1987 THE FACTS AND FIGURES

1987 saw the first ever Rugby World Cup event. This was held in New Zealand and the All Blacks went on to beat France in the final. The Simpsons made their first TV appearance as cartoon shorts on The Tracey Ullman show. Also making a debut was Starbucks coffee shops as the first store opened in Seattle. South Africa was rocked by the news that SAA flight 295 (also known as The Helberberg) had crashed in Mauritius killing 159 (71 of which were South African). The world welcomed Paolo Nutini, Kesha, Bow Wow, Novak Djokovic, Lionel Messi, Wiz Khalifa and local singer Bobby van Jaarsveld amongst others while be bid farewell to Alistair McLean (author of the novel ‘The Guns Of Navarone’), Liberace, Andy Warhol, Paul Butterfield (of the Butterfield Blues Band), Fred Astaire, Lee Marvin (who had a number 6 hit on our charts in 1970 with ‘Wanderin’ Star), Peter Tosh (who had a number 5 hit on our charts in 1983 with ‘Johnny B Goode) and Lorne Green (who played Ben Cartwright in the TV series ‘Bonanza’).

On the chart front we had 132 hits spend time in the charts, 100 of which made the top 20 in that time. This was the 3^rd year running that we had seen exactly 100 songs spend time in the top 20. The 132 in the top 30 was the second lowest total we had seen since the top 30 began. The 100 in the top 20 was the tied 3rd lowest total for the top 20 with only the 97 in 1984 and the 79 in the half year of 1965 when the charts started, being lower. There were 103 different acts who charted in the year which was the lowest total we had seen in the top 30 era and with 85 acts brining us the 100 top 20 hits, we saw the 17^th lowest (out of 23 years) hits per act ratio with this figure being 1.176. The following table shows the number of hits and acts over the years:

Year	No Of Hits (Top 20)	No Of Hits (Top 30)	No Of acts (Top 20)	No Of acts (Top 30)	Hits/Act (Top 20)
1965	79		55		1.436
1966	136		97		1.402
1967	146		98		1.490
1968	142		97		1.464
1969	153		112		1.366
1970	141		114		1.237
1971	135		114		1.184
1972	117		97		1.206
1973	103		87		1.184
1974	115		100		1.150
1975	128		111		1.153
1976	123		110		1.118
1977	119		94		1.266
1978	114		91		1.253
1979	113		91		1.242
1980	119		97		1.227
1981	126		108		1.167
1982	109		98		1.112
1983	102	134	86	112	1.186
1984	97	125	85	108	1.141
1985	100	138	83	111	1.205
1986	100	136	83	110	1.205
1987	100	132	85	103	1.176

After the disastrous 1985 when only 4 local songs made the charts, we had seen an improvement in 1986 with 6. This upward trend continued into 1987 as we had 7 local hits spend time in the charts. None of the acts on these 7 hits accounted for more than 1 hit.

Based on a points system of 30 points for a number 1 position, 29 for number 2 etc down to 1 for position 30, the following are the top 40 chart performers for the year (Note: this does not necessarily reflect sales):

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	All I Ask of You	Cliff Richard & Sarah Brightman	603
2	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	Starship	576
3	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	Whitney Houston	569
4	Everything I Own	Boy George	554
5	Is This Love?	Alison Moyet	523
6	Ever Fallen in Love	Fine Young Cannibals	510
7	It’s a Sin	Pet Shop Boys	499
8	The Final Countdown	Europe	487
9	Wild Horses	Gino Vannelli	482
10	Sometimes	Erasure	476
11	The Great Pretender	Freddie Mercury	459
=12	Everybody Have Fun Tonight	Wang Chung	450
=12	La Bamba	Los Lobos	450
14	Strangelove	Depeche Mode	440
15	You’re the Voice	John Farnham	430
16	Respectable	Mel & Kim	424
17	Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room)	Paul Lekakis	421
18	Hi! Hi! Hi!	Sandra	417
19	Luka	Suzanne Vega	406
20	Let’s Dance	Chris Rea	398
21	(I Just) Died in Your Arms	Cutting Crew	392
22	Walk Like an Egyptian	Bangles	391
=23	A Matter of Trust	Billy Joel	389
=23	Lean on Me	Club Nouveau	389
25	Two of Hearts	Stacey Q	377
26	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	Michael Jackson	351
27	Funky Town	Pseudo Echo	344
28	Livin’ on a Prayer	Bon Jovi	332
29	Geronimo’s Cadillac	Modern Talking	317
30	Who’s That Girl	Madonna	312
31	Oh L’Amour	Erasure	308
=32	Never Gonna Give You Up	Rick Astley	298
=32	Always	Atlantic Starr	298
34	Whisper Your Secret	Helicopters	296
35	True Blue	Madonna	295
36	I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)	George Michael & Aretha Franklin	294
37	The Living Daylights	A-Ha	283
38	The Lady in Red	Chris de Burgh	280
39	Don’t Leave Me This Way	Communards	276
40	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	Terence Trent D’Arby	267

You can compare this to the list published in Top 40 magazine in 1989 which can be found here:

Top 40 Magazine 1987 List

‘All I Ask Of You’ was the top hit using both a top 20 and a top 30 basis of calculating points. We had seen 2 years (1984 and 1986) in the top 30 era where a top 20 basis had yielded a different top hit. This was the 6^th time the top hit had been by an act from the UK which moved the Brits ahead of the South African acts as the latter had seen 5 hits of the year. The Americans were out in front with 8. Germany had managed 2 while Canada and Belgium had each seen 1.

The cumulative points to date using a top 20 basis gave the following top 10:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	I Need Someone	Alan Garrity	464
2	The Power Of Love	Jennifer Rush	454
3	I Can See Clearly Now	Johnny Nash	448
4	Cry to Me	Staccatos	447
5	Say You Say Me	Lionel Richie	420
6	You	Peter Maffay	399
7	Words	F.R. David	392
8	Sunday, Monday, Tuesday	Jessica Jones	391
9	I Just Called To Say I Love You	Stevie Wonder	390
10	Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk	Dr Hook	387

This was unchanged from the end of 1986.

Pointswise the 7 local hits for 1987 using a top 30 basis looked like this:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Whisper Your Secret	Helicopters	296
2	Caravan of Love	Lovemasters	247
3	The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)	Pocket Lips	219
4	My Kind of Girl	Cinema	23
=5	We are Growing	Margaret Singana	9
=5	Hiroshima (Never too Late for Tears)	People Like Us	9
7	Move Up	Mango Groove	6

‘Whisper You Secret’ managed 130 top 20 points which was the 3^rd lowest total for a top local hit. Only the 70 points 1984’s ‘Taximan’ by éVoid and the 69 points 1986’s ‘Destined To Win’ by Tom Inglis were lower.

Cumulatively from the start of the charts in 1965, the top 10 local songs on a top 20 basis were:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	I Need Someone	Alan Garrity	464
2	Cry to Me	Staccatos	447
3	Sunday, Monday, Tuesday	Jessica Jones	391
4	Mammy Blue	Charisma	347
5	I Don’t Wanna Play House	Barbara Ray	336
6	Substitute	Clout	321
7	Timothy	Four Jacks & A Jill	312
8	She’s A Woman	Neil Herbert	304
9	It’s Too Late Now	Lauren Copley	303
10	Clap Your Hands And Stamp Your Feet	Maria	302

This list had not changed since the end of 1978.

NUMBER OF HITS

For a second year running, Modern Talking topped the list for most hits in the year, but unlike 1986 where they shared top spot with Madonna, this time they were in the lead on their own with 5 of their hits spending time in the charts, although it should be noted that 2 of the 5 straddled the 1986/1987 year end. Madonna and Billy Idol saw 4 hits while Depeche Mode, A-ha and Bon Jovi all managed 3. This was the 5^th time we had seen a record to date 5 hits in 1 year by an act with the last time we saw this being 1972. It had also happened in 1971, 1969 and 1968.

Cliff Richard added 2 hits to his tally and extended his lead at the top of the table for number of hits with 26 to his name. He was now 8 ahead of Tom Jones and Abba who were joined by The Bee Gees this year on 18. Michael Jackson moved on to 12 hits and Madonna moved on to 10 and were the 2 newcomers to the list of acts who had managed 10 or more hits.

