Time Machine 1983

Thought I'd take a look at music forty years ago this week. Sometimes I hear Pick of the Pops Take Two on a Saturday afternoon when my mother is listening to the Radio, and every year has its dross and classics. 1983 is no different. Quite a few events going on too.

The Time Machine takes us back forty years to August 1983. I was 8 in May and living in Winnersh, still with my Belfast accent and trying to fit in to a new life.

In the news:
• The migration of APRANET to TCP/IP is officially completed, considered to be the start of the modern Internet
• Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia – I recall Viz offering Klaus Barbie Dolls for sale in an advert
• Giovanni Vigliotto goes on trial on charges of polygamy involving 105 women
• The 3D printer is invented by Chuck Hull
• Stern magazine publishes the "Hitler Diaries"
• Aberdeen F.C. beat Real Madrid 2–1 (after extra time) to win the European Cup Winners' Cup
• Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war by correctly identifying a warning of attack by U.S. missiles as a false alarm.
• The world's first commercial mobile cellular telephone call is made, in Chicago, United States
• The first United States cruise missiles arrive at RAF Greenham Common in the UK
• A Provisional IRA car bomb kills 6 people and injures 90 outside Harrods department store in London

Notable Movies:
• Return of the Jedi – The only one of the original Star Wars I saw at the cinema, the now derelict Ritz in Wokingham
• Flashdance
• Wargames
• Octopussy – One of the worst Bond movies? Moonraker is possibly the worst IMHO
• Sudden Impact
• Mr Mom – I seem to recall seeing this at the cinema as well; didn’t leave much of an impression
• Terms of Endearment is the most successful movie at the Oscars taking Best Film, Best Picture, Best Actress (Shirley MacLaine), Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson) and Best Adapted Screenplay

The top forty singles this week in 1983. Some corkers in here, and some I've never heard of. For some reason, the rendering fucks up the numbers, but hopefully you can work them out.

1. Give it Up - KC and the Sunshine Band. Remember this one alright, and still hear it occasionally. Earworm rating (not to be confused with how good a track is): 5

2. Gold - Spandau Ballet. Clearly unforgettable whether you like it or not. Endlessly used for backing music on TV. Earworm rating: 8

3. Long Hot Summer/Paris Match - Style Council. LHS I know and like, don't know Paris Match. Was this a double A side? ER: 5 (LHS only)

4. Club Tropicana - Wham. Still a stalwart of many summer playlists. I remember being fascinated by the car door and footsteps at the start (I was only 8 in May). ER: 6

5. I'm Still Standing - Elton John. IMHO one of his last decent hits. Not as good as his earlier stuff, but vastly superior to later efforts like Nikita. ER: 6

6. Everything Counts - Depeche Mode - Had to check this one on Spotify. I recognise the track but didn't know the title. ER: 3

7. Double Dutch - Malcolm McLaren. Very catchy and memorable. ER 8

8. Rockit - Herbie Hancock. Had no idea this track was done by Herbie Hancock. I have listened to a lot of his earlier Jazz work, but this track is an eighties staple. ER 7

9. Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) - Paul Young. Not a big fan of Paul Young; an early eighties Rick Astley. ER 3

10. IOU - Freez. I always wondered why they left A and E off the title. Wouldn't have scanned so well I guess. Still, if you're going to write a song about the vowels, I think it's only fair to give them all equal prominence. ER 7

1. The Crown - Gary Byrd and the GB Experience. Had to Spotify this one. Rubbish disco hangover. ER 0

2. Big Log - Robert Plant. Robert wakes up one morning lacking inspiration for his latest solo effort. Half an hour and two numb legs later he comes up with this horrible eighties dross. ER 0

3. Who's That Girl - Eurythmics. I like a lot of Eurythmics stuff. This is a fairly catchy number. ER 7

4. Right Now - The Creatures. Very catchy chorus. Knew the track, but had no idea by whom or the title. ER 7

5. The First Picture of You - Lotus Eaters. Typically forgettable early to mid-eighties pop. ER 1

6. Cruel Summer - Bananarama. They made some ear worms in their time, but this was not one of them. The video is a true stereotype of the eighties. ER 1

