The Top 40... 25 Years Ago This Week Ending Nov 21 1987

Let's have a look at what was in the hit parade a quarter of a century ago, eh kids? I shall adopt the guise of Bruno Brookes for the next few paragraphs...

Let's pause a moment first and pay respect to Sting, climbing one place to 41 after three weeks in the chart. Oh dear. That was as high as it got. I bought that on 12 inch as well. Albeit a month later, from the cheap rack. Sorry, Sting. Anyway, moving onto the top 40 proper... nowt much doing in the 30's to 40, with climbers from poodle rockers WASP and the long forgotten Blue Mercedes, but straight in at number 30 there's the classic "Build" by the Housemartins, possibly my fave song about town planning and building regulations. Ex-junkie Boy George is in at number 26 with "To Be Reborn", a long forgotten effort trying to capitalize on the pre-Xmas marketplace with limited success. Well, it reached 13 so I suppose it must have sold a few. But who's this at number 25, up 26 places? The classic "Letter From America" by the Proclaimers. "Bathgate no moooore" indeed. It would get to Number 3 in the end and probably will be, along with "500 Miles", their pension top up.

The Smiths (pictured right) are up six at 23 with "I Started Something.." but by this stage songwriters Morrissey and Marr had long since entered the endgame for the group, with a catalogue of misunderstanding and terrible communications in the summer causing the breakup of the band, after what was a massively successful and productive 5 years. They'd long since ceased to be by the time this single was released, with Mozza already hard at work recording his first solo album. Fat Barry White is doing alright at 20 up 18 places, with a bit of a comeback for him. It's all a bit urban really, with serial chart botherer Maxi Priest covering Robert Palmer in a reggae style, Donna Summer's oddly brilliant "Dinner With Gershwin" and Alexander O'Neill's mighty Jam and Lewis produced "Criticize", all storming up into the top 20, capped off with Whitney's "imperial" phase continuing with the dancefloor stormer "So Emotional" climbing up to number 9.

So we're into the ten biggest singles of the week... Mirage's "Jack Mix IV"? Up to number 8? Anybody remember that one? Thought not. Probably not even they do. Otherwise it's all a bit safe this week, with the Bee Gees and Freddie on their way out (in more ways than one). There's the soon-to-be-Xmas-and-Wedding-Do staple "I've Had The Time Of My Life" up to 6; Nina Simone at 5 spurred on from seemingly nowhere with an Aardman animated cat video; the better of the two Communards covers at 4; Rick Astley at three probably wearing a suit from Top Man; at two returning from the rock wilderness, George Harrison with the Jeff Lynne produced "Got My Mind Set On You" (Wilburys are just around the corner...) and...

Britain's Number One!!!

Shropshire's finest, T'Pau with "China In Your Hand". A song so 80's it hurts, complete with obligatory too long sax solo (see also "Will You" by Hazel O'Connor six years earlier). Still, feisty redhead Carol Decker was fun, being the obligatory redheaded gobshite in the music press, in a proto-Halliwell style, and the "Bridge Of Spies" album was passable MOR rock. Five weeks at number one though was probably two weeks too long, and these giddy heights were never reached again.

So that's the chart. Shocking how many of these acts are no longer with us. Twenty five years... it's like another world isn't it?