George Michael’s ‘A Different Corner’ moved up 5 from 26 to 21 to be the climber of the week. He had picked up 6 such awards as a member of Wham!, but this was only his second as a solo artist, having picked up 1 with his previous hit, ‘Careless Whisper’. There were 3 other star raters and these were Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Love Missile F1-11’, The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’ and Sandra’s ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ which all moved up 4 to land at 4, 12 and 20. The first 2 mentioned were also the biggest climbers within the top 20 while Sandra’s hit was the only new entry into the top 20 and she became the 86^th act to see more than 1 hit in the top 20 in the same week as her ‘(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena’ was sitting at 2.

Hazell Dean’s ‘They Say It’s Gonna Rain’ and Starship’s ‘We Built This City’ shared the faller of the week title as they both fell 7 to land at 22 and 30. The former was the only song leaving the top 20. Billy Ocean’s ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’ and the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ were the fallers inside the top 20. They dropped 3 places each, landing at 6 and 13 respectively.

Lionel Richie’s ‘Say You, Say Me’ became the 8^th song to get to 30 weeks in the charts and it was enjoying its 9^th week as the oldest in the top 30. ‘They Say It’s Gonna Rain’ had been the oldest in the top 20 last week and that honour now fell to ‘West end Girls’ which was on 16 weeks in that part of the chart.

We lost 2 songs from the top 30, the first of these being Twisted Sister’s ‘Leader Of The Pack’. It was in the top 30 for 18 weeks and peaked at 9. This brought to an end their SA chart career with 2 hits to their name and a weeks total of 35. Their other hit, ‘I Wanna Rock’ had the highest peak, getting to number 3. ‘Leader Of The Pack’ managed 20 weeks between the 2 versions that had charted (the other being The Shangri La’s version) and it sat tied 27^th with ‘Venus’ for weeks in the chart by songs charting in more than 1 version. There had been 2 versions of ‘Venus’ chart so far, one by Shocking Blue and one by local act, The Stockley Sisters.

Also going was A-ha’s ‘The Sun Always Shines on T.V.’ which manged 14 weeks and peaked at 8. This was 2 weeks less and 1 place lower than their only other hit so far, ‘Take On Me’. There was still plenty to come from this Norwegian band.

Alphaville saw their 4^th  hit make our chart and it was the first off their second album ‘Afternoons In Utopia’. ‘Dance With Me’ would give them a hit in Austria (#25), France (#14), Norway (#4), Sweden (#5) and Switzerland (#5) as well as getting them to 22 on the US Billboard Dance/Club Play charts. It would peak at 11 in their native Germany. On the local radio charts, it topped the Capital 604 and Radio 702 ones and peaked at 10 on Radio 5. The band had seen a change in line-up following the success of the ‘Forever Young’ album with Frank Mertens leaving the band and he was replaced by Ricky Echolette (real name Wolfgang Neuhaus) who was a friend of lead singer Marian Gold and had been in a band called Chinchilla Green with him.

David Bowie saw his 8^th hit make our charts in the form of ‘Absolute Beginners’. The song was taken from a film of the same name in which Bowie starred alongside 8th Wonder’s Patsy Kensit and Tenpole Tudor’s Edward Tudor-Pole. Sade and The Kinks’ Ray Davis also appeared in the film. The song, which included Rick Wakeman on piano, was more successful than the film and it would give Bowie a number 1 hit in Finland, Ireland and Poland. It would spend a week at 2 on the UK charts, sitting behind Diana Ross’ ‘Chain Reaction’, but would not make it to 1 there. It got to 5 in Zimbabwe and would top the Radio 5 charts while peaking at 2 on the Capital 604 ones and reaching 8 on Radio 702. Bowie joined Lionel Richie in having a 6 year run with at least 1 week in the charts. Only Diana Ross, who was on 7 years, having seen chart action every year since 1980 could claim a longer run of all the acts who had charted in 1986 so far. Apart from Bowie, Richie and Ross, there were no other acts who saw a run stretching back to 1981.

Switzerland pulled ahead of Norway for weeks in the chart by acts from a nation as the Swiss, who had 2 in the charts this week, jumped from 49 weeks to 51 and Norway, who’s A-ha left the charts this week, were stuck on 50 weeks. Switzerland was now 16^th overall with Norway in 17^th place.

