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Official Top 40 best-selling songs of 1989
Hits from Black Box, Jive Bunny and Jason Donovan were among 1989's best-sellers.
By Rob Copsey
1989 saw 18 songs reach the summit of the Official Singles Chart, and the biggest of them all was Ride On Time by Black Box.
The Italo-house group topped the chart for six weeks with their breakout hit, scoring 849,000 sales to become the year's best-selling song, according to Official Charts Company data and revealed on Channel 5's Britain's Favourite 80s Songs.
The dance hit was surrounded in controversy; the first version on the track used a vocal sample from the 1980 single Love Sensation by Loleatta Holloway, which had not been cleared. Legal action swiftly followed, and the single was reissued with rerecorded vocals long-rumoured to be by then-unknown Heather Small, who later found fame as the frontwoman of M People. As if that wasn't awkward enough, for its music video and television appearances, Black Box hired model Katrin Quinol to mime the vocals.
The other sound that dominated 1989 came from Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, a Rotherham-based pop collective fronted by an animated rabbit who reworked old songs into dance hits. The first, Swing the Mood, spent five weeks at Number 1 and was the second best-seller of the year with 820,000 sales. Two more chart-toppers followed that year, That's What I Like and festive song Let's Party.
MORE: Official Top 40 best-selling songs of 1988
The UK's third best-seller of 1989 was Eternal Flame by The Bangles (491k), the US pop-rock group's first and only Number 1, followed by Jason Donovan's Too Many Broken Hearts at 4 (450k), and Soul II Soul's summer smash Back To Life at 5 (447k).
Other big Number 1s in 1989 that make the end-of-year chart include Band Aid II's Do They Know It's Christmas? - a new version of the festive charity single helmed by producers of the moment Stock Aitken Waterman - at Number 9, while Kylie Minogue's chart-topping Hand On Your Heart completes the Top 10.
Official Top 40 best-selling songs of 1989
| TITLE | ARTIST | PEAK | |
| 1 | RIDE ON TIME | BLACK BOX | 1 |
| 2 | SWING THE MOOD | JIVE BUNNY & THE MASTERMIXERS | 1 |
| 3 | ETERNAL FLAME | BANGLES | 1 |
| 4 | TOO MANY BROKEN HEARTS | JASON DONOVAN | 1 |
| 5 | BACK TO LIFE | SOUL II SOUL FT. CARON WHEELER | 1 |
| 6 | SOMETHING'S GOTTON HOLD OF MY HEART | MARC ALMOND FT GENE PITNEY | 1 |
| 7 | THAT'S WHAT I LIKE | JIVE BUNNY & THE MASTERMIXERS | 1 |
| 8 | PUMP UP THE JAM | TECHNOTRONIC FT FELLY | 2 |
| 9 | DO THEY KNOW IT'S CHRISTMAS ? | BAND AID II | 1 |
| 10 | HAND ON YOUR HEART | KYLIE MINOGUE | 1 |
| 11 | LIKE A PRAYER | MADONNA | 1 |
| 12 | ALL AROUND THE WORLD | LISA STANSFIELD | 1 |
| 13 | IF ONLY I COULD | SYDNEY YOUNGBLOOD | 3 |
| 14 | LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING | MICHAEL BALL | 2 |
| 15 | GIRL I'M GONNA MISS YOU | MILLI VANILLI | 2 |
| 16 | YOU'LL NEVER STOP ME LOVING YOU | SONIA | 1 |
| 17 | YOU GOT IT (THE RIGHT STUFF) | NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK | 1 |
| 18 | THE LIVING YEARS | MIKE & THE MECHANICS | 2 |
| 19 | FERRY CROSS THE MERSEY | GERRY MARSDEN, PAUL MCCARTNEY, HOLLY JOHNSON AND THE CHRISTIANS | 1 |
| 20 | MISS YOU LIKE CRAZY | NATALIE COLE | 2 |
| 21 | WOULDN'T CHANGE A THING | KYLIE MINOGUE | 2 |
| 22 | THIS TIME I KNOW IT'S FOR REAL | DONNA SUMMER | 3 |
| 23 | DON'T KNOW MUCH | LINDA RONSTADT/AARON NEVILLE | 2 |
| 24 | LET'S PARTY | JIVE BUNNY & THE MASTERMIXERS | 1 |
| 25 | STREET TUFF | REBEL MC & DOUBLE TROUBLE | 3 |
| 26 | BELFAST CHILD | SIMPLE MINDS | 1 |
| 27 | REQUIEM | LONDON BOYS | 4 |
| 28 | FRENCH KISS | LIL LOUIS | 2 |
| 29 | SEALED WITH A KISS | JASON DONOVAN | 1 |
| 30 | RIGHT HERE WAITING | RICHARD MARX | 2 |
| 31 | STRAIGHT UP | PAULA ABDUL | 3 |
| 32 | ESPECIALLY FOR YOU | KYLIE MINOGUE & JASON DONOVAN | 1 |
| 33 | YOU GOT IT | ROY ORBISON | 3 |
| 34 | LAMBADA | KAOMA | 4 |
| 35 | HELP | BANANARAMA/LANANEENEENOONOO | 3 |
| 36 | STOP | SAM BROWN | 4 |
| 37 | WHEN YOU COME BACK TO ME | JASON DONOVAN | 2 |
| 38 | IF YOU DON'T KNOW ME BY NOW | SIMPLY RED | 2 |
| 39 | LONDON NIGHTS | LONDON BOYS | 2 |
| 40 | POISON | ALICE COOPER | 2 |
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A
addickted2hcharlton
Wot was good abahrt this chart was our Queen, thass Donna Summer in case you aint eard, was right up there. I reckon This Time should've got to No 1 n thass wot it nearly done bein kept off by Jason Donovan n Madonna. Still least it stayed in the top 75 for 14 weeks. If only I ad the money, I would gawn into every record shop rahnd ere n bought loads of copies juss to get the Queen back on er throne where she belonged. RIP Donna, she passed away on May 17th 9 years ago less ope they do somethin special in er memory next year when iss 10 years. I love you n miss you so much Donna.
MC
Matthew Clegg
How did Stop by Sam Brown end up higher than Simply Red's If You Don't Know Me By Now, considering the latter was at number two for three whole weeks behind the third best selling single, Eternal Flame?
Rob Parkinson
I think Sam Brown's stop took a while to climb up the chart and lingered for a long time, was a great tune. Did get covered too
Blank
Especially For You top 40 in 2 different years!
Blank
Wow. 11 SAW productions or remixes.
thierry henon
Great Top 5! I really love as well TECHNOTRONIC; PUMP UP THE JAM and like BLACK BOX, they had many more hits in Europe: love that kind of music...I was expecting MADONNA: LIKE A PRAYER to be inside the Top 10 at least: i reckon her best song ever...so many KYLIE'S SINGLES again this year 1989 inside the Top 40: so glad to see that...