The list of those who had managed 10 hits so far now looked like this:

Pos	Last Year	Artist	No Of Hits
1	(1)	Cliff Richard	26
=2	(2)	Abba	18
=2	(2)	Tom Jones	18
=2	(4)	Bee Gees	18
5	(5)	Hollies	15
=6	(6)	Elvis Presley	14
=6	(6)	Neil Diamond	14
=6	(6)	Billy Forrest	14
=6	(9)	Rolling Stones	14
=6	(10)	Elton John	14
=11	(10)	Percy Sledge	12
=11	(10)	Olivia Newton-John	12
=11	(10)	Leo Sayer	12
=11	(10)	Barbara Ray	12
=11	(New)	Michael Jackson	12
=16	(14)	Petula Clark	11
=16	(14)	Herman’s Hermits	11
=16	(14)	Creedence Clearwater Revival	11
=18	(18)	Gene Rockwell	10
=18	(18)	Troggs	10
=18	(18)	Jody Wayne	10
=18	(18)	Electric Light Orchestra	10
=18	(18)	Diana Ross	10
=18	(18)	Queen	10
=18	(New)	Madonna	10

Billy Forrest (14), Barbara Ray (12), Gene Rockwell (10) and Jody Wayne (10) were the local acts on this list.

WEEKS ON THE CHARTS

While Modern Talking saw more hits spend time on the charts this week, it was Madonna who took top honours for weeks on the chart as she accumulated 52. Modern Talking were second with 46 while A-ha made it into 3^rd place with 42. The Helicopters 19 was the top for a local act. Modern Talking were not that successful if one only looks at the top 20 as they only spent 29 weeks in that part of the chart, the 4 highest after Madonna (37), Erasure (32) and Cliff Richard (31).

The overall cumulative position for weeks in the charts looked like this:

Pos	Last Year	Artist	No Of Weeks
1	(1)	Abba	237
2	(2)	Bee Gees	215
3	(4)	Cliff Richard	211
4	(3)	Tom Jones	185
5	(5)	Elton John	169
6	(14)	Michael Jackson	157
7	(New)	Modern Talking	150
8	(New)	Madonna	144
9	(6)	Neil Diamond	141
=10	(7)	Hollies	137
=10	(7)	Rolling Stones	137
12	(9)	Barbara Ray	136
13	(10)	Queen	135
14	(11)	Elvis Presley	131
15	(12)	Boney M	130
16	(13)	Olivia Newton-John	127
17	(16)	Lionel Richie	126
18	(15)	Joe Dolan	123
19	(New)	Billy Joel	122
20	(17)	Creedence Clearwater Revival	118

And the local list was as follows:

Pos	Last Year	Artist	No Of Weeks
1	(1)	Barbara Ray	136
2	(2)	Billy Forrest	113
3	(3)	Alan Garrity	98
4	(4)	Staccatos	83
5	(5)	Four Jacks & A Jill	78
=6	(6)	Richard Jon Smith	76
=6	(6)	Bobby Angel	76
8	(8)	Gene Rockwell	75
9	(9)	Dave Mills	73
10	(10)	Jody Wayne	72
11	(11)	John Edmond	70
12	(12)	Lionel Petersen	68
13	(13)	Tommy Dell	67
14	(14)	Maria	55
15	(15)	Lauren Copley	54
16	(16)	Dealians	50
=17	(17)	Jessica Jones	48
=17	(17)	Peanutbutter Conspiracy	48
19	(19)	Tom Inglis	46
20	(19)	Bats	45

NO 1’s

There were 14 songs which spent time at number 1 during 1987 and no act managed more than 1 chart toper. Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ spent 9 weeks at 1 which was the most for any song during the year. It was followed by Boy George’s ‘Everything I Own’ which managed 8. There were no local chart toppers, the 5th time this had happened.
The songs that spent time at 1 during 1986 were as follows:

Pos	Song	Act	Weeks
1	La Bamba	Los Lobos	9
2	Everything I Own	Boy George	8
3	Ever Fallen in Love	Fine Young Cannibals	6
4	The Final Countdown	Europe	5
=5	Walk Like an Egyptian	Bangles	4
=5	It’s a Sin	Pet Shop Boys	4
=7	The Lady in Red	Chris de Burgh	3
=7	Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room)	Paul Lekakis	3
=7	All I Ask of You	Cliff Richard & Sarah Brightman	3
=10	Everybody Have Fun Tonight	Wang Chung	2
=10	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	Whitney Houston	2
=12	Sometimes	Erasure	1
=12	Wild Horses	Gino Vannelli	1
=12	Never Gonna Give You Up	Rick Astley	1

To date the following songs had managed 8 or more weeks at 1:

Pos	Song	Act	Weeks
1	I Can See Clearly Now	Johnny Nash	13
=2	Mammy Blue	Charisma	12
=2	Red Red Wine	UB40	12
=4	Rivers Of Babylon	Boney M	11
=4	Loverboy	Billy Ocean	11
=6	Beautiful Sunday	Daniel Boone	10
=6	The Safety Dance	Men Without Hats	10
=8	Michael Row The Boat Ashore	Richard Jon Smith	9
=8	Paradise Road	Joy	9
=8	Shaddap You Face	Joe Dolce Music Theatre	9
=8	I Just Called To Say I Love You	Stevie Wonder	9
=8	The Power Of Love	Jennifer Rush	9
=8	Rock Me Amadeus	Falco	9
=8	The Lady In Red	Chris de Burgh	9
=8	La Bamba	Los Lobos	9
=16	Mississippi	Pussycat	8
=16	Substitute	Clout	8
=16	Kiss You All Over	Exile	8
=16	Why Me	Kris Kristofferson	8
=16	Stayin’ Alive	Bee Gees	8
=16	Baker Street	Gerry Rafferty	8
=16	Co-Co	The Sweet	8
=16	Woman In Love	Barbra Streisand	8
=16	I Don’t Wanna Dance	Eddy Grant	8
=16	Everything I Own	Boy George	8

‘The Lady In Red’ (which spent time at 1 in 1986 and 1987), ‘La Bamba’ and ‘Everything I Own’ were the newcomers to this list.

In terms of the overall picture for weeks spent at 1 by an act the table looked like this:

Position	Act	Weeks
1	Bee Gees	29
2	Abba	21
3	Sweet	19
=4	Tom Jones	18
=4	Joe Dolan	18
=6	Lionel Richie	17
=6	Billy Ocean	17
8	Boney M	16
=9	Johnny Nash	13
=9	Chris Andrews	13
=9	Dr Hook	13
=12	Charisma	12
=12	UB40	12
14	Jennifer Rush	11
=15	Elvis Presley	10
=15	Troggs	10
=15	Tremeloes	10
=15	Dawn	10
=15	Daniel Boone	10
=15	Pussycat	10
=15	Men Without Hats	10
=15	Elton John	10

Elton John joined this list during 1987.

LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE GIRLS

Female acts saw 19 hits make the charts this year, their tied lowest total in the top 30 era. 15 of those 19 spent time in the top 20. If one adds in the songs where a woman was part of a duet, then the total goes up to 26 hits. This was the 5^th time this total had been 26 and we had seen the record of 27 on 2 different occasions. As noted above, Madonna manged 4 hits which was the best for a woman. Carly Simon was the only other woman to mange more than 1 hit as her total was 2. Madonna’s 4 hits was a record equalling total for a woman. She had managed this in 1985 and Petula Clark had done so in 1967. Margaret Singana, whose ‘We Are Growing’ straddled the 1986/1987 year, was the only local woman to feature on the charts in 1987.

The top hits by woman this year (based on a top 30) were:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	Whitney Houston	569
2	Is This Love?	Alison Moyet	523
3	Hi! Hi! Hi!	Sandra	417
4	Luka	Suzanne Vega	406
5	Two of Hearts	Stacey Q	377

This excludes ‘All I Ask Of You’ where Sarah Brightman was one half of a duet with Cliff Richard. As mentioned above, this was the top hit overall for the year.

And cumulatively (based on a top 20) this list read:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	The Power Of Love	Jennifer Rush	454
2	Sunday, Monday, Tuesday	Jessica Jones	391
3	Manuel Goodbye	Audrey Landers	372
4	I Don’t Wanna Play House	Barbara Ray	336
5	Self Control	Laura Branigan	323

This was unchanged from the end of 1986.

The list below shows those women who had manged 5 or more hits in total so far. Madonna moved on from 7 to 10 while Laura Branigan joined the list with 5 to her name.

Pos	Act	No Of Hits
=1	Barbara Ray	12
=1	Olivia Newton-John	12
3	Petula Clark	11
=4	Diana Ross	10
=4	Madonna	10
6	Dolly Parton	9
7	Nancy Sinatra	7
=8	Virginia Lee	6
=8	Suzi Quatro	6
=8	Donna Summer	6
=11	Sandie Shaw	5
=11	Lucille Starr	5
=11	Gloria Gaynor	5
=11	Bonnie Tyler	5
=11	Barbra Streisand	5
=11	Laura Branigan	5

Madonna was the top act overall for weeks in the chart, so was obviously the top woman as well. She was followed by Sarah Brightman who manged 30, all of which as part of the duet with Cliff Richard. Whitney Houston, who managed 28, was 3^rd.

