(16) Junior Murvin - Police and Thieves

Quite why Junior's voice sounds like it does on this record, I'm not sure. It could be that he needs a more voluminous choice of lower garments or the person who wrote the song, did so before asking Junior what his vocal range was. Couple that with the fact the backing band sound like they've been recorded in a disused leisure centre sports hall and you've got a nauseating and monotonous pseudo-song which makes your face do that thing it does when you smell milk that's just on-the-turn.

Junior reached number 23 and disappeared from the chart run down forever.

(15) Ne-Ne Na-Na Na-Na Nu-Nu - Bad Manners

We've all got a word we use for it haven't we; when we've got company over? Bad Manners, quite politely, call it a 'Ne-Ne Na-Na Na-Na Nu-Nu'. Despite that, this is generic Ska at it's worst. Using the same chord progression as five hundred other  songs of the genre, Buster Bloodvessel stands in the background making inane noises, or perhaps is trying to communicate with us in a language he made up when he was six months old? Either way, this song, which is trying to have personality and be 'a bit of a laugh' is just awful.

The original version was by Dicky Doo and the Don'ts, which, just from the name of the band, tells me only pain and suffering down that path lies. Bad Manners got to number 28 with this, their debut single.

(14) The Twilight Zone - Manhattan Transfer

You might know Manhattan Transfer from such hits as 'Chanson D'amour' and... well, that's it really. They did have another six hits, but none you would have heard of. The Europop collective '2 Unlimited' had a song in the early 90s called 'Twilight Zone' but it had nothing to do with the television series. The Manhattan Transfer song 'Twilight Zone' had everything to do with the television series.

It starts with the TV show's theme tune to a 'phat beat' interspersed with some mute guitar, flute and bongos and then a bloke starts speaking spookily over some sound effects until the actual songs starts... even though the verse sounds like one of those songs they'd showcase on an early evening light entertainment show on the BBC on a Tuesday in 1976, it's bearable. However, it soon descends into more dialogue accompanied by that noise they use on The Simpson's Tree House of Horror episodes. Number 25 this got to - number 25!

(13) Chinatown - Thin Lizzy

Not being Thin Lizzy's biggest fan, mostly because Phil Lynott seemed to always do that thing where he sang really fast to try and fit all the words into each line, this song was never going in my favourites pile. I hate the way Phil accentuates the words 'China Town' like he's trying to tell the person on the other side of the glass at a late-night petrol station that he wants a Toffee Crisp but the intercom is broken and they have to lip-read him.

Also, the lyrics are : "There is no relief, There is no beliefs, Not in Chinatown" which makes me gag. F minus I'm afraid. This single got to number 21 in May.

(12) Two Pints of Lager and Packet of Crisps Please - Splodgenessabounds

You only need to hear the first 20 seconds of this single to get the gist. It's another of those omnipresent (at the time) loud guitar, loud drum, shouty shouty songs. It's tongue in cheek but it's still a bunch of talentless morons asking you for your money without giving you anything tangible in return. Another 'comedy' parody that should have been on a sketch show and never committed to vinyl and kept out of people's houses.

Some people probably bought this thinking it was funny but it's not - it's a bloke shouting in an increasingly desperate way as if the bar tender can't hear his order in a loud pub. Hilarious; at least some people thought, helping it get to number 7 in the chart!

Believe it or not, even worse than this was to come from Splodge.

(11) (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone - Sex Pistols

Let's consider for a moment that the Sex Pistols were supposed to be railing against society and the very fabric that held it together. Producing music that was as anti-establishment as they could manage with anti-royalist lyrics, spitting on people and swearing on the telly. Then consider the fact they were just a vehicle for Malcolm McLaren to sell some Vivienne Westwood Merch and if releasing a cover version of an old Monkees song helped, then by cracky, they'll do it! Add to this that Ant & Dec also released a version of this song in 1996 and your vision of what the Sex Pistols were meant to be is shattered into a thousand tiny rainbows, each being ridden by a unicorn.

