29 July – 4 August
Two Tribes remains at #1 for an eighth successive week. Careless Whisper would be the song that would eventually end its reign at the top, and it was the highest new entry this week, coming in at #12. It would prove to be THE big song of August 1984, giving the Wham vocalist a #1 hit with his debut solo effort.
This particular chart does offer up plenty that you will still hear today on those sorts of radio shows where the adverts are for SAGA holidays, funeral plans and the like – at least it seems that way when I’m the passenger in a car being driven by someone who really doesn’t care about music, or worse, knows that I’m such a snob they deliberately tune into the stations most likely to wind me up.
Some sanity does come courtesy of an indie-type band from Norwich, but who were signed to EMI Records, offering up their take on what had been a Top 10 hit for Cliff Richard & The Shadows* back in 1966:-
mp3: The Farmer’s Boys – In The Country
In at #50, it would then spend the next three weeks in the mid-40s.
Coming in at #59, for what would be their only Top 75 entry in what, in a parallel universe, would be an illustrious career, were TVV favourites:-
mp3: Friends Again – Lullaby No 2 Love On Board
The lead track on The Friends Again EP, a five-track release issued on 2 x 7″ singles and 12″ single. I still get pissed off thinking back to how badly Mercury Records mishandled the band.
*a second cover of a Cliff and The Shadows tune entered the charts this week. The song was Summer Holiday (#1 in 1963) and the ‘singer’ was Kevin the Gerbil, a puppet character on a kid’s TV programme. Kevin the Gerbil would eventually reach #50…..which, FFS, was higher than Friends Again managed.
5-11 August
Frankie Goes To Hollywood narrowly held off George Michael at the top of the charts, but we should be grateful for small mercies, as the horrific Agadoo by Black Lace would probably be #1 otherwise.
The highest new entry at #33 belonged to Howard Jones, who, along with Nik Kershaw, is a reminder of how synth-pop had been hijacked and turned into chart fodder by the major labels, as well as offering evidence that the mid-late 80s, for much of the time, was a really boring period for chart music.
There were loads of other new entries – Miami Sound Machine (#41), Dio (#42), The Pointer Sisters (#43), Break Machine (#51), Elton John (#52), Change (#53), Gary Moore (#55), Michael Jackson (#62) and Second Image (#68). I take it, like me, you’ll be really struggling to remember anything about many of those acts, while the songs of those you’ve heard of were all, without fail, the ones you don’t most associate with them (e.g, Passengers by Reg Dwight and Girl, You’re So Together by the King of Pop). Just as I was about to completely blank the entire Top 75, a little bit of salvation appears at #72:-
mp3: Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins – Pale Blue Eyes
The mighty Quinn might have left Bourgie Bourgie floundering with his unexpected departure, but the results of his first solo effort, via the newly formed Swamplands Records, under the leadership of Alan Horne (Postcard Records) and funded by a major in the shape of London Records, offered up immense hope. But as the saying goes, it’s the hope that kills you…………………………….
12-18 August
Between the slim pickings of July 1984 and the first two weeks of August 1984, I was dreading opening up the webpage for this and indeed the following week. At long last Two Tribes was no longer #1, ending a nine-week stay, but such was its omnipresence that it would be a further 11 weeks before the sales were such that it dropped out of the Top 75.
Iron Maiden were the highest of the new entries, in at #27 with 2 Minutes To Midnight. I’ve never thought of this lot being a singles band, but it turns out this was their ninth Top 40 hit, going back to February 1980, and there would be a further 26 singles to make the Top 40 up until January 2007. I would probably recognise three of them at most…..
A couple of songs sneaked into the Top 40 this week, and while I’m familiar with the performers in both instances, I honestly couldn’t recall either single:-
mp3: David Sylvian – The Ink In The Well (#37)
mp3: Tears For Fears – Mother’s Talk (#38)
19-25 August
Another of the year’s massive songs made its first foray into the Top 75 this week. Stevie Wonder might have been responsible for some of the greatest funk/soul/pop hits of the 70s, but the following decade saw him go dreadfully mainstream, and none more so than I Just Called To Say I Love You, in at #3 and soon to spend six weeks(!!!) at #1.
