XIII Oceans

1982 produced some of the finest number ones of the decade whereas 1983 was just a disaster.   The shackles of fun were thrown off as pop music went bland.  We’re still a couple of years away from the Stock, Aitkin and Waterman days and looking at some of the dross that topped the charts this year I think we’d all polish Kojak’s head over something half as funky as Dead Or Alive.

Renee & Renata would carry over their Christmas success into the next year before finally being dethroned by a significant step down the artistic ladder in Phil Collins’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’.  Number ones through the rest of the year give us the same kind of deflated reaction to the popular music charts.  The charts were drowning themselves in crap.  By the end of the year, the album chart was dominated by the first ever ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ and although the first in line had such classics as ‘(Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew’, ‘Lovecats’, ‘(Keep Feeling) Fascination’ and the camp masterpiece ‘Kissing With Confidence’ there were two UB40 songs, ‘Tonight I Celebrate My Love’ and a solo effort from Limahl.  For those keen on nostalgia the original album has just been released on CD.  1983 also marked my first ever  seven-inch single purchase.  I can’t remember which other song I was contemplating buying at the time but I plucked out the very credible “Electric Avenue‘ by Eddy Grant.  Phew!  Second song?  The mighty ‘Candy Girl‘ by New Edition.  Beat dat!

5. Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) – Paul Young

I’ve left out a few that plenty of you would probably choose.  The Police, perhaps.  Maybe Bowie’s fastest selling single of all-time?  Not me.  I find both of them a bit tiring.  The Police I’ve never really rated but I will give them the credit they deserve for the lyrics and tone.  Maybe I should have given them a break for that but I can’t.  Not because of the excruciating cover version that came years after (can’t remember who did it but you know the one about Notorious B.I.G.).  It’s Sting vocals that remindly me constantly of how we hope the Russians love their children too.  Instead it’s Paul Young that gets the opening nod with his take on a Marvin Gaye original.  Sadly, there’s that slimy 80s synth slavering over its own smoothness, attempting to hijack the tune.  Fortunately for us, Paul Young manages to keep crap pop at arm’s length so much so that when you listen to the original it feels completely inappropriately paced.  If you can do that to a Marvin Gaye song then there has to be something in it.

4. Billie Jean – Michael Jackson

Long before appearing on Radio 4 as their military commentator, Michael Jackson changed the future path of world music.  Prior to this song, black artists didn’t get much of a look in on the already influential corporate servant that is MTV.  His record label threatened the station with a ban on its white acts if they didn’t air the song.  MTV did and Jackson’s career went into orbit, bringing with it the birth of the music-video-as-event.  I didn’t like the song on release and still don’t really like it.  Jackson’s whining does nothing other than distract you from the one great component of the song, Quincy Jones’ production.  Those vocals just terrorise your ear drums so Ian Brown’s cover version comes as a pleasant surprise when he manages to highlight the gentle melodyt.  It’s not Quincy Jones though.

3. Give It Up – KC & The Sunshine Band

Okay, it’s not “That’s The Way I Like It“. Not much is. ‘Give It Up’ remains one of the pop gems of the 80s. It’s incredibly simple, reptitive and so bloody cheerful. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na. Baby give it up. Great stuff. If Steve Wright had played this after the Chernobyl report we might never have gotten ‘Panic‘, maybe.

2. Uptown Girl – Billy Joel

Clark Griswold and Homer Simpson give this caricature of blue collar man a big thumbs up.  Pure Neil Sedaka souped up with New York yearnings.  Billy Joel, I’ve always found to be pretty average with occasional great moements and this is one of those songs that hovers right on the critical edge.  On the surface it’s mediocre chart fair, glimmering with all the hollow aspirations of Hollywood cinema.  Take a bit more time to climb over the synchronised school party dancing and there’s a universal male theme crying out amongst the Frankie Valli inspired sound.  Like That Obscure Object Of Desire condensed into three minutes of pop perfection.

1. Only You – The Flying Pickets

Okay it lacks the emotional reasonance that Alison Moyet brought to the orignal.  Fair comment.  It does also lack Vince Clark’s beligerent electronic tinkering, which is what kept the original from being as great as this.  Amazingly, despite the strong socialist leanings of the former theatre actors it is Thatcher’s favourite song (I thought that was ‘Two Little Boys’?) and yeah it’s a novelty record but it managed to sound both ludicrous and surprisingly soulful. Don’t believe me? Just listen to those soaring ba-das at the end of the second verse.  So good that it’s appeared in a Wong Kar-Wai film. Beat that Bono!

WORST NO.1 OF 1983: I’m sure that those of you immune to the beauty of tune would prefer to pick a few from my top choices but even those that you may strongly disagree with don’t share the same plot in Woody Bop Muddy’s record graveyard as several others.  Spandau Ballet’s cabaret nightmare is saved by PM Dawn and I can’t commit Men At Work’s monotonous reggae hollering because they got the word chunder into their number one.  In any other year UB40’s destruction of Neil Diamond’s woozy ‘Red Red Wine’ would get the nod.  Even now as I type I’m fighting back from pistoning its selection into my keyboard with a rage unseen since, since, since, beavers.  Kajagoogoo’s ‘Too Shy‘ has to have this year’s award.  It’s one thing for a song to be bad.  It’s another for it to hit number one without any sense of song behind it.  Truly awful in every single way.

POPTASTIC FACT: ‘Billie Jean’ is Jackson’s biggest selling single.  It’s played on 90% of the planet’s radio stations and gets more than 250,000 plays per week in clubs around the world.