Donna Summer’s Another Place And Time, written and produced entirely by Stock Aitken Waterman (save for three Summer co-writes), is an LP with an almost mythical aura - the queen of disco teams up with the kings of hi-NRG for one of the slickest, tightest, gayest records of the late eighties, boosting Donna’s career when she needed it most and allowing SAW to pair their signature style with a truly powerful (and recognisable) voice. ‘This Time I Know It’s For Real’, the album’s lead single, and one of the most euphoric pop moments of all time, set the tone, becoming the first Summer hit to reach both the US and UK top ten in a decade, and several fine singles followed in its wake (albeit without the same level of success). ‘I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt’ (UK top ten), ‘Breakaway’ (top 50) and ‘When Love Takes Over You’ (top 75) were all brilliant, but the best of the post-‘This Time’ releases was ‘Love’s About To Change My Heart’.

While ‘This Time I Know It’s For Real’ was a relentless statement of intent, a new Donna for a new era, ‘Love’s About To Change My Heart’ is a spiritual successor to ‘Last Dance’ or ‘No More Tears’, a portrait of a lonely soul whose life will be forever altered by the power of hot disco beats (and love, I suppose). Donna Summer’s voice had already taken on disco, rock, and R&B, and the way she slots perfectly into the upbeat positivity of hi-NRG would set the scene for “diva house” to take over dance floors in the early nineties - indeed, when a proposed follow-up to Another Place And Time never came to fruition, the SAW tracks intended for that project were recorded by Lonnie Gordon, who would become a quintessential voice of diva house. ‘Love’s About To Change My Heart’, like all the later singles from Another Place And Time, may suffer due to the simple fact that it is not ‘This Time I Know It’s For Real’, but Donna’s mighty vocal gives the song its own emotional identity, an old-school performance on a track that was, at the time, bang on-trend.

‘Love’s About To Change My Heart’ music video:

Chart peaks: UK #20, AUS #71, US #85

Written by Richard Eric, 7/4/19

As Alisha’s Attic, sisters Shelly and Karen Poole never seemed to reach their full hit potential, with none of their singles or albums reaching the top ten of any major market, though several came achingly close in the UK. Looking back, it feels like the duo, who were the daughters of sixties hitmaker Brian Poole and had their debut LP produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, struggled with their musical identity. They were too pop to be taken seriously by rock fans, and seemingly determined to project a moody image (as seen in this Top Of The Pops performance of ‘Alisha Rules The World’) that didn’t quite align with the actual music, which was mostly light and radio-friendly.

Obviously, I have no issue with any of this, as this is, after all, a list of my favourite songs - when they got it right, like on their debut release* ‘I Am, I Feel’ or on the even stronger follow-up ‘Alisha Rules The World’, the Poole sisters could go bindi-to-bindi with the best alt-pop females of the era, particularly as songwriters. ‘Alisha Rules The World’ is their most natural on-record moment, a straightforward pop song with a bit of bite, a track that could exist happily in the era of Spicemania with just enough attitude to set Alisha’s Attic apart. When Alisha’s Attic came to a natural end after three albums, both Shelly and Karen would become writers-for-hire, a fitting career for two sisters who excelled at clever turns of phrase and delivering infectious, deceptively simple melodies.

* Well, not really. Their debut release, which flopped into oblivion and allowed “Keren & Chelle” the opportunity to regroup as Alisha’s Attic, was this gloriously shit Stock Aitken Waterman tribute.

‘Alisha Rules The World’ music video:

Chart peaks: UK #12, AUS #26

Written by Richard Eric, 24/3/19

Looking back on ‘Alejandro’ now, nearly a decade after its release, we can surmise that the track’s single campaign signified the absolute peak of media and fan obsession with who Lady Gaga was and was not “copying”. First featured on 2009’s The Fame Monster, ‘Alejandro’ sounded different to any of Gaga’s previous hits (it’s closest relative, ‘Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)’, had only been released in select territories), drawing from European pop even more significantly than before and garnering constant comparisons to Swedish legends Ace Of Base. Written with frequent early collaborator RedOne (himself a immigrant to Sweden), there’s no denying the song draws heavily from the same bouncy, melodic vibe that made Ace Of Base one of the most successful international acts of the nineties - but there are elements of ‘Alejandro’ that are uniquely Gaga, like the camp dramatics of the spoken introduction, or her tendency to tackle potentially frothy pop songs with a theatric intensity, a thoroughly American approach that would never have gelled with Ace Of Base’s more restrained style.

