I had recently finished Nothing But a Good Time, an oral history of the hair metal era, and was searching for other pop oral histories to read when I came across an interview with Parkhouse. He recounts how he was chatting with a man in a pub about 80s playlists including the same batch of songs, leaving many, particularly from the last half of the decade, forgotten. His companion called him “the Louis Theroux of Eighties pop” and encouraged him to write a book. After some initial research, he started contacting artists—beginning by sending an e-mail to Brother Beyond’s Nathan Moore, who got back to him right away. The positive feedback he got from that initial contact encouraged him to reach out to other artists, some of whom, such as Nick Beggs from Kajagoogoo, helped him make contact with other 80s artists. Parkhouse notes that he got great stories from many musicians (Moore, Johnny Hates Jazz, Pal Waakatar from A-ha, etc) as well as some grumpy messages from artists that did not take kindly to being contacted for a book about forgotten 80s hits.
From this interview, I had the impression that this would be an oral history, or that significant chunks of the interviews would be included in the book. That is not the case. While some stories are recounted, each essay is brief, and the promise of extensive anecdotes that the above interview hinted at are lacking. The book is instead somewhat similar to Daniel Blythe’s Encyclopedia of Classic 80s Pop, in that it provides short essays on a randomly selected set of artists (although in this case Parkhouse focuses on specific songs, rather than the artists as a whole). Parkhouse is an engaging writer and there is a lot of trivia sprinkled throughout, for example, the demo for Boy Meets Girl’s “Waiting for a Star to Fall” was recorded in the couple’s garage, and they had to wait for quiet moments as any outside noise would appear on the recording.
The book served as an excellent introduction to several songs that I was unfamiliar with, even with my late 80s British pop obsession. Here are a few that stood out to me (won’t list them all for length):
“London Nights” by London Boys: This seems very similar to Milli Vanilli to me, and very catchy. Was sorry to read they were killed by a drunk driver in 1996: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI9UR-5R40M
“Diamond Lights” by Glenn and Chris—a non-novelty song by a pair of football players—was not bad. Trying to think of an 80s or 90s equivalent act in the U.S. and drawing a blank. The Top of the Pops video for it is pretty funny as one of the duo was really into it, and the other really was not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KEMMfV5-Qg
Jimmy Nail’s cover of “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” I rather enjoyed. The Rose Royce version is better, but this cover has a moody charm working for it. Nail was one of the stars of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and the show’s theme song “That’s Living Alright” also makes an appearance in the book. Looking at Wikipedia, it appears there were a few music connections from that show. Curious—was this a good program? Is it worth tracking down?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iWOaW2I71E
Flying Pickett’s cover of “Only You” is fabulous. The Yaz original is perfect, but this cover is lovely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgDKtLPp46s
Another curious aspect of the book was the familiar songs that Parkhouse considers lost classics: “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Caribbean Queen,” and “Physical” are certainly not missing from U.S. 80s nights. It is interesting to think about what is huge in one country and is just “meh” or not released at all in another (see a certain exquisite Marc Almond/Gene Pitney duet).
While 101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s was not the kind of book I originally thought it was going to be, it was a fast and fun read. It also leads to hours of musical rabbit holes, which is never a bad thing.
I can't think of a snazzy title: book reviews about music 