Hits ’89: Die Internationalen Super Hits (Ariola, 1989)

Review
Ariola followed their spring release of Neue Hits ’89: Die Internationale Super Hits with the regular annual round-up of local and international smashes. We start with Sydney Youngblood’s extraordinary soul of If Only I Could which is followed by the bastardised La Lambada from Chico Mendes featuring Regina. The anticipatory seduction anthem This Is The Right Time was one of many Lisa Stansfield highlights of the era. Next are the muted synth melodies of Camouflage and the downbeat Love Is A Shield. Blasphemous Rumours through a Pipeline. Fun, fun, fun. Inner City’s historic Big Fun faces off with Big Fun’s Blame It On The Boogie. A gurning mash-up of house and disco. Our feet don’t fail us now as we groove to Soul II Soul [Back To Life] and Technotronic jam-hot debut.

Looking For Freedom is de rigueur. Baywatch premiered on NBC in 1989, but was cancelled after only one season. Back in ’91. The R&B also returns: Paula Abdul’s killer Straight Up and Milli Vanilli’s bittersweet Blame It On The Rain. Best fake group ever. Elsewhere there’s Mike Oldfield and Anita Hegerland and the really magnificent Innocent from Earth Moving LP. This glorious sequence continues with Tanita Tikaram’s morose and atmospheric Twist In My Sobriety. Check out the haunting and fascinating video. What A Wonderful World makes a welcome appearance; a new chart run in 1988 ensuring its inclusion. And CD1 ends with Simple Minds at peak bombast on Belfast Child.

CD2 loads up on drugs and kills your friends with a seriously massive 1-2-3 punch. The UK Remix of Black Box’s Ride On Time gives way to Tone Loc’s stuttering rap Wild Thing. Then Neneh Cherry shakes all our rumps to the foundation with the amazingly still-fresh Buffalo Stance. Do I hear the cries of “Italo disco forever” as Den Harrow’s sunny Holiday Night pulsates out of the speakers. Meanwhile Chris Thompson’s The Challenge was the rather ineffectual theme for Wimbledon ’89. The rebooted In The Air Tonight from Phil Collins is a much surer thing. The heat is raised with Honesty 69’s searing French Kiss (Hot Radio Version), one of a number of tracks that also appeared on another Ariola compilation Hot And Fresh 2 – Die Internationalen Super Hits.

We’re back on safer ground with Roxette [The Look] and Fine Young Cannibals [She Drives Me Crazy]. It’s all over now, Baby Blue: Blue System vs Bad Boys Blue. Magic Symphony is first, an epic disco production from Dieter Bohlen. The mysterious Lady In Black has Chris Lowe shades and elements of I’m Not Scared. And then slippage: Englebert’s Red Roses For My Lady is jarring cabaret before Tony Carey’s melancholy Room With A View. The Hoff pops up a second time with the puke + cry ballad Flying On The Wings Of Tenderness. The End. An old reliable: Roy Orbison’s You Got It.

Favourite tracks
Tanita Tikaram – Twist In My Sobriety

Camouflage – Love Is A Shield

Den Harrow – Holiday Night

Bad Boys Blue – The Lady In Black

Lest we forget
Mike Oldfield – Innocent