I was noodling on t’interweb, as one does, when I stumbled across some YouTube clips from the early 80’s – Haircut 100, Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones..

Then one by Deacon Blue

Remember them?

This got me a thinking about who I used to have teenage crushes on when I was about 13

So, in no particular order

Lorraine McIntosh – Deacon Blue

She was amazing, her jumpy uppy dancing, arms wide twirling, frizzy black hair, striking eyes and cool voice with a hint of her strong Scottish accent (especially on Real Gone Kid – live it up baby..) she still looks great today too, even if she did marry the lead singer

Clare Grogan – Altered Images

Who can forget the classics, I can be happy, Happy Birthday etc. Now Clare, singer of aforementioned group, was lovely in a cute cheeky girl next door kind of a way.  There was something about her that I adored.   Not the music so much, it has to be said, maybe it was the 80’s dancing again, who knows.   Clare looks awesome today, better than ever.   She also played Kristine Kochanski, Dave Lister’s love interest, in Red Dwarf, which was cool, although some of the other incarnations of Kochanski were also pretty fanciable (Chloë Annett – yum)

Bananarama

well, specifically Siobhan Fahey, the others really didn’t do it for me.  Of all of them she was obviously the best looking and the most interesting.  She later went on to be in Shakespears Sister as the divine gothy one.  Mmmmmm.

Annabella Lwin – Bow Wow Wow

she was cool, gorgeous and exotic looking (being 1/2 Burmese) – she had the sides of her head shaved, wore cool clothes and was generally super trendy and lovely.  *sigh*

Sade

Now, she was seriously exotic and out of everyone’s league (like the others weren’t! LOL) amazing smokey voice and eyes to die for, Sade was seriously hot.   Smooth Operator indeed.

Cindy Wilson – B52’s

she was/is the blonde of the 2 female singers – famous for her beehive hair, crazy dancing and mad vocals, she was hot as a baked potato in the early/mid 80’s.  She’s middle age now and looks more mumsy rather than sexy, but she’s still cool and still rocked when I saw the B52’s just before Christmas last year.

Rose McGowan – Strawberry Switchblade

Blink and you’d have missed them. Almost one hit wonders from the early 80’s they were a girl duo famous for their heavy makeup, polka dots, crazy beribboned hair and mad 80’s style arm-waving-but-feet-stood-still dancing.  Rose was the younger of the two (in pink in the first pic) and by far the better looking, cute, big eyes and dark hair.  They split up when Rose and Jill (the other singer) fell out big time.  Worrying, she’s the 3rd Scot on my list!

So, who’s not on the list

Well, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Tiffany, Tina Turner, Pat Benatar, Debbie Gibson (cute, but way too American teen dream), Sinita, Mel and Kim, Donna Summer, Alannah Currie from the Thompson Twins (although she’s hot-as these days) and Alison Moyet or Kirtsy McCall, or Kylie (she never did it for me when she stared out.  These days though, its a different story..)

There are so many others – some of the Belle Stars were quite fanciable, but I can’t remember anyone specific.  Then we start to drift ino the early 90’s, the end of the male dominated New Romantic era and into an explosion of female bands and singers.

Next post – girls of the 90’s, after that, how much of a bollocking I get from Jay for these posts 😀