A lot happened in the year 1987, including the debut of a family-friendly TV sitcom set in San Francisco. The name of the show was Full House, and we’ll be doing a deep dive into this popular comedy over the coming weeks.
But first, to get a sense of the times and trends that helped shape this series, here’s a quick look at the notable music that was published in 1987.
January 3 Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was the first woman to make it into The Hall. The other inductees this year consist of The Coasters, Eddie Cochran, Bo Diddley, Marvin Gaye, Bill Haley, Clyde McPhatter, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Smokey Robinson and Jackie Wilson.
January 5 Elton John, after several months of voice problems, undergoes throat surgery in an Australian hospital. The outcome would hinder his voice permanently and he would soon start singing in a deep register.
February 14 Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” reaches #1 in the USA. It would be 1987’s biggest hit song worldwide.
February 14 Los Angeles radio station KMET signs off after nineteen years on the air. The station had been a pioneer of underground progressive rock programming.
March 9 U2 releases The Joshua Tree, an album that launches them into superstar status in the music world. The album would sell over 14 million copies worldwide in 1987 alone and would win the Grammy for “Album of the Year” (at the 1988 ceremony). U2 have two #1 hit songs from this album on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts.
March 9 The career that would end in an infamous appearance at The Brit awards and the burning of a million pounds began in Britain, as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu released their debut single, “All You Need Is Love”.
April 23 Carole King sues the owner of her record company, Lou Adler, claiming that she is owed more than $400,000 in royalties. King also asks for rights to her old recordings.
May 2 “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” was released by American singer Whitney Houston for her second studio album, Whitney (1987). It was released as the lead single by Arista Records. It became the 3rd biggest hit single of 1987. It was produced by Narada Michael Walden, and written by George Merrilland Shannon Rubicam, of the band Boy Meets Girl, who had previously collaborated with Houston on “How Will I Know.” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” received mixed reviews from music critics, who praised Houston’s vocal performance but critiqued its musical arrangement, comparing it to “How Will I Know” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Despite the mixed critical response, the song became a worldwide success, topping the charts in eighteen countries including Australia, Italy, Germany and the UK. In the US, it became Houston’s fourth consecutive chart topper and is certified 6× platinum with sales of over 6 million copies. At the 30th Annual Grammy Awards, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” won for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, marking Houston’s second win in the category.
May 30 Beastie Boys performed at their concert in England that erupted into a riot approximately 10 minutes after the group hit the stage and the arrest of Adam Horovitz by Merseyside Police. He was charged with assault causing grievous bodily harm. Years later, Horovitz stated that he took the blame for another band member that had actually thrown the beer can.
June 15 “It’s a Sin” is released by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys from their second studio album, Actually (1987). The song became the fourth biggest hit single of 1987. Written by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant, the song was released as the album’s lead single. It became the duo’s second number-one single on the UK Singles Chart, spending three weeks atop the chart. Additionally, the single topped the charts in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, while reaching number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100. A demo of the track was first cut in 1984 with Bobby Orlando, and the song’s form in the demo remained intact to the final version, although the released production is far more dramatic.
June 23 “Who’s That Girl” is released by American singer Madonna from the soundtrack album of the 1987 film, Who’s That Girl. It was released by Sire Records as the first album single. While shooting for the film, then called Slammer, Madonna had requested Patrick Leonard to develop an up-tempo song that captured the nature of her film persona. She later added the lyrics and vocals to the demo tape developed by Leonard, and decided to rename the song as well as the film to “Who’s That Girl”. Featuring instrumentation from drums, bass, and stringed instruments, “Who’s That Girl” continued Madonna’s fascination with Hispanic culture by incorporating Spanish lyrics and using the effect of double vocals. Critical reception was mixed to positive; some critics compared it to Madonna’s previous single, “La Isla Bonita”, while others found it forgettable. “Who’s That Girl” became Madonna’s sixth single to top the Billboard Hot 100, while peaking atop the charts in countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland and Belgium. It was also nominated for “Best Song Written for Visual Media” at the 1988 Grammy Awards and “Best Original Song” at the 1988 Golden Globe Awards. The music video portrayed a different persona of Madonna, rather than her film character for which it was released. She’s seen as a young boyish lady in search of treasure. Madonna has performed the song on her Who’s That Girl (1987) and Rebel Heart (2015–2016) tours. The song has been covered by many artists and has appeared in compilations and tribute albums. Despite being a worldwide number-one hit, the song was not included in Madonna’s 1990 greatest hits album The Immaculate Collection, but was later included on her 2009 greatest hits album Celebration. The song became the fifth biggest hit single in 1987.