Some awful song by Spandau Ballet was next highest at #23. It was called I’ll Fly For You, and it would eventually soar its way into the Top 10. I think it’s fair to say that Top of The Pops in the month of August 1984 was far from essential viewing.
The theme song from the film Ghostbusters entered at #56. It was still in the Top 75 some 31 weeks later, in March 1985, having peaked at #2. I wonder how much money Ray Parker Jr has made from said song over the decades, notwithstanding that some ten years later, he and his record company had to reach an out-of-court agreement with Huey Lewis who had sued on the grounds of plagiarism.
For the third week in four, some respite came from musicians with a Glasgow connection:-
mp3: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Forest Fire (#59)
The big ballad from the debut album. I suspect Lloyd and the Polydor Records high heid-yins expected and hoped for better things than the #41 placing it eventually reached. One of the most enduring songs of the entire year as far as I’m concerned, as it helped soundtrack many a romantic post-indie disco session in my student digs.
Two more worth mentioning sneaked into this particular chart:-
mp3: The Armoury Show – Castles In Spain (#69)
mp3: Elvis Costello & The Attractions – The Only Flame In Town (#71)
Richard Jobson‘s new band in the wake of the break-up of The Skids had, on paper, loads going for it what with Russell Webb also coming over from The Skids as well as John McGeogh and John Doyle having previously been part of Magazine, also in the line-up of The Armoury Show. Sadly, and maybe there was just too much in the way of expectation, the music never really hit the spot, and if they are remembered for anything (which I doubt), it will be for this debut single.
As for Elvis, this was the second single lifted from the rather underwhelming album, Goodbye Cruel World. #71 was just about all it deserved.
26 August – 1 September
mp3: The Smiths – William, It Was Really Nothing (#23)
The a-side of what I still believe is the greatest 12″ single of all time, with Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want and How Soon Is Now? as the b-sides.
William might only be 131 seconds in length, but not a single one of them is wasted. The chart position led to what proved to be one of the band’s most memorable Top of the Pops appearances, with Johnny playing a guitar gifted to him by Elvis Costello and Morrissey stripping to the waist mid-song. It all should have meant it went to #1 the following week, instead of #17, where is peaked.
A few more to see the month out….
mp3: Aztec Camera – All I Need Is Everything (#61)
mp3: The Bluebells – Cath (#65)
mp3: Marc Almond – You Have (#67)
mp3: Associates – Waiting For The Love Boat (#71)
Aztec Camera‘s advance 45 off their forthcoming second album was a bit of a letdown to those of us who thought the debut album High Land Hard Rain was as good as anything to ever come out of Scotland. It felt like a real betrayal of the Postcard-era roots, and not simply because Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits was the producer, but there was also the nonsense of a Van Halen cover as its b-side. I was disgusted in 1984, and I’m still disgusted 41 years later….albeit All I Need Is Everything, it has to be admitted, is a fine pop single.
Cath was a remixed version of the song that had taken The Bluebells into the chart a year or so earlier, being an attempt to cash in on the success of Young At Heart a few months earlier. It would peak at #38 a few weeks later.
Marc Almond‘s second solo single would, like its predecessor The Boy Who Came Back, fail to break into the Top 50. It would take quite a few years before any of the totally solo material would replicate the sales of the Soft Cell singles, and even then, it would require to be cover songs.
The Associates without Alan Rankine weren’t making the music that had been so successful back in 1982. Billy Mackenzie‘s voice remained quite magical, but the tunes were, it could now be argued with hindsight, kind of Associates by Artificial Intelligence (not that such a thing existed back then).
And with that thought, I’ll call a halt to proceedings this month.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 