| Pos | LW | Weeks | Song | Artist | |
| 1 | 1 | 7 | Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room) | – | Paul Lekakis |
| 2 | 2 | 10 | Sometimes | – | Erasure |
| 3 | 5 | 8 | All I Ask of You | – | Cliff Richard & Sarah Brightman |
| 4 | 3 | 14 | The Final Countdown | – | Europe |
| 5 | 4 | 9 | (I Just) Died in Your Arms | – | Cutting Crew |
| 6 | 7 | 7 | Is This Love? | – | Alison Moyet |
| 7 | 6 | 18 | Everybody Have Fun Tonight | – | Wang Chung |
| 8 | 9 | 11 | Hi! Hi! Hi! | – | Sandra |
| 9 | 11 | 11 | Geronimo’s Cadillac | – | Modern Talking |
| 10 | 8 | 7 | French Kissing in the U.S.A. | – | Debbie Harry |
| 11 | 10 | 20 | Two of Hearts | – | Stacey Q |
| 12 | 12 | 6 | Shake You Down | – | Gregory Abbott |
| 13 | 14 | 12 | Forever Live and Die | – | Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark |
| 14 | 13 | 19 | A Matter of Trust | – | Billy Joel |
| 15 | 15 | 9 | You Give Love a Bad Name | – | Bon Jovi |
| 16 | 16 | 5 | Caravan of Love | – | Lovemasters |
| 17 | 20 | 10 | I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me) | – | George Michael & Aretha Franklin |
| 18 | 26 | 2 | Everything I Own | – | Boy George |
| 19 | 18 | 7 | Montego Bay | – | Amazulu |
| 20 | 21 | 4 | Cry Wolf | – | A-Ha |
| 21 | 17 | 14 | I’ll be Over You | – | Toto |
| 22 | 23 | 3 | The Great Pretender | – | Freddie Mercury |
| 23 | 24 | 3 | Hymn to Her | – | Pretenders |
| 24 | 29 | 2 | C’est La Vie | – | Robbie Nevil |
| 25 | New | 1 | Livin’ on a Prayer | – | Bon Jovi |
| 26 | New | 1 | Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone) | – | Glass Tiger |
| 27 | 19 | 20 | Walk Like an Egyptian | – | Bangles |
| 28 | 25 | 24 | Oh L’Amour | – | Erasure |
| 29 | 30 | 2 | Thorn in My Side | – | Eurythmics |
| 30 | 28 | 10 | Hip to be Square | – | Huey Lewis & The News |
Paul Lekakis’ ‘Boom Boom (Let’s Go back To My Room)’ spent a second week at 1 while Erasure’s ‘Sometimes’ was unmoved at 2, spending its 5th week there. So far only 1 song had managed to spend as many as 5 straight weeks at 2 before eventually taking the top spot and that was Silver Pozolli’s ‘Around My Dream.
Boy George’s ‘Everything I Own’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 8 from 26 to 18. It, along with A-ha’s ‘Cry Wolf’ were the 2 new entries into the top 20. Within the top 20 it was Aretha Franklin and George Michael’s ‘I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)’ which took the climbing honours as it moved up 3 from 20 to 17. Apart from ‘Everything I Own’, there was only 1 other star rater and it was Robibe Nevil’s ‘C’est La Vie’ which moved up 5 from 29 to 24.
The Bangles picked up their second biggest faller award as their ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ dropped 8 from 19 to 27. It was joined by Toto’s ‘I’ll Be Over You’ in leaving the top 20. ‘I’ll Be Over You’ had spent 10 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 10, making it the 72nd song to see an equal weeks and peak figure. The Bangles had not seen any biggest fallers with their first hit, ‘Manic Monday’ but had now picked up 2 in 2 weeks with their second hit. Debbie Harry’s ‘French Kissing In The U.S.A.’ was the faller within the top 20, dropping 2 from 8 to 10.
