Popular '83

It’s an unappealing bunch, with much of what I didn’t like about the High 80s – the mixture of retro songs with high-sheen production – really establishing itself.

The NME critics’ poll for 1983 presents a much more imaginative and appealing picture of the state of pop at this time. Almost all of these would have made an exciting number one. Which did Mark Sinker vote for, I wonder?;

1. Billie Jean – Michael Jackson
2. Bring It On – James Brown
3. Pills & Soap – The Imposter
4. Bad Seed – The Birthday Party
5. Blue Monday – New Order
6. Lean On Me – The Redskins
7. All Night Long – Lionel Richie
8. Church Of The Poison Mind – Culture Club
9. This Charming Man – The Smiths
10. Gimme All Your Lovin’ – ZZ Top
11. 1999 – Prince
12. Every Day I Write The Book – Elvis Costello & The Attractions
13. Looking For The Perfect Beat – Afrika Bambaataa
14. The Cutter – Echo & The Bunnymen
15. Jucy Fruit – M’tume
16. Hand In Glove – The Smiths
17. I Love You – Yello
18. Who’s That Girl? – Eurythmics
19. Soweto – Malcolm Mclaren
20. Long Hot Summer – The Style Council
21. Let’s Dance – David Bowie
22. Right By Your Side – Eurythmics
23. Wherever I Lay My Hat – Paul Young
24. Men Like Monkeys – The Three Johns
25. I’m Still Standing – Elton John
26. Synchro System – King Sunny Ade
27. Every Breath You Take – The Police
28. Wanna Be Startin’ Something? – Michael Jackson
29. Bad Day – Carmel
30. Oblivious – Aztec Camera
31. Go Deh Yaka – Monyaka
32. Cold Steel Gang – High Five
33. Tour De France – Kraftwerk
34. One More Shot – C Bank
35. It’s Raining Men – Weather Girls
36. Mutiny – The Birthday Party
37. Between The Sheets – The Isley Brothers
38. Little Red Corvette – Prince
39. Money Go Round – Style Council
40. You Brought The Sunshine – The Clark Sisters
41. Lost Again – Yello
42. Dark Is The Night – Shakatak
43. Karma Chameleon – Culture Club
44. Hot Hot Hot – Arrow
45. Never Stop – Echo & The Bunnymen
46. Alice – Sisters Of Mercy
47. New Year’s Day – U2
48. Everything Counts – Depeche Mode
49. Racist Friend – The Special AKA
50. This Is Not A Love Song – PiL

Much like 1999 was an unusually good year for movies, it is my belief that 1983 was a very, very strong year for interesting and fun pop songs. 82-84 is all very good, but 1983 was exceptional. And tons of the great ones aren’t mentioned here at all.

At a guess, Sting/the Police seem to inspire a good deal of criticism/comment whereas people are largely indifferent to, for example, KC & the Sunshine Band. I found something pleasant to say about “Give It Up” but on reflection still thought it worthy of only a 5. I’d give “Every Breath…” the same mark, but was no doubt prompted to say something negative about it!

In the case of the Police, it’s also that song’s ubiquity which generates more negative, or critical, comment – you are commenting not just about the song but the public’s reaction towards it. Why is it so popular? Why do people choose it as a wedding song, despite its lyric…etc

With many others, they are largely forgotten, so maybe the bar is lower.

Here are the ‘phantom’ number ones of 1983, that got to the top of the other (NME/ independent radio) chart, but not the BBC one; China Girl (1 week), Gold (2 weeks), Never Never (1 week), Love Of The Common People (1 week).

Most front-loaded year ever! Ticked most of the first half and almost none of the second.

Blimey, I only voted for 3 of them! 1983 was a good year but not at the top of the charts.

I’m shocked at how little love there is for the Paul Young record, my second fave after ‘Billie Jean’

As already noted, the conundrum of models — which is also the contradiction at the core of punk — is that as soon as you have a a theory or a programme or an ideal or a manifesto, you’ve placed yourself on the side of the academy against whatever it is pop-art or punk or whatever is trying to escape

Hamilton: “Hurrah for things that never go in galleries! Here’s a gallery show that finally gives them their due!”

Punk: “Let us escape from all these fusty old rules! Here is the list of things you must to do achieve this!”

Re: 17. I heard ‘Lay This Burden Down’ for the first time then too. On Kent’s ‘For Dancers Also’ album. What a monster record.

Re 19: Interesting that a few of the Face records of the year I associate with ’84 (SOS Band, Shannon, White Lines). And most of the electro stuff I was unaware of til Streetsounds Electro 1 was released in November-ish ’83. Life changing!