7. Watching You Watching Me – David Grant. Epitomises the eighties sound. He may be watching me, but I'm not listening to him in this one. ER 0

8. Moonlight Shadow - Mike Oldfield. A proper earworm, one which I can't hear without thinking of The Fast Show. ER 9

9. Wings of a Dove - Madness. Not one of their better ones in terms of earworming, but I do like the chorus. ER 6

10. Wait Until Tonight (My Love) - Galaxy featuring Phil Fearon. More eighties dross. I didn't wait until the end of the first chorus let alone tonight. ER 0

11. The Sun Goes Down (Living it Up) - Level 42. Brackets were very popular in song titles during this period; useful for Pointless questions. This only peaked at number 21 which surprised me somewhat as it's far more catchy than several of those above it. Still, there's no accounting for taste. ER 6

12. It's Late - Shakin' Stevens. It wouldn't be the eighties without Shaky. A poor Elvis pastiche. Not one of his better efforts. Peaked at number 11, which is shocking when Level 42 only reached 21. ER 1

23. Love Blonde - Kim Wilde. She had much better hits than this one; this was as high as it got. Her hairstyle in the video couldn't be more eighties if it tried. ER 2

1. Give it Some Emotion - Tracie. The sort of track that is only played when it is in the charts and then long forgotten; I'm guessing the idea from the title came from the instructions her producer was yelling at her. At this end of the chart, there's a lot of eighties soundallike filler, a bit like the Britpop v2 bands in the mid nineties. ER 0

2. Freak - Bruce Foxton. Proof that a mullet and a synthesiser could get you into the top 30 in 1983. This was his biggest hit having peaked at 23 the previous week. Another landfill release. ER 0

3. Wrapped Around Your Finger - Police. First one for a while that I haven't had to look up. Far from their best, I think they'd given up by this point. ER 2

4. Come Live With Me - Heaven 17. On its way down having peaked at 5. A classic eighties hit that really caught my ear at the time. ER 8

5. Tour de France - Kraftwerk. I'd always assumed that all Kraftwerk's hits were in the late 70s, so I learnt something today. Not one of their better hits, but much catchier than many of the other dwellers of the lower chart. ER 4

6. Come Dancing - The Kinks. Another surprise for me as I wasn't aware they'd charted so late. Seems to be an attempt at a Latino record. I kind of recall it, and I've definitely heard it since the release, but that's probably because it's by the Kinks and would have been forgotten otherwise. ER 3

7. Walking in the Rain - Modern Romance. Throwaway eighties synth pop garbage. ER 0

8. Guilty of Love - Whitesnake. Early hair rock filler. A sign of things to come, although the open-top car/hair blowing in the wind videos had not yet appeared. ER 0

9. Don't Try to Stop it - Roman Holliday. Another forgettable effort. The album cover from which this was taken has the most eighties font imaginable. ER 1

10. Disappearing Act - Shalamar. Synthesisers, men with perms, and brown plastic-looming leather jackets. This track is a poor effort and does what it says in the title, but another of their hits, I Can Make You Feel Good is a true classic. As for this one ER 2

11. Flashdance (What a Feeling) - Irene Cara. Peaked at 2, and on its way down, but a proper classic IMHO. ER 9

12. Bad Day - Carmel. Sounds like she's sneezing for the first 30 seconds. It was a bad day when this was released, and indeed this was as high as it climbed. ER 3 ( purely for the sneezes and the irritating bing a bing backing)

13. Red Red Wine - UB40. A new release this week, and on its way to the top later in the month. Remember the days when singles used to chart in the lower echelons and then rise up? Anyway, I'm not a massive UB40 fan, and this isn't their best IMHO. ER 5

14. Don't Cry - Asia. A lot of people seem to like Asia, but my opinion is that they struck gold with Heat of the Moment, and then tried to replicate the formula elsewhere. This is their third most listened to track on Spotify (7m); given the. Heat of the Moment has 182m, it suggests that once you've listened to that, there's not really sure much need to listen to others. Don't Cry certainly seems to back up that thought. ER 1

15. Do It Again-Billie Jean (Medley) - Clubhouse. Not on Spotify that I can find. ER 0 purely for the fact I can't recall ever hearing it. I can only imagine it's some sort of horrid remix of the Michael Jackson hit.