Starship celebrated reaching 30 weeks in the charts in total while Lionel Richie became the 36^th act to spent 30 consecutive weeks in the charts. He had done this all with ‘Say You, Say Me’.

The departure of ‘The Sun Always Shines On T.V.’ meant that we dropped down from the record to date 13 UK/US chart toppers to 12.

Youtube playlist:

1 June 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	3	12	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
3	2	14	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
4	6	12	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
5	4	14	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
6	9	11	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
7	5	9	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
8	14	5	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
9	7	12	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
10	8	16	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys
11	19	6	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
12	12	8	Sara	–	Starship
13	11	10	What Have We Done to the Song	–	Tom Inglis
14	15	8	Captain of Her Heart	–	Double
15	10	20	They Say it’s Gonna Rain	–	Hazell Dean
16	20	4	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
17	18	7	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
18	17	7	For You	–	Snowy White
19	22	4	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
20	24	5	Kiss	–	Prince
21	21	16	Hit That Perfect Beat	–	Bronski Beat
22	16	29	Say You, Say Me	–	Lionel Richie
23	13	21	We Built This City	–	Starship
24	27	5	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
25	25	3	Kyrie	–	Mr. Mister
26	26	2	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
27	23	14	The Sun Always Shines on T.V.	–	A-Ha
28	28	4	Calling America	–	Electric Light Orchestra
29	New	1	Addicted to Love	–	Robert Palmer
30	29	18	Leader of the Pack	–	Twisted Sister

Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ enjoyed a 3^rd week at 1 while Dire Straits were seeing new heights in the charts with ‘Walk Of Life’ moving up from 3 to 2, going past their previous best peak of 3 which ‘Sultans Of Swing’ had also managed.

Diana Ross’ ‘Chain Reaction’ took the climber of the week in both the top 20 and the top 30 as it moved up 8 from 19 to 11. It was Ross’ 6^th time with the award and only Cliff Richard had a higher weeks count when picking up his 6^th climber award. Cliff had been on 124 weeks while Ross was on 101. Only 5 acts in total would take at least 100 weeks to get to 6 biggest climber awards.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Love Missile F1-11’, The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’ and Prince’s ‘Kiss’ were the other star raters this week, climbing 6, 4 and 4 respectively to land at 8, 16 and 20.

Starship’s ‘We Built This City’ fell 10 from 13 to 23 to be this week’s biggest faller. It was the 39^th time we had seen a song fall 10 or more places in a week. The faller within the top 20 was only half the size as Hazell Dean’s ‘They Say It’s Gonna Rain’ dropped 5 from 10 to 15. It did, however, become the oldest in the top 20, sitting on 18 weeks in that part of the chart. The previous oldest, Lionel Richie’s ‘Say You, Say Me’ joined ‘We Built This City’ in dropping off the top 20. It was still the oldest in the top 30, clocking up its 29^th week in the charts overall.

Belouis Some’s ‘Target Practice’ and Price’s ‘Kiss’ were the new entries into the top 20.

Silver Pozzoli’s SA Chart career came to an end as ‘Step By Step’ left the top 30 this week. It had seen a run of 12 weeks and peaked at 12, making it the 68^th song to have an equal weeks and peak figure. Pozzoli had managed 2 hits, spent a total of 36 weeks in the charts and his best peak was with his other hit, ‘Around My Dream’ which spent 4 weeks at 1. In terms of top 30 points he was the second highest scoring Italian act so far with 670 points, sitting behind Fun Fun who were on 754. He would still be second when the charts ended in 1989. ‘Step By Step’s departure from the chart heralded the end of a 37 week run where we had an act in the charts who was seeing 30 or more consecutive weeks in the top 30. This beat the previous record of 22 weeks. The 4 acts who had got us to that record were Madonna, Jennifer Rush, Modern Talking and Silver Pozzoli.

