Surprisingly enough, though it only managed to reach number 2 in the US, this was with the original German language version of the song, which was quite an achievement.

The song was a very poppy, bouncy (fitting for a song about balloons) yet still a bit rocky affair, but the story it tells had a rather darker over tone. The two versions tell broadly the same tale, although the English version isn’t actually a direct translation of the words. It goes something like this…

Some friends buy a packet of balloons (perhaps a packet of 100 but one popped during inflation? Who knows?) and decide to blow them all up and let them loose into the sky. Off they merrily bob, only to be picked up on radar and mistaken as a possible UFO or maybe an enemy attack, which leads to fighter jets being scrambled and the brink of war! Ouch!

The song was apparently written by Nena band member Carlo Karges after seeing a bunch of balloons being set free at a Rolling Stones concert. He noticed the shape the mass of balloons made looked somewhat like a strange spacecraft, and what with the Cold War between East and West being at a height, he wondered what could happen if something as innocent as this occured near, say, the Berlin Wall.

99 Red Balloons is therefore considered somewhat of a protest song, and indeed it was released just after a round of missile deployments by the US and Russia, so the song struck a chord with many around the world at this time.

The song remains popular today, and somebody out there obviously really loved it, as in 2006 one viewer of VH1 Classic donated $35,000 during a charity event for Hurricane Katrina so that both the German and English versions of the songs would be played continuously for an entire hour!

MTV was launched in the US in 1981, so it really did form a backbone for musical popularity for US kids. Of course, the US was looked on in envy by us British kids, who only had four channels to choose from, with kids programming limited to certain times of the day. The closest we got to a music channel was Top of the Pops!

That changed in 1987 with the launch of MTV Europe, although the number of people able to view the channel was still severely limited since most didn’t have a satellite or cable TV setup with which to receive it. Indeed, it wasn’t until the early nineties that I finally got to see what all the fuss was about for myself when we got our first Amstrad satellite dish screwed to the wall of the house.

MTV was an odd kind of channel because it didn’t really featuring programmes as such back then. There were little segments such as MTV News which told you some of the latest goings on in the music world, but to all intents and purposes MTV was a channel all about playing music videos.

Now, I was never particularly into music as a kid. I watched Top of the Pops as most kids do, and listened to the Top 40 on the radio on Sunday afternoons, but that was about it for me. I never bought records or tapes much growing up, and to this day I’ve never personally owned a proper Hi Fi system, but I did use to like watching the music videos on Top of the Pops, so MTV actually became a bit of a favourite for me when I first got a taste of more than four TV channels.

The channel did have presenters though, who hosted the little in between bits in much the same way as a radio disc jockey would. They were known, strangely enough, as video jockeys, or VJs, and there were quite a number of them. Eighties pop star Paul King was one (he always seemed to be the straight man, and often hosted the MTV News segment) and Ray Cokes was another. I used to find Ray very amusing for some reason, and I’m sure he was the main reason why I enjoyed the early 1990’s Channel 4 show Wanted, which involved contestants trying to evade capture across the UK from a trio of trackers.

MTV has changed considerably now though, and is now firmly based around a core of programmes which are often completely un-music related, which seems strange considering the M always stood for Music. Shows such as Pimp My Ride and Cribs undoubtedly appeal greatly to the channels original demographic, but I wonder why the emphasis on music videos has been lost? May be because today’s music styles are just too diverse, and everybody who used to enjoy MTV when they were younger has now switched over to VH1?

Instantly recognisable from their glasses, jeans and thick Scottish accent when singing, Letter From America made them household names when it shot to number 3 in the charts. They had a unique style at the time, being both pop and almost folk music at the same time, the folk influence coming from the warbling sections of the song which is probably why the song was so popular, as everyone loved joining in with that particular bit.

They followed up with I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) which reached number 11 and has now become something of an anthem for Scottish football fans. This song also featured further strange voice work, and I can imagine that going down very well when sung by a stadium of football supporters!

Sadly these were the only two big hits the band achieved, with the rest of their eighties songs, including Sunshine on Leith and I’m On My Way both not quite making it into the UK Top 40.

The band have continued to record though, proving popular at music festivals and they also finally scored a number one with the re-recording of I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) for Comic Relief in 2001, which featured Peter Kay in his guise as wheelchair bound Brian Potter and Matt Lucas’s similarly wheelchair bound Andy Pipkin from Little Britain.

The programme has a very memorable theme tune, but it came as quite a surprise to most people when Anita Dobson, aka Angie Watts, the Queen Vic landlady, released a record which put lyrics to the theme song.

The lyrics may well be considered cheesey now (and probably was back in 1986 when it was released) but it has to be said that Anita Dobson didn’t actually have a bad singing voice, so whilst it was most likely the popularity of EastEnders that saw the record reach number 4 in the UK charts, at least there was some talent involved in the production of the record.

The EastEnders theme tune was originally composed by Simon May, with the lyrics added afterwards by Don Black. It was produced by Dobson’s husband Brian May. That’s right, the big haired Brian May from Queen! Well, it’s nice that he supported his wife, isn’t it?

Sadly for Anita, whilst she did release other records after this, none were particularly popular, which I suppose comes as no surprise since she was never going to be popular with the younger market because it would be like buying a record sung by your Mum.

