As you should know by now, I have wanted to discover more about 80s pop music. I have been able to do this by listening to Forgotten 80s on Absolute 80s, looking at old magazines and music TV shows online, and I also have the Official Charts books. I have started to wonder more about singles that didn’t make the Top 40 and how there isn’t that much chance of hearing them on the radio nowadays.
So I thought that I would start a new series on this blog where I could take the opportunity to look at some flop singles that had been released from previously successful acts. This is the qualification to be featured. It’s any act that had at least one Top Ten hit single in the 80s, their final hit didn’t make the Top 40 (but did make the Top 75), and they had no further Top Ten hits in the 90s or beyond.
I’ll tell the story of their careers and look back at the flop singles to try and determine the reasons why a once-popular act had now gone, as Smash Hits used to famously phrase it, “Down The Dumper”. It’s proof of just how quickly tastes change, and how fickle fame can be, there are so many reasons why people can fall out of favour as their fanbase departs them. Some can go from the biggest name around to past-it in an alarmingly quick time. I find it all rather fascinating really.
I hope you’ll appreciate that the reason I want to do this isn’t to mock people who have worked rather hard for their success, only for them to then lose most of it, it’s a chance to share the stories of some of the acts and their lesser-remembered songs from this era that are worth telling. I’ll try and pick out a dozen or so acts that qualify to feature here, and see if maybe sometimes it is better to be a one-hit wonder. If there is a good response to this, I’ll try and do the equivalent for the 90s and 2000s as well. Part one is coming soon.
ADAM'S NOSTALGIC MEMORIES 