Pos	Act	Weeks
1	Madonna	144
2	Barbara Ray	136
3	Olivia Newton-John	127
4	Diana Ross	113
5	Jennifer Rush	95

Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)’ was the only hit by a solo woman to top the charts. It spent 2 weeks at 1. ‘All I Ask Of You’, the duet between Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman managed 3 weeks at 1.

WE ARE THE WORLD

Aside from artists from the UK and US (who tend to dominate most charts worldwide), and local acts the following are the top hits from other nationalities:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points	Nationality
1	The Final Countdown	Europe	487	Sweden
2	Wild Horses	Gino Vannelli	482	Canada
3	You’re the Voice	John Farnham	430	Australia
4	Hi! Hi! Hi!	Sandra	417	Germany
5	Funky Town	Pseudo Echo	344	Australia

This was the 3^rd time a Swedish act had topped this list with both the previous times being Abba hits. German and Canadian acts had topped this list 4 times. Australia, France, Ireland and Jamaica had topped the list twice (with both the Jamaican ones being by Boney M who some may classify as German).

For a 3^rd year running we saw an increase in the number of hits by acts from the non-big 3 nations as it moved up from 23 in 1986 to 25. The record to date was 33 which we had seen in 1984.

We saw acts from 15 different nations make the chart this year and this includes Spain where Montseratt Cabelle charted with her duet with Freddie Mercury from the UK. It was the 3^rd time we had 15 nations chart and this was just 1 off the record of 16 which we saw in 1977. For the first time ever we had a tie for the top nation with the UK and US acts both scoring 49 hits and, after 2 years of coming 4^th, the local acts moved back into 3^rd place with 7. The top country from the other nations was Germany which topped this list for a 4^th year running. They managed 6. It was the 7^th time they had topped the list (sharing the top spot in 1980 with Sweden and Ireland) and they had now topped the list more than any other nation. Ireland, Norway, Canada and Australia all contributed 3 to our listening pleasure in the year while Italy gave us 2. There were 2 hits by duets consisting of a UK and a US act which were excluded from the 49 mentioned above. Jamaica, Sweden, South Korea, Belgium and Spain all saw 1 hit.

The Americans still had the overall lead with 830 hits to their name. The Brits were 6 behind them on 824. They had started the year just 4 behind and had got the gap down to just 3 during the course of 1987 but had also seen it widen to as much as 13. The gap averaged 6.8 over the year.

Local acts had seen a total of 416 hits. They were followed by the Germans on 50, Canada of 43 and Australia on 39. No new nations had featured during the year so the total of different nations to feature remained at 29.

The cumulative best hits for ‘rest of the world’ artists were as follows:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points	Nationality
1	You	Peter Maffay	399	Germany
2	Words	F.R. David	392	France
3	Clap Clap Sound	Klaxons	381	Belgium
4	We Believe in Tomorrow	Freddy Breck	376	Germany
5	The Safety Dance	Men Without Hats	362	Canada

WHAT DIDN’T CHART

For the past 4 years we had seen less than 20 US/UK chart toppers not make our charts with the record lowest of just 4 being seen in 1983. However, we were back up to 20 in 1987 and this was the 9^th time this figure had been 20 or more. This was the highest this figure had been since 1977’s 24. Of the 20 hits that topped the UK/US charts but didn’t make ours in 1987, 3 would get on to our charts in 1988.

The UK/US number 1’s of 1987 that did make our charts in the year were as follows:

Song	Artist
Alone	Heart
Always On My Mind	Pet Shop Boys
At This Moment	Billy Vera
China In Your Hand	T’Pau	*
Didn’t We Almost Have It All	Whitney Houston
Head To Toe	Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
Heaven Is A Place On Earth	Belinda Carlisle	*
Here I Go Again	Whitesnake
I Think We’re Alone Now	Tiffany	*
Jack Your Body	Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley
Jacob’s Ladder	Huey Lewis & The News
Let It Be	Ferry Aid
Lost In Emotion	Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
Open Your Heart	Madonna
Pump Up The Volume	M/A/R/R/S
Reet Petite (The Sweetest Girl In Town)	Jackie Wilson
Shakedown	Bob Seger
Stand By Me	Ben E King
Star Trekkin’	Firm
You Keep Me Hanging On	Kim Wilde

* Would chart in later years

I WRITE THE SONGS

217 different names appeared in the songwriter slots on the singles that spent time in the charts this year and this includes a certain chap called ‘Traditional’. This was down on the 229 who had appeared in 1986 and which was the record to date. The ratio of hits per songwriter for 1987 was 2.17 which gave us the 5^th year running where this figure had been above 2. Dieter Bohlen, who had penned all 5 of Modern Talking’s hits was the top songwriter in terms of number of hits, but was beaten for weeks by Madonna, who had a hand in writing her 4 hits which clocked up 53 weeks. Mr Traditional saw his songs spend more time at 1 than any other songwriter as he or she had credit for Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’. David Gates, who was in the group Bread and who had written Boy George’s hit ‘Everything I Own’, was second with 8 weeks at 1. No songwriter scored more than 1 chart topper this year.

Barry Gibb joined Terry Dempsey and Mike Chapman at the top of the list for overall number of hits by a songwriter with all 3 having been responsible for 28 hits. Gibb had added ‘You Win Again’ to his tally this year. Barry’s brother Robin, who also had a song writing credit on ‘You Win Again’ moved alongside Nicky Chinn with 26 which was the second highest total any songwriter had managed.

Abba’s Benny and Bjorn still led the way for number of chart toppers as a songwriter with 9 each to their names. The brothers Gibb (Barry, Robin and Maurice) were behind them on 7.

CONSECUTIVE YEARS

David Bowie and Lionel were the only acts who featured on the charts in 1987 who had featured every year going back to 1981, a run of 7 years. Laura Branigan and Duran Duran’s runs stretched back to 1982, making Laura Branigan’s the longest run for a female of those who charted in 1987. The Eurythmics and Billy Joel had seen runs going back to 1983. We had seen a total of 32 runs of 5 or more years with Cliff Richard being the only act who had managed this twice. Abba’s 10 year run from 1973 to 1982 remained the record. Of the local acts who charted in 1987, only Margaret Singana, who had straddled the 1986/87 year end, had a run of more than 1 year appearing in the charts. The Staccatos 6 year run from 1965 to 1970 was still the record best for a local act.

THANKS

So, that is 1987 done with. We only have 1 full year to go and then a few weeks in 1989 to complete the collection. But before we tackle those, a word of thanks to the people who have sent in comments and corrections for which I am grateful. I would like to single out Peet van Staaden, Kevin Farquharson and Ian McLean for supplying valuable information as well as Chris Kimberly, Brian Currin, Stephen Segerman and Tertius Louw for helping out answering the questions that come our way.

31 December 1987

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 8^th and 9^th 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 67^th 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 3^rd 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 34^th time we had seen no movement on or off the charts and the 3^rd 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 7^th place overall with Michael Jackson in 6^th 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 11^th 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 8^th 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 3^rd 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 71^st song to reach or exceed 300 points.

Youtube playlist:

24 December 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	12	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
2	1	16	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
3	3	11	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
4	5	18	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
5	4	13	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
6	8	4	Faith	–	George Michael
7	6	12	Call Me	–	Spagna
8	7	10	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
9	9	6	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
10	10	6	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson
11	14	9	Crazy	–	Icehouse
12	11	13	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
13	13	7	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
14	12	15	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
15	20	3	(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life	–	Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes
16	15	8	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
17	16	17	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
18	17	19	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
19	29	5	What Have I Done to Deserve This	–	Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield
20	28	2	Come On, Let’s Go	–	Los Lobos
21	18	6	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
22	22	5	Causing a Commotion	–	Madonna
23	19	12	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
24	25	3	My Kind of Girl	–	Cinema
25	21	3	Brilliant Disguise	–	Bruce Springsteen
26	23	22	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
27	24	9	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
28	26	22	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
29	30	3	Barcelona	–	Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé
30	New	1	Beethoven (I Love to Listen to)	–	Eurythmics

Twas the night before Christmas and things were stirring at the top of our charts as ‘La Bamba’s run at 1 came to an end after 9 weeks. The new nation’s favourite was Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ which moved up from 2 in a place swap with ‘La Bamba’. ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ was the 33^rd song to top our charts that would also top the US and UK charts. This put the UK and US acts back on level pegging for number of number 1’s with both nations having produced 119, however, the Americans were ahead for weeks at 1 with 427 compared to the Brit’s 405.

The Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield’s ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 10 from 29 to 19. This was the Pet Shop Boys’ first biggest climber award and they sat on 44 weeks in the charts, the 3^rd highest weeks count for an act seeing their first climber. Only Blonde on 46 and Kenny Rogers on 53 had been on higher weeks counts when seeing their first biggest climber. ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This’ was the 146^th song to climb 10 or more in a week. It was joined in being a new entry into the top 20 by Los Lobos’ ‘Come On Let’s Go’ which made a star rater climb of 8 from 28 to 20. There was one other star rater and this was Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’ ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’ which moved up 5 from 20 to 15 and this was the biggest climb within the top 20.

