The UK Top 50 of 1985

Voted Red Box because nobody else will.

Take On Me, easy.

At the time: Dead Or Alive, although I was a 1984 early adopter. Looking forward to seeing Pete belting it out on Saturday night, if all goes according to plan.

For many years: "Into The Groove", but it's a used groove now. Happy memories of one club night in Spring 1989, when I literally got the whole club dancing to it: manager, bar staff, everyone. Never happened before, never happened again.

So I'm going for "Take On Me", which I never thought much of until a friend's party in Summer 2000, where it got played and danced to over and over and over....

Today, the Boss gets my vote.

"We're glad it's all over..."?

Went for "Shout", happy memories of post-Xmas 84, buying that and "The devil and darkness" and a Casio vl-tone.

Love and Pride by King = cracking pop record

http://www.musikalske.net/king/paul_king_mtv.jpg

Now THIS is a poor chart!

Ended up voting for Red Box!

Spin Me Round, easily

Prince, easy

Love and Pride by King = cracking pop record

I agree. Not as cracking as Take On Me, though.

Hm, not a bad chart. Lots of good, if not quite great, records. Favourite moments: 'You can't start a fire without a spark', 'At night I lock the door so no-one else can see', the intro to 'Money For Nothing', Phil Collins' moves in the 'Easy lover' video. But as a whole 'You Spin Me Round' is probably closest to greatness, so it gets my vote.

Here's a thing: The Crowd 'You'll Never Walk Alone' reached the number one spot on June 1 1985, three days after the Heysel disaster.

Yes, Ismael, lots of records that I quite like or grudgingly admire, but no absolute classics.

Nate, for me, Love And Pride was (despite the suits and hair) a properly exciting record at the time.

Take On Me is a really cute pop record, of course. Actually I heard it at a club recently and it just sounded kitsch rather than truly joyous, and I'm thinking of filing it under 'records that are actually really good but that shouldn't be played in public ever again'.

N-n-nineteen's a strange record to be a big hit, isn't it? Electro was never that big, and it's not like a news anchor voiceover should have massively added to its appeal. Why did it take off?

Quite a lot of underground genres have one or two crossover hits around the time of their inception - the General Levy thing with Jungle, for example. Dunno, just thinking out loud here.

Though having said that, I doubt Incredible was one of the biggest 50 selling records of the year it was released.

I'm very tempted to vote for "Tarzan Boy."

Good God, most of that is unlistenable. Voted "Shout", thought about "Dancing in the Dark".

"You'll Never Walk Alone" reached number one BECAUSE of the Heysel disaster; Gerry Marsden pledged some of the royalties to help the victims' families there.

"19"? N-n-n-novelty hit, really, with the worst backing vocals ever: "D-d-d-d-d, d-d-d-destruc-TION!"

Even worse - Hardcastle's follow-up "Just For Money" which featured narration by a clearly ailing Laurence Olivier and Bob Hoskins as Al Capone.

Wikipedia says otherwise. Anyway, professional scousers singing Liverpool anthem and calling themselves The Crowd = slightly unfortunate timing.

Prince then pretty much fucking daylight.

I'm with Mark G. There is some truly, truly awful crap here I wish no one had bothered to remind me existed.

"Nightshift" or "Don't Break My Heart". Weird that by 85 UB40 could still release a single that good but then do that Chrissie Hynde warcrime.

Oh shit. Missed Colonel Abrams. That then.

Only one I bought at the time: "Kayleigh". lol.

I capriciously ruled out Prince, on account of both tracks being from 1982.

Quite a lot of underground genres have one or two crossover hits around the time of their inception.

This doesn't apply to Paul Hardcastle's "19", though - quite the opposite in fact, as the genre was on the wane by 1985. The birth of electro dates, once again, to 1982.

"1999" isn't my favourite Prince by a big long stick of chalk.

As misheard by Record Mirror's James Hamilton as "Mummy, why does everybody have a bum?"

It's orginal B-side is one of my absolute favourites, though.

I'm the only one voting for Foreigner. Yes it's an awful song, but my dad used to play it a lot. I do prefer 19 and a couple of others.

One of the first songs I ever wrote had the payoff line "I don't want to know what love is". lol teenagers

lol punk rock!

Nah it was me singing and my mate Ian playing keyboards in a kind of neo-Prog Pet Shop Boys stylee.

what's everyone's feelings on the Feargal Sharkey song?

I don't know if it's over-familiarity or what but I find it a bit plodding and repetitive nowadays. Like "Listen to Your Father" a lot more.

I prefer [original composer] Maria McKee's re-recording from last year's Late December album. It does the song more emotional justice. Nice harpsichord solo and all.

Yeah, it's a bit too earnest for me. I prefer "You Little Thief."

Perhaps worst of all: Paul Hardcastle coming on with D-Train on TOTP to do his "You're The One For Me" remix and gurning to camera with his mullet and rolled-up jacket sleeves all the way through. The record was more than fine as it was!

Sharkey and band failing to mime "You Little Thief" on Noel Edmonds' aeroplane lolz

Oh "You Little Thief" is a great one too. Also that single with Vince Clarke.

Oh, add "whore" to the 'words only used in one hit song'...

"Dealers keep dealin
Thieves keep thievin
Whores keep whorin
Junkies keep scorin
Trade is on the meat rack
Strip joints full of hunchbacks
Bitches keep bitchin
Clap keeps itchin..."

um, singular?

Smells Like Teen Spirit - that has the word in it, righT?

Oh it doesn't. I thought the words were

"She saw the whore"

not

"She's overboard".