It had been 259 weeks since Robert Palmer last appeared in the charts as a solo act. His previous hit was ‘Johnny And Mary’ which left the charts in June 1981. He had seen chart action in the interim as lead singer of The Power House in 1985 with their hit ‘Some Like It Hot’. He was back again this week with ‘Addicted To Love’. The song was produced by Chic’s Bernard Edwards and it was his 7^th production credit on an SA chart hit. Andy Taylor from Duran Duran and who had been a band mate of Palmer’s in The Power House, played lead guitar on the track. The video, featuring Palmer performing the song in front of a band of heavily made up models, courted some controversy for being sexist and ironically one of the models, Julia Pankhurst, shared a surname with a leading suffragette figure, Emily Pankhurst. The format of the video was used by Shania Twain for the video for her hit, ‘Man I Feel Like A Woman’, with Twain performing in front of a group of male models. ‘Addicted To Love’ would top the charts in Australia and the US and go top 5 in Canada (#4), Ireland (#4), New Zealand (#2) and the UK (#5). It would also top the Capital 604 charts and peak at 2 on Radio 5, but not make the Radio 702 ones. In 1988 Tina Turner had moderate success with a cover of the song getting to 19 in The Netherlands, 23 in Belgium and 71 in the UK.

‘They Say It’s Gonna Rain’ reached 20 weeks in the charts and was the 152^nd song to manage this.

German acts celebrated reaching 500 weeks in the charts. They were the 4^th nation (after the US, the UK and SA) to get to this milestone. Counting the weeks from the top of the chart down, it was Sandra’s ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ that had the honour of getting them to this landmark total.

Both Tom Inglis and A-ha saw their weeks count reach 30. Just under 20% of acts so far (19.6%) had managed to reach 30 weeks.

The arrival of ‘Addicted To Love’ took us back up to 13 US/UK chart toppers in the top 30. These were ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ (both), ‘When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going’ (UK), ‘A Good Heart’ (UK), ‘West End Girls’ (both), ‘Chain Reaction’ (UK), ‘Sara’ (US), ‘Kiss’ (US), ‘Say You, Say Me’ (US), ‘We Built This City’ (US), ‘Kyrie’ (US), ‘A Different Corner’ (UK), ‘The Sun Always Shines On T.V.’ (UK) and ‘Addicted To Love’ (US). Interestingly ‘Chain Reaction’ topped the UK charts and peaked at 66 on the US ones while ‘Sara’ topped the US charts and peaked at 66 on the UK ones.

Youtube playlist:

25 May 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	2	13	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
3	3	11	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
4	5	13	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
5	8	8	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
6	7	11	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
7	4	11	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
8	6	15	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys
9	10	10	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
10	9	19	They Say it’s Gonna Rain	–	Hazell Dean
11	14	9	What Have We Done to the Song	–	Tom Inglis
12	15	7	Sara	–	Starship
13	11	20	We Built This City	–	Starship
14	17	4	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
15	16	7	Captain of Her Heart	–	Double
16	12	28	Say You, Say Me	–	Lionel Richie
17	18	6	For You	–	Snowy White
18	20	6	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
19	21	5	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
20	23	3	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
21	13	15	Hit That Perfect Beat	–	Bronski Beat
22	22	3	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
23	19	13	The Sun Always Shines on T.V.	–	A-Ha
24	24	4	Kiss	–	Prince
25	29	2	Kyrie	–	Mr. Mister
26	New	1	A Different Corner	–	George Michael
27	27	4	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
28	28	3	Calling America	–	Electric Light Orchestra
29	25	17	Leader of the Pack	–	Twisted Sister
30	26	12	Step by Step	–	Silver Pozzoli

‘Rock Me Amadeus’ rocked our world for a second week as the Falco hit held on to the top spot that it had taken last week. The previous chart topper, Billy Ocean’s ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’, spent a second week at 2.

Mr Mister took the climber of the week award as their ‘Kyrie’ managed a 4 place climb from 29 to 25. It would be the only star rater this week. A 3 place climb bagged you a top 20 climber award and 4 songs managed this. They were The Matterhorn Project’s ‘Moo’ (up to 5), Tom Inglis’ ‘What Have We Done To The Song’ (up to 11), Starship’s ‘Sara’ (up to 12) and Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s ‘Love Missile F1-11’ (up to 14).

Bronski Beat had picked up 1 biggest faller award previously with ‘Why?’ and this week they saw their second award as ‘Hit That Perfect Beat’ as it fell 8 from 13 to 21. Along with A-ha’s ‘The Sun Always Shines On T.V.’ it made up the 2 leavers from the top 20. New to the top 20 were Diana Ross’ ‘Chain Reaction’ and The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’.

