| Pos | LW | Weeks | Song | Artist | |
| 1 | 3 | 11 | All I Ask of You | – | Cliff Richard & Sarah Brightman |
| 2 | 1 | 13 | Sometimes | – | Erasure |
| 3 | 2 | 10 | Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room) | – | Paul Lekakis |
| 4 | 4 | 17 | The Final Countdown | – | Europe |
| 5 | 6 | 5 | Everything I Own | – | Boy George |
| 6 | 7 | 10 | Is This Love? | – | Alison Moyet |
| 7 | 8 | 12 | (I Just) Died in Your Arms | – | Cutting Crew |
| 8 | 5 | 14 | Hi! Hi! Hi! | – | Sandra |
| 9 | 11 | 8 | Caravan of Love | – | Lovemasters |
| 10 | 10 | 13 | I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me) | – | George Michael & Aretha Franklin |
| 11 | 9 | 14 | Geronimo’s Cadillac | – | Modern Talking |
| 12 | 19 | 6 | Hymn to Her | – | Pretenders |
| 13 | 14 | 5 | C’est La Vie | – | Robbie Nevil |
| 14 | 13 | 23 | Two of Hearts | – | Stacey Q |
| 15 | 12 | 15 | Forever Live and Die | – | Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark |
| 16 | 17 | 6 | The Great Pretender | – | Freddie Mercury |
| 17 | 24 | 10 | Montego Bay | – | Amazulu |
| 18 | 18 | 7 | Cry Wolf | – | A-Ha |
| 19 | 20 | 12 | You Give Love a Bad Name | – | Bon Jovi |
| 20 | 23 | 4 | Livin’ on a Prayer | – | Bon Jovi |
| 21 | 16 | 22 | A Matter of Trust | – | Billy Joel |
| 22 | 22 | 9 | Shake You Down | – | Gregory Abbott |
| 23 | 27 | 2 | I Come Undone | – | Jennifer Rush |
| 24 | 30 | 2 | Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now | – | Starship |
| 25 | 25 | 4 | Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone) | – | Glass Tiger |
| 26 | 26 | 5 | Thorn in My Side | – | Eurythmics |
| 27 | 15 | 21 | Everybody Have Fun Tonight | – | Wang Chung |
| 28 | 21 | 10 | French Kissing in the U.S.A. | – | Debbie Harry |
| 29 | New | 1 | Don’t Need a Gun | – | Billy Idol |
| 30 | New | 1 | Respectable | – | Mel & Kim |
Erasure’s ‘Sometimes’ only lasted 1 week at 1 as it dropped to 2 this week, making way for Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman’s ‘All I Ask Of You’ which moved up from 3 to 1. Cliff Richard had last been at number 1 on 8 October 1976 when his ‘Devil Woman’ took the top spot for 1 week. This gap of 552 weeks would be the all-time record gap between chart toppers for an act. This beat the previous record of 508 weeks which Dr Hook had held. The new number 1 brought the gap between the number of chart toppers that the Brits had seen and those that the Americans had seen down to 2 with the former of 115 and the latter on 117. With ‘Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To My Room)’ at 3 and Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’ moving back up from 6 to 4, we had the 15th time when 4 of the top 5 had all topped the charts. Only 1 of those 15 times had seen the whole top 5 made up of chart toppers.
The Pretenders’ ‘Hymn To Her’ and Amazulu’s ‘Montego Bay’ shared the climber of the week award as they both moved up 7 to land at 12 and 17 respectively. ‘Montego Bay’ was the 16th song to pick up the award after re-entering the charts. It would be the 69th song to re-enter the top 20 and it would be the only song to re-enter the top 30 and the top 20. It was accompanied by Bon Jovi’s ‘Living On A Prayer’ in entering the top 20. ‘Hymn To Her’ was the climber within the top 20. There were 2 other star raters and they were Jennifer Rush’s ‘I Come Undone’ (up 4 from 27 to 23) and Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ (up 6 from 30 to 24).
