| Pos | LW | Weeks | Song | Artist | |
| 1 | 1 | 14 | Never Gonna Give You Up | – | Rick Astley |
| 2 | 3 | 13 | You Win Again | – | Bee Gees |
| 3 | 2 | 18 | La Bamba | – | Los Lobos |
| 4 | 5 | 6 | Faith | – | George Michael |
| 5 | 14 | 5 | (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life | – | Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes |
| 6 | 11 | 12 | Bad | – | Michael Jackson |
| 7 | 4 | 20 | It’s a Sin | – | Pet Shop Boys |
| 8 | 7 | 15 | Funky Town | – | Pseudo Echo |
| 9 | 6 | 8 | Mony Mony | – | Billy Idol |
| 10 | 8 | 14 | Call Me | – | Spagna |
| 11 | 12 | 15 | Wishing Well (A Tone Poem) | – | Terence Trent D’Arby |
| 12 | 13 | 9 | Paper in Fire | – | John Cougar |
| 13 | 10 | 11 | Crazy | – | Icehouse |
| 14 | 9 | 8 | Mary’s Prayer | – | Danny Wilson |
| 15 | 20 | 21 | I Just Can’t Stop Loving You | – | Michael Jackson |
| 16 | 23 | 5 | My Kind of Girl | – | Cinema |
| 17 | 15 | 17 | Always | – | Atlantic Starr |
| 18 | 21 | 7 | Causing a Commotion | – | Madonna |
| 19 | 17 | 10 | My Pretty One | – | Cliff Richard |
| 20 | 16 | 7 | What Have I Done to Deserve This | – | Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield |
| 21 | 28 | 5 | Barcelona | – | Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé |
| 22 | 22 | 8 | Heart and Soul | – | T’Pau |
| 23 | 19 | 4 | Come On, Let’s Go | – | Los Lobos |
| 24 | 25 | 5 | Brilliant Disguise | – | Bruce Springsteen |
| 25 | 18 | 19 | Who’s That Girl | – | Madonna |
| 26 | RE | 5 | Persona Non Grata | – | Gino Vannelli |
| 27 | New | 1 | Always on My Mind | – | Pet Shop Boys |
| 28 | 27 | 11 | Scales of Justice | – | Living in a Box |
| 29 | 29 | 3 | Beethoven (I Love to Listen to) | – | Eurythmics |
| 30 | New | 1 | Whenever You Need Somebody | – | Rick Astley |
And so begins the final full year of charts. So far we had only seen a new number 1 on the first chart of a new year 4 times. The change to 1988 had been the 23 new year since the charts began and it continued the trend of the number 1 at the end of the previous year still being at the top of the charts in the new year as Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ enjoyed its 3rd week at the top of the pile. However, for the first time since 1980, we saw a change in the number 2 song with a change in the year as The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’ moved into second place after sitting at 3 for 3 weeks. The previous number 2 (and a previous chart topper), Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ dropped from 2 to 3.
Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’ ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 9 from 14 to 5. It was the climber both within the top 20 and the top 30. There were 4 other star raters and these were Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ and his ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ which both climbed 5 to land at 6 and 15 respectively, Cinema’s ‘My Kind Of Girl’ (up 7 from 23 to 16) and Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe’s’ ‘Barcelona’ (up 7 from 28 to 21). Michael Jackson was the 4th act to see 2 songs have a star rater climb in the same week. The previous acts to manage this were Engelbert Humperdinck, Neil Diamond and Wings. There would be 1 more act to achieve this. ‘My Kind of Girl’ was joined by Madonna’s ‘Causing A Commotion’ in being new entries into the top 20 and this brought to an end an 11 week run with no local hits in the top 20.
Madonna picked up her 6th biggest faller award as ‘Who’s That Girl’ fell 7 from 18 to 25. Her 6 fallers had come from 6 different songs and she was the 3rd act to clock up 6 biggest fallers with 6 different hits. The previous acts to do this were The Troggs and Petula Clark. Two acts, Engelbert Humperdinck and Herman’s Hermits, had managed the record to date 7 fallers with 7 different hits. ‘Mary’s Prayer’ by Danny Wilson took the biggest tumble within the top 20 as it fell 5 from 9 to 14.
Madonna’s ‘Who’s That Girl’ and Los Lobos’ ‘Come On Let’s Go’ dropped out of the top 20 making Madonna the second act to replace themselves in the top 20 twice. Her ‘La Isla Bonita’ had replaced ‘Who’s That Girl’. Cliff Richard was the only other act to manage this twice. The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving you’ continued as the oldest in the top 20, clocking up their 19th top 20 week and their 4th week as the oldest.
