| Pos | LW | Weeks | Song | Artist | |
| 1 | 1 | 13 | Never Gonna Give You Up | – | Rick Astley |
| 2 | 2 | 17 | La Bamba | – | Los Lobos |
| 3 | 3 | 12 | You Win Again | – | Bee Gees |
| 4 | 4 | 19 | It’s a Sin | – | Pet Shop Boys |
| 5 | 6 | 5 | Faith | – | George Michael |
| 6 | 9 | 7 | Mony Mony | – | Billy Idol |
| 7 | 5 | 14 | Funky Town | – | Pseudo Echo |
| 8 | 7 | 13 | Call Me | – | Spagna |
| 9 | 10 | 7 | Mary’s Prayer | – | Danny Wilson |
| 10 | 11 | 10 | Crazy | – | Icehouse |
| 11 | 8 | 11 | Bad | – | Michael Jackson |
| 12 | 12 | 14 | Wishing Well (A Tone Poem) | – | Terence Trent D’Arby |
| 13 | 13 | 8 | Paper in Fire | – | John Cougar |
| 14 | 15 | 4 | (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life | – | Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes |
| 15 | 14 | 16 | Always | – | Atlantic Starr |
| 16 | 19 | 6 | What Have I Done to Deserve This | – | Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield |
| 17 | 16 | 9 | My Pretty One | – | Cliff Richard |
| 18 | 17 | 18 | Who’s That Girl | – | Madonna |
| 19 | 20 | 3 | Come On, Let’s Go | – | Los Lobos |
| 20 | 18 | 20 | I Just Can’t Stop Loving You | – | Michael Jackson |
| 21 | 22 | 6 | Causing a Commotion | – | Madonna |
| 22 | 21 | 7 | Heart and Soul | – | T’Pau |
| 23 | 24 | 4 | My Kind of Girl | – | Cinema |
| 24 | 23 | 13 | Jet Airliner | – | Modern Talking |
| 25 | 25 | 4 | Brilliant Disguise | – | Bruce Springsteen |
| 26 | 26 | 23 | Luka | – | Suzanne Vega |
| 27 | 27 | 10 | Scales of Justice | – | Living in a Box |
| 28 | 29 | 4 | Barcelona | – | Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé |
| 29 | 30 | 2 | Beethoven (I Love to Listen to) | – | Eurythmics |
| 30 | 28 | 23 | Let’s Dance | – | Chris Rea |
We ended the year with Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ enjoying a second week at 1 with the former chart topper, Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ still at 2 where it had fallen to last week. Billy Idol, Madonna and Modern Talking were the only 3 acts featuring on this, the last chart of the year, who were also seen on the chart at the start of the year. Billy Idol’s ‘To Be A Lover’, Madonna’s ‘True Blue’ and Modern Talking’s ‘Brother Louie’ and ‘Atlantis Is Calling’ had been their charting hits at the start of the year. Both Madonna and Modern Talking had also been seen on the first and last charts of 1986 and they were the 8th and 9th act to have had hits at the start and the end of 2 different years. Of those 9 acts, only Abba and Tom Jones had managed it in 3 different years.
Billy Idol’s ‘Mony Mony’ and the Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield’s ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This’ shared the climber of the week award as they both moved up 3 to land at 6 and 16 respectively. They would be the climbers both within the top 20 and the top 30. As the biggest climb was just 3 places, there were obviously no star raters this week. This was the 67th week where we had no star raters making it just under 5.7% of the time we had no star raters.
The biggest fall was also just 3 places and it was Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ that managed this as it dropped from 8 to 11, thus taking the honours in the top 20 and the top 30.
There was no movement on or off the top 20 which meant that the oldest in that part of the chart was unchanged with the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ hitting 18 top 20 weeks and enjoying their 3rd week as the oldest in the top 20. There was also no movement on or off the top 30 so the oldest in the top 30 was also unchanged and those were Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ and Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ which ticked over to 23 weeks. This was the 34th time we had seen no movement on or off the charts and the 3rd time in the top 30 era when both the top 20 and the top 30 had no song leave or enter.
Los Lobos celebrated reaching 20 weeks in the charts, Jennifer Warnes got to 40 and Modern Talking moved on to 150 but were unmoved in 7th place overall with Michael Jackson in 6th place above them sitting on 157 and clocking up 2 a week at the moment while Modern Talking just had the 1 in the charts. Jackson celebrated reaching 1,500 points (using a top 20 basis) and he sat 11th overall, 10 behind Elton John who was just above him.
We did see a new record for the average weeks total for the acts in this week’s chart as this worked out at 57.52 which went past the previous record of 56.52 which was set 4 weeks back.
Looking at top 20 weeks, we saw the Australians catch up with the Jamaicans with both nations now having totalled 308. They sat tied 8th overall. Included in the Jamaicans total of 308 are 130 which were accumulated by Boney M. Some may choose to classify them as German.
Also looking only at the top 20 we saw Cliff Richard clock up his 200th week in that part of the chart. He sat 3rd overall behind The Bee Gees (who were on 214 and also busy adding to their total) and Abba on 237 who had already seen the end of the their SA chart career.
The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ moved on to 310 top 20 points and it was the 71st song to reach or exceed 300 points.
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SA Singles Charts 