POLL: The Face's 50 best singles of 1986

Suprisingly solid list there, not too much "OMG, what were they thinking?" stuff.

Probs a Janet tune for me, I love that album.

excellent list

this has a real "made down the pub after 5 pints" vibe, the way it should be

Simply too many great songs here: "Jack Your Body," the parade of Parade singles, "Live to Tell," Gwen Guthrie, "Eric B is President." Where are the Pet Shop Boys???

32. The Source featuring Candi Staton - You Got The Love (Source)

amazing, never knew about this

Gotta be "Mountains" for me, especially if we're talking about the 12" single mix.

Though many of the house singles on the list are equally deserving.

PSBs never got much Face love -- no entry for 'west end girls'!!!

It's tempting to go for Epic B but I went with "Kiss".

the 'you got the love' story is helltime complex, isn't it? involves adonis's 'no way back'?

Kurtis Blow & Trouble Funk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBkggb7MdYM

Oran ‘Juice’ Jones - The Rain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8utL-XzOp6g

Michael MacDonald - Sweet Freedom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_e5UjZaRQo

Quite a "fun" dance-orientated year for the mag, I guess. Sick of post-punk tension/miserablism?

According to Wikipedia:

You Got The Love is a dance single by The Source and Candi Staton. The track is essentially a bootleg combining the Frankie Knuckles/Jamie Principle house song "Your Love" with an obscure Candi Staton track which she had recorded for a video-only 1980s documentary about an obese man who was trying to lose weight. When approached by The Source, Candi said she couldn't remember her having recorded a song called "You Got the Love". It was only later when she realised she had performed the song years earlier for the documentary, although no recording had ever been released other than the original videotape.

still haven't heard the "Mountains" remix.

is there really no mix of 'The Rain' longer than 5 minutes? i am desperate for a 7-8 min version where you get to hear more of his increasingly deranged ranting at the end.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1737687,00.html

Having played concerts in Britain since, she now knows what a massive impact her voice made when the Source's version of You Got the Love went top 10 in 1991, but at the time she had no idea she had even recorded such a song. "They were calling my house saying I had a number one record in England, and I said, 'What song? I haven't released any song.' When they told me it was You Got the Love, I said I'd never made a record called that. Then I got off the phone and realised - it was the one from the diet video! Which was never supposed to be put on a record at all." Staton's laughter grows the more she explains it. The soundtrack to a thousand raves, with its spiritual lines, "Sometimes I feel like saying Lord I just don't care/ But you've got the love I need to see me through" was recorded as the anthem for a film about the world's fattest man on his conquest to shed a tonne.

"He was the biggest guy I ever saw. He couldn't wear underwear, he had to wear tents. When he lost a couple of hundred pounds he was so proud, he called me and said; 'Candi, I've bought my first pair of drawers!' When they took him to Nassau, to go on this Bahamian diet, they had to clear the front row of first class just to get him on the plane. They had to forklift him into it."

Staton agreed to record a song the programme-makers had planned for her and, as they couldn't afford to pay her, they gave her half the publishing and copyright - a move she would come to appreciate when the royalty cheques started rolling in years later. She says she still didn't get all her dues when it first entered the UK charts, and she had to involve an attorney. "The English releases can't rip me off any more - hopefully," she says now. She still has that diet video somewhere in her basement, and her eyes glow wildly at the suggestion that it could make her a fortune on eBay.

how can we stop geir posting to this thread?

lol/wow

xpost

The "Mountains" 12" mix is basically just the album version of the song with 5 more minutes of the band jamming. It's not the best of Prince's 12" mixes, but it's hella funky.

This is unpossible.

kurtis blow/trouble funk is o_O

I held my breath and voted for Steve Hurley.

held my nose and voted for Oran

waht is this ---> Davis/Pickney Project - You Can Dance (if You Want To)

Hip Hop track. Doesn't ring a bell.

35. Leo Sunship - Give Me The Sunshine

is actually from 1978. i guess this is the face's 'rare groove' phase.

One of these four:

Willie Colon - Set Fire To Me
Janet Jackson - What Have You Done For Me Lately
Marshall Jefferson - Move Your Body
Farley Jackmaster Funk - Love Can't Turn Around

"Reagan gave the Pentagon the food stamp money!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCn9QSW0W4A

about 15 of these on the NME singles list for that year

Funkin 4 Dukakis

If "Back and Forth" had made the list instead of "Word Up", I'd've been even more torn. Apparently "Candy" wasn't released until 87.

i voted the real roxanne -- maybe because i thought it'd get slept on, but also coz it's great.

Several fantastic singles, but in the end went for Taffy's continent devouring slab of Eurocheese. Would probably vote for something different tomorrow.

Jeez, I own 39 of this 50 on vinyl and a further 2 on CD; evidently The Face and I were in sync in 86. Superb list!