July 4 Kylie Minogue’s recording career begins with the release of her cover version of the Little Eva hit The Loco-Motion; the single spends seven weeks at number one in her native Australia and leads to a contract with UK-based record producers Stock Aitken Waterman.
July 4 The first joint rock concert between the United States and the Soviet Union is held in Moscow to promote peace. The Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, Santana and Bonnie Raitt share the bill with Soviet rock group Autograph.
July 21 American rock group Guns N’ Roses release Appetite for Destruction which, after initial slow sales, will become the best-selling debut album of all time, with more than 18 million copies sold in the US alone to date.
July 27 “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley is released and ends up becoming the second biggest hit single of 1987. It is Astley’s most famous song. It was written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman, and was released as the first single from Astley’s debut album, Whenever You Need Somebody (1987). The song was a worldwide number-one hit, initially in the United Kingdom in 1987, where it stayed at the top of the chart for five weeks and was the best-selling single of that year. It eventually topped the charts in 25 countries, including the United States and West Germany and won Best British Single at the 1988 Brit Awards. The song is considered to be Astley’s signature song and it is often played at the end of his live concerts. The music video for the song surged in popularity beginning in 2007 due to the “Rickroll” internet meme, in which a user expecting entirely unrelated content is shown the video. In 2008, Astley won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Act Ever with the song, as a result of a collective campaign from thousands of people on the Internet. In 2019, Astley recorded and released a ‘Pianoforte’ version of the song for his album The Best of Me, which features a new piano arrangement.
August 27 The Jello Biafra criminal trial is dismissed after ending in a hung jury in Los Angeles court. Biafra and his manager had been charged with distributing harmful material to minors due to a poster included in the Dead Kennedys’ Frankenchrist album of a painting depicting rows of sexual organs.
August 31 Michael Jackson releases Bad, his first studio album since Thriller, the best-selling album of all time. The album would produce five number one singles in the US, a record which has not been broken.
September 7 Pink Floyd released A Momentary Lapse of Reason, their first album after the departure of, and legal battle with, bassist Roger Waters. The subsequent tour grossed around $135 million worldwide, a sum that was only equaled by the earnings of Michael Jackson and U2 combined.
September 11 Reggae musician Peter Tosh is murdered during a robbery in his home.
October 19 Mötley Crüe released the song “You’re All I Need” as a single. MTV refused to play its video because of the level of violence.
October 19 INXS releases KICK.
October 27 White Snakes “Is this love?” is released. The song made it to number 9 on British UK charts and number 2 in the US, blocked by the number 1 spot “Faith” by George Michael.
October 30 George Michael releases his first solo studio album, Faith, which would win the Grammy Award for album of the year and sell 11 million copies in the USA alone.
October 31 The Zorros headline on Halloween for the last-ever show at the Crystal Ballroom, Melbourne’s premier Punk/New Wave venue. The Crystal Ballroom has seen almost ten years of intense musical evolution. The venue has chandeliers, stained glass windows, paisley wallpaper and a tiled foyer.
November 15“La Bamba” by Los Lobos is released and becomes the biggest hit single of the year. “La Bamba” is a Mexican folk song, originally from the state of Veracruz, also known as “La Bomba”.The song is best known from a 1958 adaptation by Ritchie Valens, a Top 40 hit in the U.S. charts. Valens’s version is ranked number 345 on Rolling Stone magazine′s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. “La Bamba ” has been covered by numerous artists, notably by Los Lobos whose version was the title track of the 1987 film La Bamba, a biopic about Valens; their version reached No. 1 in many charts in the same year. The Belgian Electronic band “Telex”, the trio who made the worldwide successful “Moskow Diskow,” also created a downbeat electronic cover of it, which is the final track in their final album “How Do You Dance?”.
November 18 CBS Records was sold to the Sony Corporation in a deal worth about $2 billion; the company was renamed Sony Music Entertainment in 1991.
November 19 Cher returns to the music after five years of absence – time that she took to dedicate herself to the filmmaking business – with the lead single of her second self-titled album (and eighteenth overall), “I Found Someone”, which peaked at number five in UK and number ten in US.
December 23 Nikki Sixx of the rock band Mötley Crüe suffers a heroin overdose, but is revived shortly thereafter.
December 23 Roger Waters finalizes his departure from British progressive rock band Pink Floyd, after a two-year-long legal dispute over the rights to the band’s name and assets.
SCREEN TIME WITH SAM 