N-n-nineteen's a strange record to be a big hit, isn't it? Electro was never that big, and it's not like a news anchor voiceover should have massively added to its appeal.

Electro was actually quite big in 1983-84 with several early hip-hop hits from the likes of The Rocksteady Crew, Break Machine and Grandmaster Flash becoming huge hits. In 1985 the electro thing seemed like more of a fad, but you still had some novelty electro hits like "19" and "Woodpeckers From Space". And I guess "Trapped" was kinda electro too.

awful list, surely the nadir of the 80s ?
i checked this thread out earlier and couldn't be bothered to even vote.
then i spotted Frankie in the list.
phew.

1987 or 1988 was the nadir of the 80s.

behave.
1987.
we've done that year before and the list of classic stuff was super mad.
admitedly that was albums, but i suspect the singles list would have been as good.

1987 hit singles was about rap, house and lots and lots of hair metal. Nuff said.

haha. ringo bingo.
and thats exactly why that year changed my life.
glorious times.
(well except for the hair metal shyte)

The only decent music in 1987 was by acts who had done much better stuff in 1981-83.

Smells Like Teen Spirit - that has the word in it, righT?

No, but In Bloom does.

this poll = Into the Groove vs. 1999/Little Red Corvette

(love both, went for the latter)

"Into The Groove" for me, Alex F a close second.

I have heard people say the mid 80s was a pretty crummy time musically, sandwiched between post-punk/new pop and acid house/hip-hop shaking things up a bit. I dunno how true that is, because I don't remember anything before about 1990. This does seem like a very flashy, hollywoodish kinda chart, tho.

The mid 80s were still nice in 1983-84, by which time the synths were still analog and the drum machines still sounded like drum machines.

"You Spin Me Round"

geir, do you like T4F's "shout"?!?

i think this is a good chart. a-ha win it.

geir, do you like T4F's "shout"?!?

OK, but not as good as "Change".

As "Mad World", I mean.

1985 - how did we survive it?

"Spin Me Round".

I don't understand this fascination for "You Spin Me Round". I consider it the beginning of what was bad about the second half of the 80s. Those ugly and way-too-hard-sounding digital synth sounds and FM sounds. Ugly!

You don't understand anything outside your closeted Craig Meehan world.

I'm relunctant to admit it, but Geir has a point.

The use of the Yamaha DX7, PPGs and general usage of MIDI sequencing from the middle of '84 onwards did have an adverse effect on the quality of the music being made. The more complex digital synths became, the more likely that users would just page through presets to find the sounds they wanted rather than get creative and make new sounds. Hence that dreadful section of Kraftwerk's "Techno pop" where a MIDI sequence plays and Ralf pages through the presets on his DX7.

I wouldn't say "You spin me round" was the start of the slump, but it's as good as example as any. Of course, this is why the original acid tracks made such an impression - because they were made with outmoded predigital technology - 808s, 303s - which allowed for greater control of the sound, and pushing it into different directions which very few people had tried back in the early 80s.

I could be talking out of my arse, mind.

I merely point out that "You Spin Me Round" was the first number one single to be produced by Stock Aitken & Waterman.

Prince, although "Into the Groove" would not be a bad alternative.

Eurythmics takes it from springsteen, a-ha and money for nothing

I'm voting for Frankie. Not "Frankie", Frankie.

"Part Time Lover" just makes me think of the busker in the Sylvester the Cat outfit at Victoria Tube station. Because he was my part time lover.

I'm not that fond of "You spin me round" - prefer "In too deep" actually - and it's interesting to read in Pete Waterman's autobiography how a mistake in the mix made it more ear-catching. Now there's an interesting book. He really does seem to have had his finger in so many pies over the years - a remarkable man.

I merely point out that "You Spin Me Round" was the first number one single to be produced by Stock Aitken & Waterman.

Actually Peter Waterman alone, wasn't it? Mike Stock and Matt Aitken were working with Princess, and I believe it was around "Showing Out" that the three of them started producing together.

Anyway, just another example of that song was the beginning of the end of good mainstream pop. S/A/W were very much part of what was wrong about the late 80s.

The more complex digital synths became, the more likely that users would just page through presets to find the sounds they wanted rather than get creative and make new sounds.

And the same goes for sampling too. Most people were more likely to just sample a bass guitar, put it into their Fairlight and make it sound just like a true bass guitar. That instead of actually creating a new and unheard sound and let that new and unheard sound play the bass.

Worst of all, the same people who complained about synths not being "real" were trapped and actually thought it sounded more "real". In spite of the fact that samplers probably represented more of a threat towards real musicians than analogue synths had ever done, as they could more effectively emulate the way real instruments sounded. In the days of the analogue synth, if you wanted a violin, you had to hire a violinist as no synth could emulate a violin in a way that actually sounded like one. The Fairlight and the Emulator changed all that.

Oh come now, many modern digital musicians obsess over finding new and unique sounds.

You have to remember it's CONTROVERSIAL MOD EDIT Geir.

many modern digital musicians obsess over finding new and unique sounds.

There are about 50 times as many who are amazed at how you don't need to hire a string section anymore as the synth produces fantastic strings though.

It's been a year now, give her back.

Was gonna go for Madonna, but Prince gets it again....

"Into The Groove". I hope "Tarzan Boy" gets some votes, though.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I hope some them songs that weren't released in 1985 win for the win fuck the world for the wind

1999 by about a lightyear.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

OK, so six out of the songs in the Top 10 were all released before 1985. :)

(A bit unsure about "Love And Pridge", but pretty certain that one was 1984 as well)