‘Alejandro’s music video, which premiered in mid-2010, inspired more heated discussion, with further comparisons that are, in hindsight, quite a compliment, but at the time would have just felt annoying. Yes, it’s the M-word: Madonna looms large over the ‘Alejandro’ video, with visuals reminiscent of ‘Vogue’, ‘Like A Prayer’, Blond Ambition, and especially ‘Express Yourself’, but to cast the video aside as nothing more than a Madonna tribute is to sell it short. Gaga took a song which, pre-video, was considered to be a summer smash-in-waiting, her most carefree and joyful single since ‘LoveGame’, and gave it a dark, militaristic visual filled with queerness, references to Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, and religious imagery (which former Christian rock singer Katy Perry dismissed as “cheap”), a risky move that could only be made by an artist at the top of their game. Like so much of Gaga’s output during this time, ‘Alejandro’ existed on multiple levels: as light, sing-a-long pop, as controversial, boundary-pushing mainstream art, and as a summation of the half-century of pop culture that preceded her - Gaga is so often compared to icons of the past not just because she is unafraid to reference (or not reference), but because her work often contains the same distinct thrill that came from seeing those icons at their peak.

‘Alejandro’ music video:

Chart peaks: AUS #2, US #5, UK #7

Written by Richard Eric, 23/3/19

Before Richard and Karen Carpenter recorded ‘Solitaire’ for their 1975 album Horizon, several versions had already been released, by the likes of Andy Williams, The Searchers, and the song’s author, Neil Sedaka. Listening to these renditions is enjoyable, as the song is wonderful in any form, but they are all missing something crucial - Karen’s voice, which regularly elevated well-written songs about love and heartache into spellbinding works of pop art, able to convey both subtle and overt emotional narratives while remaining palatable to a conservative easy-listening audience.

I always assumed ‘Solitaire’ was considered one of the Carpenters’ all-time greatest hits due to Karen’s masterful performance, but the single was a flop upon its release. In fact, after a string of twelve near-consecutive US top ten hits, ‘Solitaire’ would begin the duo’s slide into chart irrelevance, a truly frustrating result for such an outstanding song. Even the Carpenters themselves apparently felt ambivalent (Richard) or even dismissive (Karen) towards the song, perhaps feeling that it was too depressing, even by their standards. ‘Solitaire’ may have left a more complicated legacy than most of the bigger Carpenters hits, but (to me, anyway) it is just as sublime, a showcase for Sedaka’s writing, Richard’s lavishly detailed production, and of course, Karen’s unrivalled interpretive skills.

‘Solitaire’ audio:

Chart peaks: US #17, UK #32, AUS #61

Written by Richard Eric, 23/3/19

Milli Vanilli became the poster boys for musical fraud when they were revealed, in late 1990, to have been lip synching to session singers’ vocals, but they were far from the only act of the era to have sold a product with misleading visuals. Black Box, C+C Music Factory and Australian act Euphoria all did it, while Belgian dance project Technotronic, led by producer Jo Bogaert, went one step further: their 1989 breakthrough hit gave an official featuring credit to Felly, a model who had contributed not a shred of original vocals to the song. Lucky then, that much like ‘Ride On Time’ and ‘Gonna Make You Sweat’, ‘Pump Up The Jam’ would become an all-time dance classic, and the controversy was largely overshadowed by the sheer magnitude of the track’s popularity - it would be credited as a breakthrough moment for house music in the US, where it vaulted into the top three, and by mid-1990, they were supporting Madonna on the legendary Blond Ambition World Tour (with the actual ‘Pump Up The Jam’ vocalist, Ya Kid K, front and centre).

Enlisting Ya Kid K as the track’s commanding frontwoman, even if she was initially sidelined, was ‘Pump Up The Jam’s secret weapon - as a rapper/singer, she infused the single with elements of both hip hop and pop, giving it a leg-up over more “pure” house records that may not have appealed so broadly to international audiences. The tactic of tapping into a cross-section of then-current trends makes ‘Pump Up The Jam’ a microcosm of dance-pop in 1989, but it’s the strength of the composition itself - the drama of that instantly recognisable intro, the give-and-take relationship between the vocals and the beat, and the joyful spirit of what would become clichés of the genre (“Get your booty on the floor! Make my day!”) that guaranteed ‘Pump Up The Jam’ would endure far beyond Technotronic’s brief, but hugely important, moment at the top.