Modern Talking’s ‘Jet Airliner’ shared the faller of the week award with Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Brilliant’ Disguise’ as the 2 songs both fell 4 to land at 23 and 25 respectively. ‘Jet Airliner’ was joined by T’Pau’s ‘Heart And Soul’ in leaving the top 20. The faller within the top 20 was Atlantic Starr’s ‘Always’ which fell 2 from 16 to 14. This was the 33^rd time a top 20 biggest fall had been 2 or less.

Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ and Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ continued as the oldest in the top 30 with both songs on 22 weeks and enjoying their 3^rd week as the oldest while Michael Jackson’s ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ and the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ moved on to 17 top 20 weeks and were the oldest in that part of the chart for a second week.

Viktor Lazlo’s ‘Breathless’ was the sole leaver this week as it dropped off the top 30 after 12 weeks and a peak of 13. This would be her only SA chart hit and it would be the last we would see by any Belgian act. The Belgians had clocked up 3 hits, 48 weeks and by far the best performer of the 3 was The Klaxons’ ‘Clap-Clap Sound’ which spent 7 weeks at 1 and accounted for 30 of 48 weeks. The other hit by a Belgian act was Telex’s ‘Moskow Diskow’ which, like ‘Breathless’, also peaked at 13.

The Eurythmics clocked up their 6^th hit on our charts and the new entry was ‘Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)’. They were the 69^th act to reach 6 hits. Written by band members David A Stewart and Annie Lennox, this was the first single off their ‘Savage’ album. It was the band’s 17^th hit to make the UK charts, but it only peaked at 25 there and was not released as a single in the US, only appearing on the b-side of the 12” single of ‘I Need A Man’. It made the top 20 in Australia (#15), Finland (#5), Ireland (#11), The Netherlands (#10), New Zealnd (#6), Norway (#6), Spain (#18), Sweden (#9) and Switzerland (#19). It got to 14 on the Radio 5 charts and 21 on the Capital 604 ones but did not chart on Radio 702.

Michael Jackson became the 12^th act to see a run of 10 consecutive weeks with 2 hits in the charts. Of those 12 acts, only Jennifer Rush had seen such a run twice. Of the 10 weeks in Michael Jackson’s run, 7 had been with the 2 hits (‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ and ‘Bad’) in the top 20. He had also seen ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Beat It’ in the top 20 at the same time, making this his 10^th week overall for 2 in the top 20 for him.

Los Lobos also had 2 in the top 20 now as ‘Come On Let’s Go’ joined ‘La Bamba’ in that part of the chart. They were the 72^nd act to manage 2 in the top 20 at the same time.

Youtube playlist:

17 December 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	15	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	11	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
3	5	10	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
4	3	12	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
5	4	17	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
6	8	11	Call Me	–	Spagna
7	9	9	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
8	12	3	Faith	–	George Michael
9	14	5	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
10	17	5	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson
11	6	12	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
12	7	14	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
13	11	6	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
14	15	8	Crazy	–	Icehouse
15	10	7	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
16	13	16	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
17	16	18	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
18	20	5	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
19	21	11	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
20	24	2	(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life	–	Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes
21	23	2	Brilliant Disguise	–	Bruce Springsteen
22	22	4	Causing a Commotion	–	Madonna
23	19	21	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
24	27	8	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
25	29	2	My Kind of Girl	–	Cinema
26	18	21	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
27	26	12	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
28	New	1	Come On, Let’s Go	–	Los Lobos
29	28	4	What Have I Done to Deserve This	–	Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield
30	30	2	Barcelona	–	Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé

Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ joined an elite group of 14 other songs which had managed to spend at least 9 weeks at 1 as it clung to the top spot for another week. However, the threat from Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ had not gone away as the latter spent a second week at number 2. The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’, also put in a bid for the top spot as it moved up 2 from 5 to 3.

‘Mary’s Prayer’ by Danny Wilson took the climber of the week award with a 7 place jump from 17 to 10. It was the climber both within the top 20 and the top 30. Also making star rater climbs were George Michael’s ‘Faith’ (up 4 from 12 to 8), Billy Idol’s ‘Mony Mony’ (up 5 from 14 to 9), Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’ ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’ (up 4 from 24 to 20) and Cinema’s ‘My Kinda Girl’ (up 4 from 29 to 25). ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’ was joined by Modern Talking’s ‘Jet Airliner’ in moving into the top 20 with the latter being the 75^th song to re-enter that part of the chart. It was their 3^rd hit to re-enter the top 20 with ‘Cheri Cheri Lady’ and ‘Atlantis Is Calling’ both having managed this before. Apart from them, no act had managed more than 1 re-entry into the top 20.

The faller of the week was Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ which dropped 8 from 18 to 26. It had been 18 weeks since the song had last been the faller of the week and this was a new record gap for a song seeing biggest faller awards. The previous best had been 15 weeks between biggest fallers for Alan Garrity’s ‘I Need Someone’. ‘Let’s Dance’ left the top 20 along with Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ and had been the oldest in the top 20 last week. The new granddaddies of the top 20 were the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ which had been in that part of the chart for 16 weeks.

Three songs shared the faller within the top 20 and they were Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ (down 5 from 10 to 15), Atlantic Starr’s ‘Always’ (down from 7 to 12) and Terence Trent D’Arby’s ‘Wishing Well’ (down from 6 to 11).

The 2 songs leaving the top 20, ‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘Luka’, were the oldest in the overall chart for a second week as they both ticked over to 21 weeks.

We bid farewell to Gina Vannelli’s ‘Persona Non Grata’. It’s second run in the charts came to an end after just 2 extra weeks, both spent at 25. Its total weeks was 4 and 25 was its best placing in the charts.

The new entry was Los Lobos’ second SA chart hit, ‘Come On, Let’s Go’, and like their first hit on our charts (which sat at 1 this week), was also from the movie ‘La Bamba’ and was also a cover of a Ritchie Valens hit. Unlike ‘La Bamba’, which was a traditional song which Valens had adapted, ‘Come On Let’s Go’ was a Valens original. Valens’ version, which had been released before ‘La Bamba’, would get to 42 in the US. Los Lobos would see their cover get to 21 in the US and 18 in the UK. It would also chart in Belgium (#13), The Netherlands (#24), New Zealand (#14) and Switzerland (#22). It didn’t feature on any of the local radio charts. Los Lobos were the 107^th act to see more than 1 hit in the chart in the same week.

Madonna reached 140 weeks in the charts but was unmoved at 9 on the overall weeks count list. She now sat 1 behind Neil Diamond.

‘Funky Town’ clocked up its 20^th week in the charts in total. Eight of these came from Lipps Inc’s version with the other 12 coming from Pseudo Echo’s version. The song moved into tied 29^th place for weeks by a song charting in more than 1 version. It joined ‘Leader Of The Pack’ which had been a hit for the Shangri-Las and Twisted Sister.

Youtube playlist:

10 December 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	14	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	4	10	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
3	2	11	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
4	3	16	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
5	5	9	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
6	7	11	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
7	6	13	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
8	8	10	Call Me	–	Spagna
9	12	8	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
10	10	6	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
11	15	5	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
12	24	2	Faith	–	George Michael
13	9	15	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
14	20	4	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
15	16	7	Crazy	–	Icehouse
16	11	17	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
17	19	4	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson
18	13	20	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
19	14	20	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
20	21	4	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
21	17	10	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
22	22	3	Causing a Commotion	–	Madonna
23	New	1	Brilliant Disguise	–	Bruce Springsteen
24	New	1	(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life	–	Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes
25	25	4	Persona Non Grata	–	Gino Vannelli
26	18	11	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
27	28	7	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
28	30	3	What Have I Done to Deserve This	–	Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield
29	New	1	My Kind of Girl	–	Cinema
30	New	1	Barcelona	–	Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé

‘La Bamba’ by ‘Los Lobos’ became the 25^th song to manage 8 weeks at 1 as it continued to be the nation’s favourite. Of the 25 hits that had manged 8 weeks, 2 of them had not managed it in an uninterrupted run. ‘La Bamba’ had a new number 2 to contend with as Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, moved up from 4 to 2 and Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ dropped to 3.

George Michael’ ‘Faith’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 12 from 24 to 12. This was his 4^th such award and, sitting on 80 weeks in the charts, he had the 6^th highest weeks count for an act picking up their 4^th award. This was the 43^rd climb of 12 or more we had seen and George was the 14^th act to have 2 or more climbers of at least 10 as he had previously seen ‘Careless Whisper’ climb 10 in a week. It was the 10^th time this year a song had climbed 11 or more and this extended 1987’s lead for this as it was now 2 more than the previous record of 8 which happened in 1985.

