My tedious mantra is that you can find good pop music in whatever year - but the excitement of the new pop years of the early eighties had slowed down by 1984 (charts-wise), and there's some right old crap in the charts this week.

As ever!

Rod Stewart - Some Guys Have All the Luck: RAAAHHHD STOO-AAAHHT (as Limahl's old boyfriend would have it) covers Robert Palmer's much better cover of The Persuaders' original, and it's mildly rubbish, rather than objectionable. 4/10

Tracey Ullman - Sunglasses: never was the term 'show-off' better employed than when it's used to describe Tracey Ullman. Having said that, I quite like her although I can never forgive her for having that almighty windbag and all round sack of shit/desecrator of the Labour Party Neil 'fucking' Kinnock in her 'My Guy' video. Or for her 'American psychiatrist' in Ally McBeal. And my goodness, you really had to put the effort in to spoil Ally McBeal. 3/10

Windjammer - Tossing and Turning: an agreeable if unspectacular disco/soul record. 6/10

Trevor Walters - Stuck on You: I didn't like Lionel Richie's original, but Trev's reggae/lovers' rock version is sort of OK. Amazingly, it was only last week that I found out that Paris St German striker Lionel Messi's mother named him after Chitty Chitty Bang Bang actor Lionel Jeffries. 5/10

Queen - It's a Hard Life: "I don't want my freedom," Freddie opines. A pity the manager of rock's 'national treasures' didn't say: "Tell that to the apartheid-ruined lives of millions of black South Africans next time we get an invite to Sun City." 0/10

Jeffrey Osbourne - The Wings of Love: George Benson soundalike's tribute to Britain's greatest ever work of sensual art. Terrible. 1/10

Howard Jones - Like to Get to Know You Well: "Stop getting synthpop wrong!" When Jones and Kershaw started doing 'electronica', it was the 80s equivalent of Woolworths selling 'hippie wigs'. A record with no merit whatsoever. 0/10

Grandmaster and Melle Mel - White Lines: so far ahead of anything this week, it's untrue. 10/10

Self Control - Laura Branigan: a good, Europop-influenced song; spaced-out video. 6/10

Tina Turner - What's Love Got to Do With It? Tina had the BEF to thank for her massive career turnaround in 1982.Before Ware and Craig-Marsh reshaped her sound, Tina was happy to earn a few pennies blowing tunelessly through a plastic penny whistle whilst holding out a polystyrene chip tray outside Chaucer's public house on Liverpool's Hardman Street. I quite like this song - despite its bombastic awfulness. 6/10

Hazell Dean - Whatever I Do: nowhere near as good as the awesome 'Searching', but a decent slice of Hi-NRG (I've forgotten how to spell it) pop.
SAW had their uses, I suppose. 6/10

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Two Tribes: a great-sounding record, but I don't think I'll ever get over that 'Oh, FFS' feeling when it was still hanging around after months and months. Oh, and Godley and Creme's 'Hey, wouldn' t be a-mazing if we had Chernenko and Reagan battling it out in the ring?' video was, is and always will be... shit. 6/10

Black Lace - Agadoo: a Rod Stewart impersonator and a sex offender release the ultimate cretin's record 0/10

George Michael - Careless Whisper: I like George, but God this is miserable and up its own bum. And the opening sax solo is nicked from 'Being With You'. Tedious. 4/10

Gambaccini: rope, money for old. 1/10
Programme as a whole: 3/10
Worst song: the sex offender and his mate's Brexit voter's classic.
Best: Melle Mel

Click on the link to hear the track: