As you have finished 1985, here's my.opinion briefly on the year for chart music.

 

Pop wise, 1985 certainly looks like one of the best years of the charts ever.

 

Any remaining relics of cheesy sounding pop rock from the early 80s like Bucks Fizz, early Kim Wilde etc. had mostly gone and we were left with excellent imo modern (for the time) sounding tunes such as Tarzan Boy (I know you said it was cheesy but I don't think it is), Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Dont You Forget About Me, Rhythm Of The Night, Kayleigh and If I Was. Some of the more sensible 80s classics ;) By the late 80s pop seems to have become back to being cheesy again imo especially with the ballad overload.

 

There definitely should have been more electronic dance hits (considering the arrival of Hi-NRG and the industrial style dance from Depeche Mode in the charts in 1984) that's my only criticism of that year in the charts.

 

Good summary mdf, I really loved 1985 at the time, in retrospect it's a sort of transitional year following the early 80's Synth/New Romantic/video boom with the major new acts being Pet Shop Boys and A-ha and a couple of others, but not exactly the deluge we had been used to. I love cheese though, it's not necessarily a bad thing, though too much of it can you feel a bit queesy :lol: Tarzan Boy still sounds great fun, and I dont agree with sniffy ideals that music has to be serious and depressing to be "art". The Beatles were perfectly happy chucking out Ob La Di Ob La Da for every A Day In The Life, or Yellow Submarine for every Eleanor Rigby, and if it's good enough for the greatest band of all time it's good enough for me... :lol:

 

 

1985 was strange - most of the big pop groups of the early 80s seemed to fade by the end of this year, apart from Wham who continued to make huge records until the split up in mid 1986 but the Spandeus/Culture Clubs/Durans of the 1980-84 era started to lose ideas and we awaited newer sounds!

1985 was strange - most of the big pop groups of the early 80s seemed to fade by the end of this year, apart from Wham who continued to make huge records until the split up in mid 1986 but the Spandeus/Culture Clubs/Durans of the 1980-84 era started to lose ideas and we awaited newer sounds!

 

Even Depeche Mode too kind of. Which was a shame as their industrial dance stuff like Master and Servant was different and ahead of its time, Its Called A Heart should have done better and unfortunately for their next single they went more indie. Spandau Ballet's early stuff was better anyway imo than stuff like True imo.

 

Should have been more of a trend after Why by Bronski Beat at the end of the 1984 of more dance songs in the chart. Instead apart from You Spin Me Round and Hit That Perfect Beat at the end of the year Hi-NRG kind of died away in that year in the chart.

 

The pop rock from the likes of Midge Ure, Tears For Fears and Baltimora was brill in the charts as I said!

Yeh Ultravox were back to their best in 84 with the release of Dancing with Tears in my Eyes after fading a bit between Vienna and 1983. Then Midge for some reason went solo after Band Aid for a year before returning pretty unsuccessfully in 1986 with ultravox.

 

Tears For Fears as we know go from strength to strength with more mainstream sounds!