There were 2 other star raters and these were John Cougar Mellencamp’s ‘Paper In Fire’ which moved up 4 from 15 to 11 and Billy Idol’s ‘Mony Mony’ which moved up 6 from 20 to 14 and which was the climber within the top 20. Apart from George Michael’s ‘Faith’ we also sawT’Pau’s ‘Heart And Soul’ become a new entry into the top 20.

On the falling front it was Viktor Lazlo’s ‘Breathless’ which took the biggest tumble as it dropped 8 from 18 to 26. It was joined in leaving the top 20 by Modern Talking’s ‘Jet Airliner’ which fell from 17 to 21. Within the top 20 the fallers were Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka (down 5 from 14 to 19), Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ (down from 13 to 18) and Michael Jackson’s ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ (down from 11 to 16). ‘Let’s Dance’ enjoyed a second week as the oldest in the top 20 as it ticked over to 20 weeks in that part of the chart. It was the 106^th song to clock up 20 top 20 weeks. It also became the oldest in the top 30, sharing that title with Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ with both songs on 20 weeks in the charts (‘Let’s Dance’ had entered the charts at 20, hence it’s top 20 and top 30 weeks being equal).

There were 4 songs leaving the charts this week, 2 of which were by Depeche Mode and they became the 5^th act to see 2 songs leave in the same week and they would be the last to manage this. ‘Strangelove’ had seen a run of 23 weeks and a peak of 2 while ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ lasted 7 weeks and peaked at 15. This ended their SA chart career with 6 hits and 62 weeks to their name. ‘Strangelove’ had the best weeks and peak figures of their 6 hits and was the only one that went top 10. The previous week Depeche Mode had seen the 2 songs leave the top 20 and they were the only act who would see two songs leave the top 20 in the same week and then see 2 songs leave the top 30 in the same week.

Also going was the oldest on last week’s chart, Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ which had seen a run of 28 weeks and spent 2 of those weeks at 1. She would return to the charts at a later date.

Last of the leavers was Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Seven Wonders’ which managed 14 weeks and a peak of 11 which equalled the peak of their previous hit, ‘Big Love’ but lasted 1 week less. They too had more hits to come.

Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Brilliant Disguise’ became his 5^th SA chart hit and he became the 93^rd act to reach this total. The song came off his ‘Tunnel Of Love’ album and was originally called ‘Is That You’ before being re-named. It relates his struggles in his marriage to Julianne Phillips whom he had married in 1985 and divorced in 1989. The song would give Springsteen a number 1 hit in Norway and it would also fare well in Sweden and the US where it went to 3 and 5 respectively. It made the top 20 in Belgium (#12), The Netherlands (#15) and Switzerland (#16). The only local chart it made was the Capital 604 one where it went to number 3.

The second new entry came from the film ‘Dirty Dancing’ and was the duet between Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley. Warnes had seen previous success with another duet which was also from a movie and that was with ‘Up Where We Belong’ which she sang with Joe Cocker for the film ‘An Officer And A Gentleman’. That spent 6 weeks at the top of our charts. She had also had solo success with her 1979 hit, ‘Don’t Make Me Over’ which went to number 8 on our charts. Medley was one half of The Righteous Brothers who had seen 2 hits on our charts, ‘Unchained Melody’ and ‘(You’re My) Soul And Inspiration’. The new entry was ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’ which would go on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. It kept our 100% record of every winner of that award in the 80’s making our charts. However, it would be the last one to do so. The lyrics of the song were written by Franke Previte from the band Franke & The Knockouts. When he was approached to write a song, he turned this down as he was trying to get a record contract, but eventually wrote it and recorded a demo with singer Rachele Cappelli and it was that version that was used when filming the dance scene between Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey as the Warnes/Medley version wasn’t ready but the Warnes/Medley version was used in the final cut of the film. The song would end up topping the charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands and the US. It would only make it to 6 in the UK. It would also have a clean sweep of number 1’s across the Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts.

Cinema brought to an end the local song drought which had lasted 5 weeks. The local band saw their song ‘My Kinda Girl’ enter the charts this week at number 29. Cinema consisted of Mike Todd, Chris Frank and Jarrod Aston. Aston had been a member of Face To Face who had a number 22 hit on our charts back in 1984 with ‘Here We Are’. The band had started out with just Chris Frank and a guy called Ian Vyle. They released an album in 1986, simply called ‘Cinema’ but this did not seem to do much. ‘My Kinda Girl’ made the Radio 5 (#9), Capital 604 (#2) and Radio 702 (#1) charts.

The final new entry saw the unlikely teaming up of Queen’s frontman, Freddie Mercury and the Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballe. It was Mercury’s 4^th hit in his own name to make our charts. The duet came about after Mercury, who had a passion for operatic singing, mentioned on Spanish television that he would love to meet Caballe which they did. Then, when Barcelona was chosen as the venue for the 1992 Olympics, they got together to record not only the song but a whole album. ‘Bareclona’ went to 8 in the UK and Ireland in 1987. Then in 1992 during the year of the Olympics and the year after Mercury’s death, the song was again in the charts, going to 2 in Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand and the UK. It did not, however find favour on the local radio charts. Freddie Mercury had now charted as a member of a group, a solo artist and as part of a duet. He was the 10^th act to manage this. The list of individuals who had managed this were Diana Ross, Glenys Lynne, Paul McCartney, Lionel Richie, Stevie Nicks, Phil Collins, Stevie Wonder, George Michael, Dionne Warwick and Freddie Mercury. These would be the only people who would manage this.

With both ‘Barcelona’ and ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’ being by duets, we had the 3^rd and it would be the final time we saw 2 hits by duets being new entries in the same week.

Suzanne Vega celebrated 20 weeks in the charts, The Pet Shop Boys moved on to 40, George Michael ticked over to 80 and Michael Jackson celebrated 150. Jackson sat 6^th overall, but was unmoved as he was still 18 behind Elton John who was next up on the list. Madonna, with 2 in the charts, moved on to 138 weeks which not only moved her into 9^th place overall, but now put her in the outright lead for female acts, going 2 ahead of Barbara Ray. Madonna also celebrated reaching 100 top 20 weeks, but she was not as high up the list for top 20 weeks as she was for top 30 weeks as she sat 24^th overall and was the 3^rd highest woman on the list, sitting 21 behind Olivia Newton-John and 29 behind Barbara Ray. The Pet Shop Boys were yet to see a biggest faller award and they were the 14^th act to see a run of 40 weeks with no biggest faller award.

Male acts were starting to dominate the top 20 as 10 of the top 20 were by them. It had been 56 weeks since they last accounted for at least half of that part of the chart.

Youtube playlist:

3 December 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	13	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	10	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
3	3	15	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
4	5	9	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
5	4	8	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
6	6	12	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	7	10	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
8	9	9	Call Me	–	Spagna
9	10	14	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
10	14	5	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
11	11	16	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
12	8	7	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
13	13	19	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
14	12	19	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
15	28	4	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
16	15	6	Crazy	–	Icehouse
17	17	9	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
18	16	10	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
19	27	3	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson
20	24	3	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
21	25	3	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
22	29	2	Causing a Commotion	–	Madonna
23	19	7	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
24	New	1	Faith	–	George Michael
25	RE	3	Persona Non Grata	–	Gino Vannelli
26	21	14	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
27	20	28	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
28	22	6	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
29	18	23	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
30	30	2	What Have I Done to Deserve This	–	Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield

Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ became the 45^th song to manage 7 weeks at number 1 as it continued to hold off the challenge from Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ which spent a 3^rd week at number 2. The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ still lurked in the top 3, sitting at number 3 for a 3^rd week.

John Cougar Mellencamp’s ‘Paper In Fire’ set the all time record climb for a song that had previously picked up a biggest faller award as it jump back up 13 places from 28 to 15 this week. It had been the faller of the week the previous week and the climber the week before that and was the 7^th song to have 3 consecutive weeks alternating between climber and faller. It was the 18^th song overall to climb 13 or more in a week and the 9^th to climb 11 or more in 1987, a new record for a calendar year.

There were 5 other star raters and these were Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ (up 4 from 14 to 10), Danny Wilson’s ‘Mary’s Prayer’ (up 8 from 27 to 19), Billy Idol’s ‘Mony Mony’ (up 4 from 24 to 20), T’Pau’s ‘Heart And Soul’ (up 4 from 25 to 21) and Madonna’s ‘Causing A Commotion’ (up 7 from 29 to 23). It was Cliff Richard’s 24^th star rater climb, but he still sat 3^rd overall with Abba on 28 and The Bee Gees on 31 above him. Madonna joined Elton John and Tom Jones 1 behind Cliff on 23. ‘Mary’s Prayer’ and ‘Mony Mony’, along with ‘Paper In Fire’, were the three new entries into the top 20. ‘My Pretty One’ was the climber within the top 20. ‘Mary’s Prayer’ had the honour of being the 3,000^th song to have a star rater climb.