It’s quite incredible that wild card club smashes like Hip Hop Be Bop were never hits. It’ll be interesting, as the 80s progress, to see how many of the decade’s best singles were either minor hits or not at all – the major label’s conservative stranglehold (how many hits did N Kershaw/H Jones/P Young have between them??) being their lesson learnt from punk, with no small help from equally conservative Radio 1. And between them they truly succeeded in squeezing much creativity from the charts, the bastards. Seeds of C86 are sewn here (first Creation single also in late ’83).

re 18 You’re right – Thom Gunn wrote about something like it in his 1957 poem “Elvis Presley,”:

Distorting hackneyed words in hackneyed songs
He turns revolt into a style, prolongs
The impulse to a habit of the time.

There was always a tension in punk between those who saw it as an end to standard ideas of ‘rock’ and those who saw it as a return to the essentials – which seems to lead inevitable to the ‘Classic’ view of rock or pop. Interesting that 1983 saw Mick Jones booted out of The Clash – as he seemed to have more time for mixing new styles such as dub and hip-hop – by Joe Strummer who seemed more conservative. It riles me that Jones doesn’t get the adulation given to Strummer, who has virtually been raised to sainthood.

re: 17 & 22 I’d be interested to know when the seperate ‘Indie’ and Dance charts began to feature in NME and elsewhere. I always associate ‘Blue Monday’ with the former – probably because it was the indie equivalent of ‘The Sound of Music’ longevity wise. Those seperate charts reflect the atomisation of pop and an end to the serendipity and musical misegenation which Tom was lauding elsewhere

as frankly as un-larkin-esque as it is possible easily to imagine..
you’re not wrong! as part of my “american masculinities” module at university (what can i say, it was those heady days of the early nineties…) i wrote a big essay on “physique and its dissolution” with reference to thom gunn’s (wonderful) “man with night sweats” series. i had a big theory about how gunn’s slightly fascistic fetishisation of the male body with absolute unblinking utopian inclusiveness was a quintessentially californian trope – here i was thinking mainly of janes addiction, who i was really into at the time, and who absolutley do this (plus added shamanism) – probably wisely, none of this made it into the essay i don’t think, but it’s all a long way from larkin moping and penny pinching in hull.

Haha that sounds pretty likely Lee — it was certainly my unthinking line for years, I absorbed more of that horrible (horribly readable) book than I am comfy with…

I’ve not read Melly either, but I’d always vaguely thought of ‘revolt into style’ as an imperative, with an invisible exclamation mark – just do it kids! Almost the opposite of Gunn’s sniffiness (if I’m reading him right), the punk update of which (just to tie a few of these threads together) would be strummer’s ‘turning rebellion into munneee’, not that joe ever did that of course. As for the number ones, mark said it all very succinctly at #2 I thought.

Radio 1’s list of the top thirty best sellers of the year:

1 Karma Chameleon
2 Uptown Girl
3 Red Red Wine
4 Let’s Dance
5 Total Eclipse of the Heart
6 True
7 Down Under
8 Billie Jean
9 All Night Long – Lionel Richie (2)
10 Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This – Eurythmics (2)
11 You Can’t Hurry Love
12 Too Shy
13 Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)
14 Every Breath You Take
15 Is There Something I Should Know?
16 Give It Up
17 Blue Monday – New Order (9)
18 I.O.U. – Freeez (2)
19 Baby Jane
20 They Don’t Know – Tracey Ullman (2)
21 Say Say Say – Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson (2)
22 Words – FR David (2)
23 Tonight I Celebrate My Love – Peabo Bryson/Roberta Flack (2)
24 Bad Boys – Wham! (2)
25 Flashdance (What A Feeling) – Irene Cara (2)
26 Only You*
27 New Song – Howard Jones (3)
28 Love of the Common People – Paul Young (2)
29 Moonlight Shadow – Mike Oldfield (4)
30 Sign of the Times – Belle Stars (3)

* Christmas period sales were too late to be included!

TPL finally gets to A Band From The Republic Of Ireland: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/u2-war.html

TPL on an album only Young Conservatives, most of whom now run the country, could possibly love: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/genesis-genesis.html

Welcome to 1983.

Kid and Mr Peel dress up in the spirit of Incantation with Mexican hats. John introduces the programme and references Burke and Hare – presumably the murdering of popular music. Kid introduces Cacharpaya, no hats but I’m guessing traditional Chilean garb. As the camera pans away John high fives Kid, really.

