Just looked at the full top 40 and my favourite Simple Minds track went to #13 - I'm not a big fan of that band really but this is very good:

 

 

As did this really eccentric track a few weeks later, kind of using Duran's 'My Own Way' violin + Synthpop combo but weirder.

 

 

And Kim Wilde's fast synthpop song (I really like the synth production) 'View From A Bridge I missed too a few weeks back at #16. The music sounds upbeat but the lyrical themes definitely aren't.

 

Edited October 16, 2024Oct 16 by TheSnake

I usually hate Madness but House of Fun is one of their few ok-ish ones

That Adam Ant solo debut is terrible though...

 

 

Goody Two Shoes is Adam's last great pop single. There are some decent ones at various times in the future, but nothing this good. House Of Fun hopefully giving Madness a shot at a number one after falling short far too many times - they'd already hit 1 with Night Boat To cairo and Return Of The Los Palmas 7 for me, plus top 3 with Embarrassment, baggy Trousers, My Girl, It Must Be Love, One Step beyond - but 3 is their highest UK chart slot to date. Who knew a song about buying condoms could be so fun?! Patrice's is a goodie, but prefer Fast Love's cheeky snippet and maybe even Men In Black too.

29TH MAY

 

 

It took a 12th hit to do it but Madness finally grab a No 1 single today as "House Of Fun" sprints 8-1 on this weeks chart, and with "Complete Madness" also in pole position in the album charts it marks a double for the band who can now hold their heads high in the pantheon of 80s music.

 

 

That's the headline but the truth this week is what a scrap it was for the No 1 position with the top three all within 9,000 copies of each other. Early leaders Yazoo can blame the lack of TOTP for their inability to keep a hold of the lead as "Only You" slides 2-3 (83,000) despite another 8% hike in sales and was only overtaken at the weekend by the afore mentioned "House of Fun" (92,000) and also Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes" who both had the benefit of TOTP to propel them past "Only You" at the death. It was also tough luck for Adam Ant who is looking for his third No 1 in a year but that now looks unlikely.

 

 

Nicole Falls back this week 1-4 (64,000) and was out of the running to maintain her No 1 position from the off, but we're not quite done with Eurovision yet though. Tight Fit currently have the biggest selling single of the year with their version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" which has now sold 794,000 copies and is the third biggest seller of the decade thus far playing second fiddle to "Tainted Love" and "Stand And Deliver" in that list. The follow up track "Fantasy Island" arrives this week climbing 11-5 (56,000) and is again a cover, this time the track was performed by the Millionaires in the heats for the Dutch entry for Eurovision earlier this year, Producer Tim Friese-Greene saw some worth in the track and plucked it from failure to become a Tight Fit single and now a top 5 UK hit, and the group actually sing on this one!

 

 

 

Album "The Lexicon Of Love" is due next month and will now contain three top 20 hits as "Look Of Love" follows "Poison Arrow" into the big ten. With a promo taking some inspiration from "Mary Poppins" it asserts the clam that ABC are one of 1982's brightest lights and the single flies 13-6 (56,000) to equal their highest chart placing.

 

 

 

Former Lynx backing singer Junior is our final new entry to discuss as it glides 14-9 (44,000), it's the first single from his debut solo album "Ji" and narrowly missed the top 75 when released earlier this year but has now been remixed and the "American Remix" now propels it up the chart.

 

 

Patrice Rushen also has reason to be happy with "Forget Me Nots" upward bound 10-8 (49,000) whilst Ph.D and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts have less luck both falling 3-7 (50,000) and 4-10 (43,000) respectively.

 

1- HOUSE OF FUN- Madness (92,000)

2- GOODY TWO SHOES- Adam Ant (84,000)

3- ONLY YOU- Yazoo (83,000)

4- A LITTLE PEACE- Nicole (64,000)

5- FANTASY ISLAND- Tight Fit (56,000)

6- THE LOOK OF LOVE- ABC (56,000)

7- I WON’T LET YOU DOWN- Ph.D (50,000)

8- FORGET ME NOTS- Partrice Rushen (49,000)

9- MAMA USED TO SAY- Junior (44,000)

10- I LOVE ROCK N ROLL- Joan Jett & The Blackhearts (43,000)

 

oh wasn't expecting Madness to climb to #1 at all, would have bet all my money they never got a UK #1 lol :D

would much have preferred Yazoo but alas...