Depeche Mode’s ‘Strangelove’ became the 17^th song to drop 11 or more in a week as it fell 11 places from 18 to 29. It was joined in leaving the top 20 by Depeche Mode’s other hit, ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ and Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’. Depeche Mode were the 5^th act to see 2 songs leave the top 20 in the same week with Connie Francis, Four Jacks & A Jill, Mac Davis and Modern Talking being the others to have suffered this fate. ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ had been the oldest in the top 20 last week and this honour now fell to Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ which had been in that part of the chart for 19 weeks.

‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ did become the oldest in the top 30 (sitting on 28 weeks) as the previous oldest, Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’, was 1 of 2 songs leaving the charts. Last week it had been the climber of the week and was the 9^th song to pick up a climber award and the 6^th to climb 5 or more in its last week on the chart. In total it spent 31 weeks on the charts and peaked at 3. This ended the band’s SA chart career. They had managed 3 hits, spent 68 weeks in the charts and sat at 1 for 2 weeks with ‘We Built This City’. This set a new record for weeks for an act managing 3 hits, going past the 59 weeks that Paul Simon had managed.

Also going was Bananarama’s ‘I Heard A Rumour’ which managed 6 weeks and a peak of 23. It was the first of their 5 hits so far not to make the top 10. They had 1 more hit to come.

We saw George Michael’s 5^th solo hit make our charts in the form of the title track of his album ‘Faith’. His previous hit, ‘I Want Your Sex’ had not performed all that well, only peaking at 23 so he would have been hoping for a better showing from ‘Faith’. George wrote and produced the track which would go to the top of the charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and the US and would go on to be ranked the biggest single of 1988 in the US. In the UK it would spend 2 weeks at 2, stuck behind The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’ (our number 5 hit this week) and would peak at 8 in Zimbabwe. On the local radio stations it had a clean sweep of number 1’s going to the top of the Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts.

Gina Vannelli’s ‘Persona Non Grata’ became the 71^st song to re-enter the charts and it was the first by a Canadian act to do so. This was the 11^th re-entry we had seen in 1987 and this was the second most we had seen in a calendar year with the 13 we saw in 1972 being the record.

Madonna moved into tied 1st place for weeks on the charts by a female act. Her total was now 136 and she joined Barbara Ray in 11^th place overall. However, Madonna still had a bit to go to catch up to Barbara for top 20 weeks as she was on 99 top 20 weeks (and sitting 24^th overall) while Barbara Ray was on 129 weeks.

For a 3^rd week running we saw at least 1 act with songs sitting in adjacent positions in the charts as Michael Jackson sat at 11 and 12 with ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ and ‘Bad’ respectively. This was only the 2^nd run of 3 weeks with an act having songs sitting next to each other. The previous run of 3 weeks would go on to become a 5 week run.

Viktor Lazlo helped moved the Belgian acts on to 41 top 20 weeks in the charts and this moved them level with the Austrians. The two nations sat tied 19^th overall on that list.

Youtube playlist:

26 November 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	12	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	9	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
3	3	14	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
4	5	7	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
5	4	8	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
6	6	11	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	7	9	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
8	8	6	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
9	13	8	Call Me	–	Spagna
10	10	13	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
11	9	15	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
12	11	18	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
13	12	18	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
14	19	4	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
15	18	5	Crazy	–	Icehouse
16	14	9	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
17	16	8	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
18	15	22	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
19	17	6	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
20	20	27	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
21	21	13	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
22	22	5	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
23	28	31	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
24	25	2	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
25	29	2	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
26	23	6	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
27	30	2	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson
28	24	3	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
29	New	1	Causing a Commotion	–	Madonna
30	New	1	What Have I Done to Deserve This	–	Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield

‘La’ Bamba’ moved on to 6 weeks at number 1 but it still had Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ to contend with as this sat at 2 for a second week.

The climbers of the week were Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ and Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ which both moved up 5 to land at 14 and 23 respectively. ‘My Pretty One’ was the climber within the top 20 and it was Cliff’s 8^th award. He was the 20^th and would be the last act to manage this many climbers. He also had by far the highest weeks count for an act getting to 8 biggest climbers as he was on 206 weeks. The next highest had been Abba who took 127 weeks to get to 8. ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ was the oldest in the charts, sitting on 31 weeks and this smashed the previous record for weeks in the charts by a song when seeing a biggest climber. The previous best was 21 weeks which Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ managed. It was also the 5^th star rater climb for the ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ and this was second best with only The Staccato’s ‘Cry To Me’ (which managed 6) having done better. It was also the 31^st song to pick up a climber of the week award after having earned a faller of the week.

Apart from the 2 climbers, we also saw Spagna’s ‘Call Me’ and T’Pau’s ‘Heart And Soul’ make star rater climbs as they both moved up 4 to land at 9 and 25 respectively.

John Cougar Mellencamp’s ‘Paper In Fire’ took the biggest fall as it dropped 4 from 24 to 28. Within the top 20 it was Depeche Mode’s ‘Strangelove’ which fell the most, dropping 3 from 15 to 18.

There was no movement on or off the top 20 so Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ enjoyed a 6^th week as the oldest in that part of the chart. It was on 24 top 20 weeks and was the 27^th song to manage this many.

While there was no movement on or off the top 20 we saw 2 songs leave the top 30 and both of them were by Gino Vannelli. This was the 4^th time an act had seen 2 songs leave the chart in the same week. Connie Francis, Four Jacks & A Jill and Mac Davis were the previous acts to see this happen to them. The first of Vannelli’s leavers was ‘Wild Horses’ which managed 23 weeks and spent 1 week at 1. The other was ‘Persona Non Grata’ which managed just 2 weeks and its final position of 26 was the highest it got.

Madonna’s ‘Causing A Commotion’ was the first of the new entries this week and with ‘Who’s That Girl’ sitting at 10, this was her 7^th different pairing of songs in the chart and [spoiler alert] this would be the all-time highest any act would see. It was Madonna’s 10^th hit to make our charts and she was the 25^th act to clock up this many hits and she moved into outright second place for number of hits by a female act, moving 1 ahead of Olivia Newton-John and sitting 1 behind Petula Clark. Like ‘Who’s That Girl’, ‘Causing A Commotion’ was also taken from the ‘Who’s That Girl’ film soundtrack, a film in which Madonna starred. She co-wrote the song with Stephen Bray who had also helped pen her SA chart hits ‘Into The Groove’ and ‘True Blue’. The song just missed out on topping the charts in Belgium, Canada, Ireland and the US, peaking at 2 in all of those nations. It also got close in Iceland, Italy and The Netherlands where it got to 3. In the UK it peaked at 4. It would have better luck on the Radio 5 charts where it did manage to get to number 1 but would only make it to 3 on the Capital 604 charts and not make the 702 ones.

Last week we had seen the end of a 40 week run with a duet in the chart and that drought lasted just 1 week as the second new entry brought together the unlikely pairing of the Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield. Springfield (real name Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien), had seen a string of hits in the 60’s but these had diminished during the 70’s and before ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This’, she had only seen 1 UK hit in the 80’s in the form of 1985’s ‘Sometimes Like Butterflies’ which only got to 83. The Pet Shop Boys’ record label had suggested they team up with Tina Turner or Barbra Streisand and weren’t keen on Dusty, however, the band’s lead singer, Neil Tennant, insisted and they ended up with a number 2 hit on both sides of the Atlantic (stuck behind Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ for 2 weeks in the UK and behind Expose’s ‘Seasons Change’ for 1 week and then behind George Michael’s ‘Father Figure’ for a further week in the US). It did manage to top the Irish charts and had a clean sweep of number 1’s across the Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts. At 48 years and 7 months old, Dusty was the second oldest woman to chart on our charts but was a fair bit younger than Eartha Kitt had been when she charted with ‘Where Is My Man’ back in 1983. Eartha had been just over 57 years old.

The American acts celebrated their 9,000^th week in the chart and, counting from the top down, it was Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ which had the honour of picking up that milestone. This excludes songs where an American act duetted with an act from another nation.

Chris Rea celebrated reaching 30 weeks in the charts, Depeche Mode made it to 60 and The Bee Gees moved on to 210 and sat 2^nd, 27 weeks behind leaders Abba. 88 acts had made it to 60 weeks and 251 to 30 weeks. In terms of percentages, 7.3% had made it to 60 and 20.8% had made it to 30.

For a second week running we saw an act have songs in adjacent positions on the charts and this week it was Depeche Mode who were at 18 with ‘Strangelove’ and 19 with ‘Never Let Me Down Again’.

We had 4 acts now with 2 in the charts (Depeche Mode, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Pet Shop Boys) and this was the 4^th time we had seen this many which was the record to date.

