Popular '85

Here are the phantom number ones of 1985 that got to the top of the NME chart, but not the Gallup one;

Wham! – Everything She Wants/ Last Christmas (1 week)
King – Love & Pride (1)
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome (1)
Tears For Fears – Everybody Wants To Rule The World (3)
Madonna – Crazy For You (1)
A-Ha – Take On Me (1)
Elton John – Nikita (1)

8/19 for me, sticking fairly close to Tom’s official party line but substituting Foreigner and Jennifer Rush for Phyllis Nelson and Phil & Phil. Madonna and Dead or Alive at the top, and Shaky, Sharkey and Bowie/Jagger at the bottom, I think. Not that bad a year, but Madonna and DoA are the only ones I would give more than a 7.

SwedenWatch end-of-year round up – sales charts #1’s:

Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Foreigner – I Want to Know What Love Is
USA for Africa – We Are the World
Opus – Live is Life
Paul Hardcastle – 19
Duran Duran – A View to a Kill
Sandra – (I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena
Falco – Rock Me Amadeus
a-ha – Take on Me

And #1’s from the listener voted public service radio show Tracks’ chart, for good measure:

Foreigner – I Want to Know What Love Is
Cyndi Lauper – All Through the Night
Howard Jones – Things Can Only Get Better
REO Speedwagon – Can’t Fight This Feeling
USA for Africa – We Are the World
Narada Michael Walden with Patti Austen – Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
Nolan Thomas – Yo Little Brother
+1 – Nevermore
Duran Duran – A View to a Kill
Scotch – Delirio Mind
Go West – Call Me
Eurythmics – There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)
Sandra – (I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena
Baltimora – Tarzan Boy
Falco – Rock Me Amadeus
John Parr – St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)
Bryan Adams – Heaven
Tone Norum – Can’t You Stay
Thompson Twins – King for a Day
Starship – We Built This City

That amounts to a grand total of TWO Swedish acts – the largely forgotten +1 and Tone Norum (sister of John Norum from Europe, whose material was also written and produced by Joey Tempest of the same band). None of whom actually performed in Swedish. So you can see why the British and American charts are about as pertinent to me as the local ones.

The Tracks chart seems unusually volatile compared to later years; maybe a result of the show being a fairly recent invention without a large, established voter base. It also sticks curiously close to the Billboard chart, occasionally flipping over into Italo disco/europop. And you may spot a particular Austrian entry that I shan’t say any more about.

Only 5 from me and one of those was a toss-up. Very poor, Reeves. Shockingly I’d have picked 9 of the US number ones. How dare they do better than us! It’s against all the rules of pop!

The Face Top 50 singles for 1985:

01: Grace Jones – Slave to the rhythm
02: Cameo – Single Life
03: Jesus and Mary Chain – Never understand
04: Fine Young Cannibals – Johnny Come Home
05: Duran Duran – A view to a kill
06: Harlequin Fours – Set it off
07: Lisa Lisa and Full Force – I wonder if I take you home
08: Doug E. Fresh – The Show
09: Trouble Funk – Still Smokin’
10: Mai Tai – History
10: Madonna – Into the Groove
12: Donald Banks – Status Quo
13: Pet Shop Boys – Opportunities (Let’s make lots of money)
13: Prince – Paisley Park
15: Steve Arrington – Feel so real
16: Beastie Boys – Rock Hard
17: Fats Comet – Stormy Weather
17: Eurythmics – Would I lie to you
17: Macattack – Art of Drums
20: James Ingram – Ya mo B there
21: The Smiths – The Boy with the thorn in his side
22: The Clash – This is England
23: Colonel Abrams – Trapped
24: Mass Extension – Happy Feet
25: Conway Brothers – Turn it up
26: Rene and Angela – Save your love
27: MCA and Burzootie – Drum Machine
27: Anthony Redrose – Tempo
29: Eurythmics – There must be an angel
30: Madonna – Material Girl
31: The Pogues – Sally Maclennane
32: Prince – Pop Life
33: Horace Andy – Sting me a sting
33: York – It’s only a dream
35: The Smiths – Shakespeare’s sister
36: The Pogues – A pair of Brown eyes
37: Art of Noise – Moments in Love
38: Motorslug – Wise Blood
39: Scritti Politti – Hypnotise
39: Maria Vidal – Body Rock
41: E.U. – Sho’ Nuff Bumpin’
42: LL Cool J – I can give you more
43: Prince – Raspberry Beret
43: Cameo – Young american
45: Andre Cymone – Dance Electric
46: Lorna G – Three Weeks Gone (Mi Giro)
47: Billy Idol – White Wedding
48: Bobby Womack – I wish he didn’t trust me so much
48: Dennis Brown – How sweet it is
50: Doubled D & Steinski – Master Mix 3