‘Pump Up The Jam’ music video:

Chart peaks: UK #2, US #2, AUS #4

Written by Richard Eric, 17/3/19

Following the release of his band’s breakthrough album Antichrist Superstar, Marilyn Manson had become a pop sensation, whether he had intended to do so or not: by occupying a place in American culture that painted him as a child corruptor, a promoter of bad taste, and, in extreme cases, a literal Satanist, he had penetrated the mainstream at a level that was usually reserved for mega-selling pop acts, and, as the nineties came to a close, he would only get more notorious. Mechanical Animals, his first LP as a household name, no longer positioned Manson and his bandmates as active participants in the debauchery and controversy that had driven the Antichrist Superstar-era - instead, this concept album served to deconstruct the media circus that had brought the band their fame, and the contradictions inherent in using that very platform to sell what is, at the end of the day, still a commercial product.

As a product, Mechanical Animals was marketed and sold exceptionally well, as evidenced by the LP’s entry at number one on the Billboard 200, and much of this success can be attributed to lead single ‘The Dope Show’, a track which expanded upon all the hysteria surrounding Antichrist Superstar and repackaged it for MTV. In the song itself, Manson denigrates himself and his peers, sneering at the lengths in which they had gone to generate notoriety for themselves, and foreshadowing the eventual end of his run as the conservative media’s public enemy number one. In the video, he stops fucking with religion for a minute to fuck with gender instead, recreating the Mechanical Animals album cover and transforming into a glamorous, androgynous alien, a now-iconic image that was specifically designed to shock, horrify, and most importantly, get people talking. 

When MTV’s Total Request Live, the show that would become synonymous with the teen-pop explosion of the late-nineties, debuted on September 14, 1998, ‘The Dope Show’ was sitting pretty in the top ten most requested videos, right between Usher and Will Smith - Marilyn Manson had officially reached his commercial peak. How fitting, then, that it would be with a song that was both a genuinely awesome glam-industrial hybrid, and a cynically self-aware takedown of the very system in which its creator was now thriving.

‘The Dope Show’ music video:

Chart peaks: UK #12, AUS #20

Written by Richard Eric, 11/3/19

Though their discography would amount to just one album and four singles, for eighteen glorious months between 1986 and 1988, Melanie and Kim Appleby - as Mel & Kim, of course - encapsulated the joy of young British pop, their Stock Aitken Waterman anthems espousing the merits of being yourself, having a good time and setting the scene for an eventual explosion of Girl Power. Unlike many other SAW artists, it seemed feasible that Mel & Kim had the charisma and drive to extend their fame for at least another couple of years, but it wasn’t to be: Mel was sick, and she tragically passed away in January 1990, aged just 23.

Mel’s death left Kim in an unimaginably difficult situation. Nobody would have blamed the elder Appleby if she chose to retire from music, but she pressed on - armed with several songs co-written with her sister intended for their second album, and the assistance of ex-Bros member and boyfriend Craig Logan, Kim launched her solo career in October 1990 with the unexpectedly euphoric single ‘Don’t Worry’.

Considering their shared image was built on positivity, addressing Mel’s passing in Kim’s solo work was always going to be a difficult task. The ultimate result, ‘Don’t Worry’, was perfectly realised: a dance track with an optimistic lyric, technically about romantic relationships but broad enough to be applied to any hardship or loss, the single developed the Mel & Kim sound while allowing Kim the scope to push her solo career into more mature, nuanced territory. One of Mel & Kim’s key selling points was the notion that their teenage fans could be just like them, carefree and rebellious. As you get older, however, life takes unexpected, often terribly sad turns - ‘Don’t Worry’ is an assurance that those situations can also be approached with the same sense of self-assurance and hope.

‘Don’t Worry’ music video:

Chart peak: UK #2

Written by Richard Eric, 2/3/19

On the surface, very little about ‘Hey There Delilah’ would seem to warrant much deep thought. The image of a white guy with a guitar singing to his absent girlfriend is almost laughably cliché, and even the band name - Plain White T’s - is the epitome of boring, but ‘Hey There Delilah’ was far more interesting than your average lovelorn ballad, with a controversial history and a wide-eyed sincerity to the lyrics that will either make your heart sing or your skin crawl, depending on your view.

Before ‘Hey There Delilah’, Plain White T’s had been kicking around since 1997, led by vocalist and primary songwriter Tom Higgenson, eventually releasing two albums on pop-punk label Fearless in 2002 and 2005. The latter LP, All That We Needed, featured ‘Hey There Delilah’ as its final track, and following the song’s release as a single in May 2006, it slowly but surely gained airplay, eventually becoming a bonus track on the band’s next album, Every Second Counts, released that September on Disney’s Hollywood Records. Despite having been released over two years earlier, the single continued to gain momentum in the first half of 2007, concluding its incredibly long journey to the top that July, when ‘Hey There Delilah’ peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Across its extended lifespan, ‘Hey There Delilah’ captured the imagination of listeners, with many eager to know the true story behind this charming love song. It turned out there was a real Delilah - Delilah DiCrescenzo, a distance runner who was attending Columbia University at the time the song was written - but she and Higgenson, who met via a mutual friend, had never been romantically involved (or even close to it), and some reports insinuated that she was less than flattered by the association. When the track was nominated for two Grammys in 2008, however, DiCrescenzo attended the ceremony with the band, indicating that she was, at the very least, cool with her unexpected musical fame, and she told ESPN in 2013 that she had come to a place where she could enjoy the song for what it was.