Youtube playlist:

19 November 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	11	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	3	8	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
3	2	13	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
4	4	7	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
5	5	6	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
6	6	10	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	10	8	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
8	14	5	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
9	9	14	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
10	8	12	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
11	7	17	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
12	12	17	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
13	11	7	Call Me	–	Spagna
14	15	8	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
15	13	21	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
16	16	7	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
17	17	5	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
18	22	4	Crazy	–	Icehouse
19	21	3	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
20	18	26	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
21	19	12	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
22	26	4	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
23	23	5	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
24	30	2	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar
25	New	1	Mony Mony	–	Billy Idol
26	29	2	Persona Non Grata	–	Gino Vannelli
27	20	23	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
28	28	30	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
29	New	1	Heart and Soul	–	T’Pau
30	New	1	Mary’s Prayer	–	Danny Wilson

Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ enjoyed a 4^th week at the top of our charts but it had a new number 2 song to contend with as Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ moved up 1 from 3 to 2 and the previous chart topper, Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ fell from 2 to 3 after having sat at 2 for 3 weeks.

The climber of the week award was shared between Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ and John Cougar Mellencamp’s ‘Paper In Fire’ which both moved up 6 to land at 8 and 24 respectively. ‘Bad’ would be the top 20’s biggest climber. There were 2 other star raters and these were Icehouse’s ‘Crazy’ (up 4 from 22 to 18) and Living In A Box’s ‘Scales Of Justice’ (up 4 from 26 to 22). ‘Crazy’ was a new entry into the top 20 along with Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ which climbed from 21 to 19.

Falling honours went to Gina Vannelli’s ‘Wild Horses’ which dropped 7 from 20 to 27. He was sitting on 35 weeks in the charts and this was the tied 21^st highest weeks count for an act seeing their first faller award. It was joined in leaving the top 20 by Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Seven Wonders’. The faller within the top 20 was Suzanne Vega’s ‘Luka’ which dropped 4 from 7 to 11.

There was no change in the oldest song in the top 20 and the top 30 with Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ being the oldest in the top 20 on 22 weeks and Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ being the top 30 granddaddy sitting on 30 weeks. It was the 10^th song to reach the milestone of 30 weeks in the charts.

Dionne Warwick and Jeffrey Osbourne’s ‘Love Power’ was the first of 5 songs to leave the charts this week. It had been with us for 11 weeks and peaked at 19. This would be Osbourne’s only SA chart hit and would mark the end of the road for Dionne Warwick. She had seen 4 hits and spent a total of 49 weeks in the chart with a best peak of 3 which ‘(Theme From) Valley Of The Dolls’ managed. This excludes the hit by Dionne & Friends which if added in gives her 5 hits, 71 weeks and a best peak of 2 which ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ managed.

John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ lasted 22 weeks and peaked at 4. He still had 1 more hit to come.

The last of the leavers was Fine Young Cannibals’ ‘Ever Fallen In Love’ which spent 23 weeks with us, 5 of which were at 1. They too were seeing the end of the SA chart career with 2 hits under the belt and a total of 35 weeks. Their other hit, ‘Johnny Come Home’ had peaked at 12.

‘Mony Mony’ became the 58^th song to chart in 2 or more different versions as Billy Idol’s cover of the 1968 Tommy James & The Shondells hit was the first new entry. Tommy Jones’ version had made it to number 5 in our charts. Idol had originally recorded the song back in 1981, but it was the 1987 live version of it that was the hit which went to number 1 in the US. The earlier version did get to number 7 on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. Elsewhere the live version would get to 8 in Australia, 1 in Canada, 38 in Germany, 89 in The Netherlands, 13 in Switzerland, 2 in New Zealand, 7 in the UK and 11 in Zimbabwe. The only radio chart it would make would be the 702 ones where it got to number 7. This would be Idol’s 4^th SA chart hit.

The second new entry was British band T’Pau’s ‘Heart And Soul’. The band took their name from one of the Vulcan elders in the TV series ‘Star Trek’. ‘Heart And Soul’ would gain popularity in the US after being used in an ad for Pepe Jeans and climbed to 4 on the charts there. Only after this US success did it make the UK charts (about 3 months after it entered the US charts) and would also climb to 4 there. Elsewhere it fared well in Canada, going to number 1 there as well as peaking at 10 in Germany, 4 in Ireland, 9 in New Zealand and 9 in Switzerland. It got to 3 on the Capital 604 and Radio 5 charts and peaked at 5 on the 702 charts.

The final new entry was Danny Wilson’s ‘Mary’s Prayer’. Despite the act’s name, they were a group and not a person and on top of this, none of the members in the band were called Danny or Wilson. The band initially called themselves Spencer Tracey, but when the actor of that name objected, they renamed themselves after the lead character played by Frank Sinatra in the film ‘Meet Danny Wilson’. They would call their debut album ‘Meet Danny Wilson’ and it contained the song ‘Mary’s Prayer’. The song required 3 releases in the UK before making the top 10 there. It peaked at 86 first time around, then 42 on the second attempt and finally reaching number 3 in the April of 1988, but its SA success was probably due to it reaching number 23 in the US in the September of 1987. It would also go top 10 in Ireland (#5) and Israel (#4). It would have a peak record of 1, 2, 3 on the radio charts with it topping the Radio 5 charts, going to 2 on 702 and 3 on Capital 604.

The departure of ‘Love Power’ from the charts brought to an end a 40 week run with at least 1 song by a duet in the charts which also included Aretha Franklin and George Michaels ‘I Knew You Were Waiting’, Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman’s ‘All I Ask Of You’ and James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt’s ‘Somewhere Out There’. This was the 4^th longest run we had seen with duets in the charts with 2 previous runs lasting 46 weeks and the record run being 63 weeks.

Michael Jackson moved 1 week ahead of Modern Talking and now sat 6^th on his own on the overall weeks count list. He was on 145 weeks. Similarly Madonna moved 1 ahead of Elvis Presley. She was on 132 weeks and sat 13^th on her own now. She also became the 26th act to clock up at least 1,000 top 20 points as she ticked over to 1,004. She was the 3^rd highest woman on the list with Barbara Ray on 1,358 and Olivia Newton-John on 1,451 being above her.

This week saw the 3^rd occasion where we had 2 acts with hits in adjacent positions on the charts as Michael Jackson sat at 8 and 9 with ‘Bad’ and ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ respectively and Gino Vannelli was at 26 with ‘Persona Non Grata’ and at 27 with ‘Wild Horses’. The previous 2 occasions where we had 2 acts with songs in adjacent positions were on 30 December 1966 when Tommy Roe and Donovan managed it and then on 17 October 1969 when it was The Archies and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The observant amongst you would note that we never saw this in the whole of the 70’s.

Modern Talking saw their top 20 weeks total reach 100. They were the 23^rd act to reach this milestone and the 4^th from a non-big 3 nation with Abba, Boney M and Joe Dolan being the other 3.

Youtube playlist:

12 November 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	12	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
3	3	7	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
4	5	6	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
5	10	5	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
6	6	9	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	4	16	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
8	7	11	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
9	9	13	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
10	12	7	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
11	11	6	Call Me	–	Spagna
12	8	16	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
13	13	20	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
14	22	4	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
15	16	7	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
16	18	6	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
17	15	4	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
18	14	25	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
19	19	11	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
20	17	22	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
21	28	2	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
22	26	3	Crazy	–	Icehouse
23	25	4	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
24	21	23	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
25	20	22	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
26	27	3	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
27	29	11	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne
28	23	29	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
29	New	1	Persona Non Grata	–	Gino Vannelli
30	New	1	Paper in Fire	–	John Cougar

It was now 4 weeks at 1 for Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ and 4 weeks at 2 for the previous chart topper, The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’. Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ still lurked as a challenger for the number 1 place as it was unmoved at 3.

Michael Jackson picked up his 11^th biggest climber award with ‘Bad’ moving up 8 from 22 to 14. He was the 8^th act to accumulate as many as 11 biggest climbers. The other star raters this week were The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’ (up 5 from 10 to 5 and the climber within the top 20), Cliff Richard’s ‘My Pretty One’ (up 7 from 28 to 21) and Icehouse’s ‘Crazy’ (up 4 from 26 to 22). ‘Crazy’ had now gone past Icehouse’s previous best showing in the chart which had been ‘No Promises’ peak of 24.

Falling honours were share between John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ and Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ which both dropped 5 to land at 25 and 28 respectively. ‘You’re The Voice’ was the only song leaving the top 20 and it was replaced by ‘Bad’ (mentioned above) while ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ continued as the oldest in the chart, moving on to 29 weeks in the charts. The fallers within the top 20 were Chris Rea’s ‘Let’s Dance’ and Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ which both fell 4, landing at 12 and 18 respectively. ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ was still the oldest within the top 20. It was on 22 top 20 weeks. Houston had just clocked up 30 weeks in the charts and was yet to see a biggest faller. She was the 45^th act to manage this.

