Saturday night's music channel extravaganza during thezapping second annual Christmas party reminded me that a couple of acts from The Hit Factory in the late eighties and early nineties recorded, well if not festive songs, then songs that became synonymous with the season. In 1988, we had Kylie and Jason team up on Especially For You – a song that was sold out at Woolworths before a note had ever been recorded. It totally captured the era when Scott and Charlene ruled Neighbours and Kylie and Jason ruled the pop charts. Plus it was the first sighting of Jase the Face without his mullet, and very spunk-inducing he looked too. The much neglected flip side, All I Wanna Do was equally as good, in a tinny, perky pop, upbeat, Christmas party way. Play them now to someone who hasn't heard them before and they probably sound dated, but if you were around at the time, memories of Christmas 1988 will come flooding back. 1989 saw Jase release When You Come Back To Me – not a Christmas song at all, but with the added sleigh bells in the mix and a festive looking video with J in a dodgy red mac, it once again became the epitomy of the season. A jaunty uptempo track, it's probably something that V would be covering for the unreleased double A side of the fourth track from their second album this Christmas. If there was any justice in the world. 1989 also saw many S/A/W stars come together (ew) for a rerecording of 1984 classic Do They Know It's Christmas. Cruelly erased from history by the third snooze inducing version, it remains my favourite interpretation of the song as it rounded up a who's who of singers that soundtracked by journey into adolescence. For more on the Band Aid II story, pop over to D'Luv! More recently, Young Divas have done an album that pays loving tribute to the SAW boys and although there Christmas cover of Pretenders classic 2000 Miles isn't one of their tunes, it still sounds like a SAW song to me…
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MP3: Kylie and Jason – Especially For You (extended)
MP3: Jason and Kylie – All I Wanna Do (12" remix)
MP3: Jason Donovan – When You Come Back To Me
MP3: Band Aid II – Do They Know It's Christmas
MP3: Young Divas – 2000 Miles
