June 1984. The month I turned 21 years of age. I wish I had a photo or two to show you, but it was an era when nobody bothered too much with cameras. There was no huge celebration to mark the occasion, mainly as my birthday fell on a Monday, but much drink was consumed and I ended up playing Girl Afraid by The Smiths on constant rotation back in the flat, grateful to be indulged by my flatmates in such a manner.
Having been out all day, we missed seeing the TV news, which would have been full of one-sided reporting of a shameful day for Britain.
The soundtrack to this state-sanctioned police brutality?
3 – 9 June
One new entry in the Top 40, courtesy of Spandau Ballet, in at #5, with the utterly forgettable Only When You Leave. I mean that, I cannot recall this one at all, despite it seemingly spending nine weeks in the charts and peaking at #3.
The next highest new entry was at #43, and is one featured previously on TVV:-
mp3: Scritti Politti – Absolute
The follow-up to Top 10 hit Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) was released a couple of weeks before the band’s debut album for Virgin Records. Any initial disappointment at not cracking the Top 40 right away would have been dissipated quickly as Absolute spent ten weeks in the charts, peaking at #17 and getting Green & co another appearance on Top of The Pops where anyone who hadn’t been keeping up with things since the release of the scratchy Skank Bloc Bologna back in 1978 might have rubbed their eyes in astonishment:-
It is so 80s isn’t it? (and I don’t mean that as a bad thing!!!!)
The Damned were still doing there thing a full eight years after New Rose had lit us all up:-
mp3: The Damned – Thanks For The Night
They were never really a band for hit single. This was their 19th (by my reckoning) assault on the UK charts and only twice had they gone Top 40 (Love Song and Smash It Up, both in 1979). Thanks For The Night didn’t change things. In at #52 and peaking a week later at #43.
This week’s chart was responsible for the only time a single by Working Week ever made the Top 75:-
mp3: Working Week – Venceremos (We Will Win)
A jazz-dance band with something of a fluid membership, the single was a benefit record made to raise funds for the UK Chile Solidarity campaign, and had been inspired by the Pinochet junta’s brutal murder of political activisit Victor Jara (who had been namechecked by The Clash in Washington Bullets from the Sandinista! album). The vocalist are Claudia Figuerora, Robert Wyatt and Tracey Thorn. This came in at #66 with the 12″ version, which comes in at just over ten minutes in length, being the easier to find in the shops than the 7″:-
mp3: Working Week – Venceremos (We Will Win) (Jazz Dance Special 12″ version)
10-16 June
A new #1 to bring an end to Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go‘s two-week stay at the top. And a brand-new entry at that:-
mp3: Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Two Tribes
It’s worth recalling that there were some genuine fears that a nuclear war could erupt as the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union intensified, and FGTH’s take on things, including the controversial and violent video featuring a wrestling match between President Ronald Reagan (USA) and General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko, captured the zeitgeist.
Two Tribes would spent nine weeks at #1 and wouldn’t drop out of the singles chart until late October.
At the other end of the Top 40, a couple of TVV regulars show their faces:-
mp3: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Talking Loud & Clear (#39)
mp3: Elvis Costello & The Attractions – I Wanna Be Loved/ Turning The Town Red (#40)
Worth mentioning that Locomotion by OMD was at #41 this week…..
Talking Loud & Clear is one that has grown on me a little bit over the years, albeit I wasn’t all that keen on it back in the day as mid-temp electro-pop wasn’t really my thing. It eventually reached #11, which illustrates I was out of touch with the record-buying public that summer.
Elvis’s record company went with a double-A sided single. I Wanna Be Loved was a cover version of an obscure 1973 b-side by Teacher’s Edition, a little-known US soul group, and seemed a strange choice at the time. A week or so later, the album Goodbye Cruel World hit the shops when it became clear that almost all of the Costello originals penned for the album were not exactly tailor-made singles. The flip side was a stand-alone song that had been written as the theme tune for Scully, a seven-part drama/comedy series broadcast on Channel 4 in May/June 1984, set in Liverpool and in which Elvis Costello had a minor but re-occurring part as the brother of the main character. It probably helped sales to some extent as the single, which is far from one of Costello’s best, peaked at #25.
mp3: Associates – Those First Impressions (#52)
Two long and difficult years had passed since the Associates had seemingly come to an end when Alan Rankine quit. Billy Mackenzie soldiered on under the band name, but to all intent and purposes, he was riding solo with a few session musician friends to help him out. The record label weren’t happy with what was being written and recorded, and Billy was utterly miserable. Those First Impressions got to #43. None of the subsequent singles ever got that close to the Top 40. The Top of the Pop era was well and truly over.