Sharon Redd – “In the Name of Love” This was a US Dance Number 1 in 1982. The Thompson Twins repeated the feat with the same title in the same year. nmcot.

Next up Keith Harris and Orville (we were been spoiled in 1983)

Belle Stars and their biggest hit Sign Of the Times. All in white suits a good performance. Holds ups very well and best by miles so far. And then the LP countdown. “Raiders of the Pop Charts” at 1.

The Theme from ET. John Williams quite surprised we got to the see a collection of clips from the film.

Eddy Grant -Electric Avenue also on video apparently revoking his his previous declaration.

Countdown, the Maisonettes and I was big fan at the time.
The top ten countdown follows including the Story of the Blues – WAH. John is wearing a WAH t-shirt under his jacket. Number one is Phil Collins with “You Can’t Hurry Love” Video.

Mixed bag this week with something for everyone, but no-one can be happy. Things can only get get better.

Not my favourite but there has been worse.

20 Jan 1983

Wooooh Gary Davies and Janice Long, I think their first time as presenters, get the show off to a start “with a new band from Leighton Buzzard” (in my mind Limahl was from the same suburb of Romford as Five Star, but whatever)

Kajagoogoo- “Too Shy” : which is fun, and quite lightweight in a zesty, refreshing, almost improvised jazz scatting in the interlude too. Not a bad start at all.

on video
Joe Jackson – “Steppin’ Out”, an award-winning video we are told, well I suppose it was still a relatively new artform/marketing device then… The song has a quiet power and appeal, I think just about up to the high standard of his two previous big hits

Echo and the Bunnymen – “The Cutter”
McCulloch seems moody, thin,, vulnerable, even before he starts going in for a bit of shoulder-first one, then two- exposing. There seems to be some Indian influence on the music here. I think the song is less strong than their last single was. Interesting, at least.

Straight into
Melba Moore – “Mind Up Tonight”
I presume she is the same “friends of the BBC” category as, say, Junior Giscombe. This a fairly bland relative of disco. Deeply generic, and not noteworthy.

U2 – “New Year’s Day”
Nothing wrong with the right bit of U2 (as Kiss AMC realised years later). Funny to see them on TOTP at this stage in this career, pre-world-straddling-levels-of-fame. Their second top 40, first top 30 hit, in fact. They seem so modest here, vocal histrionics, and that great riff notwithstanding.
Janice appears to feign an Irish accent briefly

charts
Laura Branigan – “Gloria” on video
Pretty much the model (precursor, even) of mid-80s power pop

charts
Stranglers – “European Female”
Restrained, perhaps excessively so, track from the men in black, as they are. Spanish guitars in the background seem out of place, but maybe pin down where in Europe the subject of the song is from.

charts
No1 – Phil Collins – “You Can’t Hurry Love”. Which is what it is, on video.

Dance-out to Billy Griffin – “Hold Me Tighter In The Rain” – which is pretty decent slice of late disco

Not a bad show overall, not outstanding, but aided by a new generation of presenters uncompromised by the dusty and dirty old culture of Radio 1

3 Feb 1983
Peel n Kid “the Torvill and Dean of popular music”

Haysi Fantayzee – “Shiny Shiny”
Good, dirty, fun, couldn’t get the show off to a better start. An orgy of clip-clop beats, intertwining vocal lines, shouting, powerful interspersions from bass and guitar and then violin. Intensely enjoyable. Good times come to me now.

Indeep – “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life”
Much sampled, but absent the bassline and overall this is not a classic piece of late disco. And the male rap towards the end verges on the cringeworthy, but is at least brief.

Fun Boy Three – “Tunnel Of Love”
An immediately recognisable sound, which has much to commend it. Deceptively mellow in tone, if you ignore the lyrics. Not bad at all.

Fleetwood Mac “Oh Diane” on video
Hardly the finest thing the Mac ever did, but gently lilting I suppose.

Kajagoogoo “Too Shy”
“the second success story of 1983” apparently (after Wah!, it emerges). The track is rather better than any of their haircuts. great keyboard parts.

Charts – ah it’s that week when the post-split Jam re-releases were swarming the lower part of the chart ,mostly lower than the top 30 it’s true. (Just “Down in the Tube Station..” and “Going Underground” that high). “Billie Jean” new at no 20 – surely they won’t ignore that? Oh, they do.

Tears For Fears – Change
Seems like “a forgotten TFF single” now. Maybe because the chorus fails to live up to the great promise of the verses. Still, the overall sound is intensely attractive, very early 80s technology, and stripped down. Yes, this is definitely a group to watch further….

