Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 25, 30, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).
It’s the 4TH Friday of the month, so I go back 35 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday March 01ST 1987:
Last week on #RetroFriday I hinted at a long-running Australian band who scored a # 1 smash on my chart that is one of my favorite songs of all-time that I still hear nearly every day on my iPod Shuffles that play at my desk at my workplace. And I sing along to it every day. And I’ve probably played it more times than any other American, as it’s a virtual unknown song here in the U.S.A.
That would be Mental As Anything’s “Live It Up” – their biggest hit ever. It was an International pop smash in Australia / New Zealand and Europe – reaching # 3 on the U.K. pop chart. I absolutely love this song 35 years later. It still sounds as fresh as it did back in 1987 when I was a late-teenager (not quite 20 yet) living it up in England.
Here’s the band from their iconic Thursday February 26TH 1987 LIVE performance on BBC-1’s “Top Of The Pops”:
Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to March 2007. It’s when a guy from my former hometown scored his first # 1 smash on my chart. His second # 1 smash would come 10 years later and help resurrect my weekly hit music chart after a 7-year hiatus.
It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going retro with me !
All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp
Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 25, 30, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).
It’s the 4TH Friday of the month, so I go back 35 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday February 01ST 1987:
Julian Cope was one of my favorite singers on the radio in late-1986 and early-1987. His “Saint Julian” album was actually released after his two hit singles from the album – “World Shut Your Mouth” (which actually became a mainstream rock hit stateside) – and “Trampolene”. I liked both songs equally. They were quite hard rock for British Top 40 radio at the time (not known for much rock). I guess both songs could best be described as “psychedelic pop punk”.
Here’s the music video for “Trampolene”:
January / February 1987 was a great time for pop music in my life as a 19½-year-old living in Gloucestershire England. My 2-year U.S. military tour of the region was more than half-done and on the downhill, so I knew that I had to maximize my limited time remaining by exploring the area and enjoying the arts and entertainment when not working at my job.
I attended 2 LIVE concerts in January 1987 – The Human League at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood (opened by Berlin led by Terri Nunn) in Birmingham.
Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to February 2007.
It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going retro with me !
All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp
Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 25, 30, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).
It’s the 5TH Friday of the month, so it’s a special. But since #RetroFriday wasn’t presented last week (due to Christmas Eve) – I’ll go back 35 years ago for this edition. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday December 28TH 1986:
What a memorable last weekend of 1986. I actually flew home from London England to Washington D.C. a few days before that Christmas to spend some quality time with my family after missing the previous Christmas (and two Thanksgivings) with them.
Paul Simon’s “The Boy In The Bubble” was a great song off a great album – “Graceland” – which I owned in cassette form. Like “You Can Call Me Al” before it – I memorized the lyrics of “The Boy In The Bubble” after hearing it numerous times on the radio – British radio. Both singles were far more popular across the European continent (and Australia and New Zealand) than they were stateside. “The Boy In The Bubble” was a # 16 hit in the Netherlands and a # 26 hit in the United Kingdom. On my own personal chart it became a # 1 smash in January 1987.
Here’s the official music video, and I still know its lyrics to this day:
Next Friday on RETRO I’ll go back 15 years ago to January 2007.
It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going RETRO with me !
All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries
Merry Christmas to all of my friends all around the world. I wish you God’s abundant love and everlasting peace on this day and on every day.
Today it’s the return of a Christmas classic that’s been featured on my blog before in various forms. It’s the story of the greatest Christmas gift ever – the arrival of a cat.
It started out as a morning like any other, but just a few hours later it would become a morning that forever changed the lives of me and my little brother, and our Mom and Dad.
Exactly 38 years ago tomorrow morning on Friday December 23RD 1983 me (age 16½) and my little brother (age 8½) looked out our living room window at the snow and the ice on the ground of our backyard. It was a bitter cold morning in McLean Virginia 2 days before Christmas, and we were happy to be warm and comfortable inside.
But there was a creature stirring outside that was not warm and comfortable. It was a lonely young cat with no tail that was wandering around aimlessly on our ice-covered backyard patio deck, and it was shivering in misery. Me and my brother decided rather quickly that it did not belong in the harsh elements of the outside at that moment, so we opened the door and she walked right in to our more sheltered screened-in ‘Florida Room’.
We gave her some milk to drink. She loved us for it. We gave her some love. We heard a strange sound coming from her that we hadn’t heard before. It was the friendly and inviting sound of her purring. We let her in to our warm and comfortable home. She never looked back. In fact she refused to leave after that. We pretty much named her ‘Fluffy’ that day, and she instantly became an important part of our family – the missing link if you will.
That’s a young me in 1985 holding a young Fluffy. I was about 60 pounds lighter than I am today.
She was the 5TH member of our family, and she was the start of nearly 30 years of felines in our family. Fluffy loved us all, but she clearly adored me the most. During her younger years she anxiously awaited me to open the basement / laundry room door for her first thing in the morning so that she could run (and beat me) to my bedroom upstairs for a long round of petting and purring. During her later years in Jacksonville Florida when she was slowly dying she literally came back to life over and over again and jumped and loved on me and ran upstairs to my parents’ guest room whenever I arrived for a short visit. She lived a long, happy, and healthy life (until April of 2001), and she provided lots of love to our family starting with that very first Christmas of 1983.
There have been other cats and dogs within our family over the years since then. Fluffy eventually gained a feline roommate with Barney (also known as “the cat that never liked me”). After Fluffy’s death Barney eventually gained his own feline roommate with Pumpkin. Boots was my own loving cat and housemate for 12½ years here in Homestead Florida until his (expected) death on May 17TH 2007. He was the coolest cat that ever lived.
But it all started with “Fluffy The Manx Cat”. She was the Matriarch of all of our family pets (to this day). She was the Queen of her castle. She was the stability of our family. She was our family’s common denominator. She was the center of attention. She was the most lovable cat that ever lived.
Fun Fact: This WordPress blog is a spinoff of my former hit music based massivesmash.com web site that I created in 1995. That web site grew out of a previous web site known as “MANx On The Net”. That first web site was a spinoff of “MANx Cat BBS” (1993-1997) – a dial-up bulletin board system run via MS-DOS typical of its time that was inspired by and named after Fluffy.
All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries
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