16. It's Over - Funkmasters. Another one I can't find anywhere. ER 0

17. Baby Jane - Rod Stewart. A number 1 hit. He knew how to make a hit did Rod, and this one is very catch. ER 9

Bubbling Under/recently sunk:

1. The Walk - The Cure.
2. Never Stop - Echo and the Bunnymen
3. Blue Monday - New Order
4. It's Raining Men - Weather Girls
5. True - Spandau Ballet

Having been 12 in 1983 and at the stage of taping the top 40 off (of) the radio and even occasionally listening to it again, pretty much all of those are familiar. (Your numbering is all to cock, by the way.) Fascinating to see you dismiss songs that I can remember the choruses of (at least) 40 years later as forgettable....

I remember the Kinks song being marketed as a comeback by a band that had been more or less forgotten (i wouldn't have known then that Waterloo Sunset was a kinks song) - fits with the melancholy lyrics.

Edit - why were they playing the CWC final in August?

Music rating is highly subjective, so it is purely based on whether the track stuck in my head (whether I like it or not). As I was only 8, many of the tracks would not really have registered with me at the time. I don't think I had my own radio yet, so I would only have heard tracks in the car or when the radio was on downstairs.

From 1985 I was in a similar position to you taping the charts, so would have more knowledge from then on.

Having said that, there is a lot of dross in that top 40, and the same could be said for the top 40 from any point in time.

Oh, and I still maintain that The Kinks track is largely forgettable. Perhaps a gateway to their earlier stuff in an era when more effort was required to find older music beyond your parents' record collection, but I don't know that it would have stood out for me had I been older.

I was particularly thinking about Cruel Summer and First Picture of You, which I can bring to mind instantly 40 years later. (Although Cruel Summer is probably helped by being in Cobra Kai, because it's in Karate Kid.)

I remember the Kinks track, but only because I saw it on Max Headroom once.
I think Tracie was Paul Weller's protegee and might even have been a Style Council backing singer before he tried to launch her solo career.
In 1983 we holidayed just outside Cannes. The day we arrived Dad was knackered from the drive so we stayed on the campsite. Had we gone into Cannes we would've seen the 2nd day of filming of the I'm Still Standing video.

I wasn't familiar with Cruel Summer, and on brief listening it didn't particularly catch my attention. I've never seen Cobra Kai, so that didn't help either.

Just noticed that the pasting fucked up the numbers in the listing.

It's a bit like a fun history lesson for me because it was before I was even born.

Some good ones there for sure. I'm a fan of Tom Robinson, and he's always been an active campaigner for gay rights from the early days. I like his Sunday show on Six Music, but his old Saturday 9-12 slot was ace. Subsequently replaced by someone called "The Blessed Madonna". Where the fuck do they get these names from? I remember "The Ranking Miss P" doing early a hip hop show on Radio around about 1983 as it happens, but the names are just absurd now. Or maybe I'm getting old and curmudgeonly (Tricky can answer that as Curmudgeon in chief).

Indeed. "Girl next door" suburban teen launched into "stardom" by answering an ad in a magazine. Sang backing on on Speak Like A Child. The House That Jack Built was her biggest hit. Later turned up on commercial radio in Essex.

(I was 14 in May 1983. I reckon this is peak "me" era for being interested in the charts.)

((I got off with my first girlfriend watching the Comic Strip film, Supergrass, at the Ritz Wokingham, a couple of years later.)

It's in a sorry state now. It was a bingo hall for a few years, but has been derelict since the pandemic. I guess it's only a matter of time before it's demolished and replaced with an apartment block.

Do you remember the video shop there? As a child I was fascinated by the section behind the bead curtains, being banned from going in there. I now wonder what sort of adult films they would have had available in there in the mid eighties.

Ones with lots of bush I imagine.

We aren’t talking about the gay section…

And by pure chance "Death Cult" are touring for the first time since then and I shall be seeing them in the Mountford Hall.