WHEN THE CLOCKS STRUCK THIRTEEN (April)

I finished off last month’s two-part look back at the singles chart of 1984 with a degree of pessimism that 1984 wasn’t really shaping up to be a vintage year judging by the quality of new entries in the month of March.  Will the four charts to fall in the month of April offer any rays of sunshine?

1-7 April

Lionel Richie was still saying Hello, and in the very confusing promo video, asking someone…..a blind woman much younger than himself….if it was him she was looking for.  Urgh.

Ballads were seemingly all the rage among the mainstream as the highest new entry, at #26 belonged to Phil Collins with Against All Odds (Take A Look at Me Now).  Before the month was out, this one would be stuck at #2…..initially kept off the top spot by ole’ Lionel.

So far….so awful.  Thankfully, Bob and his boys offered some respite

mp3: The Cure – The Caterpillar (#31)

Or did they? Let’s be honest about things.  The Cure had given us some great singles in the early 80s and would do so from the mid-80s onwards.  But their sole 45 from 1984 is a bit meh….and indeed, the parent album The Top, is one which, while subject to positive reviews at the time, has come to be regarded as one of their less stellar offerings. The Caterpillar would spend seven weeks in the charts, peaking at #14.

mp3: The Psychedelic Furs – Heaven (#39)

Here’s one whose production values and techniques highlight it could only be from the 80s. I’ve a lot of time for a number of the early Psychedelic Furs material, but fourth album, Mirror Moves, from which Heaven was the lead-off single was where they began to lose me.  As I wrote many years ago in a previous posting on the band, I found myself wondering why it was that I once thought they were an important part of the alternative music scene in the UK in the early 80s when in fact they were really always a mainstream act bordering on the different.  Heaven would briefly break into the Top 30 the following week, and other than the later re-release of Pretty In Pink to tie-in with the film of that name, would be their best achieving 45.

mp3: Killing Joke – Eighties (#60)

I’m kind of surprised that I’ve never featured this before on the blog….but then again, it’s not actually a piece of vinyl I own.   Indeed, I don’t have too much by Killing Joke gathering dust on the shelves.  But this one, which was clearly ripped off a few years later by Kurt Cobain when he wrote Come As You Are, is a more than listenable number.  It spent five weeks in the chart, and by the look of things, sold roughly the same number of copies each and every week with chart positions of 60, 62, 61, 63 and 64.

mp3: Malcolm X and Keith Le Blanc – No Sell Out (#69)

On which samples of words spoken in speeches by the assassinated political activist were put to a hip hop beat.  The lack of radio play in the UK hindered sales, with it eventually reaching just #60.  It was, however, a mainstay of student union discos across the land.  Well, I certainly ensured it got played it on the occasional Thursday alt-night at Strathclyde.

mp3: Talk Talk – Such A Shame (#70)

The follow-up to It’s My Life which had peaked at #46 in January fared no better, staggering its way up to #49 in mid-April.  It did much better in other markets, reaching #1 in Italy and Switzerland, and #2 in Austria and West Germany.

8-14 April

I Want To Break Free by Queen was your highest new entry at #18.  I’ve nothing to add to that sentence. Next highest was from an electronic duo, many of whose earliest singles had excited me.

mp3: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Locomotion (#28)

The duo had taken a bit of a commercial battering with the singles taken from 1983’s Dazzle Ships, with one reaching #20 and the other only hitting #42.  A more pop-focussed approach was adopted for 1984’s follow-up, Junk Culture, with this lead off effort eventually peaking at #5.  I know this era of OMD has its fans, but I’m not among them.

mp3: Blancmange – Don’t Tell Me (#32)

The third 45 to be lifted from the soon-to-be released Mange Tout provided Blancmange with a fifth successive Top 40 hit, The rather excellent Don’t Tell Me would subsequently become one of their biggest, reaching #8, just one place below Living On The Ceiling, their breakthrough single back in 1982.

mp3: Spear of Destiny – Liberator (#67)