I swear some of those sound made up – possibly to trip up the cooler than cool.

By this stage David Toop was the regular music writer for The Face and he was a big influence on my tastes and appreciation for music.

I saw Bruce Springsteen play at Newcastle in the first part of the year, worked and travelled in America for the first time where I developed a love of Prince’s music and an appreciation of just how segmented tastes were in that country. I returned to live and study in London where I got to see Tom Waits and Blyth Power ( although not on the same stage).
I voted for only 7 from this year’s crop of hits – not a vintage year for Number 1s

Melody Maker critics’ singles of 1985;

1) Bring On the Dancing Horses: Echo & the Bunnymen
2) Running Up That Hill: Kate Bush
3) Johnny Come Home: Fine Young Cannibals
4) Duel: Propaganda
5) Going Down To Liverpool: The Bangles
6) In Between Days: The Cure
7) Between The Wars: Billy Bragg
8) Slave To Love: Bryan Ferry
9) I Feel Love: Bronski Beat & Marc Almond
10) The Boys Of Summer: Don Henley

This was the point in time when I knew I was getting to old for “pop” music. I turned 31 and suddenly the number of new releases I seemed to enjoy plummeted dramatically this year. I never really recovered my taste for new music after this. I only considered 2 of the above list to be worthy of 6 points or more as opposed to 6-8 of all previous years No. 1’s. There hasn’t been any year since 1984 that I consider to be of a significant vintage.

It’s also the year I switched my radio tuner permanently to radio 2!
Pipe & slippers please.

3 out of 18 for me; Madonna, Phyllis and Bailey/Collins

A significant decline in the Top 40 this year, and a wretched 12 months for No 1s, although there were still a few fine singles around, many of them cropping up in The Face selection.

I’d add Arcadia’s Election Day, Scritti – Word Girl & Perfect Way, Eric B/Rakim – Eric B is President, Bowie/Metheny – This is not America, Ashford & Simpson – Solid, Simply Red – Money’s Too Tight, Kirsty MaCcoll – New England and Tin Tin – Kiss Me

I voted for only three – Wham!, Whitney and Madonna (not going to let my later hatred of her ruin my like for many of her early songs). But those NME and The Face end of year lists are full of stuff I loved then and love still, although I maintain that DC Go-Go is one of the most tedious genres of music ever conceived. I have a memory that the NME gave its album of the year jointly to Rain Dogs and Psychocandy, but online sources have them as one and two (P*nk Lord S, any recall?) – both had a big impact on me. Anyway, I was entering into about three years of taking what magazines said very seriously indeed. for better or worse:

Re 18: That’s correct, Rain Dogs and Psychocandy were officially joint winners.

Ten years later the same thing happened at Melody Maker when Different Class and Maxinequay were dual album of the year.

TOTPWatch: 25 December 1985.

In the studio were; King, Alison Moyet, Dead Or Alive, Baltimora, Billy Ocean, Feargal Sharkey and Paul Young. Gary Davies, Jonathan King, Janice Long, Dixie Peach, John Peel and Steve Wright were the hosts.

I ticked 3 – by a BIG margin the worst year for me since I came in.
Madonna was my banker here, and I surprised myself on relistening to mark Whitney in and Dead or Alive out. Madonna the only one that’s a solid 6+ for me, mind. (an 8, or 9 on the right day)

In my mind 1985 always felt like some kind of nadir, and so it seems to be, glancing over not just the number ones but the critics’ lists as well. Of the number ones, Into The Groove is the only one I really love. As for the critics’ lists – sure, there is some good stuff there but it’s hard not to see 1985 as a kind of in-between year. The last of the post-punk and new pop groups are mixing it up with a nascent dance music scene which would only really start to happen in the following year.

