Jason Maloney reviews

Duran Duran: Greatest The charts of 1983 were in particularly rude health; if not operating at quite the sales levels which the following year would achieve, they nevertheless boasted a diverse range of experienced acts on form, recent newcomers to the table really establishing themselves and a host of breakthrough talents who went on to forge decent careers. Pop in general was in a pleasing state of flux; there was no defining movement or sound to emerge during the year, just plenty of excellent records from all quarters. On top of the pile at the beginning of April were Duran Duran, arguably the biggest band in the world at the time. Is There Something I Should Know? was a brand new track that never featured on a Duran studio album, and it became the first single to debut at #1 in the UK since 1980 when it had shot straight to the top a week before. It was also their first chart-topper, having come close in 1982 with Save A Prayer.

Style Council's Greatest Hits Hot on Duran's heels was the evergreen David Bowie, himself enjoying perhaps the greatest commercial success of his long and illustrious career. Let's Dance, the introductory single from Bowie's identically-titled album (his first in 3 years) wasted no time in vying for the ultimate chart honour. Having entered impressively inside the Top 5 (just as his other notable eighties smash Ashes To Ashes had done in 1980), Let's Dance moved up to #2 and would ultimately dethrone Is There Something I Should Know? a week later. The hugely popular Serious Moonlight tour and another brace of top 3 singles (China Girl, Modern Love) made 1983 a significant 12 months for Bowie in more ways than one; the success of Let's Dance unwittingly leading him down a creative cul-de-sac by the decade's end. (DVDfever Dom: "Hey, I loved the 'Never Let Me Down' album and regularly listed to it while playing Xbox Live!" :) For the former Jam frontman Paul Weller, 1983 was also a pivotal year. Weller had split the band the previous year, feeling he'd taken the powerpop trio format as far as he could. They'd bowed out with yet another UK #1 (Beat Surrender) right at the end of 1982, so Weller's reappearance just a matter of months later with a new band and a new image might have surprised some observers. The Style Council traded the Jam's passionate agit-pop for a wider musical and lyrical canvass, but Speak Like A Child was not too unrecognisably Weller; a vibrant nod to Northern Soul with a palpable air of freshness as Weller threw off the shackles. The single's entry at #6 had been a legacy of The Jam's huge fanbase that frequently saw their singles peak on the first or second week of release. However, Speak Like A Child now climbed two places to #4, and would remain there for a further fortnight; a prolonged period of popularity no future Style Council hit ever achieved.

Eurythmics: Greatest Hits Weller was also in the process of establishing his own label, Respond. First to score a hit for the new imprint was Tracie Young, the photogenic backing vocalist on later Jam efforts and, of course, Speak Like A Child. Her debut solo single, The House That Jack Built, entered the chart at #38 this week 21 years ago, but although the track went on to reach the Top 10 and she was voted the Most Fanciable Female in Smash Hits magazine's 1983 Reader's Poll, it never quite happened for Tracie. The album was delayed until the summer of 1984 when any remaining interest had all but disappeared, and by which time Respond's other great hope The Questions had also misfired. Tracie was replaced in The Style Council by former Wham! backing singer Dee C. Lee; Weller shut down Respond and sold off the Solid Bond studios. Meanwhile, two ex-members of The Tourists (who shone briefly with a pair of Top 10 hits in 1979/80) had just made their belated Top 40 breakthrough as Eurythmics. The duo of Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart had been releasing singles since 1981, with only a #63 hit (Never Gonna Cry Again) to their name prior to Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This. Taken from the album of the same name, the track was in fact its fourth single, following the failures of This Is The House, The Walk and Love Is A Stranger in 1982. This time, though, everything clicked; the song was as striking and memorable as its video, the US market loved it, and the rest is history. By the week of April 2nd, Sweet Dreams was on its way down the chart, slipping from #3 to #5, but Love Is A Stranger soon hit the Top 10 upon re-release and Eurythmics briefly had two singles in the Top 40.

Altered Images: Destiny... The Hits It was also a good week for three Scottish acts; Altered Images (fronted by Clare/C.P. Grogan) were up to #7 with their last major hit Don't Talk To Me About Love. Grogan had launched her acting career in Gregory's Girl alongside John Gordon Sinclair, who now appeared in the video for this single. Moving up one place to #8 were Orange Juice with their best-known single Rip It Up. Tipped for even greater things and highly regarded by the music press, the band never built on the platform their breakthrough hit seemed to offer them, and by the fag end of 1984 it was all over. Conversely, the unfashionable and much-derided Big Country - up a massive 18 places to #13 with Fields Of Fire - became a chart fixture (albeit with ever-diminishing returns) for the rest of the 1980s. The single had spent three weeks in the 30s before its latest climb, and got stuck at #13 for two weeks before finally hitting #10. Nick Heyward - as with Weller, Lennox/Stewart and Big Country's Stuart Adamson (ex-Skids) - had quit a successful band for pastures new. Unlike the others, he set out alone and, initially at least, did very well. Whistle Down The Wind (up 11 to #15) was the first of three Top 20 hits in 1983 for the former Haircut 100 singer, but he never reached those heights again, coming closest with the #25 hit Warning Sign in late 1984.