We saw 2 songs leave the charts this week. The first of these was ABC’s ‘When Smokey Sings’. It had spent a total of 6 weeks in the charts and peaked at 20. It was the 5^th song, of those that would spend 5 or more weeks in the charts, that would debut at its peak position. Only John Edmond’s ‘Pasadena’ had a higher debut position of those 5 songs as it arrived at 17, but that was in the top 20 era. ‘When Smokey Sings’ was the highest for the top 30 era and would end up being the second highest.

We also bid farewell to A-ha’s ‘The Living Daylights’. It lasted 17 weeks and peaked at 5, the best performer of their 5 hits so far both in terms of weeks and peak. A-ha would return, but this would be the last we would see of a Bond theme tune on our charts. In total we had seen 6 Bond themes make the charts (this includes Herb Alpert’s ‘Casino Royale’, the theme to the unofficial Bond film which starred Robert Niven as Bond). They had clocked up 64 weeks in the charts and Duran Duran’s ‘A View To A Kill’ had the best peak, going to number 3, but in terms of points (using a top 30 basis), then the best performer was ‘The Living Daylights’ with 283 points and ‘A View To A Kill’ was second with 269 points.

Gino Vannelli became the 105^th act to see 2 or more hits in the charts in the same week as his ‘Persona Non Grata’ arrived at 29 this week and joined his ‘Wild Horses’ which was at 20. With Depeche Mode and Michael Jackson also having 2 in the chart, this was the 24^th time we had seen at least 3 acts with 2 or more in the charts with 3 of those weeks seeing 4 acts having more than 1. Gino was the second Canadian act to manage this with Lucille Starr being the other one. Overall this was the 43^rd song by a Canadian act to chart. They still sat 2^nd for number of hits by a non-big 3 nation and now sat 7 behind leaders Germany who were on 50 hits. Like his other 2 SA chart hits, ‘Persona Non Grata’ was written by Vannelli and Roy Freeland. It would not chart in his native Canada and the only national charting I can find for this is in The Netherlands where it went to 44. However it was well liked by the Radio 5 and Radio 702 DJs as it topped both those charts, but didn’t feature on the Capital 604 ones.

The second new entry was a 3^rd hit for John Cougar, although he was going under the name John Cougar Mellencamp at that time. Mellencamp was his real surname. (Note: I have left it showing as John Cougar in the listing above as this makes life easier for my stats workings). John had last been seen on our charts on 1 April 1983 with ‘Jack And Diana’ a gap of 241 weeks. He wrote the song after being inspired by reading the book of Ecclesiastes in the bible and in particular chapter 7 verses 5 – 6 which reads: “It is better to be criticized by a wise man than to be praised by a fool! For a fool’s compliment is as quickly gone as paper in fire, and it is silly to be impressed by it.” This divine inspiration gave him a number 1 hit in Canada. It would also chart in Australia (#13), New Zealand (#16), The Netherlands (#29), the UK (#86) and the US (#9). Locally it would top the Radio 5 charts, get to 2 on the Capital 604 ones and 4 on the Radio 702 ones.

Last week we saw the UK and US acts have the same number of hits in the top 30 after the US acts had led the way for 9 weeks. This week the US acts once more took the lead with 12 of the 30 being by Americans with 10 being by Brits.

Viktor Lazlo helped move the Belgian acts on to 43 weeks in total and this meant that Belgium was now tied 19^th with acts from New Zealand for weeks on the charts. Modern Talking moved on to 143 weeks in the charts but were unmoved at 6 on the overall weeks count list, however Michael Jackson, who had 2 in the charts, also moved on to 143 and joined Modern Talking in 6^th place. Madonna joined Elvis Presley in 13^th place on the list with both acts on 131 weeks.

Youtube playlist:

5 November 1987

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	La Bamba	–	Los Lobos
2	2	11	It’s a Sin	–	Pet Shop Boys
3	4	6	Funky Town	–	Pseudo Echo
4	3	15	Luka	–	Suzanne Vega
5	7	5	Never Gonna Give You Up	–	Rick Astley
6	6	8	Always	–	Atlantic Starr
7	9	10	Who’s That Girl	–	Madonna
8	5	15	Let’s Dance	–	Chris Rea
9	8	12	I Just Can’t Stop Loving You	–	Michael Jackson
10	16	4	You Win Again	–	Bee Gees
11	17	5	Call Me	–	Spagna
12	12	6	Wishing Well (A Tone Poem)	–	Terence Trent D’Arby
13	10	19	Strangelove	–	Depeche Mode
14	11	24	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	–	Whitney Houston
15	19	3	Never Let Me Down Again	–	Depeche Mode
16	13	6	Breathless	–	Viktor Lazlo
17	14	21	Wild Horses	–	Gino Vannelli
18	18	5	Jet Airliner	–	Modern Talking
19	20	10	Seven Wonders	–	Fleetwood Mac
20	15	21	You’re the Voice	–	John Farnham
21	21	22	Ever Fallen in Love	–	Fine Young Cannibals
22	24	3	Bad	–	Michael Jackson
23	22	28	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now	–	Starship
24	23	17	The Living Daylights	–	A-Ha
25	29	3	I Heard a Rumour	–	Bananarama
26	26	2	Crazy	–	Icehouse
27	30	2	Scales of Justice	–	Living in a Box
28	New	1	My Pretty One	–	Cliff Richard
29	25	10	Love Power	–	Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne
30	27	6	When Smokey Sings	–	ABC

Los Lobos’ ‘La Bamba’ moved on to 3 weeks at 1 while the previous chart topper, The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s A Sin’ had been at 2 the whole time. Pseudo Echo’s ‘Funky Town’ was looking like a possible candidate to dethrone ‘La Bamba’ as it moved up from 4 to 3.

The climber of the week award was shared between The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’ and Spagna’s ‘Call Me’ which both moved up 6 to land at 10 and 11 respectively. It was The Bee Gees’ 14^th time with the award and they were the 4^th act to accumulate this many with Neil Diamond and Abba sitting on 15 in total and Tom Jones leading with 16. ‘You Win Again’ and ‘Call Me’ were the climbers both within the top 20 and the top 30. There were 2 other star raters and these were Depeche Mode’s ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ (up 4 from 19 to 15) and Bananarama’s ‘I Heard A Rumour’ which climbed 4 from 29 to 25.

The biggest faller was John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ which dropped 5 from 15 to 20, taking the award for both the top 20 and the top 30.

There was no movement on or off the top 20 which meant that Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ clocked up its 3^rd week as the oldest in that part of the chart, moving on to 21 top 20 weeks. The oldest in the top 30 was also unchanged as Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ ticked over to 28 weeks, 5 of which had been as the oldest in the chart.

We entered the 14^th run with no local hits in the charts as the last local song on the charts, Pocket Lips’ ‘The Incredible Dance (It’s Amazing)’ dropped out of the top 30 after a run of 15 weeks and a peak of 6. This would be their only SA chart hit. It was the only song leaving the charts this week.

Cliff Richard extended his lead at the top of the list of number of hits as he saw a 26^th hit make the charts in the form of ‘My Pretty One’. It was an 11^th hit for songwriter Alan Tarney and the 6^th which had been a Cliff Richard hit. Tarney would also produce the track which would give Cliff a number 6 hit in the UK. It was his 98^th hit to make the UK charts and would be the 53^rd of those to go top 10. It would make it to 4 in Ireland and also chart in Australia (56), Austria (20), Belgium (36), Germany (31), The Netherlands (92) and Zimbabwe (2).

After 9 weeks of there being more hits by US acts in the chart than those by UK acts, we saw this change as we now had 11 each from both nations. The run of 9 weeks that the Americans had seen was the longest one nation had dominated for over a year with the previous run of 9 or more weeks being the 21 week run where the UK acts had dominated and which ended on 5 October 1986.

Bananarama celebrated 60 weeks in the charts while Madonna moved on to 130 and Michael Jackson jumped past 140 as he moved on to 141. Madonna was now in tied 13^th place on the weeks count list, sitting next to Boney M, while Jackson sat tied 7^th with Neil Diamond.

Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ became the 75^th song to clock up 300 top 20 points. It was the 12^th song by a female artist to manage this feat.

Modern Talking saw their top 20 points total move past 900 and they sat 38^th overall. They were the 4^th highest placed act from a non-big 3 nation but were some way behind Ireland’s Joe Dolan who sat in 3^rd place with 1,657 points.

We now had 5 of the top 20 acts on the weeks count list in the chart and this bolstered the average number of weeks the acts on this week’s top 30 had accumulated to 52.77. This was the first time this figure had gone over 50 since 3 October 1980 a total of 370 weeks ago and it was a new record high. The 5 acts were The Bee Gees (at number 2), Cliff Richard (at 3), Modern Talking (at 6), Michael Jackson (at 7) and Madonna (at 14).

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