Davis/Pickney Project - You Can Dance (if You Want To)

Not hip hop, Noodle; this was DC go-go, with vocals provided by "Go Go Lorenzo", who quotes freely from "The Safety Dance". I have fond memories of it, as it was a floor-filler at the first club night I ever DJ-ed, in December 1986 (see also Heavy D, Steve "Silk" Hurley, Marshall Jefferson, Gewn Guthrie, Run DMC, Prince, Cameo, Oran 'Juice' Jones, Kurtis Blow/Trouble Funk, Real Roxanne, Joyce Sims). The US-only follow-up "Say No To Drugs" was almost as good, but the third single "Top Bottom Side & Rear" was a pointless carbon copy of the first.

Voting for "The Rain," though it has lots of competition. Amazing list (and it's kind of cool that they snuck in those underrated Van Hagar and ZZ Top songs. And that Real Roxanne song -- her go-go move -- is indeed great.) (Did go-go have more chart success in the U.K. that in the States? Because, with two Trouble Funks and a Junkyard Band, that looks like pretty a go-go-intensive list.) (And yeah, Taffy's tune is great, too. I've played both that and the Real Roxanne one in DJ sets this year!)

Don't think I've ever heard of these before, or if I did, I wasn't paying attention, because they don't ring a bell (the Diana Ross one apparently never got higher than #66 in the States, and that was a remix; original version peaked at #95. Joyce Sims's song I used to own on a Sleeping Bag compilation once, I think, but I must have been in another room whenever it started playing. SOS Band title isn't familiar, either, though maybe I've heard it; it went to #44 in the U.S. -- which makes it their second biggest pop chart hit, bizarrely. I would've assumed they were a much bigger crossover act, weird):

7. Davis/Pickney Project - You Can Dance (if You
12. Kurtis Blow & Trouble Funk - I'm Chillin'
14. Half Pint - Greetings
15. Diana Ross - Chain Reaction
18. Joyce Simms - All And All
27. SOS Band - The Finest
29. Willie Colon - Set Fire To Me
30. Robert Cray - Guess I Showed Her
32. The Source featuring Candi Staton - You Got The Love (Source)
33. Shirly Jones - Do You Get Enough Love
35. Leo Sunship - Give Me The Sunshine
36. Ultimate 3 - Ultimate 3 live
49. Duke Bootee - Broadway

Does "You Can Dance (If You Want To)" have anything to do with Men Without Hats? And does Shirly Jones have anything to do with the Partridge Family? No idea who Leo Sunship or Ultimate 3 are, either, probably because I'm not British, but I'm curious.

Ha, XP! (And Mike T-Diva expanded on my go-go point, too.)

As far as I remember Go-Go was widely touted in the media but never did that much in clubs - but I was still living in a one-horse Midlands pit village in 86 and could be wrong about that. My copy of "Bustin' Loose" is still lost at mom and dad's house somewhere.

my hunch is that these go-go records were not chart hits, and i think they were lumped in with the very trendy, very media london 'rare groove' scene that reynolds says dominated soho before house came along. (the face a few years earlier was all about the 'jazz revival' and robert elms etc.) not having been there, you're more struck with how great the records were.

i'm not even convinced that all of them were strictly released as singles in 1986. represses, possibly.

ah xpost

Go-go was huge in Nottingham in 1986; Graeme Park at The Garage played loads of it, even after jumping on the Chicago house bus with both feet in June/July. All of the go-go records on this list were available on UK 12", as well. The one I'd add to the list above all others: "War On The Bullshit" by Osiris.

Shirley Jones "Do You Get Enough Love" was one of the last releases on Philadelphia International; beautiful smoky slow-burning Southern soul, in the Shirley Brown/Betty Wright mould.

The original gospel-flavoured version of "You've Got The Love" wasn't that obscure; I picked it up as a 12" on Streetwave in 1986. Always preferred it over the subsequent versions, and could never quite get my ears round the "Your Love" mash-up in particular... it just sounded wrong.

I'm also fairly certain that none of these go-go tracks were re-presses, either. Proper 1986 tunes, all of them. Ah, the Junkyard Band, Def Jam's sole flirtation with the genre I think...

I love "Your Love" but the Candi Statton version just draaaaaaaaags.

Is there really no mix of 'The Rain' longer than 5 minutes?

No, the 12" fades just after the "you're just a squirrel trying to get a nut" section...

Didn't think I knew Half Pint's "Greetings", but it turns out that I do. Not that dissimilar to Barrington Levy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAuNMGBuoLg

Oh, SWEET: here's the full length version of Shirley Jones' "Do You Get Enough Love", which I haven't heard in years (as my 7" fades out early in the spoken section).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_t6MYyIhoo

And here's one of my other favourite 1986 slow jams: Lonnie Hill's "Galveston Bay".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_t6MYyIhoo

No, the 12" fades just after the "you're just a squirrel trying to get a nut" section...

v sad, and strange to me. i think the very last thing you hear is "DON'T TOUCH THAT COAT".

I think NME/Face soul boys were much more comfortable with Go Go rather than House even as late as 87/8

that wiki re 'you got the love' is wrong; it *is* adonis's 'no way back' -- also a release on trax c. 1986.

Where's Mylene Farmer? Or Indochine? Or Daniel Balavoine? Or... Oh Sorry - I thought that said "The France's 50 best singles of 1986."