This was the song they'd play during the segments of The Monkees television show where they'd run around doing stuff but sped up. It just doesn't scream Sex Pistols does it? In this bad copy version, you've got the signature grungy guitars and John Lydon yelling in a different room to the rest of the band.

The room in which they stored their credibility after the release of this single was suddenly pretty vacant. (I did a joke)

(10) Emotional Rescue - The Rolling Stones

I don't suppose you'd ever associate The Rolling Stones with bad singles but pop this on and you'll be scratching your head. Suffering from the same thing that afflicted Junior Murvin, Mick Jagger decides it might be a good idea to don a pair of metal underpants and make his way into the vocal booth.

There definitely isn't any rescuing your emotions after being subjected to this two-chord song which does nothing other than allow Mick the freedom to express his inner demons. He tells is that the woman he's singing about is a poor girl in a rich man's house. Quite what this means is beyond me but I've heard more intricate melodies in Book 1 of the Bass Trombone edition of the 'A Tune a Day' series. As unspectacular a single as you're ever likely to hear.

(9) D.K. 50-80 - John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett

John : Let's think of a really catchy name for our song.

Willy: Well, what are the lyrics? Maybe we can use the first line of the chorus or something?

John: We've taken a sample of a song from a band called 'Sausage' and played it backwards in the intro

Willy: And?

John: They sing K.D. 80/50

Willy: So we call it K.D. 80/50?

John: No, D.K. 50/80. It's backwards.

So, you can see how this single is going to go already can't you? Apart from the reversed sample at the start, John Otway sings into a delay machine so that every word is doubled, subjecting you to a more jarring experience than being catapulted out of a shopping trolley into a holly bush. This group's following at live shows was immensely larger than those who went out and bought their records for some reason so, in order to have a chart hit, they told anyone who wanted to attend their next tour that they had to have a copy of this single to get in (they didn't need a ticket!).

It helped the single up to number 45 in the chart. What annoys me about this though, is that there's a really good song in there somewhere but whoever was producing didn't step in and tell them they had a decent hit record if only they'd dial down the weird. Pity really.  You can hear this song in Erasure's 'Star' if you listen closely, not that I think Erasure were inspired by this - in fact, nobody has ever or will ever be inspired by this.

(8) Burning Car - John Foxx

John Foxx (of Ultravox) was a huge influence on Gary Numan who cited him in several interviews - very respectful. John Foxx probably took umbrage to Gary Numan's relatively instant success on the music scene and I'm guessing that this song was a veiled attack. For a start, by 1980, 'Burning Car' wasn't original and it just made John look like he was copying off Numan rather than, as Foxx probably thought, the other way round. He would have been better ignoring Gary altogether as this sort of electronica was already passé.

Apart from the passable synth backing track, John shouts 'It's a burning car' over and over like he's pointing at one out of the window and he's trying to get the attention of anyone in the room, but everyone is ignoring him and getting on with their sudokus. None of his solo singles climbed past number 31 and this one in particular stalled at number 35.

(7) Bank Robber - The Clash

This was a long awaited release so it was weird when it finally came out and was just a rehash of 'I fought the law' which was a cover of a Cricket's (as in 'Buddy Holly and the') song. You can't get more banal than this; firstly they slowed down what was once an upbeat Buddy Holly rhythm and then tried to cash-in on the Reggae revival by trying out the genre for themselves - badly. Listening to this all the way through is like having to peel one of those massive oranges where the skin just comes off in tiny pieces and then the thing turns out to be bitter and not worth the effort in the end. This dirge of a nursery rhyme got to number 12, which is beyond baffling. It's perplexing. It's Perplaffling.

(6) C30 C60 C90 - Bow Wow Wow

Malcolm McLaren was back with another highly controversial subject - that of recording songs off the radio. More angry guitars mixed with conga drums this time. This song has the distinction of being the first ever cassette single, given the subject matter. Who used C30s though is anybody's guess. Both the A-side and B-Side were on the A-side of the cassette which left the B-side blank for people to record songs off the radio on to it. It's ironic or meta or something.

