Review
Space Hits is the third CD tie-in from the Formel Eins television series and was released in 1987. Like the previous volume, Wild Hits!, it features 16 tracks.
Six of the songs would also appear on the Now, Hits and Telstar’s Greatest Hits Of series. So that’s Rick Astley with the booming theatrics of Never Gonna Give You Up and Johnny Hates Jazz anti-war wine-bar funk of I Don’t Want To Be A Hero. Plus Climie Fisher’s uplifting Love Changes (Everything) and Whitesnake’s hokey hair metal Here I Go Again. Don’t forget Sinitta’s grinding Toy Boy before cutting loose to Pump Up The Volume. Good news: the version of the track featured here includes the Roadblock sample. As far as I know this is the only place that it can be found on CD.
It’s not all quality tunes: Hot Chocolate’s aimless Heaven Is In The Backseat Of My Cadillac fizzles out like a soaking banger. Joe Cocker’s Unchain My Heart is absolutely turgid while I can’t really warm to Guesch Patti’s Etienne either. Overwrought Madonna wannabe. On the other hand Cliff Richard’s Some People is pure gold; a gentle reminder about how to treat others. Sandra’s high octane cover of Everlasting Love is also excellent. Towering over all of them are the boys from Basildon; Depeche Mode’s epic stadium hand-waver Never Let Me Down Again.
Tina Turner continues to break every rule with the sublimely chilled Paradise Is Here [written by Paul Brady who also contributed Steel Claw to Private Dancer]. T’Pau never bettered their classy debut 45 Heart And Soul while Samantha Fox’s I Surrender (To The Spirit Of The Night) is perfectly-pitched pop that got many of us hot and bothered. Fellow bad animals Heart provide the closing track; the driving rock of Who Will You Run To?
Favourite tracks
Samantha Fox – I Surrender (To The Spirit Of The Night)
Tina Turner – Paradise Is Here
Lest we forget
Cliff Richard – Some People
A Pop Fan's Dream 