 

good entry for ABC, more like than love but good song

The Look Of Love is the top track from a classic album, I bought the single and it topped my charts of the time, ABC still are brilliant, Lexicon Of Love right through to Lexicon Of Love 2 a few years back. Fantasy Island is Tight Fit's best single by far, not entirely unlike a couldabeen poppier Abba single, Junior's mama is a good brit-soul track, and yay to Madness on top, witty lyrics topping the chart, whatever next! :)

ABC - The Look of Love and Junior - Mama Used To Say are surprisingly similar production-wise, both the post-disco genre. I like both of them.

 

I think ABC's 'The Look of Love' must have been a big influence on Spandau's 'Gold'.

 

'Fantasy Island' is like a mix between Abba and Bucks Fizz, very good song and I prefer it to 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'

Elton signalling his future career with Blue Eyes sounding all Frank Sinatra vocally, as that was his range after his vocal chord operation in the 90's, but it was quite a sweet record and return to the top after being out of vogue for 3 years despite some great (and future chart-topping) singles. Shakatak were part of the jazz-funk movement, always pleasant and vibes of 60's cocktail jazz mixed with current laid-back versions of dance - but Bill Sharpe peaked in 3 years time with an unexpected collab. The Fun Boy 3/Nana's follow-up was fine, though no up to the first hit, and it was great to have Hot Chocolate back in the top 10 after being a fan for 12 years. I still love the under-rated band, ahead of their time in so many ways, and versatile in genre, songwriters that gave away hits, but also not afraid to seize on a new song if it was good-enough. Speaking of which, the flop in 1981 was a Ricky/Marty Wilde song that could have been a Kim Wilde goodie single - You'll never Be So Wrong (helped by Hot Choc being on RAK Records since 1970, and Kim Wilde also getting picked up by Mickie Most for his label).

 

Yazoo hit the mark right off with Vince upping his game on Only You. Sounds like a number one song (and indeed it topped my chart of the time just ahead of Girl Crazy). I liked the production of Instinction but Spandau continued to generally underwhelm me - Tony's vocals just never managed to win me over, and lyrically ditto, bar the odd goodie like Story Short and Chant No. 1.

 

Elton always seemed to go in and out of fashion didn’t he!

oh didn't know Junior was in Lynx. Mama Used to Say is a great song, my fav of his is Another Step with Kim Wilde.

talking of Kim Wilde, it's a pity her 2nd album didn't do better, Cambodia and View from a Bridge were both excellent

and deserved top 10. Maybe she went too fast from album 1 to album 2?

 

At this stage Kim Wilde was doing an anti-Oasis :) with every song charting lower than the previous one:

 

Kid in America/2

Chequered love/4

Water on glass/11

Cambodia/12

View from a bridge/16

Cambodia was a number One across some countries in Europe in 1982, quite rightly in my opinion as probably her greatest track of a lot of great tracks - it was a pre-Xmas 1981 release in the UK I think, which worked against it as it's not remotely christmassy, but I bet it outsold View From A Bridge/Water On Glass in total.

5TH JUNE

 

 

Roxy Music replace Madness at the top of the album charts but "House Of Fun" continues to dominate the singles survey after selling a respectable 88,000 copies (sales suppressed by another Bank Holiday) and can now boast an impressive 3 week total of 233,111. The success of the album may be detracting sales from the single which helps to explain how it can't quite shake of "Goody Two Shoes" by Adam Ant, that holds at No 2 but on an decreased sale of 80,000 even without TOTP and overall the track is on 215,211 copies and not far behind "House Of Fun" in terms of cumulative sales. It may not be all over for Adam after all.

 

 

 

It's time for Top 5 single No 4 from Soft Cell which may well have some say in the continued battle between Maness and Adam Ant. The band are releasing a remix album this month "Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing" later this month but don't be expecting to find "Torch" on it, the band have made the decision to exclude it and issue this as a standalone single. The song is essentially an uncredited duet between Almond and Cindy Ecstacy and does the trick for them commercially as it rockets 16-3 (69,000) in its second week- next week's No 1?

 

 

 

Duran Duran are a band who probably got more press than record sales in 1981 despite the top 10 single "Girls On Film". In part this was due to a rather risqué video directed by Godley & Crème and also the photogenic appeal of the band, now they can back it up with another top 10 hit in "Hungry Like The Wolf" which leaps 12-8 (45,000) and is the lead single to second album "Rio" which has already made No 2 where it stuck behind Madness. It comes with another glamorous video this time set in Sri Lanka and having a "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" feel to it which should only encourage further magazine covers for the group.

 

 

Two other climbers this week, ABC rise a spot 6-5 (65,000) to become their highest peaking track, and Junior is on the move 9-7 (48,000) with only a minimal sales increase. Moving in the wrong direction are Yazoo 3-4 (65,000), Tight Fit 5-6 (48,000) Ph.D 7-9 (44,000) and the quickly depleting Nicole 4-10 (43,000).