Lionel Richie’s ‘Say You, Say Me’ was the faller within the top 20 as it dropped 4 from 12 to 16. It was enjoying its 27th week in the top 20 (the 10^th song to manage this) and its 8^th week as the oldest in that part of the chart. It had been in the top 30 for 28 weeks and was the 15^th song to reach this total. It had been the granddaddy of the chart for 7 weeks.

The Rolling Stones’ ‘Harlem Shuffle’ lasted just 1 week in the charts and spent that week at 30. It was the 4^th song since the top 30 started to spend just 1 week at 30. The Stones were the only act who had seen 3 songs spend just 1 week in the charts. Their previous 2 that spent a single week in the chart were ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Tumbling Dice’. This brought to an end their SA chart career with 14 hits to their name and a total weeks count of 137 (the tied 7^th highest, but would drop to tied 10^th by the time the charts ended). They had topped the overall weeks count list for the first 131 weeks of the charts, sharing the spot with Cliff Richard for 1 week, Herman’s Hermits for 2 weeks and Tom Jones for 4 weeks before Jones finally pulled ahead of them. Lead singer, Mick Jagger, had also seen 1 hit with David Bowie (‘Dancing In The Streets’) which spent 10 weeks in the charts and had seen Cliff Richard’s ‘Blue Turns To Grey’, Chris Farlowe’s ‘Out Of Time’ and Melanie’s ‘Ruby Tuesday’ chart where he and Keith Richards had song writing credits. Adding those in Jagger had 18 hits and 158 weeks. Richards, who didn’t feature on ‘Dancing In The Streets’ had 17 hits and 148 weeks to his name. The Rolling Stones would be the 3^rd last of all the acts who appeared on the very first chart to see chart action.

‘Harlem Shuffle’ was the only song leaving the charts and it was replaced by George Michael’s second solo single, ‘A Different Corner’. Written and produced by Michael it would top the charts for 3 weeks in the UK, making him the first solo act to see their first 2 hits top the UK charts as his previous solo effort, ‘Careless Whisper’ was also a chart topper there. It was replaced at number 1 there by our current chart toper, Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’. It would also top the charts in Canada, The Netherlands, Norway and Zimbabwe and get to 7 in the US. It would top the Radio 5 and Capital 604 charts, but only get to 11 on the 702 ones.

Starship’s ‘We Built This City’ became the 151^st song to clock up at least 20 weeks in the charts. It sat next to their ‘Sara’ in positions 13 and 12 respectively, giving us the 44^th time an act had hits sitting in adjacent positions. Meanwhile Belouis Some celebrated getting to 30 weeks in the charts and Diana Ross became the 22^nd act and the 3^rd woman to reach 100 weeks.

‘Leader Of The Pack’ moved into the top 30 for weeks by songs charting in more than 1 version. It had clocked up 19 weeks so far (2 from the Shangri-La’s version and 17 from Twisted Sister’s version) and sat tied 28^th with ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’ (Petula Clark & The Mindbenders), ‘For Your Precious Love’ (Oscar Toney Jr & The Flames), ‘Popcorn’ (Hot Butter & The Popcorn Makers) and ‘Takin’ Me Back’ (Tarney Spencer Band & Sweet Chocolate).

Youtube playlist:

18 May 1986

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	7	Rock Me Amadeus	–	Falco
2	1	12	When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going	–	Billy Ocean
3	3	10	Walk of Life	–	Dire Straits
4	7	10	Trapped	–	Colonel Abrams
5	4	12	A Good Heart	–	Feargal Sharkey
6	5	14	West End Girls	–	Pet Shop Boys
7	8	10	(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena	–	Sandra
8	10	7	Moo	–	Matterhorn Project
9	6	18	They Say it’s Gonna Rain	–	Hazell Dean
10	13	9	Conga	–	Miami Sound Machine
11	12	19	We Built This City	–	Starship
12	9	27	Say You, Say Me	–	Lionel Richie
13	11	14	Hit That Perfect Beat	–	Bronski Beat
14	15	8	What Have We Done to the Song	–	Tom Inglis
15	18	6	Sara	–	Starship
16	16	6	Captain of Her Heart	–	Double
17	17	3	Love Missile F1-11	–	Sigue Sigue Sputnik
18	19	5	For You	–	Snowy White
19	14	12	The Sun Always Shines on T.V.	–	A-Ha
20	21	5	Here Comes the Man	–	Boom Boom Room
21	22	4	Chain Reaction	–	Diana Ross
22	26	2	Target Practice	–	Belouis Some
23	28	2	Manic Monday	–	Bangles
24	25	3	Kiss	–	Prince
25	20	16	Leader of the Pack	–	Twisted Sister
26	23	11	Step by Step	–	Silver Pozzoli
27	29	3	In the Heat of the Night	–	Sandra
28	30	2	Calling America	–	Electric Light Orchestra
29	New	1	Kyrie	–	Mr. Mister
30	New	1	Harlem Shuffle	–	Rolling Stones

