The Chart Show Top Ten (11th February 1989)

The Chart Show Top Ten in the 80's and a matter in fact including the 90's had the good, bad and the very very bad. The bad included Mike and the Mechanics, the very very bad included Yazz and the good included Morrissey. But amongst the surprising good tunes in this Top Ten was Holly Johnson's Love Train. When I told people, I thought the Love Train was a really great tune, peoples reacted as if I told them I was kidnapped by creatures from planet zog.

I am always open to different types of music and never prejudice pop music because its not alternative or extreme. In fact Love Train was the only few top ten hits of Holly Johnson in the 80's. In the 90's, he didn't fare that well, even a cover of his Power of Love from his Frankie days didn't bring any power of hitting the charts. There was also the re-release of Power of Love during one of the 90's Christmas season. The majority of his solo material were generally forgotten apart from Love Train and Americanos, which I thought was a disappointing tune.

The Frankie days had much more success than his solo materials. Relax and Two Tribes were one of the biggest selling singles of 1984. However after the mid 80's, the band's music were going downhill and the group decided to split up. Frankie Goes to Hollywood had the image of an all gay band, although in fact, only 2 members out of 6 were openly gay (Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford). The rest of the members just melted away, although they did had some couple of reunions. However it didn't really last that long anyway.

Holly Johnson at the moment is a painter and I've seen his art of work on his website. Its quite good, not exactly Leonardo da Vinci, but its certainly beats David Bowie's paintings, which are quite grim. I guess he must have had a bad day at his record company to produce some pretty grim paintings. His 1995 painting of Present Future Accepted looked like the bottom half was done by a chimpanzee and the top half painted by a psycho killer. It wouldn't look out of place in a mental hospital, although I do worry what was David Bowie's mind like when he painted this awful piece of trash !!!

ITV Chart Show Indie Chart (1990 Special)

This is the year when Madchester ruled Britain. From the chart above, we can see Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and The Charlatans dominating the scene. There was also others, such as Ride, who started to become more popular as years went by in the 90's. One scene that was present in this chart was the shoegazing scene, which bands like Ride, My Bloody Valentine and others came from.

Ride were pretty good band in the early 90's with their loud guitars and mellow vocals. I always thought they were so much better than My Bloody Valentine, but then again the valentines did make some good songs as well such as "You Made Me Realise" and "Feed Me With Your Kiss".

Unfortunately the shoegazing scene really didn't last that long. Alot of critics didn't like the scene, because many of the bands from the shoegazing scene were very ordinary middle class rock stars, who you would never see throwing TV's out of hotels or giving two fingers to journalists. Also live appearances from shoegazing bands was basically bands not doing much on stage, hence the name shoegazing, looking down at your shoes while playing music.

I think shoegazing started to decline when Britpop and Grunge started to become more popular and people stopped looking at their own shoes !!!! However shoegazing still lives on in a different format with bands like Sigur Ros, who I consider a nu-gazing band. I know not everyone thinks Sigur Ros is their cup of tea, but they still beat bands such as Razorlight and Scouting for Girls, whose music are very dull and unimaginative.

ITV Chart Show Rock Chart (20th February 1993)

One of the most unusual names you can ever give for a band, is the name Corrosion of Conformity. Not exactly a pop-oriented band, but a heavy metal band with the friendly message of their song "vote with a bullet". Oh yes, I can see American heavy metal bands giving out pro-democracy views !!!!

Corrosion of Conformity were not like the Bon Jovi's of this world, but a hard heavier metal band, who were quite similar to another band in this chart called Pantera. Ironically both Pantera and Corrosion of Conformity are linked together by the band called Down, who have members that came from both groups. Corrosion of Conformity didn't seem to be popular in the UK compared to Pantera, who had a more larger fanbase and also had a top ten album hit.

Pantera's singer (Phil Anselmo) didn't fit in the stereotypical image of a heavy metal singer. First, he didn't have long hair, but instead had a skinhead cut. Because of his skinhead image, many people thought he was an extreme right winger. It also didn't help that he started talking about white pride, which led many non-white fans of Pantera to be put of by the group. Phil Anselmo later on in an tv interview denied that he was a racist and mentioned that whites should have pride in their culture.

Pantera disbanded in 2003 when the Abbot brothers (Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell) had a fight with Phil Anselmo, which basically led the brothers to form another band called Damageplan. Unfortunately for that band, damage tragically happened when a deranged fan shot dead Dimebag Darrell in 2004 in a concert in America. Effectively Damageplan disbanded after Dimebag's death. Vinnie Paul and Phil Anselmo still don't get along with each other and the Abbot family even prevented Phil Anselmo attending Dimebag Darrell's funeral. Both Phil Anselmo and Vinnie Paul are still making heavy rock music in different bands, but I can safely say there won't be any Pantera reunion in the near future !!!