"One For the Mockingbird" by Cutting Crew

To my ears, the debut record from the English band, Cutting Crew, was one of the best pop rock records of the 80s. The band stormed onto the scene in 1987 with their smash #1 hit, "(I Just) Died In Your Arms". It helped get their album, "Broadcast" up to #16. The third single, "I've Been In Love Before", became an essential high school dance ballad and scored the #9 position.

In-between these hit singles was an underachiever called "One For The Mockingbird". It is my favorite song by the band and many folks (no doubt the band themselves and their record label) were surprised when it stalled at #38. This upbeat rocker deserved to join the other singles as a top 10 hit. Other great tracks from this impressive debut include "Any Colour" and "Don't Look Back".

The band's second album, "The Scattering", stalled at #150 and failed to produce any hits. Granted, it was not as strong as their debut, but the lead off single, "(Between A) Rock And A Hard Place" was fairly good (it crapped out at #77 in 1989). I guess songs using parentheses only hit once for a band.