The Very Best Of Kajagoogoo & Limahl Ammunition for haters of mid-80s chart music was present in the form of names such as Bucks Fizz (down from a peak of #14 to #21 with Run For Your Life), Modern Romance (plunging 13 places to #23 with High Life) and new sensations Kajagoogoo, in at #20 courtesy of Ooh To Be Aah, the follow-up to their recent UK #1 Too Shy. Lead vocalist Limahl departed in the summer of 1983 in sudden and acrimonious circumstances after the third single Hang On Now, and only one post-Limahl Top 10 hit ensued despite 1984's hugely underrated Islands album and its singles Turn Your Back On Me (#47) and The Lion's Mouth (#25). Synthpop was represented by early Eighties chart regulars Ultravox and Blancmange, although each act's respective singles were not among their biggest hits and both had already gone into decline; Visions In Blue had taken Midge Ure and co. as high as #15 the previous week, but now it fell back down to #22, while Blancmange's Waves sank from #19 to #25.

New Order: Substance 1987 Moving into the Top 20 after 3 weeks on the chart was a 12"-only release by New Order. Blue Monday, up 7 to #17, eventually sold half-a-million copies and spent a staggering 38 weeks on the UK Top 75 in three separate runs (the total becomes 52 if remixes from 1988 and 1995 are factored into the equation). On this initial appearance the single reached a creditable #12 (by far the fledging band's best performance to date), but on its next foray into the Top 40 - in the autumn of 1983 - Blue Monday's peak of #9 and the bulk of its sales really occurred. (DVDfever Dom: "And thanks to the floppy-disc-like 12" sleeve, the band lost money on every single copy sold") U2 began the year without a Top 30 single or a Top 10 album in the UK, but by April both landmarks had been emphatically achieved. New Year's Day hit #8 in January, then parent album War marched straight into the #1 spot. War's second single Two Hearts Beat As One was new to the chart on April 2nd, debuting at #24. Still very much in their flag-waving phase, the anthemic track surprisingly failed to emulate its precedessor's Top 10 placing when it peaked at #18. It would be the last official U2 single (In God's Country, #44 in 1987, was an import) to miss the Top 10 until December 1991's Mysterious Ways. Two of the least celebrated and now criminally forgotten British singer-songwriters that emerged during the 1970s, and whose popularity was now mostly confined to the album market, were enjoying Top 40 success. Joan Armatrading's Drop The Pilot slipped a notch from #11 to #12, her last significant singles chart activity although the hit albums continued into the early Nineties. In the mid-seventies, Leo Sayer was an almost ubiquitous chart presence, but his profile had dipped somewhat by 1983. He still had his own light entertainment show on the BBC though, and a new single - the atmospheric synth soundscapes of Orchard Road - took him back into the Top 20 by climbing 11 places to #16.

The Best of Tracey Ullman Also on weekday evening BBC TV at the time was the late Kenny Everett, still bringing his wacky humour and watershed-troubling sense of the risque to the masses. Two of his most famous creations, Cupid Stunt and Sid Snot, were immortalised on record thanks to Snot Rap. Embracing the still-nascent hip-hop style (Oi!, stop sniggering at the back!) , the single was new to the Top 40 at #27 and would go on to reach #9. Sadly (or perhaps thankfully) a sequel in 1985 - entitled Snot Rap II, naturally - completely stiffed. (DVDfever Dom: "Guess who bought the 12" green vinyl of the original single?" :) Rounding off a great week for stars of the gogglebox, one-third of the Three Of A Kind team, Tracey Ullman, had the highest climber on the Top 40 with Breakaway. The first hit of a brief but impressive pop career, Breakaway was up 20 places to #18. Its #4 high would be bettered by her take on Kirsty MacColl's They Don't Know, which hit #2 later in the year. At the bottom end of the chart, Dexy's Midnight Runners were new at #36 with The Celtic Soul Brothers. The track had originally been released in 1982 as the trailblazing single from the Too-Rye-Ay album but, before the #1 success of Come On Eileen significantly revived their stock, failed to make the Top 40. Now, after two major hits (Jackie Wilson Said making #5 in the meantime), Mercury Records gave The Celtic Soul Brothers another bite at the cherry. One place below Dexy's, one of the other great troubled mavericks of 80s pop Pete Wylie a.k.a Wah!/The Mighty Wah!/Wah! The Mongrel was struggling with the follow-up to his/their massive breakthrough single The Story Of The Blues (#3 in January); Hope (I Wish You'd Believe Me) had improved just 2 places upon its debut position of #39. The following year the Wah! name would return with slightly more success - Come Back making a decent enough #20 - but Wylie remains one of the great unfulfilled talents of his generation, with the little chart action that did come his way never doing justice to the quality of the songs in question.