More charts

U2 “New Year’s Day” on video
Pre-excess pomposity U2 could be pretty good. One riff here endures in particular…

Now for an innovation: “The top 10 video show”, vids of some of the top 10 singles: with Joe Jackson – “Steppin’ Out” – a great track, Echo and the Bunnymen “The Cutter” fun video filmed in Iceland, moody indieness, snow, and Soviet Russian posters. The song is underwhelming though. Wah! “Story of the Blues” – sheer brilliance, overwrought but to superb effect. Laura Branigan “Gloria” – superior pop music. Brief bit of Kajagoogoo again. Belle Stars “Sign Of The Times” just so so fine. Phil Collins “You Can’t Hurry Love”. Whatever. Eddy Grant “Electric Avenue” Whatevs, really

Not convinced that section of the show worked really – it broke the rhythm rather (They want viewers to write in and let em know what we thought of it. Not much, in short)

Then at no 1 on video Men At Work “Down Under”

Dance out again (with umbrellas), to Billy Griffin “Hold Me Tighter In The Rain”.

A bit of a mixed bag. Started great and kind of went downhill.

It’s not just a patch of co-hosting – it’s every week now for the next three and a half years. I always associate Pops with double-headed presentation as I started watching it in this era, I remember finding it very odd when they went single-headed again in 1986. The Rhythm Pals are more or less the main presenters for the next eighteen months so we’ll see them about every other week, which is brilliant news.

Lots of people on Twitter seemed confused by the Video Top Ten, despite the fact they did it every week for a year about eighteen months ago. They do it again on a couple of occasions this year, always when the Rhythm Pals are hosting. It was totally worth it for a chance to see The Story Of The Blues (which they showed a decent chunk of given it was going down) and Peel’s Kajagoogoo intro (“I mean, enough’s enough, eh?”).

“Does anyone like U2?” – 16-year-old daughter. I pointed out that NYD was epic! and soaring! and inspiring! and had a heartfelt anti-war message!!! Then I realised that I couldn’t actually hear the words, apart from a couple of lines – it might be a heartfelt pro-war message for all I know. Still, soaring innit.

@42 – not sure I’d call this “pre-excess pomposity” U2; in fact I’m not entirely convinced there ever was such a thing.

Speedwell54

Jailhouse Rock was reissued in 1983 to mark the film’s 25th anniversary. This reissue peaked at 27

Ah, we’re still doing this, are we? Didn’t see last night’s but if someone wants to post it out of sequence feel free. Messrs Blackburn and Davies at the helm. Tone reckons the last time he was on soon-to-be centenarian Vera Lynn was at number one – 34 years on he’s just been reinstated at the Beeb and is rumoured to be the next host of ‘Sounds of the Sixties.’ Keep Arnold at home though, eh?

Bananarama – full Steam ahead (see what I did there?) with another big hit for the London lovelies but not the last non-essential cover version we’ll hear tonight. A few doo-doo-doo-doo-doos added for good measure though.

Styles – in at 6 – Weller tries to show how far he’s moved on by doing a ‘wacky’ video set somewhere in the English countryside (Box Hill, perhaps?). Everyone looks very pale for some reason. Tracie is there in her hat. ‘Speak like A child’ as John Peel put it. It’s OK though, I bought it at the time.

Mezzoforte – and what a great jazz name that is. Louis Balfour, eat your heart out. The Icelanders perform a track from their expensive album. Nice!

Ultravox – another one I bought when it came out – on picture disc, no less – but my 45 buying days weren’t to last much longer. Sounds very much like an attempt to do Vienna Mark II. I think I may like it more than its illustrious forebear, simply from not having heard it so much. Chart 30-21.

Bucks Fizz – always handy when the next song happens to be at no. 21 but … Prestatyn calling. Despite the obvious appeal of Jay in a leather cap. Run for your life!

Joan Armatrading – the last time she was on was with Love and Affection. She did chart with Me Myself I in 1980, but I guess that was during the strike? This is OK, competent pop-rock, and it was good to see her back on the Pops I guess. Chart rundown – Top 10.

Number one – Bonnie Tyler – a long song, it was only 7.51 when this started. No time for the top videos this week. I don’t think I remember her doing this one in the studio – the ‘bright eyes’ video is so etched on the memory now. Anyway, classic, obvs. Just keep away from Eurovision, love.

Forrest to play us out, possibly the most pointless cover of the year. I would guess that the Hues Corporation wouldn’t have been that hard to get hold of on ‘Old Gold’ or maybe a lucky strike in Beano’s or Notting Hill?

The Good Old Days, indeed.