The History of Pop Music – 1986

Featured song:

Dire Straits – Walk Of Life
This is a series of articles looking at pop music from 1955 when in my opinion proper pop music began up to 1999 when they stopped making it. One article for each year.

I am only going to select one featured song for each article, which makes it hard. I am going to try and select a different artist for each year.

For many people, and I include myself, you tend to still like the tunes you heard during childhood, which your parents often played. So rather than just pick the top 10 hits of each year, I shall let you know what they were, but also the tunes of that year not necessarily in the top 10 or so, what were in my view classics. I also add a couple of events in history for that year, it helps bring back memories, and hopefully happy ones.

Not everyone will like my choices of course, and you may remember some from each particular year that you feel should have been included, so do please post a link to the song.

So, on we go with memories from 1986: (Thank you Wiki)

This year was about: Unemployment very high. February was a bit nippy. Rioting in prisons. Tory sleaze. Start up of building the Channel Tunnel.

What was I doing in this year? – I was 31. Pretty boring year spent in Tidworth. Did a computer course on the BBC Micro at a college in Salisbury. Wrote my first and last programme to run the Christmas Ball raffle without using actual tickets by pressing the escape key to stop on a number allocated to people. I have never written code since then. The Army had computers in the office, I remember it had a 5MB hard disk and we had loads of 5 and a quarter inch floppies. I did enjoy working with computers, still do.

TV programmes included

: In January we watched NASA’s Space Shuttle Challenger spacecraft disintegrate, very sad. The first advert for a sanitary towel is broadcast on Channel 4. Grange Hill with Zammo (Just say no). Spitting Image was great, The Chicken song made No 1! Brian Walden (who passed on this week) presented his final edition of London Weekend Television’s political programme, Weekend World after nine years in the role. The rather Dire Albion Market finished. Bet Lynch was trapped in a fire in the Rovers and we were serenaded with Anita Dobson (Anyone can fall in love). Debut of Alan Bleasdale’s four-part World War I drama The Monocled Mutineer on BBC1. The first episode of medical drama Casualty airs on BBC1. Marti Caine present a revamped New Faces show. Australian soap Neighbours starts on BBC1. The Equalizer starring Edward Woodward starts (most good). Probably my favourite from this years was Dennis Potter’s serial The Singing Detective. Blackadder 2 (I still love this show)

30.15 million tune in to watch “Dirty” Den Watts hand wife Angie her divorce papers in EastEnders on Christmas day, making it the highest rated episode of any drama in British television history.

Events:

Prime Minister – Margaret Thatcher (Conservative)

9 January – Michael Heseltine resigns as Defence Secretary over the Westland affair. Also, after three successive monthly falls in unemployment, the jobless count for December 1985 increased by nearly 15,000 to 3,181,300.

14 January – The Salafi jihadist group al-Muhajiroun begins to operate in the U.K.

20 January – The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel, which they hope to open by the early 1990s.

24 January – Leon Brittan resigns as Trade and Industry Secretary over the Westland affair.

31 January – Unemployment for this month has increased to 3,204,900 – a post-war high which accounts for 14.4% of the workforce.

17 February – The UK signs the Single European Act

5 March – The High Court disqualifies and fines 81 Labour Councillors for failing to set a rate.

13 March – The Sun newspaper alleges that comedian Freddie Starr ate a live hamster. RIP Freddy, another one who passed away last week.

31 March – The Greater London Council is abolished, as are the metropolitan county councils of West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.

7 April – Clive Sinclair sells rights to ZX Spectrum and other inventions to Amstrad.

17 April – Journalist John McCarthy is kidnapped in Beirut, where three other hostages are found dead. The Revolutionary Cells (RZ) claims responsibility as revenge for the recent American bombing of Libya.

30 April – Rioting erupts overnight in prisons across Britain. Dozens of prisoners escape, while prisoners at Stafford Prison set the prison canteen alight by smashing windows and dumping a burning mattress onto the roof. The worst disturbances come at Northeye Prison in Sussex, where a 70-strong mob of prisoners takes over the jail and sets fire to the canteen, hospital wing and sports hall.