 

1- HOUSE OF FUN- Madness (88,000)

2- GOODY TWO SHOES- Adam Ant (80,000)

3- TORCH- Soft Cell (69,000)

4- ONLY YOU- Yazoo (65,000)

5- THE LOOK OF LOVE- ABC (65,000)

6- FANTASY ISLAND- Tight Fit (48,000)

7- MAMA USED TO SAY- Junior (48,000)

8- HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF- Duran Duran (45,000)

9- I WON’T LET YOU DOWN- PhD (44,000)

10- A LITTLE PEACE- Nicole (43,000)

 

A pretty strong Top 5 again, my favourites here being from Yazoo, ABC and Madness

2 good newies, Torch is no Tainted Love/Say Hello but it's ok

Hungry is much better than anything on Duran's debut, quite the leap forward in terms of quality

 

 

I love pretty much every song in that top 10 except Nicole!

12TH JUNE

 

 

With a sales slump of 17% this week "House Of Fun" can't keep its grip on the No 1 slot as it tumbles to No 2 (73,000) though Madness do regain the top spot on the albums listings, it makes way for Adam Ant who himself sees a decrease of 8% to 73,000 but that's enough in this week to earn the singer a third chart topper in a little over a year by the slimmest of margins. Ant must have feared that the track wasn't going to make it to the summit but he has now sold 288,000 copies in its first month and last week saw a limited edition picture disc which once again may have proved the difference for the second time this year!

 

 

Soft Cell hold at No 3 suffering a more modest decrease to 68,000, ABC continue to climb 5-4 (55,000) and now have their biggest hit on their hands even if it is cooling at retail. Also climbing are Duran Duran who rise 8-6 (50,000) and Tight Fit who bounce back 6-5 (54,000) with a sales increase of 13%, Junior holds at No 7 but a TOTP performance sees him improve on a sale of 49,000 which is enough for him just to pip Yazoo who drop 4-8 (47,000).

 

 

Charlene Marilynn D'Angelo Oliver is a new name on the popscene and has reached the top 10 with a 15-9 (40,000) jump. Her track "I've Never Been To Me" was first released by Randy Crawford in 1976 but made No 97 in the US for Charlene the following year and that was pretty much the story until earlier this year when the track was picked up by a Tampa DJ who started playing it and was amazed by the response. Word got back to Motown records who resigned the singer and re-released the single went to No 3 last month facilitating its UK release and here we are, that was after they managed to locate the singer who was living with her husband and running a sweet shop in Ilford!

 

 

 

Genesis have a new live album today "3 Sides Live" which may impact on the single "Paperlate", the lead track from the "3X3" EP and this week gives the band a 4th top 10 hit rising 19-10 (39,000). The album contains three sides of live material from their "Abacab" tour plus one side of new tracks which contains three of the tracks on the EP, the cover incidentally is meant to be a near replicate that of The Beatles "Twist and Shout"- a nice homage.

 

 

1- GOODY TWO SHOES- Adam Ant (73,000)

2- HOUSE OF FUN- Madness (73,000)

3- TORCH- Soft Cell (68,000)

4- THE LOOK OF LOVE- ABC (55,000)

5- FANTASY ISLAND- Tight Fit (54,000)

6- HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF- Duran Duran (50,000)

7- MAMA USED TO SAY- Junior (49,000)

8- ONLY YOU- Yazoo (47,000)

9- I’VE NEVER BEEN TO ME- Charlene (40,000)

10-3 X 3 EP- Genesis (39,000)

 

Cambodia was a number One across some countries in Europe in 1982, quite rightly in my opinion as probably her greatest track of a lot of great tracks - it was a pre-Xmas 1981 release in the UK I think, which worked against it as it's not remotely christmassy, but I bet it outsold View From A Bridge/Water On Glass in total.

I meant to respond to this but forgot- Yes Cambodia did 229k, Water On Glass 180k and View From A Bridge 151k

Much improved since my last comment in here… Adam Ant’s track is fun, whilst Soft Cell, Yazoo, ABC, Duran Duran and Junior all had great songs

Ooft how close between Adam and Madness! Glad 'Goody Two Shoes' got its time at the top too.

 

'Torch' and 'Hungry Like The Wolf' are good new additions <3 on the other hand I'm really not a fan of 'I've Never Been To Me', the lyrics are terrible

I agree Fantasy Island is the better Tight Fit song. The Look Of Love and Hungry Like The Wolf are both enduring hits from this era.