Erasure’s ‘Oh L’Amour’ was still the oldest in the top 30 as it moved on to 24 weeks in the charts and enjoyed its 4th week as the oldest. ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ had been the oldest in the top 20 so we now had to look to Wang Chung’s ‘Everybody Have Fun Tonight’ and Stacey Q’s’ Two Of Hearts’ which had both been in that part of the chart for 16 weeks.
A-ha’s run with 2 in the charts lasted just 3 weeks as their ‘I’ve Been Losing You’ was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It lasted 11 weeks in total made up of a run of 5 weeks, then after being absent for 1 week it returned for a 6 week run. It reached its highest placing of 23 during this second run and this equalled the lowest peak for a song managing 11 weeks, a feat Gino Vannelli’s ‘Black Cars’ managed.
Also going was Madonna’s ‘True Blue’. It had been with us for 19 weeks and peaked at 4. It was her 3rd hit to peak at 4 with only ‘Like A Virgin’ managing a higher peak as it got to 2. She had seen 7 hits so far and we were not done with her yet.
Bon Jovi became the 101st act to see 2 or more hits in the charts in the same week as ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ joined ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ in the top 30. You may recall when we saw Maria Vidal’s ‘Body Rock’ enter the charts in February of 1985, that I mentioned that Maria was the inspiration for the character Gina in the lyrics to ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’, especially the line ‘Gina works the diner all day’ as Vidal, who was the girlfriend of Desmond Child who co-wrote the song, had worked in a diner and was nicknamed Gina because of her resemblance to Gina Lollobrigida. Like ‘You Give Love A Band Name’, ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ would also top the US charts, but it would spend 4 weeks at 1 compared to their earlier hit which managed just 1 week. It would also top the charts in Canada, New Zealand and Norway. It would get to 4 on the UK charts and would be their highest peak there until 1992 when ‘Always’ got to number 2. It would just miss out on a clean sweep of number 1’s on the local radio charts, topping the Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts, but stalling at 2 on the Radio 5 ones.
The second new entry came from Canadian band, Glass Tiger and was ‘Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone)’. This was the 41st song by a Canadian act to chart and the Canadians sat in second place for number of hits by act from the non-big 3 nations, however, they were 7 behind the leaders, Germany, who were on 48. ‘Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone)’ features Bryan Adams on backing vocals and it would top the charts in their native Canada but just miss out in the US where it peaked at number 2 for 1 week, stuck behind Janet Jackson’s ‘When I Think Of You’. It would also do well in Australia where it went to number 9. On the Radio 5 charts it would get to number 3 and it would peak at 8 on the 702 ones, but it didn’t manage to get onto the Capital 604 charts.
We had 12 songs by American acts and 12 songs by UK acts on this week’s chart and it was the 4th week running the 2 nations had seen the same number of songs in the charts. This was the 4th run of 4 weeks with them being equal. Two of the previous 3 times had seen the run extend to 5 weeks.
Stacey Q’s ‘Two Of Hearts’ and The Bangles’ ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ both hit 20 weeks in the charts and they were the 169th and 170th songs to manage this. Stacey Q was 1 of 3 acts reaching 20 weeks in the chart this week. The other 2 were Alison Moyet and Wang Chung. The Pretenders reached 30 weeks while Huey Lewis & The News became the 116th act to hit 50. Cliff Richard closed in on Tom Jones for weeks as he ticked over to 180 and sat 5 behind Jones. The 2 acts were 3rd and 4th overall.
Modern Talking moved into tied 13th place on the weeks count list, joining Olivia Newton-John there with 127weeks to their name.
Erasure had now had 10 straight weeks with both ‘Oh L’Amour’ and ‘Sometimes’ in the charts. They were the 11th act to manage a run of at least 10 weeks with 2 or more in the charts with Jennifer Rush being the only one of the 11 who had managed this twice.
Youtube playlist:
SA Singles Charts 