The Dumper

I’ve often found it strange how frequently the term “pop music” is used in a pejorative sense. Somehow the notion that a record is “pop” means it is looked down on as a poor relation with the intimation that there will be an absence of quality and/or talent involved.

Frankly, I think this is poppycock. The enduring success over recent decades of artists like Kylie, Take That, Westlife, Will Young, the Spice Girls and Madonna, and (I hate to use the term) “revival” of pop music recently with the likes of Mika, Leona Lewis, Britney Spears, Lily Allen and La Roux means the genre has never been more popular (pun intended) or successful.

It’s easy to be snobby about three minute pop records, particularly those by artists that are deemed to have been “created”. I don’t see the need. Weren’t the Monkees or the Beach Boys “created”? Didn’t the Beatles and Slade write catchy three minute pop records? Didn’t the Blur and Oasis genre have “pop” in its name?

The purpose (he argues, giving much more credence to some sort of methodology than is absolutely required) of this site is to celebrate some of those pop records of a great decade that have been buried in the great landfill of time.

When presenting on University radio in the late 1990s and on the odd occasion someone has been daft enough to invite me to DJ a function or pub/club night my aim has always been one thing. I have always wanted to play records that make people stop, however briefly, before their brain searches its filing system in an often futile attempt at recollection. I love the phrase “God, I haven’t heard this for ages!”

I have been to plenty of Eighties nights and clubs in my time. Many of my friends would tell you the number is unhealthy for a man of my years, but I’ll leave that open to interpretation. My biggest gripe with them is that there seems to be a rigid 80s playlist developing of songs that attending punters are expecting to hear and that there doesn’t seem to be any significant deviation from that list.

The 80s was a fantastic decade for pop music with hundreds of memorable songs. This site is intended as testament to the “forgotten” songs of that era. That is why you won’t find Tainted Love in here, or Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go or Don’t You Want Me? Neither will you find The Reflex, Relax or Karma Chameleon. Don’t get me wrong, these records are superb pop singles in their own right but overexposure and their already-secured spot in the public consciousness eliminates them.

So what is included?
I’ll be honest – it’s shamelessly arbitrary. Firstly, as above, I have tried to ignore any record which I consider is already part of the 80s furniture. That doesn’t mean I have avoided big hits – indeed there are eight Number One records on my list – but I have tried to avoid the giant behemoth 80s records played week in, week out at weddings and Christmas parties up and down the land.

Secondly, I have tried to exclude anything I don’t consider pure “pop” music. This was more difficult to define. It’s easy to take out “rock” music and so, for example, eliminated were, Van Halen’s Jump, Huey Lewis’ The Power Of Love and John Farnham’s You’re The Voice. I also excluded “dance/rap/hip-hop” music (ignorantly lumping together three utterly discrete genres) and that did for M/A/R/R/S Pump Up The Volume, Grandmaster Flash’s White Lines and Soul II Soul’s Back To Life.

I then tried to omit anything which had a purely novelty feel about it, even if it were a decent enough record. I couldn’t therefore find a place for Russ Abbott’s Atmosphere, Anita Dobson’s Anyone Can Fall In Love or the Firm’s Star Trekkin’ (all brilliantly kitsch records in their own way).

Finally, I tried to avoid anything that was too obscure. Whilst I love the phrase “I haven’t heard this for ages!”, I hate the phrase “what on earth is this?”. I therefore owe “sorries” to many, including Westworld for their great Sonic Boom Boy, to Dream Academy for Life In A Northern Town and to Robbie Nevil for C’est La Vie.

My biggest problem, and I don’t mind admitting this, was whether to include Dennis Waterman’s I Could Be So Good For You. The original “write the feem choon, sing the feem choon”, it’s a great single from, let’s be fair, a great TV series. I agonised over it, and decided it probably wasn’t quite “pop” in its truest sense, and so sorry, Dennis, it didn’t make the cut.

So, what’s left is a selection of 101 of the finest pop singles of the decade. Some might be staples in your house and not “forgotten” at all. Some you will no doubt have no recollection of whatsoever and wonder whether you were living in a parallel universe. You will no doubt clamour for the inclusion of omitted tracks and question my inclusion of others. And so it always will be – pop music will divide, but it will ultimately rule.