Classic Pop April 2019

Freddie Mercury

releases his fi rst solo

album, Mr Bad Guy,

which will peak at

No.6 in the UK.

Life In A Northern

Town by The Dream

Academy spends

the second of two

weeks at No.15 in

the singles chart.

The song’s infectious

vocal chant will be

sampled and used

prominently in the

No.2 hit Sunchyme

by Dario G in 1997.

America’s

hastily-convened

version of Band

Aid, USA For

Africa, reaches

No.1 in the

UK singles chart

with We Are

The World.

W

ham! arrive in Peking, China, to begin

a brief tour – the fi rst by a Western pop

band. On this day, they visit the Great

Wall Of China and are honoured with a banquet

organised by the Chinese Youth Federation.

Wham!’s trip to China was sold to the world as

a groundbreaking cultural exchange, marking the

arrival of Western pop in Chairman Mao’s Celestial

Empire. However, it was also a meticulously planned

business strategy designed to take the perky pop

pair to the top in the United States by the shortest

possible route. As their manager Simon Napier-Bell

later explained: “When we sat down and planned

Wham!’s three-year trip to the top of the music

business, we realised the problem with America.”

To be precise, the problem was that British acts

hoping to conquer North America usually needed

to play three 60-date live tours before the American

audience would warm to them enough to give them a

Top 10 hit single.

And George Michael was, quite simply, not up

for that. America, however, was where the big

money could be earned, so Napier-Bell and George

had to fi nd another way to do it. “The whole thing

was corrupt from beginning to end,” Napier-Bell

has recalled. “I got them in via an endless chain of

corrupt offi cials taking bribes and trips to Japan and

visits to brothels...”

The end result, however, was exactly what he’d

wanted. “In the US, we were on ABC, CBS and NBC

national news every day. In one week, we achieved

what should have taken three years.”

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Following the signing

of an historic deal

between CBS Records

and the Chinese Cultural

Exchange Centre, a

Wham! compilation tape

is released in China.

This marks the fi rst

offi cial release of

Western pop music in

the People’s Republic.

TOP FIVE UK

SOUL ALBUMS

COMPILED BY

BLUES AND SOUL

16 APRIL 1985

(^1) THE NIGHT
I FELL IN LOVE
LUTHER VANDROSS
(^2) PRIVATE DANCER
TINA TURNER
(^3) CAN’T STOP
THE LOVE
MAZE
(^4) CHINESE WALL
PHILIP BAILEY
(^5) SO DELICIOUS
FATBACK
All data supplied by
http://www.musicdayz.com
Strawberry Switchblade release
their eponymous debut album
(and only LP), on Korova Records.
Although never hugely successful on
the charts, their style – polka
dot dresses, backcombed black
hair and budget
jewellery – is widely
credited with having
kickstarted the
Japanese Lolita
fashion style.