After 6 weeks at 1, Billy Ocean’s ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’ dropped off the top spot to let Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ in as the new number 1. Ocean was stuck in 6^th place for weeks at 1 with 16 to his name, 1 less than Tom Jones and Joe Dolan who sat just above him on the list. The first hit by an Austrian act, Opus’ ‘Live Is Life’, had just missed out on number 1 as it peaked at 2, but now we saw the second Austrian hit take the number 1 spot. Austria would be the second last nation to join those that had produced an SA chart topper. ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ was the 30th song to top our charts that would also top the UK and US charts.

The Bangles picked up the climber of the week award as ‘Manic Monday’ moved up 5 from 28 to 23 to take the award. Within the top 20 it was 3 one-word titled songs which shared the award as Colonel Abrams’ ‘Trapped’, Miami Sound Machine’s ‘Conga’ and Starship’s ‘Sara’ moved up 3 to land at 4, 10 and 15 respectively. Belouis Some’s ‘Target Practice’ made a star rater climb of 4 from 26 to 22 and, along with ‘Manic Monday’, made up this week’s star raters.

A-ha saw their 2^nd biggest faller award as ‘The Sun Always Shines On T.V.’ dropped 5 from 14 to 19. They had picked up their previous such award with ‘Take On Me’.

Twisted Sister’s ‘Leader Of The Pack’ was the only song leaving the top 20 and it was replaced by Boom Boom Room’s ‘Here Comes The Man’ which was the 62^nd song to re-enter the top 20.

Lionel Richie’s ‘Say You, Say Me’ continued as the oldest in the top 20 (26 weeks) and the top 30 (27 weeks).

Mr Mister’s ‘Broken Wings’ was the first of 2 songs to leave the charts this week. It had spent 10 weeks in the top 30 and peaked at 20. Also going was Elton John’s ‘Nikita’ which lasted 23 weeks and spent 4 of those at number 1. He too had 1 more hit to come.

Mr Mister gave us the 30th occasion when an act replaced themselves in the charts as the first of our new entries was their ‘Kyrie’. Cliff Richard was the only act who had replaced themselves twice in that 30. Like ‘Broken Wings’, ‘Kyrie’ was produced by South African Paul de Villiers who had been in Ballyhoo at one point. The title of the song, which is sung in the lyrics along with the second part, ‘eleison’, was from the Greek for ‘Lord have mercy’ and the phrase is used in a number of Christian liturgies. The song would top the charts in the US, Norway and Canada. In the UK it would make it to 11 while also getting to 4 in Zimbabwe. It would top both the Radio 5 and 702 charts and just miss out on a clean sweep, peaking at 2 on Capital 604.

The Rolling Stones were last seen on our charts on 22 January 1982 with ‘Start Me Up. Now, 225 weeks later they returned with their 14^th hit to date, ‘Harlem Shuffle’. They were the 9^th act to clock up 14 SA chart hits and sat tied with Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond and Billy Forrest on this total. The song was a cover of a 1963 hit by Bob & Earl (Bobby Byrd and Earl Nelson), who saw it get to number 44 in the US. Like its fellow new entry there was a local connection as South African born Anton Fig is credited as playing shakers on the track. It also featured Ivan Neville of The Neville Brothers on bass guitar, organ and synthesizers and Jimmy Cliff, Kirsty MacColl and Tom Waits, amongst others on backing vocals. It would give The Stones a number 1 hit in New Zealand and go top 5 in Belgium (#4), Canada (#5), Finland (#2) and The Netherlands (#5). It would only get to 13 in the UK. Their new entry brought The Stones’ weeks count up to 137 and they moved into tied 7th place on the total weeks count list, equalling The Hollies.

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