The backing band for Bow Wow Wow were poached from Adam and the Ants and Anabella Lwin was talent spotted singing in a dry cleaners. The result was this single which sounded like Malcolm had locked them all in a kitchen and told them to just kick stuff whilst he recorded it. The charts were very shouty back then weren't they?

Despite all this ethos, the single was terrible and only reached number 34.

(34) KYRIE - MR MISTER

How confused I was when this song popped up in the charts. I'd been playing a piece of music on the piano for years; it was 'Kyrie in D Minor' or 'Kýrie, eléison' (translates as 'Lord have mercy'), by Mr. Mozart (more on him later). This wasn't the pop version of that classical masterpiece - it was a whole different thing entirely. The mid-80s was awash with songs that had huge anthemic choruses and this fitted into that brief perfectly, even stripping it back entirely mid-way through the song, singing it a cappella style didn't remove the pomp.

I was disappointed to learn that this band weren't included as a character in the new batch of Mr. Men books.

'Kyrie' reached number 11.

(33) WORD UP - CAMEO

For most people of the era, this song will forever be associated with a bright red plastic cod piece. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I probably wouldn't Google it if I were you. This song came from Cameo's thirteenth album - despite this being only the second time they'd bothered the top 20 in the UK. The song borrows a motif from 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' for reasons known only to Cameo but has a unique (at the time) groove and simple melody which made people like me feel 'cool' because I could sing along, hit all the notes and feel like maybe one day, I could wear a big red cod piece too.

Word Up! settled at number 3 in September 1986.

(32) SING OUR OWN SONG - UB40

Not a band I was overly fond of UB40 but this song captured my imagination. It featured Jaki Graham and Ruby Turner on backing vocals and reached number five in the UK chart. 'Sing Our Own Song' is an anti-apartheid song, and quite a powerful one at that.

(31) LIVE TO TELL - MADONNA

What an intro! The first minute of this song is a sonic masterpiece. Atmosphere is one of the most important things to get right when producing music, and this has more atmosphere than a teenagers bedroom. This song features a very different Madonna to the one we were watching rolling around on a Gondola in the 'Like a Virgin' video (in fact we saw a different Madonna with every single song she released).

Here she is sombre, almost vulnerable, speaking of regrets and fears. Her range as a pop star was expanding with every release - and nobody expected something like this from her. It's still an all time classic song - it's not higher in the list because it doesn't really fit the brief of what a single should be and, In my opinion, it was bold to release this as the lead single from the album 'True Blue' when you had others like 'Papa Don't Preach', 'Open Your Heart', 'La Isla Bonita', 'Where's the Party' and 'True Blue' to choose from. Thinking about it, 'True Blue' is probably the album of the decade *checks notes* actually, it was the best selling album of 1986 - beating Brothers in Arms! (However, it was only 10th biggest seller of the decade - Brothers in Arms was number 1)

'Live to Tell' reached number 2 behind 'Rock Me Amadeus' in May.

(30) STRIPPED - DEPECHE MODE

Depeche Mode became louder, darker, scarier and more confident as time went on. This was a million miles away from 'Just Can't Get Enough' and was probably the reason bands like Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam and Marilyn Manson existed and nudged their way into the charts come the 90s. This was the birth of the industrial sound and it wasn't fully embraced by the record buying public in 1986, nor it seems, by the Depeche Mode fan base. It only reached number 15 and only remained in the top 40 for four weeks; it was very definitely before it's time.

(29) LIFE'S WHAT YOU MAKE IT - TALK TALK

The mixture of the piano loop and the wonderous guitar part makes this single a winner well before the vocals even start. It sneaked into the number 16 spot in the chart in January 1986 however, I don't remember this from 1986, my entire memory of the song is from it's re-release in 1990 when it reached number 23. Similarly, their 1984 song 'It's My Life' was re-released in 1990 and reached number 13. Probably the best marketing decision their record company ever made, doubling their royalties without putting much actual work in to do so. Probably.

(28) LAND OF CONFUSION - GENESIS

Hard to believe, but 70s and 80s UK chart regulars Genesis only scored eight top ten hits. Probably because Phil Collins had so many solo hits, it was difficult to tell which were his and which were Genesis. This was unequivocally Genesis though, the searing keyboards, bombastic production and chugging infectious guitar line proving they were probably better as a three than as a Collins solo record or a Mike and the Mechanics offshoot.

The heavy political message of the song was juxtaposed by the whole thing being played out by Spitting Image puppets, making you unsure whether to laugh or cry.  The song reached number 14, one better than their previous release that year 'Invisible touch', which has one of the best mis-heard lyrics of all time : "She seems to have an invisible todger". Have a listen and tell me that's not what he's saying.

(27) PANIC - THE SMITHS

This is absolutely one of the best produced singles of all time. It's flawless which is a feat in itself for a track with so many jangly guitars and syncopated rhythms (a gracious nod to the musicians involved). One of those straight in and out songs which doesn't hang around, outstay its welcome and begs to be played just one more time. Being a protest about 'modern' pop music, when it was played on primetime radio among the songs it outwardly criticised, I'm sure Morrissey afforded himself a wry smile.

If this was Morrissey's commentary about the tepid nature of pop music in 1986, lord knows what he thinks of it these days. Music was recorded by musicians back then, regardless of its perceived quality, I'm sure he'd rather be listening to 1986 than 2026. The Beatles used to release singles that didn't appear on Albums and The Smiths carried that on to a certain extent. Panic didn't appear on an album which probably helped it up to a healthy number 11 in August. If you think it's a crime this didn't break the top 10, just remember that songs such as 'I Want to Wake up With You', Stan Ridgeway's 'Camouflage' and Sinitta's 'So Macho' were all higher in the chart. I know.

(26) BEGINNING (MAMBA SEYRA) - BUCKS FIZZ

I don't know how many drums are used on this single but it's probably more than the rest of the top 40 at the time put together. I'm not aware of another pop song prior to this one that leaned in on the rhythms so heavily, but it lit up the record. The song had actually been recorded by 'The Dooleys' (of 'Chosen Few' fame) under a pseudonym. However, after Jay Aston had left Bucks Fizz and been replaced by Shelley Preston, it was chosen as the former Eurovision winners' come-back single.

The song reached number 8 and became their final chart entry. For those of you not au fait with the back catalogue of Bucks Fizz, I would urge you to give their Greatest Hits a spin, you'll be surprised by how many songs you actually like.

(25) ROCK ME AMADEUS - FALCO

Being a classical pianist by the age of 11, I was probably the only kid at my primary school who knew who 'Amadeus' was. I didn't speak German however so knew only that the song was about Mozart and probably about how he wrote what could have been considered the 'pop' music of his day. It topped the charts in 10 different countries including the UK. It probably wasn't the first 'Euro-dance' track to enter the chart but the genre was far more prevalent in the months and years following.

(24) MANIC MONDAY - THE BANGLES

Written by Prince, the melody of the opening line is exactly the same as that on 1999. For 'Six o'clock already I was just in the middle of a dream', read 'I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray'. The song had been written for Apollonia 6 (a Prince mentored trio) but subsequently pitched to The Bangles who gratefully snapped the song up.  It was a watershed moment that plopped the foursome on the pop map and enabled further chart success.

It's a very simple song with a Nursery Rhyme quality but that's what makes it such a great single - it's hooky and bright. It entered the top 10 and rose quickly to number 2 behind Diana Ross' 'Chain Reaction' in what was probably the worst top 10 of the year - '(Nothing Serious) Just Buggin' was at number 7, 'Hi Ho Silver' at number 6, 'New York, New York' was at number 4 for some reason and 'Love Missile F1-11' by Sigue Sigue Sputnik was at number 3. The 80s clearly wasn't all legwarmers and Rubik's cubes.

