9th March for two weeks

You Spin Me Round is a fabulous dance pop single. In many ways it was ahead of its time, sounding very 80s and at the same time like a 90s dance record.

It’s definitely a dancefloor fill and still sounds great nearly forty years later.

I cannot remember hearing this for the first time but it is a song that I’ve always known and liked.

9/10

9th February for four weeks

The cover for this single reminds me how BIG hair was in the Eighties. Their hair looks huge.

Apparently the two artists never met to record this and recorded the song completely separately. Somehow the song seems to gel and is actually not bad.

The trouble is that acknowledging that it’s not bad is embarrassing as it is a very embarrassing record. Without a doubt it appealed to the older generation. I say this because I remember hearing it on the radio on a station that my dad listened to. He did not do pop music.

6/10

19th January for three weeks

The first Number One of 1985 is a good one. I Want To Know What Love Is stands out for being a great song, but also for being written in standard English. No ‘wanna’s to be found here, as would become the norm in the Nineties. The full words – ‘want to’.

IWTKWLI is a great song. It’s definitely a love song and it was a regular on the late night love hour radio shows of the Nineties. Foreigner released some great songs, but never again reached the dizzy heights of Number One after this.

Musical tastes seemed to mellow after the excitement of Do They Know It’s Christmas. The first couple of Number Ones in 1985 seem to appeal more to the slightly older generation.

8/10

15th December 1984 for five weeks

Well, this was a monster of a record. After watching some desperately sad footage on the news regarding famine in Africa, Bod Geldolf got together with his mate Midge Ure to write a song called Do They Know It’s Christmas? They then managed to gather some of the biggest British pop stars of the era to perform the song together. It was high profile and, despite being just 5, I have some recollection of the hype surrounding the recording and the fact that everyone came together to make the record.

The record itself is fantastic and everyone knows the words. A great game is to try to identify the singer of each line. A similar game can be played by trying to work out who everyone is on the video. There are some memorable lines, particularly Bono’s ‘Well tonight, thank God, it’s them instead of you.’

In 2023, in the times of massive streaming figures for some Christmas songs, DTKIC continues to be streams, but not in Mariah Carey levels. I wonder if this is due to the lyrics which now feel very patronising and outdated:

‘Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.’

‘And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas-time.’

‘The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life.’

‘The only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.’

Even, ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ feels patronising.

The lyrics were very much of their time, but to me, at least, they don’t seem to have aged well over the years.

This is far from the last we’ll hear from this song as, in other forms, it will return to the top at least three more times. But THIS is the definitive version, which became the biggest selling single ever, for thirteen years, selling a million copies in a week and three million copies by the end of 1984.

The song was at Number 1 until it was replaced on 19th January 1985. Who was still buying Christmas songs in mid-January?!

A special mention must be made of Wham! who reached Number 2 with Last Christmas at the same time as DTKIC. As George Michael sang on DTKIC it means he performed on the Number 1 and 2 records at the same time. Last Christmas (which we will hear about again nearly forty years later) also sold millions of copies, but it had the misfortune of being released at the same time as this behemoth of a record.

8/10

8th December 1984 for one week

I remember when B*Witched reached the top of the charts with their first three singles, a fact was quoted: only three times previously had artists reached the top with their first three songs – Gerry & The Pacemakers, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Jive Bunny. So here is FGTH’s third Number 1 single from their third single.

The Power Of Love is a good song but I think it’s been overhyped over the years as something better than it actually is. It seems to have become a Christmas song, especially when a cover by Gabrielle Aplin was used in a John Lewis Christmas advert. But it doesn’t feel Christmassy to me at all. It’s a good song, but not a great one.

I remember a dance remix coming out in 2000 which I really liked. To me it was better than the original which is too slow.

This is the last we’ll hear of Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I don’t know why they declined after this single, but they did.

And so that’s almost the last of the singles from 1984, but there’s time for one more song – an absolutely huge record that would be the biggest selling single ever for thirteen years.

5/10

1st December 1984 for one week

I don’t think I’ve ever heard this before today. It is completely unfamiliar. It sounds very Eighties with a brief heavy guitar solo.

As I haven’t heard it before, I was expecting it to be awful. It is not in awful territory, but it’s easy to understand why I have never heard of it before. It’s not a classic.

4/10

10th November 1984 for three weeks

Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan reached the top with, what I have only just found out, a cover of a Prince song. It somehow sounds like a cross between an Eighties pop song and a Nineties dance song. For me it never quite meets the mark in either category. For me it is not very memorable – it is just fine.

5/10

20th October 1984 for three weeks

Freedom is a fabulous pop song. I think that it’s often forgotten about, overlooked by the more well known song ‘Freedom’ by George Michael as a solo artist. I can’t help thinking that George Michael really wanted freedom.

It’s a great song. I can remember hearing it again on a lads’ holiday in Butlins in 1996 during the cheesy hour on the dancefloor.

George Michael really could sing. Wham would be back later in the year, but not quite reaching the summit…

10/10

8th September 1984 for si weeks

I have a weird memory of this song. I remember looking in through our front window from the outside and seeing that this song was at Number 1. On the TV inside was some sort of chart TV show. This was Number 1 and without really knowing what this meant, thinking this must be a huge deal and the song was officially the best song ever or something.

Anyway, I do remember hearing this a few times during my childhood. I remember quite liking it but not loving it. That hasn’t changed much as I’ve got older, except that I like it less than I did when I was a child. It is Stevie Wonder’s biggest selling record in the UK, but not one of his better songs.

6/10