It’s 1999 — I’m working two jobs and finding myself with no money thanks to my record-buying obsession, so I pick up three new jobs. I’m now working five jobs, 60 hours or so a week, going to school, and purchasing as many records as I can get my hands on.

Fast-forward to 2001. Collecting every song from the Top 40 wasn’t really the most difficult thing I’ve done. The majority of them can be found on some CD, somewhere, and if not on the original album then on a reissue, greatest-hits album, or compilation of some sort. The only reason it took me two years is a simple lack of moolah.

The very last song I needed to finish my collection was an interesting one: “Twist and Shout” by the Beatles. Of course I could’ve found that song on a thousand different CDs, but I wanted to find the ’80s release of it — it hit #23 in 1986 thanks to its inclusion in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I must’ve searched for the soundtrack to that movie for six months without any luck before the lightbulb went off in my head that maybe I should find out why. Seems that Ferris’s director, John Hughes, didn’t think the songs in the movie would flow together outside of the movie, so he never released a soundtrack. At that point I purchased the original song from one of those thousand different CDs, and my collection was complete. Or so I thought.

I figured I could end it there, but after going no more than three weeks without purchasing one record, I decided I needed to keep going and expanded my quest to include the entire Billboard Hot 100 chart from the ’80s. So, essentially, I’ve been building up to this series for about seven years now.

Since this is where the fun really begins, we’ll start talking about this challenge next week. In the meantime, we move on to the letter “B.”

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Have you ever found yourself sucked into an episode of ‘Behind the Music’ or ‘Bands Reunited’ and, even though you didn’t necessarily like the artist in question (or maybe didn’t even know who they were), you still found yourself enthralled just because the story itself was interesting? If so, then believe me when I tell you that, whether you’re familiar with the dance-pop duo known as Blue Mercedes or not, you owe it to yourself to read this week’s column.

I have to be honest: by the time I became familiar with Blue Mercedes, their brief flirtation with the American charts had come, gone, and made precious little impact on me. Despite my ignorance, however, the duo of David Titlow and Duncan Millar proudly sat atop Billboard Dance Charts from February 20 through March 12 of 1988 with their hit single, “I Want To Be Your Property.” The song also found its way to #66 on the Billboard Hot 100 as well, which wasn’t half bad for a first crossover attempt. Too bad it was the pair’s first and last placing…which might explain why, some two years later, I came upon the band’s lone studio album, Rich and Famous, in a cut-out bin in a Camelot Music in Danville, VA.

Listening to the album now, I’ll be the first to admit that it hasn’t all aged well…but, really, the same could be said of rather a few albums from the ’80s. It’s all about approaching the material from the mindset of the time in which it was recorded and released, and when one does that, several instant classics emerge.

It’s obvious why the aforementioned “I Want To Be Your Property” was both the opening track and the album’s first single, with its infectious chorus and the instantly memorable line, “I want to live like Cyd Charisse.” (More on that later.) Titlow’s voice sounds like an amalgam of Martin Fry of ABC, Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet, and…I dunno, maybe 10% Rick Astley? Nah, I’m probably mistaken about that one. In fact, it’s probably only the influence of Pete Waterman on the music - it was produced by Phil Harding and Ian Curnow for PWL - that even makes such a ludicrous comparison come to mind.

“Your Secret Is Safe With Me” is another strong number, sounding vaguely like Sade’s “The Sweetest Taboo” as it progresses along with its jazz-pop groove, asking the rather odd (at least in this musical context) but definitely unforgettable question, “Would you like a knuckle sandwich?” The single best song on the album, however, is “Crunchy Love Affaire“…and, yes, the spelling of “affaire” is correct. As I told both Titlow and Millar themselves, it sounds like the best single Spandau Ballet never released, with a sweeping string arrangement that’s downright gorgeous, and even if you don’t buy into the metaphor within the title, which suggests that the love affair in question comes “with a soft inside,” there’s one simple line in the song which is delivered with melancholy that no less a mope than Morrissey himself would be proud to have written it:

Forever to be
Inevitably
Alone

Whoa.

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DOWNLOAD THE FULL MIX HERE

Sorry for the long delay between mixes, kids. Some real-life issues took over for the past few weeks and I had to take a break from Popdose. But things are settling down and I’m back for more fun! This week’s mix is the result of me going through some old 45s from both my mobile DJ days and when my brother and I had a ten-watt pirate radio station broadcasting out of his bedroom. Almost all the 45s in our collection are pretty much Top 40 pop, but one of the great things about 45s was the B side that most ignored — and sometimes for good reason! But sometimes there were good songs on the flip side that were only available “for a limited time.” Translation: “We’re saving them for rereleases or box sets.” Okay, on with it! (Before we get going, my apologies for the crappy pics. I snapped photos of the 45s in my backyard, and from the way I framed them, it’s clear I’m not a photographer. )

“Another Day,” Sting

This is the flip side of “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” and it’s really not a throwaway from Sting. It’s not one of his strongest tunes, either, but for a flip side to the lead single from his first solo album, I would say that he gave people a lot of value for $1.49. (more…)