Want to have a listen for old times sake. Check out the video clip below. Sadly I couldn’t embed it, but there’s also footage of Anita performing the song on Top of the Pops. I bet she felt a bit of a plum during the quite long instrumental break.

Playing at the event will be some of the biggest names of the 1980’s (see the list below). The Open Air Theatre last played a concert in 1986, and not long after this the venue closed and fell into disrepair. However it is being renovated and The Greatest Eighties Party is to be a fitting event to mark its reopening.

The full list of acts is:

• Boy George
• Rick Astley
• Paul Young
• Nik Kershaw
• Midge Ure
• Heaven 17
• Kid Creole and the Coconuts
• T’Pau
• Hazel O’Connor
• Toyah

Tickets went on sale on Friday 26th February and start at just £25 (with additional booking fee). You can get them from Ticketline on 0871 424 4444 or via the Ticketline website.

The festival proved so popular that it is set to return this again this year, with dare I say it an even better line up of music acts that before. The currently confirmed list of artists is as follows:-

Tickets have just gone on sale at £85 for a weekend pass, £45 for a single day pass or £100 for a weekend pass with camping allowance, and are available from the 80s Rewind Festival site. If you really feel like pushing the boat out, then that’s OK too, as you can even moor a boat at the side of the Thames if you don’t fancy slumming it in a tent!

Check out the video clip below to see what last years festival was like, and watch out for ex-Radio 1 DJ Bruno Brookes, a name I remember very well from hosting the Sunday chart show when I was a kid.

Kylie Ann Minogue (now an OBE!) was born 28th May 1968 in Melbourne, Australia. She is the oldest of three children, with her sister Dannii also being an actress and singer, whilst her brother Brendan is a news cameraman in Australia. As a child Kylie had bit parts in several Aussie soaps (including The Sullivans, which I remember was one of Mum’s favourite programmes when I was a kid), but initially Dannii was the sibling who enjoyed the greater success.

In 1985 this changed when Kylie was cast with one of the lead roles in The Henderson Kids, and then in 1986 she really made a name for herself playing tomboy Charlene Ramsey in Neighbours. Dannii was to follow in Kylie’s footsteps from them, as she then got a role in rival soap Home and Away, and then went on to launch her own singing career.

In 1987 Kylie entered the world of music with a cover of The Locomotion which topped the Australian charts. She came to England and signed up with Stock, Aitken and Waterman, releasing what most people in the UK will recognise as her first single – I Should Be So Lucky. Legend has it that Stock, Aitken and Waterman didn’t really know who Kylie was and had forgot she was coming to visit them, so ended up writing this track for her while she waited in the studio. The song was a phenomenal success, reaching number one in the UK, Australia, Germany and many other places.

For the next few years Kylie was never far from the top of the charts in both Australia and the UK, with songs such as It’s No Secret, Got To Be Certain and Turn It Into Love being extremely well received with the record buying public.

Despite this though, Kylie was always seeming to be put down by the media, possibly because her departure from Aussie soaps to the music world then started a rush of similar attempts by other Aussie actors. Most notable among these is probably Jason Donovan, who played her boyfriend and then husband Scott Robinson in Neighbours. Indeed, Kylie and Jason were often rumoured to be linked romantically in real life, a state of affairs that was not helped when the pair released the duet single Especially For You.

In 1989 Kylie went back to acting with a role in The Delinquents, but the movie failed to do well, so she refocussed on her music career, leaving Stock, Aitken and Waterman behind and signing with Deconstruction Records. This move heralded a new found respect for Kylie in the media, although she didn’t really set the charts alight again until the revealing costumes and gold hot pants of the late nineties and early noughties.

Kylie is still going strong today, and is now also a role model for young women in another sense, after the strong stand she took during her battle with breast cancer, which doctors have said has had a positive effect on making women aware of the dangers of cancer.

Erasure were a double act comprised of Vince Clarke and Andy Bell. Whilst Bell was the exuberant front man it was actually Clarke who was the initial driving force behind the group. Prior to starting Erasure Clarke had been a member of several early eighties bands including Depeche Mode, Yazoo and The Assembly, but in 1985 he placed an advert in Melody Maker magazine and chose Andy Bell from the many applicants to fill the position of vocalist.

The group’s first releases failed to set the UK charts alight however, although they had some success with Oh L’amour, their third single, in Australia and France. Their next song changed all that though. Sometimes made its way to number two in the charts and this helped propel their first album, The Circus, to number six in the album charts, which eventually went platinum.

The band went on to produce some very memorable tunes, including Chains of Love, A Little Respect and Stop! but ironically despite doing well in the charts they had to wait until the early nineties before they finally got a number one spot, and that was with a mix of Abba covers!

One interesting little nugget regarding the creation of the music tracks for Erasure’s songs is how they were sequenced, which is the way in which several synthesisers can be controlled at once to play the different tracks. Vince Clarke surprisingly used a BBC Micro to do this job, even many years after that particular computer had ceased production!

The duo of Clarke and Bell are still together today, and have released remixes of some of their hits during 2009, leading to a remastered re-released of their album, The Innocents, which is due out on October 26th 2009. They are also currently working on an album of new material.