Back...back...back into time, As my "Time Machine" flies to the big hair/ugly eyebrows era, Tuesday, February 16, 1988. Here is the local top 10 singles list:

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  • 10

    "I Want To Be Your Man" by Roger

    (#10 last week) Roger was the late Roger Troutman. His trademark was his distinctive "talk box", which he used on both Zapp singles & under his own name.

  • 9

    "Need You Tonight" by Inxs

    (#5 last week) You know the famous riff on this smash? Andrew Fariss said the song appeared suddenly in his head while waiting for a cab to go to the airport to fly to Hong Kong. He asked the cab driver to wait a couple of minutes while he grabbed something from his motel room. In fact, he went up to record the riff and came back down an hour later with a tape to a very annoyed driver.

  • 8

    "Father Figure" by George Michael

    (#11 last week) While this became George's sixth #1 U.S. single (three with Wham!, one with Aretha Franklin & two solo), surprisingly, it fell short of the top ten in the U.K., at #11.

  • 7

    "Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa

    (#8 last week) Nationally, this peaked at #19, but you made it a top 10 hit locally. The song is ranked #440 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All-Time & was ranked #9 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop.

  • 6

    "I Want Her" by Keith Sweat

    (#6 last week) This was the first new jack swing song to reach #1 on the R&B charts. So...is Sweat rewally his last name? We know it's his legally NOW, but some reports say his birth name was Crier. Keith insists he was born Sweat-y.

  • 5

    "Hungry Eyes" by Eric Carmen

    (#7 last week) Surprise comeback for Carmen, whose last biggie was "All By Myself" in 1976. It's rare for an artist to go as long as 12 years between top ten hits. While I like "...Eyes" a lot, I'm still partial to his early-70s work as leader of The Raspberries.

  • 4

    "Pump Up The Volume" by M/A/R/R/S

    (#4 last week) As this influential single climbed the charts, the single ran into legal difficulties. With "Pump Up the Volume" standing at number two, an injunction was obtained against it by pop music producers Stock Aiken Waterman (SAW), who objected to the use of a sample from their hit single "Roadblock". Distribution was held up for several days while negotiations took place, which resulted in a ruling that overseas releases would not include the "Roadblock" sample.

  • 3

    "Seasons Change" by Expose

    (#3 last week) The first ballad single from the dance-pop band Expose resulted in their first (& only) #1 song nationally. It was the 5th single from the debut album. It's rare for a song released so late in an album's life cycle to go to the top, but this one broke the mold. After five hits, though, the group couldn't sustain their success, primarily because In August 1990, while touring with Exposé, Gioia Bruno began having throat problems—later linked to a benign tumor on her vocal cords—& which caused the group to cut the tour short. The group took time off from their schedule in hopes that she would recover. Ultimately, Bruno lost her voice, & could not sing at all for several years—she also had to keep talking to a minimum. She was replaced by Kelly Moneymaker in 1992, who did not live up to her name.

  • 2

    "Could've Been" by Tiffany

    (#1 last week) With this song, Tiffany became the youngest female singer to have two straight #1 singles since Brenda Lee had done it in 1960. Tiffany actually had recorded this song back in 1983, when she was only 13. Much bigger locally than nationally: it spent 2 weeks at the top on the Hot 100, but a big 6 week run at #1 here.

  • 1

    "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley

    (#2 last week; 1st week at #1) I mentioned the team of Stock/Aiken/Waterman earlier. Here's a monster hit they both wrote & produced. He got his big break by being basically a tech flunkie in their studio. While this was a 1988 hit here, in the U.K., it was the #1 single of the year in 1987.

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