10 September 1988 So I can delay having to waste valuable seconds of my life contemplating Phil Collins again, let's consider the song. 'A Groovy Kind Of Love' was a mildly charming up-tempo '60s guitar pop hit for The Mindbenders written by Carole Bayer Sager, who had huge AOR songwriting success in the '70s and … Continue reading Phil Collins – ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’ →

3 September 1988 Hold onto your hats: it's a good 1988 Stock, Aitken and Waterman single! This is what was so infuriating about SAW: they were well able to make good records when they wanted. Their two biggest 1987 hits, Mel and Kim's 'Respectable' and Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up', were genuinely distinctive: … Continue reading Brother Beyond – ‘The Harder I Try’ →

20 August 1988 There's a neat symmetry here: Otis Clay, who originally recorded and released 'The Only Way Is Up' in 1980, had started out in groups such as the Christian Travelers and the Gospel Songbirds before moving into what we could call secular music. Yazz, who has a number one hit with it in … Continue reading Yazz and the Plastic Population – ‘The Only Way Is Up’ →

13 August 1988 Fitzroy Football Club in Melbourne, in a post on their Facebook, say it happened on 12 July 1986. At a club benefit show that night, Neighbours star Kylie Minogue took to the stage and performed 'The Locomotion'. It went down a storm. She had already appeared on a high-profile hit, as one … Continue reading Kylie Minogue – ‘The Locomotion’ →

6 August 1988 Paddy Reilly was part of the soundtrack of my childhood. His 1983 live album, featuring modern Irish folk ballads like 'The Fields Of Athenry', was one of the few cassettes my father had in the car, so on long rainy Sunday drives when there wasn't a big Gaelic football match on the … Continue reading Paddy Reilly – ‘Flight Of Earls’ →

16 July 1988 I didn't know that this was a cover version; the original was a 1985 single by George Benson in his smooth-soul-crooner '80s phase. After Tiffany with her two Irish number ones and Debbie Gibson with her chart hits here, Glenn Medeiros was another American pop teen to wash up on our shores … Continue reading Glenn Medeiros – ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You’ →

9 July 1988 Apparently the driver for this being a hit was Tracy Chapman's double appearance at the televised Nelson Mandela birthday tribute concert in Wembley the previous month; Stevie Wonder pulled out at the last minute so the organisers asked Chapman to go back on, where she sang 'Fast Car' with just her acoustic … Continue reading Tracy Chapman – ‘Fast Car’ →

11 June 1988 Finally, after years of underachievement and dubious refereeing, and thanks to Jack Charlton's gruff Geordie long-ball game plus a late Gary Mackay goal to give Scotland an unexpected away win that nobbled nearest challengers Bulgaria, Ireland qualified for a major tournament. All this was new to us; what now? Well, one tradition … Continue reading The Republic of Ireland Soccer Squad – ‘The Boys In Green’ →

21 May 1988 This double-A-side single was from a charity album of Beatles covers by 1988 pop and indie acts, in support of Childline in the UK, called Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father. Other tracks on the album include Sonic Youth doing 'Within You Without You', 'Good Morning Good Morning' by The Triffids, and 'A … Continue reading Wet Wet Wet – ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ / Billy Bragg ft Cara Tivey – ‘She’s Leaving Home’ →