Wang Chung’s ‘Everybody Have Fun Tonight’ dropped 12 places from 15 to 27 and was the faller of the week. It was the 7th song to see a drop of this size and it gave us the first time we had seen a drop of 11 or more 2 weeks running as ‘French Kissing In The U.S.A.’ by Debbie Harry had dropped 11 last week. ‘Everybody Have Fun Tonight’ was joined by Billy Joel’s ‘A Matter Of Trust’ in leaving the top 20. Within the top 20 we saw Sandra’s ‘Hi! Hi! Hi!’ and OMD’s ‘Forever Live And Die’ share the faller award as they both dropped 3 to land at 8 and 15 respectively.
‘Everybody Have Fun Tonight’ had shared the oldest in the top 20 title with Stacey Q’s ‘Two Of hearts’ last week and the latter was now the oldest on its own, sitting on 19 weeks in that part of the chart. It also enjoyed a second week as the oldest in the top 30, moving on to 23 weeks in total in the charts.
Two songs left the top 30, the first of these being Toto’s ‘I’ll Be Over You’ which lasted 16 weeks and peaked at 10. We were now over Toto as this ended their SA chart career. They had seen 4 hits, spent a total of 50 weeks in the charts and got to number 1 for 4 weeks with their first hit, ‘Hold The Line’.
We also bid farewell to The Temptations’ ‘Lady Soul’ which manged just 3 weeks and a peak of 28. They too were seeing the end of their SA chart career having managed 3 hits, 19 weeks and a best peak of 6 with ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’.
Billy Idol returned to the charts with his follow up to ‘To Be A Lover’. ‘Don’t Need A Gun’ was the second single off his ‘Whiplash Smile’ album. The album would peak at 13 on the SA album charts and featured jazz bassists Marcus Miller, guitarist John Regan (who had worked in Ace Frehley’s band) and Harold Faltermeyer who had some success (although not on our charts) with the instrumental theme ‘Axel F’ from Beverly Hills Cop. ‘Don’t Need A Gun’ would peak at 26 in the UK and 37 in the US as well as going to 36 in Germany, 27 in New Zealand and 29 in Switzerland. It made it to 4 on the 702 charts and 9 on Radio 5 but did not feature on the Capital 604 ones.
The other new entry was ‘Respectable’, a 6th SA chart hit for the production team of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, but a first hit for the act Mel & Kim which consisted of sisters Melanie and Kim Appleby. It was the first hit for Stock, Aitken and Waterman as songwriters and they saw it go to the top of the charts in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Finland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and Germany. It would just miss out in Zimbabwe, Ireland and Norway where it peaked at 2. It would also just miss out on Radio 5 where it also peaked at 2. On the Capital 604 charts it got to number 7 but didn’t make the 702 charts. Sadly Melanie would succumb to cancer at the early age of 23. She died on 18 January 1990.
With both of the leavers being by American acts and both the new entries being by Brits, we had a switch and saw more hits by Brits (13) than by Americans (11) in the charts.
We had 5 acts reach weeks milestones this week with Freddie Mercury hitting 40, Sandra making it to 60, The Eurythmics reaching 70, Billy Joel got to 120 and Modern Talking saw their total move on to 130. Modern Talking moved into tied 12th place for weeks, sitting alongside Boney M but Billy Joel was stuck in 18th place and was 3 behind Joe Dolan who was just above him on the list.
Modern Talking reached 2,000 points using a top 30 basis and they sat 26th overall on that basis. Sandra celebrated getting to 1,000 top 30 points. 117 acts so far had managed to get to this milestone.
Bon Jovi gave us the 49th occasion where an act had songs in adjacent positions on the charts as ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ sat at 19 and ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ was at 20. They were the 87th act to see more than 1 hit in the top 20 in the same week.
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SA Singles Charts 