Classic Pop - UK (2019-11)

THE LOVE CATS THE CURE(FICTION)It’s inconceivable that any Cure Best Of wouldn’t include this one, but it’s not a track loved by its own writer. “

The

Love Cats

is far from being my favourite song,”

Robert Smith once grumbled. “Composed drunk, video fi lmed drunk, promotion made drunk. It was a joke.” Of course, songwriters can be epically wrong about their own material (Noel Gallagher, once said of

Wonderwall

, “I can’t fucking stand

that fucking song”), so let’s ignore Smith here, as The Love Cats

is one of the catchiest, rosiest

MADNESS THE SUN AND THE RAIN numbers ever waxed by the Crawley pop-goths (which is very possibly why he loathes it so much). The Tim Pope-directed promo was, incidentally, shot in a mansion which had been ‘borrowed’ from an estate agency who believed the band wanted to buy it. They returned the keys the next morning. (For more on the making of the video, check out our Tim Pope interview in issue 57.)

(STIFF)

This Mike Barson-penned 7" closed a four-year paradise period for Madness when virtually every single they released went Top 10 (they wouldn’t have another Top 10 hit until

Lovestruck

, 16 years later). Though

it’s a typically jaunty Nutty Boys number, lyrically

The Sun And The Rain

is uncommonly

melancholic, Barson writing that, “I hear the sound of rain falling in my ears/ Washing away the weariness like tears/ I can feel my troubles running down/ Disappear into the silent sound.” The video, however, is reliably potty, with the band singing and dancing in the pouring rain, while also dressed up as what look like hyperactive blood cells inside Suggs’ ear. Only Madness...

PUSS ‘N BOOTS ADAM ANT

(CBS)

Though this cut off his second solo LP would prove Stuart Goddard’s fi nal Top 10 hit, it did markedly better than his previous release, the faintly gothy

Desperate But Not Serious

, which

stiffed at a pitiful No.33. The album,

Strip

,

only reached No.20 in the LP chart and was greeted with more of a shrug than a whoop

by critics. The song marked the biggest departure yet from Adam And The Ants’ signature Burundi beat sound, helped no doubt by the inclusion of Phil Collins on the sticks

(though long-time cohort Marco Pirroni delivers a slightly cringey guitar solo). Look out in the video for veteran comedy thesp (and director of

The Railway Children

) Lionel Jeffries

as the King of England.

THE SAFETY DANCE MEN WITHOUT HATS

(STATIK)

It was after Ivan Doroschuk, frontman of Canadian new wavers Men

Without Hats, got himself yanked out of a bar in Ottawa for pogoing to The B-52s’ Rock Lobster

that he hit upon the idea of

penning this anti-bouncer, pro-pogoing ode to musical freedom. “I was telling people it’s okay, you can slam-dance if you want to,” Doroschuk explained. Ironically, though, it’s diffi cult to imagine anyone pogoing to this, as it’s defi nitely more pop than punk, a synth-saturated, melodically muscular number that would prove to be the band’s biggest hit worldwide. In fact, it’s so well known Stateside (it made No.3 over there) that it even made it into an episode of

Glee

(season one, episode 19, if you’re looking). The Tim Pope-helmed music video is defi nitely worth checking out.

NEVER NEVER THE ASSEMBLY (MUTE)Okay, pop quiz: What’s the name of Vince Clarke’s

other

group, the one he formed after Yazoo and before Erasure? Fair play, The Assembly didn’t stick around long enough to make a seismic impact, breaking up after this, their only single. The band was set up to be, at its core, Clarke and Eric Radcliffe, with a revolving line-up of singers, the fi rst being Feargal Sharkey, who really shines here.

KARMA CHAMELEON CULTURE CLUB (VIRGIN)The UK’s biggest-selling single of 1983, the country’s 38th biggest-selling single of all time, fi ve million copies sold worldwide, performed

in

The A-Team

(yes, really)... It’s a fair bet that, even

if you’ve been living in a Tibetan monastery all these years, you’ll have somehow heard

Karma

Chameleon

. Is it Culture Club’s best song? Possibly.

One thing’s for sure, though, it’s certainly their most successful.

03

(4)

CRY JUST A LITTLE BIT

SHAKIN’ STEVENS

(EPIC)

3RD WEEK ON CHART

04

(2)

ALL NIGHT LONG (ALL NIGHT)

LIONEL RICHIE

(MOTOWN)

8TH WEEK ON CHART

05

(9)

THE SUN AND THE RAIN

MADNESS

(STIFF)

3RD WEEK ON CHART

06

(5)

PUSS ‘N BOOTS

ADAM ANT

(CBS)

4TH WEEK ON CHART

07

(10)

THE LOVE CATS

THE CURE

(FICTION)

4TH WEEK ON CHART

08

(7)

THE SAFETY DANCE

MEN WITHOUT HATS

(STATIK)

11TH WEEK ON CHART

09

(8)

KARMA CHAMELEON

CULTURE CLUB

(VIRGIN)

10TH WEEK ON CHART

10

(36)

NEVER NEVER

THE ASSEMBLY

(MUTE)

2ND WEEK ON CHART