[6] Buggles, ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’

I’m concerned I may have to defend this one. EASY. Just look at Junior finding the glee in the poignancy, making her plastic tiger leapfrog her plastic lion, all in time to the ecstatic pulse of the music. Watch her punching the air and performing the dance of the seven veils with her sister’s muslin square; it’s a dizzy representation of the song’s way with the possibilities of pop.

‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ suffers from the “novelty” tag, being, on the surface at least, a one-hit wonder with a chipmunk, quasi-synthesised chorus. Then there’s Trevor Horn, all bubble-perm and oversized specs, hardly projecting an image of a man about to push pop’s boundaries to glorious and ludicrous extents with ABC and Frankie Goes To Hollywood respectively. But we’re not interested in surface. The song’s depth is in the bittersweet nostalgia, the regret at the passing of an age of music even as it embraces the new world, and also in the symphonic electronica – crescendos, drop-outs, even a sense of the fat lady singing. MTV co-opted it as the anthem of triumph of picture over audio, making it the first song to be played on the station, and perhaps they hit the nail on the head. It’s a requiem and celebration rolled into one.

[14] ABC, ‘The Look Of Love’

ABC drop a couple of places because I couldn’t be bothered looking for a hip hop classic and a proto-house electro barnstormer hidden amongst the 12”s this morning. It’s too hot. They’re also both really long, we were pushed for time, and Junior was in a bad mood. The clarity and power of ABC and Trevor Horn’s dramatic pop vision tore through her impatience just for a minute or two, mind you. She danced to the string-soaked funk and threw shapes to the call-and-response choruses, before bursting into tears at how long Dad was taking to get the milk ready. All things being equal, a hit for yet another load of Sheffield poseurs.

‘All Of My Heart’ and ‘Poison Arrow’ were better songs but this was the icon, innit.

[9] Naughty By Nature, ‘O.P.P.’

Naughty By Nature

I would’ve covered Junior’s ears against this immoral record, if she hadn’t been so hell-bent to the exclusion of everything else on putting away an entire Weetabix. Hard as nails, she is.

‘O.P.P.’, ‘Other People’s P—-‘. ‘Property’, shall we say, or male/female variants thereof. Anyway, it’s a paean to the joys of infidelity, but it’s a warning too. Understand what you’re getting into, O.P.P. fans.

What it is is a tighter, catchier take on your Fresh Prince will-this-do?-a-thons, chivvied along by a bit of ‘ABC’ while we’re on the three-letter tip, and a good-humoured shoutalong to boot. Quite high up this chart in retrospect, particularly in light of the solid gold stuff to come, yet great larks.

[All my vinyl rips seem to have corrupted; Top 11 mp3s to follow… later]