12 June – Derek Hatton, leader of Liverpool council, is expelled from the Labour Party for belonging to the entryist Militant group. Had to laugh last month when he was let back in then expelled after less than a day.

23 June – Patrick Magee is jailed for life for the Brighton bombing of October 1984 as well as other IRA bombings.

17 July – It is announced that unemployment rose to 3,220,400 in June. It has now exceeded 3 million for nearly five years.

28 July – Estate agent Suzy Lamplugh vanishes after a meeting in London.

13 August – The Eurotunnel Group is formed to operate the Channel Tunnel. (I mention this as I join them next year).

26 October – Jeffrey Archer resigns as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party over allegations concerning prostitutes.

29 October – Margaret Thatcher opens the completed M25 London Orbital Motorway, the first section of which opened in 1975. It covers 122 miles and features 31 junctions, although there are no service stations yet. Rapidly becomes the world’s largest car park.

6 November – 45 people are killed in the 1986 British International Helicopters Chinook crash.

18 November – Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who are both still behind bars some 20 years after their Moors Murders convictions, confess to the murders of two missing children: Pauline Reade, who vanished in July 1963 at the age of 16, and Keith Bennett, who was last seen in June 1964 at the age of 12. Police had suspected that the pair were among the Moors Murders victims soon after beginning their investigation on the arrest of Brady and Hindley in October 1965 but did not find the bodies or indeed any evidence to be able to press charges.

21 November – The government launches a £20 million campaign to warn members of the public about the dangers of AIDS.

3 December – 4 million people apply for shares in British Gas in anticipation of flotation next week. Never did find Sid.

18 December – It is announced that unemployment fell to a four-year low of less than 3,100,000 in November.

The Top 10 Singles with a You Tube hyperlink on the title:

Top tip: Right-click and open in new tab

Top Hits of 1986
1	Communards	Don’t Leave Me This Way
2	Nick Berry	Every Loser Wins
3	Boris Gardiner	I Want To Wake Up With You
4	Cliff Richard & The Young Ones	Living Doll
5	Diana Ross	Chain Reaction
6	Chris De Burgh	Lady In Red
7	Billy Ocean	When The Going Gets Tough
8	Berlin	Take My Breath Away
9	Madonna	Papa Don’t Preach
10	Sinitta	So Macho / Crusing

Great year for soap stars! In the top 10 above there are just 2 decent ones, Communards and Diana Ross. Madonna had 5 hits this year. Pet Shop boys with West End Girls could also have been the featured song. They also had Suburbia. I was also tempted by Dr & the Medics with their version of Spirit in the Sky, but they simply did not do much after this, even though they still tour. The Bangles were big.

There will be very few people that do not have the Brother in Arms album. I just had to include Dire Straits as the featured song, and this is one of my favourites.

“Walk of Life” is a song by the British rock band Dire Straits from their fifth studio album Brothers in Arms (1985). It subsequently appeared on their live album On the Night (1993). It was released as a single in 1985 but had first been available as the B-side of “So Far Away” released in advance of Brothers in Arms.

The track peaked at number seven in the US charts and was their biggest commercial hit in the UK (along with “Private Investigations”), peaking at number two. The track also appeared on three compilation albums: 1988’s Money for Nothing, 1998’s Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits, and 2005’s The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations.

More writings on this song here: Walk of Life

In my view the best songs of the year, after the featured track and most of the above top ten are below (best to right-click and open in a new tab):

Doctor And The Medics – Spirit In The Sky – Great cover version of an absolute classic.

Queen – A Kind Of Magic – Live version, wondrous.

Falco – Rock Me Amadeus – It is good.

RUN-DMC – Walk This Way – This is such a great tune and video. Love it.

Robert Palmer – Addicted To Love – Another excellent tune and video.

Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls – Classic

Pet Shop Boys – Suburbia

Feargal Sharkey – You Little Thief

Jackie Wilson – Reet Petite – This and the next are re-releases, probably following the success of the Jove Bunny records.

Sam Cooke – What A Wonderful World