Page Content copyright © Jason Maloney, 2004.

The following is a list of Jason's Jukeboxes online for week ending:

Vol.40: The 40 Best Singles That Missed The UK Top 40 (20/12/2004)
Vol.39: November 12th 1977 (12/11/2004)
Vol.38: October 29th 1984 (29/10/2004)
Vol.37: October 15th 1987 (15/10/2004)
Vol.36: October 6th 1973 (08/10/2004)
Vol.35: September 30th 1995 (30/09/2004)
Vol.34: September 22nd 1979 (24/09/2004)
Vol.33: September 13th 1986 (16/09/2004)
Vol.32: September 9th 1989 (09/09/2004)
Vol.31: September 4th 1982 (02/09/2004)
Vol.30: August 26th 1978 (26/08/2004)
Vol.29: August 21st 1976 (19/08/2004)
Vol.28: August 13th 1983 (12/08/2004)
Vol.27: August 3rd 1985 (06/08/2004)
Vol.26: July 25th 1981 (29/07/2004)
Vol.25: July 21st 1979 (22/07/2004)
Vol.24: July 4th 1992 (08/07/2004)
Vol.23: June 24th 1965 (01/07/2004)
Vol.22: June 16th 1984 (17/06/2004)
Vol.21: June 11th 1977 (10/06/2004)
Vol.20: June 8th 1967 (03/06/2004)
Vol.19: May 29th 1971 (27/05/2004)
Vol.18: May 18th 1991 (20/05/2004)
Vol.17: May 14th 1969 (13/05/2004)
Vol.16: May 8th 1982 (06/05/2004)
Vol.15: May 3rd 1980 (29/04/2004)
Vol.14: April 19th 1986 (20/04/2004)
Vol.13: April 14th 1990 (13/04/2004)
Vol.12: April 8th 1989 (08/04/2004)
Vol.11: April 2nd 1983 (06/04/2004)
Vol.10: March 24th 1979 (23/03/2004)
Vol.9: March 19th 1988 (16/03/2004)
Vol.8: March 9th 1985 (09/03/2004)
Vol.7: March 3rd 1973 (02/03/2004)
Vol.6: February 28th 1987 (24/02/2004)
Vol.5: February 20th 1993 (17/02/2004)
Vol.4: February 11th 1978 (10/02/2004)
Vol.3: February 3rd 1966 (03/02/2004)
Vol.2: January 31st 1981 (27/01/2004)
Vol.1: January 21st 1984 (20/01/2004)

And in chronological order:

June 24th 1965: Vol.23 (01/07/2004)
February 3rd 1966: Vol.3 (03/02/2004)
June 8th 1967: Vol.20 (03/06/2004)
May 14th 1969: Vol.17 (13/05/2004)
May 29th 1971: Vol.19 (27/05/2004)
March 3rd 1973: Vol.7 (02/03/2004)
August 21st 1976: Vol.29 (19/08/2004)
June 11th 1977: Vol.21 (10/06/2004)
November 12th 1977: Vol.39 (12/11/2004)
February 11th 1978: Vol.4 (10/02/2004)
August 26th 1978: Vol.30 (26/08/2004)
March 24th 1979: Vol.10 (23/03/2004)
July 21st 1979: Vol.25 (22/07/2004)
September 22nd 1979: Vol.34 (24/09/2004)
May 3rd 1980: Vol.15 (29/04/2004)
January 31st 1981: Vol.2 (27/01/2004)
July 25th 1981: Vol.26 (29/07/2004)
May 8th 1982: Vol.16 (06/05/2004)
September 4th 1982: Vol.31 (02/09/2004)
April 2nd 1983: Vol.11 (06/04/2004)
August 13th 1983: Vol.28 (12/08/2004)
January 21st 1984: Vol.1 (20/01/2004)
June 16th 1984: Vol.22 (17/06/2004)
October 29th 1984: Vol.38 (29/10/2004)
March 9th 1985: Vol.8 (09/03/2004)
August 3rd 1985: Vol.27 (06/08/2004)
April 19th 1986: Vol.14 (20/04/2004)
September 13th 1986: Vol.33 (16/09/2004)
February 28th 1987: Vol.6 (24/02/2004)
October 15th 1987: Vol.37 (15/10/2004)
March 19th 1988: Vol.9 (16/03/2004)
April 8th 1989: Vol.12 (08/04/2004)
September 9th 1989: Vol.32 (09/09/2004)
April 14th 1990: Vol.13 (13/04/2004)
May 18th 1991: Vol.18 (20/05/2004)
July 4th 1992: Vol.24 (08/07/2004)
February 20th 1993: Vol.5 (17/02/2004)
September 30th 1995: Vol.35 (30/09/2004)
The 40 Best Singles That Missed The UK Top 40: Vol.40 (20/12/2004)

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: