“Stop The Cavalry” is one Christmas record I can happily hear any time of year: I guess it helps that it isn’t all that Christmassy in the first place.

9	Jona Lewie	Stop The Cavalry	His 2nd and last Top 40, stuck at #3 behind Lennon and Winifred's, this is a glorious march style anti war turned festive song
8	Adam And The Ants	Antmusic	Antmusic would become the general name for their sound: this is similar in style to "Dog Eat Dog" but even more compelling
8	Stray Cats	Runaway Boys	1st hit for this US band: a great track with quite a stark sound to it thanks to the throbbing baseline, and a frenetic guitar solo
7	Madness	Embarrassment	Another really enjoyable single from them: I like how this has a harsher edge to it than their better known ones from this time
7	Robert Palmer	Looking For Clues	1st Top 40 after a few misses for this UK singer, with a great fun and quirky track that blends some different styles and sounds
7	Eddy Grant	Do You Feel My Love	His 1st Top 10 hit with a great and catchy piece of pop with a simmering lilting reggae beat and bags of emotional energy
6	Daryl Hall And John Oates	Kiss On My List	1st Top 40 for the US duo and a US #1: it's the usual bouncy feel good pop from them and enjoyable but not outstanding
6	Queen	Flash	The theme song to "Flash Gordon": I love the electropop come opera elements but am less keen on the spoken film parts
6	Electric Light Orchestra	Don't Walk Away	The last of the "Xanadu" hits: the track does have something of a Disney feel to it but it's well done with a strong lead vocal
5	Neil Diamond	Love On The Rocks	A US #2 that did less well here: this gentle number has nice orchestral backing but doesn't rise above pleasant for me overall
5	Status Quo	Lies/Don't Drive My Car	"Lies" is fairly banal and sounds like many of their others, but "Don't Drive My Car" is very good with a seething intensity to it
4	AC/DC	Rock 'N' Roll Ain't Noise Pollution	Oddly a much bigger hit than "You Shook Me…", this isn't a bad rocky number but somehow doesn't quite pop as you'd hope
3	Kenny Rogers	Lady	It was written by Lionel Richie and indeed sounds very like him: a fairly dull track but I prefer it to "Coward Of The County"
2	St Winifred's School Choir	There's No-One Quite Like Grandma	472nd #1: having appeared on the #1 "Matchstalk Men…" this Stockport choir released another single but it's not very good
1	Dr Hook	Girls Can Get It	Could do with this not having scraped a #40 peak as it's even worse than their other hits and the lyrical message is comical

1980 Group 21:

#310	29/11/1980	Showaddywaddy	Blue Moon	32	50-35-{32}-32-34-34-32-46-70->9
#311	29/11/1980	Matchbox	Over The Rainbow/You Belong To Me	15	72-38-31-24-19-19-18-{15}-21-31-59->11
#312	06/12/1980	Kate Bush	December Will Be Magic Again	29	39-{29}-30-32-32-36-74->7
#313	06/12/1980	The Clash	The Call Up	40	{40}-42-49-69-69-69->6
#314	13/12/1980	The Police	De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da	5	9-{5}-6-6-7-9-24-54->8
#315	29/11/1980	Chas And Dave	Rabbit	8	66-43-34-18-13-13-11-{8}-18-30-53->11
#316	06/12/1980	The Barron Knights	Never Mind The Presents	17	69-36-27-{17}-17-22-37-61->8
#317	06/12/1980	Bad Manners	Lorraine	21	59-37-38-36-36-33-29-22-{21}-25-36-65->12
#318	06/12/1980	The Nolans	Who's Gonna Rock You	12	66-40-39-31-31-24-{12}-17-27-32-62->11
#319	13/12/1980	The Beat	Too Nice To Talk To	7	50-31-23-23-20-{7}-7-13-23-46-72->11
#320	13/12/1980	The Specials Featuring Rico With The Ice Rink String Sounds	Do Nothing/Maggie's Farm	4	70-34-24-24-15-{4}-5-11-18-30-57->11
#321	20/12/1980	Gary Numan	This Wreckage	20	35-28-28-27-{20}-31-43->7
#322	15/11/1980	Mac Davis	It's Hard To Be Humble	27	61-59-46-50-47-36-29-29-34-{27}-34-33-48-56-71-73->16
#323	29/11/1980	Mike Berry	If I Could Only Make You Care	37	60-46-44-40-{37}-37-38-45-59->9
	20/12/1980	John And Yoko And The Plastic Ono Band With The Harlem Community Choir	Happy Xmas (War Is Over) {1980}	2	45-4-4-{2}-3-9-23-49-69->9
	27/12/1980	John Lennon	Imagine {1980}	1	9-9-{1}-1-1-1-4-6-17-23-32-49-56->13
#324	20/12/1980	Racey	Runaround Sue	13	61-40-40-29-18-{13}-15-27-42-74->10

I agree, Stop The Cavalry is a festive semi-regular that never gets wearisome, what a gem. 10/10, though I still think of it as his 4th hit as Terry Dactyl is really a pseudonym plus mates. I think that it's very not-christmassy in the WW1-styled video helps. Antmusic is Adam's first throbbing classic 9/10. Stray Cats were fab courtesy of the Dave Edmunds production, very clean-sounding and modern for such a retro track. 9/10.

Madness drop their first "serious" song as a single, and it works very well, proving they weren't one-trick ponies. I bought the album around this time, which was fab. 9/10. Looking For Clues is an upgrade in sound for Robert Palmer to an 80's synth-sound, and away from the annoyingly non-top-40 classic sound of Every Kinda People and the rock romp of Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor Doctor) which were both US smashes 7/10.

Do You Feel My Love is throbbing Eddy Grant reggae as he reinvents himself for the 80's after the brill Living On The Frontline. A kiddie fave in The Equals in the 60's, it was great having him back and this is a 9/10, my bias has nothing to do with Eddy giving me a follow on X after I was heart-ing Equals Bandcamp re-issues, it's high time they were re-evaluated as a notable band of the 60's and early 70's, they were more than just Baby Come Back. Kiss On My List was my fave Hall & Oates track since She's Gone criminally fell short of the top 40. That's a 10/10 classic and this new dance-soulpop direction was on point 9/10. I'm doing a lot of 9/10's here...

I know what you mean about the dialogue lifts from the OTT camp sci-fi cult film, but there wouldnt be much to the track without them, more of uncompleted song waiting for more lyrics. 8/10, I liked it more at the time when it was shiny and new and colourful. Don't Walk Away was possibly my least-fave ELO single since Ma Ma Ma Belle at the time, or in other words my least-fave single ever by ELO. 7/10. Love On The Rocks plugged The Jazz Singer movie as Neil moved into movies, but I longed for classic Diamond by this point. Dreary. As Americans tend to pronounce Rocks as Racks, that's an appropriate misheard lyric 5/10.

Don't Drive My Car sounded a bit menacing for a Quo track, and may well be their last good single till 1986 7/10. AC/DC proving a huge disappointment to me post-Bon Scott and an unintentional ironic title... 3/10. Lady indeed sounding like a Commodores off-cut, I quite liked it in comparison to his annoying chart-toppers, but it's not a patch on his First Edition era classics. 6/10. Grandma wasn't as loveable to me as Grandad had been for Clive Dunn, it was more sickly than olde-world charming, and my grandma didnt rate it, either 4/10. Better than AC/DC tho. Dr Hook I barely recall, and the novelty was wearing off as the music scene moved on. 3/10.

Love 'Stop The Cavalry', the anti-war themes and brass instruments are both stirring. It never gets old for me during the festive period and I agree with your assessment that it transcends that time of year anyway, happy to seek it out whenever. Great that it managed a top 40 return in 2021 even if it hasn't quite done so since.

'Antmusic' is another infectious burst of energy from Adam and co. They got unlucky with this release, running into the Lennon chart-toppers, but at least it was a new personal best after 'Dog Eat Dog'. The quality of the music video is so poor on YouTube so I hope that gets upgraded one day 🙏

Those Dr Hook lyrics were quite something *_*

That last batch is full of good songs. Antmusic and Love On The Rocks are my favourite songs by those two artists and Stop The Cavalry is always welcome to hear every Christmas. I have a copy of the Flash Gordon soundtrack album, the 'Flash' single doesn't appear on it in the same form as it's made up from different tracks, most of which include spoken parts by the cast, but it still works on its own.

Don't Walk Away by ELO is fairly unique in that it has two different choruses. The part after the first verse has the song title repeated a few times so could be interpreted as the chorus but the next section could also be called a chorus. Both melodies are used again after the second verse. AI is telling me the third part is the chorus but a lyrics website says the second part is the chorus and the third part is the post chorus.

I was able to send an email to Jeff Lynne recently, his management gave out an address to send him messages as he was unable to complete his farewell tour and was recuperating at home. They said he would read every email. If he receives thousands of them, I'm not convinced he will read every one but I would like to hope that he might get round to reading mine.

This is the first time in any of my 3 (so far) threads that the winner of any group has been a song not on Spotify. I thought it might never happen as only a few % of Top 40 hits are not on Spotify and most that aren’t are justly forgotten. However Ms Bush’s Christmas track is just too magical not to receive the crown here: maybe it will appear on Spotify one day.

Note that we’re passing over both the 473rd #1, “Imagine”, and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” here but they will be due in my other thread in due time.

