1987

Big Black - Songs About Fucking
Eurythmics - Savage
Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares
Guns n Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Big Black - Now this deserves a mention if only for its title & the gorgeous combination of pink, green & panting woman on the sleeve. Main Big Black man, Steve Albini, curiously neither particularly big nor black, is most famous for being über-producer to such indie/grungey stars as Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Pixies, The Breeders; and now fronts equally ace band, Shellac. Chock full of ear-stripping guitar and a fair amount of unintelligible shouting, with a Kraftwerk cover thrown in for good measure.

Eurythmics - Not immensely popular at the time of its release, I seem to recall, but 'tis my favourite of all the emanations from Miss Lennox's honking mouth. A little bit pop, a little bit weird, a little bit scary, a welcome return to their electro roots, after their commercially successful, but not entirely satisfying dalliances with Stevie Wonder & Aretha Franklin.

Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares - More weirdness, brought to public attention by Ivo Watts-Russell of 4AD records after receiving an unlabled cassette of 15 years-worth of recordings by the ethnomusicologist Marcel Cellier of the Bulgarian State Radio Female Vocal Choir. Otherworldly & mesmerising with intricately woven vocal harmonies, it fits in completely with the mid-eighties sound of 4AD, despite originating from a completely different time & place

Guns n Roses - Now is the time to rock. The complete antithesis of the kind of music my 12 year-old brain found acceptable, mindless noise. My present day brain, on the other hand, finds it witty & fun, with large dollops of guitar riffage, not at all mindless and not even all that noisy. The sort of cheese I was listening to at the time would probably qualify as mindless, but is all the more spangly because of it. Anyway, it's a shame that Axl & co never reached such heights as this again (and probably never will, judging by their lacklustre set at Download last year) though they got close with the odd song. There's not a single duff track here, in fact they might as well have re-released this as their Greatest Hits and left it there.

1987: Jon the 12 Year-Old's Top Five Tunes
Madonna - Who's That Girl
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Perpetuum Mobile
Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield - What Have I Done To Deserve This?
Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky
REM - It's The End Of The World As We Know It