News 15 Aug 2026

NOW Yearbook Vault ’86

Hit-adjacent singles from 86

By Paul Sinclair

NOW Music’s Yearbook Vault series continues next month, when the spotlight falls on 1986, and songs that were minor hits, hit-adjacent or, and let’s use the word, flops.

For this release, the usual ‘Yearbook’ 4CD option of deluxe hardcover book packaging or more basic card sleeve edition, offers 77 tracks, while a 3LP coloured vinyl (purple) delivers 44 songs from the first year in the post-Live Aid era.

1986 represents an interesting 12 months, because many artists for whom having hit singles in the UK had been like falling off a log in, say, 1984, were suddenly realising that the musical landscape had shifted while they weren’t looking and in ’86 the big hits they had enjoyed were not coming quite so easily. I’m looking at you Howard Jones, Paul Young and Nik Kershaw.

This is good news for this Vault compilation, because there’s some relatively big names here, including Paul McCartney whose label EMI panicked when the experimental ‘Pretty Little Head’ FAILED TO CHART in early November of ’86 and the executives possibly had the equivalent of a COBR meeting and broke the glass on the box marked ‘Emergency Macca Ballad’. They released ‘Only Love Remains‘, barely more than a month later, and while it charted, all Paul’s efforts, including an expensive looking video (featuring ‘Professional’ Gordon Jackson) and various TV appearances (The Tube, a primetime slot on ITV) were in vain, as it peaked at 36. As with almost everything from the Press to Play album, ‘Only Love Remains’ was remixed for its single release. Vault ’86 includes the single version which has never been on CD, so that’s good (although the sax solo in the middle of the single version definitely isn’t).

Paul Young’s first single from his third solo album, 1986’s Between Two Fires, had been ‘Wonderland’. This was a song that took half an hour to get to the chorus (“don’t bore us…”, as Roxette once said) and it was his first single in the UK not to get into the top 20 since the original release of ‘Love Of The Common People’. The plan, presumably, was that ‘Some People‘ would come to the rescue! Sadly for Paul, it did even worse – much worse, peaking outside the top 40 at a lowly No 56. In fact, Vault ’86 misses the opportunity to give us a double-bill of PY non-hits, since CBS persevered with a third single, ‘Why Does A Man Have To Be Strong?’. WE DON’T CARE said the great British public and it did even worse, stalling at a miserable No 63.

Vault ’86 also reminds us that acts we know and love as ONE HIT WONDERS did actually ‘try again’; they didn’t want to be one hit wonders, after all. So yes, Belouis Some did release a few singles that weren’t ‘Imagination’ and funnily enough one of them was called ‘Some People‘! It was a very minor hit, but if history teaches us anything, it’s that 1986 was not a year to release a song called ‘Some People’. Weirdly, Belouis seemed determine to have a a hit with the word ‘Some’ in the title. He tried again in 1988 with ‘Some Girls’, then in 1993 released ‘Something She Said’ and then ‘Sometimes’. Give it a rest, mate! (none of them were hits).

‘Ed’s Funky Diner‘ was actually a great follow-up to It’s Immaterial’s ‘surprise’ hit, ‘Driving Away From Home’, and it deserved some success, but hey, Life’s Hard and Then You Die. Of course, Hollywood Beyond is the quintessential one hit wonder. ‘No More Tears‘ was the single after ‘What’s The Colour Of Money?’ and if you can’t remember how it goes, you’re not the only one. NOW gives us an opportunity to refresh our collective memories. This song peaked 40 places lower than the first single, at No 47.

Other tracks include Nik Kershaw’s ‘Nobody Knows’ (No 44) and Howard Jones’ All I Want (No 35), both artists, like Paul Young, experimenting with new producers (in Nik’s case himself!) and it not really working out. The Thompson Twins‘ ‘Nothing in Common’ wasn’t released in the UK, but it didn’t trouble the upper reaches of the American chart when it was issued there (their previous two singles had been top 10 hits Stateside).

Three singles from Sting’s brilliant The Dream of the Blue Turtles album failed to get into the UK top 40 which seems crazy, and ‘Moon Over Bourbon Street‘, when issued as the fifth 45 (A&M were probably enthused because ‘Russians’ had reached No 12) was the last of them (No 44). Sting would have to wait until 1994 before chalking up a solo UK top 10 single (‘When We Dance’).

Tears For Fears make an appearance on Vault ’86, with a song that was both the first and last single from Songs From The Big Chair: ‘Mothers Talk‘. Included here is the US Mix, not issued in the UK. In America, it reached 27 which sounds decent, until you recall that the first three singles from the album were No 1, No 1 & No 3!. Roland Orzabal told this writer that he much preferred the version re-recorded for the North American market: “I always thought we got ‘Mothers Talk’ slightly wrong. It was a bit too fast. The US version worked really well, we were happy”. There’s plenty more interesting selections on this new compilation; scroll down for full tracklistings.

NOW Yearbook Vault ’86 will be released on 18 September 2026.

Various Artists