Back to NOW!

NOW 9 - Spring '87: Will Harris


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Jack, jack, jack….wait? What? Who is this Jack?


It’s 1987, and the future has arrived in the shape of the first No1 of the year courtesy of Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley - House Music is here!


Hold up, wait a minute!


As the ninth edition of the famous Now, That’s What I Call Music testified from within it’s (so 80s!) Ring binder cover, the charts were much more varied. Whilst dance music was loading up its record box and turning up the BPMs for the coming 12 months, the 30 top chart hits across the four sides of the latest compilation was telling a whole different story. Those big jeans adverts (or was that River Phoenix?) were bringing a spritely 48 (!) Year old Ben E. King back to the top, Jackie Wilson was r-r-r-r-esplendent in plasticine all over again and even Freddie Mercury was camping up The Platters smash from 1956 with The Great Pretender. 


What decade are we in again?


Fear not, as 1987 was definitely serving up its fair share of blistering singles from the likes of Robbie Nevil, The Blow Monkeys, a-Ha, Westworld and many others! Bright new things like Erasure, Curiosity Killed The Cat and Simply Red were rubbing shoulders with more experienced chart names like The Pretenders and Genesis whilst a swingorilliasnt smattering of one-off acts like Mental As Anything and Taffy were providing some shiny, memorable pop memories.


And Hot Chocolate were back, Back, BACK and testing our knowledge of which Greatest Hits they were promoting this time (clue - not the Malteser one).


So much to unpick, and who better to do it with than pop fan and Needle Mythology records’ Will Harris.


Find out how Will passed his Elvis impersonator test (and which song he chose), how he championed the store racks (and West London's soul boys) of the 80s Our Price stores, and how the Finn Brother’s dad provided some much loved appreciation for his sons’ demo tracks.


And discover Will’s big 1987 favourites from NOW9 and what was missing (spoiler - they were all on HITS6!)


Let's fly high (like a rocket in the sky) back to a pop year like no other, and get ready for some great (BIG HAIR) memories!


Altogether now, woooahh, we're half way there....

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Back to NOW!By Pop Rambler

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