What did these Go-go lovin' hipsters dress like? The Style Council or something?

Bandannas were big. Lot of dudes looking like pirates.

in 1986, Pet Shop Boys were seen by critics as a throwaway dance/pop act. It wasn't until around "Behaviour" that they were seen as a bit more than that.

Sounds like a moronic generalization to me, but who knows, maybe this was true in the UK. Not in the US:

The 1986 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll
Singles
16.Pet Shop Boys: "West End Girls" (EMI America) 18

The 1987 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll
Albums
22. Pet Shop Boys: Pet Shop Boys, Actually (EMI-Manhattan) 159 (12)

The 1988 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll
Albums
32. Pet Shop Boys: Introspective (EMI-Manhattan) 149 (15)

maybe this was true in the UK

It wasn't.

Torn between 'Kiss' and 'Panic'. Kiss is the perfect pop tune, but Panic has the perfect ILX thread. Eventually I went for 'Kiss' to cancel out Geir's vote, which was a good reason I think. I also like the way they've sneaked in Paul SImon and Simply Red.

But the real question is: how come The Face went bust but Dazed & Confused survived?

FWIW I went for Jack Your Body, which I still love.

But then, in 1986, Pet Shop Boys were seen by critics as a throwaway dance/pop act

OK, this is horseshit, sorry.

I voted for The Real Roxanne and Howie Tee's Merrie Melodies version of go-go.

E=MC2.
Easy.

And Panic, just for the 'Humberside' reference

The rest is turd - oh apart from 'Live to Tell'

http://www.drmcdougall.com/images/store/ebook_cso_front_200.jpg

quite impressive lack of new order in the face throughout its existence -- this year they missed 'bizarre love triangle', 'shellshock', and 'state of the nation'. the latter two divide people but BLT has to be a condender.

also happy mondays' 'freaky dancin', while we're talking factory.

Of course there was a problem about hipsters in 1986, as all the good stuff from the 80s had long since not only become mainstream but also obviously detoriated in quality. And the new stuff from the late 80s that was different from the stuff of the early 80s wasn't worth checking out anyway.

http://www.bigbadugly.com/StanleyUnwinIndex_files/image022.jpg

Has anyone ever learned anything from Geir or have you just spent valuable seconds of your lives arguing with a shut-in aspie nazi?

-- JW, Monday, 7 May 2007 06:02 (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

Posting geirbot.jpg is never a waste of valuable seconds.

how the hell did someone with the surname 'colon' have a hit?

that'sracist.gif

good year for music.

Anyway, the correct answer here would be either "Grass" by XTC, "My Girl And Me" by Gangway or "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House.

Sadly, neither is present.

how does xhuxk not know 'the finest'???

noodle how long have you been waiting to unleash that jpg

Top 6 (in no order)

Prince - Kiss
Big Audio Dynamite - E= MC2
Prince - Anothedoverholeinyouhead
Prince - Mountains
LL Cool J - Rock The Bells
Epic B & Rakim - Eric B Is President

Epic B! Damn Straigt!

Damn Straight!

Anothedoverholeinyouhead

wtf

Yeah I'm astonished that Chuck doesn't know "The Finest", given he's probably forgotten reviewing more music than I've heard in my lifetime.

It's really good Chuck!

noodle how long have you been waiting to unleash that jpg

Which one?

challenging opinion one

Just GISing on the fly. Couldn't find one for "STFU You Stupid, Stupid Man".

loving the joyce sims track -- all mixes available from itunes

This is like the iPod soundtrack from heaven. Scarcely a bad track in there (the only one I really can't abide is #19).

But in the end I plumped for #5 - "The bucket kicked the rabbit"!

Real Roxanne was my pick as well. "Innnn the place to beeee"

Just because "Kiss" is an obvious choice doesn't mean it's not perfect.

If only Tom Jones hadn't ruined it.

You mean Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones? No, not ruined.

You're right. I meant "destroyed."

Kiss feat. Tom Jones, Peter Gunn feat. Duane Eddy, Paranoimia feat. Max Headroom, the Theme from Dragnet. That really is losing your mojo.

isn't bagging on Art of Noise grounds for having your 80's stripes taken away?

xpost, ok mistakes were made. :(

lol creme

Tom Jones killed it (as in a bad thing) on Jonathan Ross' show back in 1987, Arthur Noise just volunteered to do the spadework afterwards.

Half Pint - Greetings

wha?

Here's the list which I made at the time...

http://troubled-diva.com/sing86t.jpg

Half Pint - Greetings

wha?

Probably the biggest "Ragamuffin" hit when that was the thing. It's right up near the top of a very strong list. Might be my No. 1.

lol creme

15 years early

What a great year. No wonder Samantha Touch Me (I Want to Feel Your Body) didn't make it to number 1 here.

somebody needs to compile this and ysi it

#31 of mike list, of course, goes all the way to the top for me.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

To whoever was the other person to vote for Taffy - I kiss you.

What the fuck Willie Colon song is that?

Good question - after reading the hype about it in the UK press, I spent a week in New York trying to find it to no avail!