13 votes for Dead Or Alive, good going

Dead Or Alive is dance delight, my boss at the time got annoyed with it (I had radio 1 on in the van while we were surveying rural Dorset roads) and I informed him that it was a classic, actually :lol: I do so enjoy being proved right :P The Jam is a goodie, very 60's Motown inspired, and The Communards is the 3rd best hit version of DLMTW. After the brilliant harold melvin original, and the disco diva Thelma Houston, neither of which has shrill shrieking as a feature. Though I liked the boy-high girl-low switch on duets, it was more an 80s cartoon parody of a disco version of a Philly soul classic. Then they did the same bloody thing to a brilliant disco cover of a Motown soul classic - Never Can Say Goodbye. I preferred their own material on the whole, You Are My World, So Cold The Night especially, and Jimmy's Bronski Beat or solo stuff. The Rev Richard Cole is always entertaining though...!

The Dead or Alive and Communards songs are very good energetic dance tunes, at a time when they were few high-tempo dance songs in the charts. The Communards cover of Don't Leave Me This Way made dance covers of old disco and soul tracks popular too and of course there would be Never Can Say Goodbye in 1987 and then Yazz's cover of The Only Way Is Up in 1988 continuing the trend.

 

The Jam track is good too.

I don’t find the Communards’ Don’t Leave Me This Way shrieky at all - I think he manages to convey a lot of emotion with his falsetto.

 

A Town Called Malice is great too; never been so keen on You Spin Me Round.

SAW productions are generally not my cup of tea at all but 'You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)' is an exception :heart:

 

'Take My Breath Away' is a glorious slow burner and I also find 'Every Breath You Take' captivating, especially its riff, even if a bit of a stalker anthem :P I guess I was destined to be a fan with the Puff Daddy version at #1 on the day I was born.

 

Really intrigued to see how my 30 pointer is going to do in this.

In confused how did I only give ‘A Town Called Malice’ 7 points def shoulda been my 30 pointer, classic uptempo indie!

 

I always say this I know but the performances of the latter and The Comminards track are classic TOTP moments for me. Love how the Rev Richard Cole is probably the most famous current person in that performance 😅.

 

You Spin Me Round is probably the best SAW track, thing is in 1984/85 this sounded fresh, 5 years later it was numbifying!

NO 27- 174 POINTS

 

Going Underground The Jam (Voter: Rabbitfurcoat- 17 points, Doctor Blind- 18 points, Chez Wombat- 16 points, Dircadirca- 13 points, Jimwatts- 29 points, Colm- 24 points, Nina West- 29 points, *Dandy- 13 points, Leonardo- 15 points)- No 1 for 3 weeks in March/April 1980

 

 

So both Jam tracks exit close to each other with this their most popular and also the first song to debut at No 1 in the decade.

 

NO 26- 176 POINTS

 

Let's Dance David Bowie (Voter: Rabbitfurcoat- 19 points, Jade- 17 points, Doctor Blind- 4 points, West- 27 points, Steve201- 4 points, Dircadirca- 20 points, Danvember- 8 points, Kiing Rollo- 8 points, n4yr- 17 points, Jason- 1 point, *Dandy- 12 points, Leonardo- 16 points, Popchartfreak- 14 points, Jester- 9 points)- No 1 for 3 weeks in April 1983

 

 

A new rate record of 14 voters for this one! A Nile Rodgers produced transatlantic chart topper, it means he still has 2 songs left in the rate and sees this as the 3rd most popular chart topper of that year.

 

NO 25- 183 POINTS

 

Papa Don't Preach Madonna (Voter: JulianT- 22 points, Dot Branning- 25 points, Jackjones- 8 points, Donnahjaneymack- 13 points, Dircadirca- 23 points, Colm- 2 points, n4yr- 4 points, …Ready For it- 21 points, *Dandy- 18 points, Bjork- 29 points, Gezza- 18 points)- No 1 for 3 weeks in July 1986

 

 

Talking of acts with 2 entries left here’s Madonna. Her tale of out of wedlock pregnancy provoked some backlash in the bible belt in the US which of course only helped with sales. The promo introduced us to the new short hair image and is the 3rd most popular No 1 of 1986.

 

From here to the top 10 we're on 2 eliminations per day now.

I don’t know the Jam well but if I had voted for one of theirs it would have been A Town Called Malice which seems more interesting to me.

 

I prefer the Bowie songs still to come.

 

I’m not especially a Madonna fan but Papa Don’t Preach is one of my favourites.

Going Underground is very good and my favourite of these three.

 

Let's Dance and Papa Don't Preach are both good songs.

3 number one classics for me, bought all 3, all 3 topped my chart, and I still love 'em, even if the only one I had room to vote for was Bowie.

Yup 3 classics for me too, surprised ‘Going Underground’ did better than ‘A Town Called Malice’!!

I almost made Going Underground my 30 pointer but decided to give it to something I thought had a better chance of winning. It's the impulsive delivery that sets it apart for me.

 

Bowie was a genius and Nile Rodgers still is, but I always felt Let's Dance was less than the sum of its parts. (I could say something similar about another song later).

 

Papa Don't Preach is my third favourite Madonna #1 too.

Cant believe Papa dont Preach is gone! My 2nd fav of the 90s

Sadness :/

1986 wasn't a great year for chart music imo but Papa Don't Preach is certainly one of the chart music highlights of the year I think.

Edited January 24, 20223 yr by Coal Statistics

"Papa Don't Preach" and "Fever" are my least favourite Madonna singles from 80s.

Tomorrow we'll see a track eliminated which got maximum points from TWO voters!

I dont think much of Don't Leave Me This Way.

The Jam tracks are great. Let's Dance is good but he had better in the 80s.