30 September – 6 October
As a peace-loving lefty, I’m a bit of a sucker for anti-war songs. However, I’ll always make an exception for this effort by Culture Club, which entered this week’s chart at #3.
Moving quickly on.
mp3: The Stranglers – Skin Deep (#32)
There’s a quite hysterical fan review of this one out there on t’internet.
Jet Black doesn’t even play on this. No shit, you say. Only too aware – as you’ve always been – of that hideous midi drum sound, that cripplingly leaden and synthetically even rhythm section. Doesn’t even feel like JJ’s there either. And although Dave does fiddle and twiddle, all we’ve really got is a vehicle to resolve a massive cocaine tab run up in the preceding X number of years. Gross. Cornwell croons, crunes and krewnes away to himself about the lack of loyalty friends show us. For “friends” read “fans.” They were deserting the band by the thousands at this point. Not that it stopped them having some minor chart success, however. No – the damage was done elsewhere. At gigs, mainly. God they sucked ASS live at this juncture. Brass. Haha!! A fucking BRASS section though. GMAFB, asshats.
The other new entries this week belonged, among others whose names now mean nothing, to Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf and ZZ Top. Thankfully, Ben and Tracey, with a little help from Johnny, helped ease the pain
mp3: Everything But The Girl – Native Land (#73)
The duo’s third and best Top 75 single of 1984, but their poorest-performing in terms of sales.
7-13 October
Another week in which the highest new entry, Freedom by Wham!, came in at #3, which only goes to show how many people were still buying the truly atrocious I Just Called To Say I Love You which was spending a sixth week at #1.
Paul Weller had clearly decided, in terms of the way pop music was sounding in 1984, that if you can’t beat them, then join them.
mp3: The Style Council – Shout To The Top (#13)
I’ve always had a lot of time for The Style Council, and this anthemic, upbeat politically-charged number remains a favourite from the era.
The next highest new entry at #20 came from Paul Young, trying really hard to prove that his annus mirabilis of 1983 hadn’t been a fluke. I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down, whose title sounded like some sort of threat to Edinburgh’s premier concert venue of the era, was a cover of an early 70s soul song. It would peak at #9, which after the three Top 5 hits of the previous year, was an indication that his star was on the wane.
There genuinely is nothing elsewhere that was new in this week’s Top 75 worth mentioning.
14-20 October
Back in 1984, I didn’t mind the two highest entries this week, but time hadn’t been kind whatsoever to I Feel For You by Chaka Khan and Love’s Great Adventure by Ultravox, but both seem to remain staples of the type of radio stations specialising in the songs from yesteryear.
Spandau Ballet and Lionel Ritchie were the two other who cracked the Top 40. There really was a distinct lack of guitar-based pop songs. Thank gawd for the goths
mp3: Sisters of Mercy – Walk Away (#49)
This turned out to be the lead single from their debut album, First and Last and Always, albeit the LP didn’t hit the shops until five months later in March 1985.
21-27 October
I’m going to start at the bottom end of the chart this week as it feels appropriate
mp3: Orange Juice – Lean Period (#73)
The farewell single. One that will be covered in due course as part of the new(ish) series on the singular adventures of Edwyn Collins. Elsewhere, the airwaves of the nation’s radio stations continued to pump out all sorts of aural pollution. I’ll make an exception for this new entry:-
mp3: Status Quo – The Wanderer (#23)
As if.
28 October – 3 November
The highest new entry came from Duran Duran whose Wild Boys tested the water at #5 when everyone involved with the band – musicians, management and record label alike – were very confident, thanks in part to the spectacular and expensive promo video, of it coming in at #1 and staying there. In the end, it stalled at #2, unable to shift Chaka Khan from the top spot in mid-November.
Iron Maiden had the next highest new entry with Aces High (#32). Not a song I have knowingly ever heard.
Don’t know about the rest of you, but it stunned me to realise that this new entry at #32 was the thirteenth Top 40 hit since 1979 for Gary Numan. When I looked at the chart rundown in preparing this post, I assumed it was some sort of comeback single after a few years away.
There was another Top 50 hit, their sixteenth all told, for Siouxsie & The Banshees when The Thorn EP came in at #47 in last week’s chart and found itself at #48 this week. It’s an EP I can’t recall from back in the day. Here’s wiki:-
The purpose of the EP was three-fold: Siouxsie stated that she wanted to induct new guitarist John Valentine Carruthers into the Banshees, to try out some string arrangements, and to simply re-record tracks that had evolved on tour. The Thorn features four of the band’s tracks recorded with orchestral instrumentation: “Overground” originally appeared on the Banshees’ debut album The Scream; “Placebo Effect” was a song from their second album Join Hands, while “Voices” and “Red Over White” were previously released as B-sides from the singles “Hong Kong Garden” and “Israel”, respectively.
mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Overground (Thorn EP version)
I’ll finish things off with the song which sneaked, almost unnoticed, into this week’s single chart at #62:-
mp3: Eurythmics – Sex Crime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
The logo for this series is taken from the film poster for the film of the George Orwell novel. The movie was released in October 1984, having been filmed in April-June 1984 which was the exact time that Orwell had set the story. Eurythmics, one of the biggest selling pop bands of the era, came on board to compose a soundtrack album for the film, totally against the wishes of the film’s director, Michael Radford who was keen to use the orchestral score that had already been written and recorded by Dominic Muldowney.
The dots are easy to join. The film was a Virgin Films production. Eurythmics were on Virgin Records (fake news!!!!…as Conrad points out, they were on RCA).
The duo of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were kind of caught in the cross fire of the subsequent row between the director and the production company. They had to issue a statement which said they had no knowledge of prior agreements between Virgin and Radford/Muldowney and that they had accepted the offer to compose music for the film in good faith. The soundtrack album (on Virgin, despite the dup being contracted to RCA) did go Top 30 and this single went all the way to #4.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 