Madonna, Dead Or Alive and the two Phils for me – this is a poor year but there are worse to come…

I think 1953 was great: I’d give Jo Stafford and Mantovani both 10, ‘I Believe’ 9, Kay Starr and ‘Hey Joe’ both 7, both ‘Answer Me”s possibly 6. The rest 4 and 5 and only Lita Roza a 2.

That was not a very good year. Ticked 5, two only just including Shakin’ Stevens. DoA is the only real standout from that entire list.

Tom #30.

Welcome to the beginning of the male menopause! One of the first signs of this is the appreciation of music that you absolutely had no time for 20 years previous. I know – I was there. And I simply love it when Dale Winton covers a top 20-of-such&such-week during one year of the 50’s on radio 2. One advantage of this of course that old musuc becomes new music to your ears, and by making allowances for the period it is possible to actually enjoy listening to them in a way you never thought possible.

Log onto Spotify and simply enjoy!

Re 35 & TW’s critical stock. I’d argue that Waits was at his peak as a critics’ cause in the mid-’80s, and also much cited by key figures of the day like Matt Johnson and Nick Cave. What happened sneakily in through the 90s is that the number of people buying his music and listening to it grew and grew despite the increasing clanginess of the albums. The degree of wider coverage he now gets is actually, I suspect, more driven by the market than you’d imagine.

In so far as people write about him, I can’t imagine a musician more praised than Randy Newman, but the bookshops aren’t crammed with books about Newman because he doesn’t haven’t the fanbase*.

I’d argue that the only one of the proper Tom Waits albums (as opposed to soundtrack etc things) that succumbs to grim self-parody is the largely tune-free Real Gone, all bang and rasp. For those who like the more tuneful Waits, I’d refer you to the consistenly lovely Bawlers disc of from Orphans box set.

*Millions know and possibly love Newman songs from Pixar films, but they don’t know them as “Randy Newman songs”.

haha i did a doubletake at no.4 mike!

Yes “Say I’m Your Number One” was thought “street” enough (although obviously poppy too) to feature on the pirates heavily for some time around the same period as Mai Tai “History” and the Cool Notes “Never Too Young” IIRC to bring up a couple more poppier pirate tracks from the same time…

@Billy Smart 43. Ha, yes, it’s odd when a naming theme emerges seemingly out of nowhere (like the three huge ‘Power of loves’ in 1985). People forget now, but in 1993 (or whenever it was that Radiohead emerged) there were ridiculous numbers of bands around with -head names (Machinehead, Radiohead, Basehead, the Propellorheads, Head of David, etc., Shinehead was still around. And Bush had a song that was played to death called ‘Machinehead’.). A lot of people *wanted* to dismiss RH early on as one hit wonders (RH hurt themselves on that front by sometimes playing ‘Creep’ twice per set on their first US tour – critics pounced), and that they had one of the most generic/boring names of the time played into that and made some people (quite unfairly) think of RH as bandwagon jumpers of some sort. The Bends showed everyone of course, but also by 1995 RH were essentially the only (esp. grungy) -head act still standing, so now their name felt neutral or better.

Crystal Tipps & Alistair just reformed.

I’m pretty sure that I have some idea who Crystal Castles are. Aren’t they supposed to be sweary, guerilla-gigging, punk types? Or perhaps that was one of the other ones.

NME Readers’ Poll for best single, 1985;

1. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Never Understand
2. The Smiths – How Soon Is Now
3. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Just Like Honey
4. Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill
5. The Cult – She Sells Sanctuary
6. The Smiths – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
7. The Style Council – Walls Come Tumbling Down
8. Fine Young Cannibals – Johnny Come Home
9. New Order – The Perfect Kiss
10. The Pogues – A Pair Of Brown Eyes
11. U2 – The Unforgettable Fire
12. Billy Bragg – Between The Wars
13. The Jesus & Mary Chain – You Trip Me Up
14. The Ramones – Bonzo Goes To Bitburg
15. Talking Heads – Road To Nowhere