Prisoner of Love, released in January 1984, had not been the hoped-for smash for Spear of Destiny and record label Epic, only reaching #59.  Hopes were high for Liberator, but it fared even worse, coming in at #67 and not getting any higher.  The consolation was that parent album, One Eyed Jacks, released at the end of April did reach #22.

mp3: Tracie – Souls On Fire (#73)

Tracie Young was a protégé of Paul Weller. Aged 17, she had sent a demo tape to the singer when he was looking to sign acts to his newly established Respond Records.  She was immediately asked to provide backing vocals to The Jam‘s final single, Beat Surrender, in November 1982, and then became part of The Style Council as backing vocalist and touring performer.  Her debut solo single, The House That Jack Built, attributed solely to Tracie, went Top 10 in April 1983, but the subsequent solo album, Far From The Hurting Kind, sold poorly and reached just #64.

Twelve months after the big hit, an effort was made to re-start her career with a new single. Souls On Fire flopped, peaking at #73.  There was one more single later in the year….watch out for it later in this series.

15-21 April

mp3: Echo & The Bunnymen – Silver (#32)

The Killing Moon had been a big hit earlier in the year, and the music press was buzzing with anticipation for the release of the forthcoming album, Ocean Rain.  It’s fair to say that the band’s manager, Bill Drummond, was really talking things up.  In many ways, Silver was something of an anti-climax; it was a decent enough tune, but it didn’t feel that the hype was fully justified.  It was the Bunnymen, but not quite as we knew them.  It came in at #32, and didn’t get any higher than #30.

mp3: Sandie Shaw – Hand In Glove (#44)

Well, well, well.

The Smiths, and Morrissey in particular, remained irked that their debut single had failed to trouble the charts.  Having talked often in the press of his love for 60s bare-footed chanteuse Sandie Shaw, he persuaded her to provide a vocal to a re-recorded version of the tune, on which Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce all played. It would eventually reach #27 and indeed offer up an enjoyable appearance on Top of The Pops, in which Sandie at one point gently sends-up Morrissey. Worth also mentioning that it was the first time in fifteen years that she had been on the show.

mp3: Bruce Foxton – It Makes Me Wonder (#74)

The first couple of singles by the ex-Jam bassist in 1983 had done OK, with debut effort Freak reaching #23.  The debut album, Touch Sensitive, was scheduled for release in May 1984 and so this further advance single was released.  Sadly, but not too unsurprisingly, as the quality was lacking, both it and the album sold poorly and Bruce Foxton would be dropped by his record label by the year-end.

22-28 April

Those of you who watched the Sandie Shaw TOTP clip and listened carefully to the presenters’ introduction would have heard that Duran Duran were coming up later on the same show.  It would be to perform their latest smash.

mp3: Duran Duran – The Reflex (#5)

An unusually high new entry for the early part of 1984. It was their 11th hit single in a row, and would ultimately provide them with a second #1  – the other had been Is There Something I Should Know? back in March 1983.  Nobody knew it at the time, as the future looked ridiculously rosy, but it was the last time they had a #1.

mp3: New Order – Thieves Like Us (#21)

Blue Monday, and to a lesser extent, Confusion, had made stars out of New Order, but they confounded many of their newly founded fans by making their next single an indie effort rather than one aimed at the dance floor.  Oh, and to make things even more perverse, it was released only on 12″, allowing for its full running time of more than six-and-a-half minutes, but there was an edited version made available as a promo 7″ to radio stations.  Thieves Like Us would reach #18 in the chart which straddled April/May 1984….and led to a live TOTP appearance in which Bernard sounded……….well, I’ll leave it you to decide!

mp3: Cocteau Twins – Pearly-Dewdrops Drop (#38)

A reminder that 1984 was occasionally capable of offering unexpected hit singles.  This would eventually climb to #29, and be the first and last time the Cocteau Twins would breach the Top 30 – not that they nor 4AD were all that bothered, as it really was about album sales.  Just a pity there was no TOTP appearance, but they had already appeared earlier in the year on another of the BBC’s programmes.

A reminder that I’ll be back later in the month with April 1984 singles that didn’t reach the Top 75.

Many thanks

 

JC