The U.K. 80s Singles & Albums Chart General Discussion Thread.

Ah yes, one of those who sounded like they sucked helium balloons before laying down their vocals. Ms. Q had another U.S. hit, albeit a bit more minor, called "We Connect" as the follow-up.

 

Her follow-up single 'We Connect' was just as big a hit as 'Two of Hearts' in Oz (both reached #7) but it's a terrible song. I won't post the video as nobody should be subjected to it, but the lyrics are an accurate indication of its quality:

We connect
When we‘re together, it's so perfect
Boy, you shock me with your wide hot love
I start to overload
I explode when we connect

Classy stuff!

 

Dearie me!

Makes Chain Reaction sound chaste.

EG.

 

I, meanwhile, wish to call your attention to a British band that hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1988 - but didn't even chart (neither with this nor anything else they did) in their own country! I speak of The Escape Club, with "Wild Wild West":

 

I just had a listen to We Connect, mainly because I was curious if I might actually remember it and know a second Stacey Q song, but no - zero recollection of this one at all. The production is like a cross between Two Of Hearts (the "we-con-nect" is essentially the same staccato delivery as "two-of-hearts") and S/A/W! It lacks the charm of Two Of Hearts, though.

Doesn't sound like Stacey Q had much range...

 

Oh I love this song! It was a huge hit here in Australia too where it reached number 7. Her follow-up single, ‘We Connect’ also peaked at number 7. Unfortunately, none of her subsequent singles ever did much here.

EDIT: Sorry, I see @pwhytey beat me to the punch!

 

"If it catches on.."

I was late to the CD party and my first was a used copy of..

 

Voice Of The Beehive were brilliant.
The first three "hits" - I Say Nothing / I Walk The Earth / Dont Call Me Baby got constant airplay on our youth radio station back in 1988.

The were very much "the thing" in those days.

 

Thanks for posting this. Two things about it stand out to me.

1) That's a cute girl there. Wonder what she looks like now?

2) The prices are almost too high to believe. The article says that discs will cost 10 pounds and the player 549 pounds. In 1983, that translated into about 15 and 800 USA dollars, respectively. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $44 and $2300 dollars today, respectively.

$44 dollars a disc and $2300 for a player! That is just astonishing. And yet in Japan people were lining up to buy.

I got my first CD player and discs two or so years later, in late 1985. The player was around $450 and the discs were about $16 each. So disc prices hadn't changed in two years, but player prices had come down dramatically. Did they really come down that much?

 

In Ireland, there was a European chart show broadcast on RTE Radio 2 on Saturday mornings. I heard the German version of Balloons on that plus stuff like Alphaville’s Big In Japan before it was a UK hit.

 

I bought my first CD player in 1986. It was part of a Sony 4-in-1 system which cost IR £400. New albums on CD were about £18 - that’s what Pet Shop Boys’ Please cost me. More than twice the price of the LP.

In the same shop that I bought the stereo, I witnessed two youths come in, look at some equipment, hit open / close on the CD player and karate chop the open tray. They then ran out. Wanton destruction.

 

My first CD player (bought in 1985) was almost £300. This was indeed expensive, especially for a fledgling format, but you could pay £300 for an amp then, so it wasn’t extortionate.

CDs around 1985 would usually be £12-13. Occasionally you’d get a ‘bargain’ and one would cost £10. This wasn’t that common though.

I have a book where I wrote down every CD I ever bought, along with how much it cost and where I got it from. I still write in it! How many young music fans do that now?

 

I still buy CDs as well when I want a physical format. Haven't owned a record player in more than a decade at least. Thinking of buying another one though just for those special albums and those not available on CD or download

 

£18 seems an awful lot. I don’t remember paying that unless it was an import title. And I didn’t start buying them until a few years later…

 

I bought my first CD player in 1986 and first CDs a couple of years earlier. In 1984 Peter Gabriel 4 cost me £9.99. In 1986 So (the reason I bought the player when I did) was £11.99 I think. Certainly new albums were £5.99 and it took some strength to pay double for CDs until I had to take several copies of vinyl albums back because of pressing issues. After that happened a few times I just thought it was safer to move to CD.

 

Yeah, £11.99 seemed the ‘normal’ price to pay for CDs in 1985/86.

 

Now we go fully to the post-NME / Melody Maker era, with a look at the 3d quarter of 1988 and those which topped MRIB's Network Top 50. Any #1 of theirs that also didn't top Gallup's "official" chart will be indicated in bold. So . . .

MRIB Network #1's

9 Jul: "The Twist (Yo, Twist)" by The Fat Boys With Chubby Checker (G #2)
16 Jul: "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You" by Glenn Medeiros
13 Aug: "The Only Way Is Up" by Yazz And The Plastic Population
17 Sep: "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" by The Hollies

Between July and September, four records topped the "Official" chart, with MRIB only charting three of them there.

Conversely, "Official" #1 "Groovy Kind Of Love" by Phil Collins was stuck at #2 in the "Network" chart.

 

This seems like a decent model. Not too expensive (about £230 on Amazon) and probably better than anything I had as a kid. Seems to be a very popular deck too.

 

You see, this is that point in the decade where I was losing heart. I wouldn’t have cared about any of those. Still don’t really!

But I do quite like Phil’s Groovy Kind of Love!

 

Something like that would be perfect.

 

Same here, that was my main motive for switching to CDs. Then once I heard how much better they sounded, and easier for me to handle (and not need turning over and putting the needle down with my shaking hands), it was a no-brainer to continue with CDs. I couldn't afford many at first though.

I had a basic plan of what to buy on what format:

Warners/CBS - try the vinyl first (or cassette if extra tracks), as they were the best quality to my ears.
EMI - go for the cassette
Virgin/RCA/Polygram etc - don't even bother with the vinyl, and expect the cassettes to be iffy as well.

This was until I had enough £££ to just buy whatever I liked on CD, which would have been late 1987.

EG.

 

In a way, the end of NME's and Melody Maker's stand-alone charts signified that we were getting to, as you would have likely put it, "that point." When there was greater competition in the charts - back when there were also the likes of Record Mirror, Disc and later Top Pops / Music Now - it did seem the music scene was more interesting. Once the field thinned, though . . . and of course, once MRIB finally threw in the towel in 2008, that truly was the end, my friend (to paraphrase Jim Morrison). But when it's only two, you get more lopsided results.

Ever lurked into the '60's thread of late? We're getting to the point where it's far more interesting. Beatles and Stones and Animals . . . a few Kinks here and there . . .

 

The UK charts "lost" me sometime in late 1986 or early 87....I couldn't understand why the big hits were so popular, as to me they weren't as good as the ones flopping. That only got worse as 1987 continued, and by 1988 I just lived in my own musical world. Even the US charts began to get a bit strange.

EG.

 

My local Our Prices seemed to charge anything from 10.99 to 13.49 in 1986/87. Didn't seem to be much sense to it, all depended on the title. Then by mid-1987 it became more equal.

EG.

 

I thought the same She reminds me of someone, but can't place her.

EG.