Jackson’s ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving you’ was also the oldest in the top 30, reaching 21 weeks. This came about as the 2 songs which shared the oldest in the chart title last week, Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ and Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’, both fell off the charts. Both songs had spent 23 weeks in the top 30 and ‘Let’s Dance’ had peaked at 4 while ‘Luka’ made it to 3. This was the end of the SA chart road for both acts. ‘Luka’ would be Vega’s only hit while Chris Rea had also seen ‘I Can Heart Your Heart Beat’ chart (peak of 14), giving him a weeks total of 35.
We also bid farewell to Modern Talking’s ‘Jet Airliner’ which managed 13 weeks and a peak of 16, their second lowest weeks and peak of their 8 hits so far. They would return to the charts later.
Gino Vannelli’s ‘Persona Non-Grata’ became the 7th song to re-enter the charts twice as returned to the top 30 after an absence of 3 weeks. This would be the last song to re-enter the charts twice. The other songs to manage this were Lauren Copley’s ‘Flower Of Life’, Titanic’s ‘Sultana’, Tony Christie’s ‘(Is This The Way To) Amarillo’, Apollo 100’s ‘Joy’, T Rex’s ‘Metal Guru’ and Dead Or Alive’s ‘Brand New Lover’. ‘Sultana’, ‘(Is This The Way To) Amarillo’ and ‘Persona Non Grata’ were the only 3 of these to have their second re-entry in a different year to their first with the first 2 both re-entering first in 1971 and then again in the first week of 1972. ‘Brand New Lover’ and ‘Persona Non Grata’ were the only ones that did this in the top 30 era.
We had to go back to 23 June 1978 (over 10 years back) to see the last time we had an act with 3 hits in the chart, but this week the Pet Shop Boys joined Four Jacks & A Jill, Percy Sledge, Pussycat and The Bee Gees in managing this all-time record number of hits in a week’s chart as the first new entry was their cover of ‘Always On My Mind’. The song had been written by Wayne Carson, Jonny Christopher and Mark James and had been recorded by numerous artists, most notably Elvis Presley (in 1972) and Willie Nelson (in 1982) with the former going to 20 in the US charts and the latter getting to 5 there. There certainly was a decade theme going on with this song as It was 10 years since we last had an act with 3 in the charts, there was 10 years between Elvis’ version of the song and Willie Nelson’s and the Pet Shop Boys version came about after they performed it on a TV show marking the 10th anniversary of Elvis’ death. Their version was so well received that they released it as a single. It would top the UK charts for 4 weeks and also top the charts in Canada, Finland, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany. 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 ones, but falling just short on Radio 5 where it peaked at 2.
And while the Pet Shop boys were celebrating 3 in the charts, Rick Astley became the 108th act to see more than 1 in the chart in a week as his ‘Whenever You Need Somebody’ was the other new entry this week, joining ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. We now had a new record of 5 acts with more than 1 hit in the chart as apart from Rick Astley and the Pet Shop Boys we also saw Michael Jackson, Madonna and Los Lobos with 2 each. And with ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ sitting at 1 and ‘Whenever You Need Somebody’ arriving at 30 we had the only time we would see the same act in the top and bottom positions on the charts. Like the current number 1 hit, ‘Whenever You Need Somebody’ was written and produced by Stock, Aitken & Waterman, giving them their 4th hit as songwriters and 10th as producers. They would see the song top the charts in Germany, Sweden and Switzerland and peak at 3 in the UK. Unlike ‘Always On My Mind’, ‘Whenever You Need Somebody’ would manage the clean sweep of number 1s across the Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts.
John Cougar saw his weeks total reach 30 while the Pet Shop Boys were celebrating getting to 50 and were the 3rd act to see a run of 50 weeks without ever having a biggest faller award. The previous 2 were The Seekers and Cyndi Lauper while Miami Sound Machine saw their first biggest faller award in their 50th week. The Seekers saw their first biggest faller in their 58th week while Cyndi Lauper managed her entire SA chart career of 59 weeks with no faller.
‘La Bamba’ became the 77th song to clock up at least 300 points based on a top 20 basis. Only 11 more songs would manage this. Using a top 30 basis, then we saw The Bee Gees move past the 5,000 milestone. They were only the second act to manage this and they sat on 5,026 while Abba led the way with 5,451.
Madonna had now managed 30 weeks in total with at least 2 songs in the charts. She had managed this with 7 different pairings. She had passed the record for female acts when she moved on to 24 weeks and was now 10 weeks behind the leaders, Modern Talking.
‘Funky Town’ moved into the top 20 of the list of songs which had charted in more than 1 version as it moved on to a total of 23 weeks (8 from Lipps Inc’s version and 15 from Pseudo Echo’s). It joined 5 other songs in tied 19th place.
Youtube playlist:
SA Singles Charts 