PAT BENATAR
(US, three Top 40 hits, four top 40 albums)

A regular fixture in Kerrang! magazine throughout the decade, decorative opera diva turned rock chick (real name Patricia Andrejewski - catchy huh?) Benatar hit the mainstream in '85 with the anything-but-metal "We Belong", a seminal soft-heavy ballad which was played at least twice on TOTP as the last song for the audience to dance stupidly to over the credits. Follow-up was the marvellous "Love Is A Battlefield" ("no promises, no demands"), which had previously flopped but is now a permanent fixture as background music in middle-class restaurants. "Sex As A Weapon" flopped (but we would LOVE to hear it again) and Benatar reverted to her US core, flirting with the UK one more time with "All Fired Up" in '88. Piercing voice, glossy lipstick and raw sex appeal aplenty.

Biggest Hit: "Love Is A Battlefield", No.17, 1985
Defining Moment: Blokes waving at camera on TOTP as "We Belong" deluged the speakers.

BERLIN                                                                                                             
(US, two Top 40 hits, one Top 40 album)

They may as well have been one-hit wonders for all the success their other singles had, but American female-led troupe Berlin were launched on an unsuspecting world in '86 with the gorgeous "Take My Breath Away"  ("watching in slow moooo- tion") which was never in doubt of going to No.1 once millions of starstruck teenage girls clocked Tom Cruise for the first time. The 'Top Gun' theme was their downfall as well as their pinnacle, as any subsequent offering not featured in a Cruise flick was cast by the wayside, with only the forgotten "You Don't Know" puncturing the Top 40 threshold to the dizzy lows of No.39. Their signature tune pulled off the rare trick of hitting the Top 3 again just four years later, and is still clamped to medium-wave Selector computers as we live and breathe.

Biggest Hit: "Take My Breath Away", No.1, 1986
Defining Moment: Adding the sounds to Tom's first Hollywood tonsil hockey match.

NICK BERRY
(UK, one Top 40 hit, no Top 40 albums)

Mulleted overpaid actor exploited his boyish appeal as wide- boy barman Simon Wicks in EastEnders by releasing the crawling grand piano ballad "Every Loser Wins" ("once the dream begins, in time you'll see, fate holds the key") in '86 and promptly knocking Madonna away from the No.1 spot. Easy to criticise, but any singer of worth would have been proud of Berry's vocal performance on a song co-written by 'Enders theme writer Simon May which did keep Five Star, Status Quo and Sarah Brightman off the top during three weeks of domination, so it was frying pan and fire, really. The accompanying BBC album, ingeniously named "Nick Berry", enjoyed one whole week at No.99 in the charts, a surefire sign that he was better off surreptitiously nailing Cindy Beale. Returned to No.2 six years later with the Buddy Holly song "Heartbeat", the theme to his nostalgi-copdram, but we were safe in the  knowledge that only unlistenable BBC local radio stations would playlist it.

Biggest Hit: "Every Loser Wins", No.1, 1986
Defining Moment: "I can't sing for toffee!" quote on the cover of Smash Hits...

BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE
(UK/US, two Top 40 hits, four Top 40 albums)

'Respectable' project for ex-Clash hellraiser Mick Jones with limited singles success, best and highest hit being the Einstein- tribute "E=MC squared" (we can't put a figure '2' above the line).

Biggest Hit: "E=MC squared", No.11, 1986
Defining Moment: None.