Ultimately, the song took on a life of its own, one that stretched far beyond the experiences of Higgenson or DiCrescenzo, and far beyond the Plain White T’s, who would never again enjoy this level of pop success. With reports emerging last year that the lyrical narrative (not the true circumstances of the song’s conception) would be adapted into a television show, ‘Hey There Delilah’ shows no sign of slipping from the public consciousness, becoming both an icon of the mid-2000s and a lightning rod for nostalgic humour. In the end, the real story behind the song is of very little consequence - it was the romantic fantasy of ‘Hey There Delilah’, of two lovers pulled apart by circumstance, that pushed it from obscurity to the top of the pops, and will, above all else, be its legacy.

‘Hey There Delilah’ music video:

Chart peaks: US #1, UK #2, AUS #3

Written by Richard Eric, 24/2/19

Of the seven singles from Michael Jackson’s Bad that were released in the US, ‘Another Part Of Me’ is easily the most commonly overlooked - although when five of those singles were number ones, and the other was ‘Smooth Criminal’, its semi-obscurity begins to make more sense. Despite “only” peaking at number 11 on the Hot 100 and missing out on a high-budget studio video, ‘Another Part Of Me’ is an important part of Bad’s story, from its origins in the 1986 Disney short film Captain EO, to nearly getting left on the cutting room floor, to getting its moment in the sun as a single - and proving that social justice themes and ‘We Are The World’-isms could fit just fine into a slamming pop-R&B track (Janet was taking notes, presumably).

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Michael alongside Anjelica Huston, Captain EO was fairly standard in its content - an uncomplicated, family-friendly story about using the power of music to transform evil, but it was inaccessible to 99% of Michael’s fanbase, screening only at Disney theme parks as part of a special 3D attraction, leaving its music largely unheard by the masses. ‘Another Part Of Me’ was one of two tracks featured in the film (‘We Are Here To Change The World’ would go unreleased until its appearance on 2004’s The Ultimate Collection), and, in its full form, is a catchy, brilliantly sung call-to-arms, deserving of an opportunity to be heard by those who couldn’t pop down to Epcot and catch Captain EO on the big screen.

Even then, ‘Another Part Of Me’ was nearly deleted from Bad to make way for ‘Streetwalker’, a track that is worth hearing for its impressive vocal on the chorus, but, had it been included, would have been the album’s weak link (oddly, since the ‘Cry’ single was my first Michael Jackson CD, I actually owned ‘Streetwalker’, which featured as a B-side, before I owned any of the real Bad tracks). Surviving the possibility of remaining exclusive to Captain EO, then the threat of being replaced by ‘Streetwalker’, ‘Another Part Of Me’ fought for its place in the spotlight, making its euphoric, optimistic vibe even more gratifying.

‘Another Part Of Me’ music video:

Chart peaks: US #11, UK #15, AUS #44

Written by Richard Eric, 23/2/19

Where do you even begin when talking about ‘Rapper’s Delight’? It’s very easy to point to revered, groundbreaking singles and say that they “changed the world”, but there is no doubt that the Sugarhill Gang’s 1979 recording, the first hip hop track to gain widespread attention, actually did alter the way culture progressed across the next four decades. ‘Rapper’s Delight’ opened the door for new generations of black artists, gave black youth a unique voice, and allowed the records that followed in its wake to address social and political issues that, without this platform, would likely have remained unspoken and obscured.

Nobody could have known all that in 1979, of course, and this newfangled rap style was seen by some as a fad - so how does ‘Rapper’s Delight’, a fifteen-minute epic that could have easily descended into novelty as its minutes wore on, hold up today? From the Chic sample, to the iconic opening declaration, right on down to Wonder Mike’s verse about going over to a friend’s house to eat, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ is still a joy, incorporating humour, braggadocio, scenes from everyday life, pop culture references, and calls to the dance floor. With so much ground covered so skilfully, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ succeeds as both an artistic blueprint and as pure entertainment - it’s not just one of the most important recordings of the twentieth century, it’s tons of fun, too, regardless of whether you’re listening in 1979 or 2019.

‘Rapper’s Delight’ audio:

Chart peaks: UK #3, US #36, AUS #37

Written by Richard Eric, 23/2/19