27th August

1981: The Pops crowd go absolutely spontaneously wild, and you can see just how off the cuff their appreciatory applauding is right at the start of this clip, for Startrax, who liven up their Club Disco with no end of bubbles, most of which are still floating around by the time Ultravox show up, Midge in his best flat cap. What's that single snare ever done to him? "A favourite of most of the people here I know", the disjointedness between The Nolans' song and their leather/PVC outfits is, as they say, like woah. Even Soft Cell are more conservative, for all Marc's command of body language. Close-ups of Genesis when Phil is mixing singing with drumming look unnatural with the mike at that elaborate angle. At number one, Aneka - she was a Scottish folk singer, you know - gets a bewigged and parasol-touting Legs & Co involved. The top comment underneath, with nine likes: "those were the days great music great times now all you get these days is shite". LOOK AT WHAT'S NUMBER ONE!

1987: Does Wet Wet Wet's Marti Pellow ever stop grinning or being effervescent? There's little sign of him giving in here. On the contrary, Black, the bassist the most 1987-like figure you may see all month. T'Pau's Carol Decker hasn't quite mastered sensuality yet, especially put against how workmanlike her band seem. And up top, Rick Astley seems to have got a couple of women pogoing. Astley evidently wasn't a smooth dance moves man.

1992: Billy Ray Cyrus is a fairly silly figure at the best of times. In his workout gear and with a huge ponytail it's like he's become a one-man emissary from the deep south to the UK. That audience cannot clap in time at all. Mind you, what could we offer in retalation? Undercover, that's what, with their lamp-posts, interpretative voguers and man who seems to be playing the sax via sucking doing the memory of Bob Holness Raphael Ravenscroft no good at all. Classing up the joint, Annie Lennox dons the scary makeup of destiny. Of course a chandelier is involved.