The Top Ten Records I Bought Because I Fancied The Singer #2: Houston, We Have A Problem...

I don't think this one's too embarrassing. I was 15 when I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) was released and I still think it's a great pop song, thirty years later. Yes, it does suffer from tinny 80s production, but it bounces along joyfully and gives voice to the unspoken truth of every 15 year old, boy or girl, in its title (brackets all important). You listen to lyrics like those, sung by a pretty girl just a few years older than you... and she might as well be singing to you. It's a fun pop song made heartbreaking when you're stood up against the wall at the school disco, trying your best to look cool and not bothered.

2. Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)

This was 1987 too, of course, the zenith of the music video, and the succession of short, figure-hugging dresses Whitney wears throughout doubtless sold quite a few copies to boys my age who might not otherwise have liked this kind of music. I think it's fair to say though that I loved this unashamedly at the time, by then I'd quickly worked out that my taste in music was all over the place and couldn't really be kept in a nice, neat, carefully labelled box. Yes, Whitney, for a very brief moment in time I fancied the pants off you. Then I guess you cut you hair and I stopped loving you, as Billy Bragg famously sang.

Apparently Whitney was never comfortable with being a pop star, and as this was her biggest "pop" hit, you have to wonder if she grew to hate it. I hope not, because there's an innocence to it you rarely see in pop music these days, and the fact she looked like she was having such great fun in the video made her even sexier. If she was putting that on, she was a far better actress than The Bodyguard ever allowed her to show.

I bought the album too, in case you were wondering. I must have had it bad.