17-23 June
The height of summer. The single chart was a tad moribund. The highest new entry came from Pointer Sisters, in at #24 with Jump (For My Love). Urgh.
It’s a chart that saw the return of Gary Glitter after a number of years away as he and his band hit the university circuit , cashing-in on the fact that much of his original pre-pubescent audience were now propping up student unions up and down the country. I know this becuse he played Strathclyde a few times.. Urgh.
A couple of half-decent pop songs arrived further down the chart:-
mp3: The Bluebells – Young At Heart (#54)
mp3: Alison Moyet – Love Resurrection (#55)
Young At Heart was the second hit of the year for The Bluebells. It was radically different cover of a song that had originally been written and recorded by Bananarama for their 1983 debut album Deep Sea Skiving – Robert Hodgens of the Bluebells had helped with the writing having, at the time, been the boyfriend of Siobhan Fahey. The Bluebell take on things, which was credited soley to Hodgens and Fahey – went onto reach #8 in late July, at which point I don’t think anyone would have imagined that nine years later, having been used to soundtrack a car commercial, it would be re-released and reach #1.
Alison Moyet was embarking on a solo career after Vince Clarke had called it a day on Yazoo. It wasn’t anticipated that she would continue down the electro route, and it was no surprise that she was teamed up with songwriters whose main focus was the pop market, with a nod to AOR. I’m not actually that fond of much that she did, and indeed continues to do, in her solo career, but I’ve always had a chuckle that her debut single, which went Top 10, deals with erectile dysfunction.
24- 30 June
I mentioned last month how there had been a negative recation to the Human League‘s comeback single The Lebanon. The record label obviously felt that a rush-release of the follow-up might act as a bit of a distraction:-
mp3: The Human League – Life On Your Own (#29)
A bit more akin to the sound with which they had shot to fame and made much fortune, but there was still something of a muted response among the critics and the fans. In time, this would reach #16, but this was a long way short of what everyone was expecting, given the enormous bills run uop in various studios over the years. To illustrate how big the dip was in popularity, Dare back in 1981/82 sold not far short of 1 million copies. Hysteria, which had now been in the shops for a month by the time Life On Your Own was released, would ship around just over 10% of that number.
mp3: Prince & The Revolution – When Doves Cry (#44)
After many years of critical acclaim but next to no commercial success in the UK, Prince had made a breakthrough with the album 1999, which spawned two huge hit singles via the title track and Little Red Corvette. Two years down the line, and the industry was buzzing with what was coming next in the shape of an album/soundtrack to a much-anticiapted film, Purple Rain, based on the life and times of the musician and in which he would star. When Doves Cry was the first single to be lifted from the new album, and by late July, it was sitting at #4 while the album was Top 20. The film was released at the end of July – it had cost $7.2 million to make and it grossed $70.3 world-wide at the box office. The album would go onto spend 63 weeks in the UK charts, sellling 600,000 copies. Across the world, the album would sell 25 million copies, over half being in the USA.
It’s fair to say that Prince was a big a global superstar as anyone in the mid-80s, but he never was as big a favourite in Villain Towers as the frontman of our next song:-
mp3: The Mighty Wah! – Come Back (#53)
As mentioned earlier, Billy Mackenzie had gone through a misearble time with WEA Records in the mid 80s. So too, had Pete Wylie. He escaped to Beggars Banquet and wrote the sort of song those at WEA had been pleading for in vain. It was the proverbial two-fingered salute. This is another that Dirk has included in his 111 singles series, doing so last July. Click here for a reminder of what he had to say.
There was a ying to the yang that Wylie brought to this week’s chart.
Aga-fucking-doo came in this week at #66. It would hang around the Top 75 for 30 weeks, right through over Christmas and into early 1985, Maybe when people suggest that the 80s were among the worst decades for pop music, they are thinking of Black Lace. I know I have something of a mantra that there is no such thing as shit music, just a difference in tastes….but for Agadoo and ‘party/novelty’ songs of its ilk, I have to make an exception. It is music with any merits whatsoever.
My take on June 1984 is that I had a great time of it socially, and indeed I was gearing up to hit the railways of Europe over the summer months. Musically, the charts were a bit shit with the odd exception while politically, it was a shambles; astonishingly, on both fronts, we hadn’t reached rock-bottom.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 