9	Kate Bush	December Will Be Magic Again	The piano and voice combination twinkle and it features all her usual quirkiness, making it 4 out of 4 brilliant hits this year
8	The Clash	The Call Up	This only scraped in at #40 but it's an excellent anti-war track with an almost deadpan, nonotonous and slightly sinister feel
8	Gary Numan	This Wreckage	His 5th hit and the 1st to miss the Top 10, but it's another great synth laden track with a slightly apocalyptic performance
7	Chas And Dave	Rabbit	Biggest hit yet for the Cockney duo based on the rhyming slang "rabbit and pork" meaning "talk": a highly entertaining track
7	The Specials Featuring Rico With The Ice Rink String Sounds	Do Nothing/Maggie's Farm	The Dylan cover is different from the original and works well, and "Do Nothing" is the usual ska style but also very enjoyable
6	The Beat	Too Nice To Talk To	Their 4th Top 10 in 5 releases over 12 months: a good song in their usual style, but nothing very different from their others
6	Bad Manners	Lorraine	Their 4th hit of the year with an interesting lyrical story about an abusive relationship, but musically I prefer "Special Brew"
5	The Police	De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da	Mocking the public's love for simple songs with its nonsense chorus, this is musically quite enjoyable but standard Police
4	The Nolans	Who's Gonna Rock You	I have to admit that I've caught myself humming this a few times and it's a good performance from Bernie, but a little naff
4	Matchbox	Over The Rainbow/You Belong To Me	Their last Top 40: credit for doing a relatively seamless mashup of two classics, making it a moderately interesting listen
3	Racey	Runaround Sue	Their last hit with an inessential cover of Dion's 1961 song, which is a little more polished but very similar to the original
3	The Barron Knights	Never Mind The Presents	Their last Top 40 but amazing that they're still having hits after so long: this isn't so enjoyable apart from the Floyd part though
2	Showaddywaddy	Blue Moon	Another cover of an old standard for them: it just feels like a sing through to me without much of the song's charm and power
2	Mike Berry	If I Could Only Make You Care	His last Top 40: "The Sunshine Of Your Smile" earlier this year was enjoyable, but this is a very dreary old fashioned ballad
1	Mac Davis	It's Hard To Be Humble	2nd and last hit for this US singer who wrote "In The Grotto" and other Elvis tracks: unfortunately this one is dire and not funny

12 hours ago, King Rollo said:

I was able to send an email to Jeff Lynne recently, his management gave out an address to send him messages as he was unable to complete his farewell tour and was recuperating at home. They said he would read every email. If he receives thousands of them, I'm not convinced he will read every one but I would like to hope that he might get round to reading mine.

Aww that's nice, Jeff is a personal legend and I hope he gets back on his feet soon. I saw his last performances on Youtube and I wish he'd postponed or cancelled a bit earlier, fans will understand, I'd rather have a healthy Jeff not touring than an ill one overdoing it! I may go see the ELO Experience who are always a worth a look-in, other alternative ELO tribute bands are also available.

I cant believe December Will Be Magic isnt on Spotify - that must be a choice made by Kate! I've got it on Xmas compilations of the 80's and 90's so that seems a bit random. I wonder if Ken is on Spotify?! That's a comedy track that is fab! It's an 8/10 for me, and a Xmas tune that should get played in the mad season for a change. Havent heard The Call Up in decades, and dont have a lot of memory about it, so I'm guessing it's a 5 or 6/10. This Wreckage ditto but I was disappointed with it at the time, after the run of top singles it was a bit of a 6/10.

Rabbit just annoys me, always has 3/10. Didnt like Maggie's Farm in any version but Do Nothing was the airplay hit, a much better track, 8/10. Too Nice To Talk To a good Beat effort, another 8/10 from me, Lorraine my least fave Bad Manners single to date 7/10. I realise the point of De Do Do Do but that doesn't stop it being a bit annoying, and The Police's least hit single so far, the album had way better tracks on it like Canary In A Coalmine. That should have been the single. 7/10 de da da da.

Who's Gonna Rock You still better than the big hit in my eyes, though not a memorable hit. 6/10. Matchbox's was a weird choice of single, purely for Xmas I reckon, shoulda waited till the new year and another rockabilly cover. 4/10. Racey's cover not as good as the original but worth a 5/10. The Barron Knights were mildly amusing on the first listen and excruciating after that 2/10. Blue Moon is Showaddywaddy feeling a bit tired and samey compared to the new Rockabilly acts 5/10. Mike Berry needed another decent old song, this was a tad dull 5/10.

Mac Davis, In The Grotto oops! I love In The Ghetto! His 1972 hit is also decent enough, Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me, but Hard To Be Humble is a novelty song pretty much. 4/10.