(23) THE EDGE OF HEAVEN - WHAM!

I can still feel this in my bones. It had been announced that Wham! were to split up after a concert at Wembley Stadium in the summer of '86. Mr. Michael had become too big for the vehicle he was 'the shy one' of at the beginning. Wham! had become a definition of the mid-80s charts and as news of their split emerged, it ensured that this song entered the chart at number 2, rising to number 1 for the two weeks following. In it's own right, this song is what the pop charts were created for. It's big, brash, loud and glossy, everything George Michael's subsequent pop career wasn't.

(22) TRUE COLORS - CYNDI LAUPER

A truly great pop vocal performance here, probably one of the very best. I'd like to have heard her sing Madonna's 'Live to Tell', it would definitely have given it a certain fractured quality that could have made it even better?

The demo for this song was a gospel-style 'Bridge over Troubled Water' thing, but Cyndi saw through that and completely dismantled it in favour of the stark version that ended up at number 12, criminally. Again, the songs which were higher in the chart tell a story of an eclectic bunch of people going into record shops and buying 'Every Loser Wins' by Eastenders' own Nick Berry (Number 1), 'In the Army now' (Number 4), 'Midas Touch' (Number 10) and that man again, Boris Gardner with 'You're Everything to Me'. You can't say that there wasn't something for everyone in those days I suppose.

(21) ROSES - HAYWOODE

If you're looking to write a good pop song then you'll need a hook, a good melody, some energy, a great vocal and memorable lyrics. You don't always need those things but in this case, they're all present and correct. The guitar part over the inbetween-bits is the hook here. I get chills whenever I hear it and Haywoode's vocal is perfect for upbeat chirpy pop music like this. She'd made six previous attempts to chart but got no higher than number 48 with her 1983 single 'A Time Like This'. 'Roses' was released in 1985 and reached number 65 but it was re-released and made it's way up to number 11 in August 1986.

(20) VENUS - BANANARAMA

This is probably the song Bananarama are most associated with but it probably ushered in a bland new era for them when they'd been doing so well previously. Their collaborations with Fun Boy 3 had been unusual, their debut album was uniquely interesting, 'Robert DeNiro's Waiting' and 'Cruel Summer' were all time classics, even 'Rough Justice' was erring on the more adult contemporary side. However, although Venus is a brilliant pop song, I didn't think it suited them and Siobhan Fahey agreed; after the release of 'Love in the First Degree', she left citing musical blandness and formed the faultless alternative-pop group 'Shakespears Sister'.

'Venus' reached number 8 in July.

(19) DIGGING YOUR SCENE - BLOW MONKEYS

If smooth lounge jazz isn't your thing or you think saxophones are seedy, then I challenge you to deny you like this song. To say its soulful is to say water is slightly wet. It's full of emotion and sexiness and was created by people who knew their musical instruments (including their voices) inside and out. This was their second release and first hit single (number 12) and although they only had one top 10 success ('It Doesn't Have to Be This Way'), they're still around and about in 2024.

(18) OPEN YOUR HEART - MADONNA

Madonna's range as a pop vocalist was stretched once more on this track to the point you believed she was capable of anything. Originally called 'Follow Your Heart' and written for Cyndi Lauper, Madonna's management quickly snapped the song up and with Madge's help, turned it from a Rock and Roll song into a Pop track. This is the highest charting song called 'Open Your Heart' (Number 4) beating Human League (6), Europe (86) and M People (9). Incidentally, Europe's 'Open Your Heart' is brilliant and should have been a top 10 hit for the piano and guitar parts alone. (Incidentally, Madonna's 'Open Your Heart' was stopped from climbing a further place to number 3 by Europe's 'Final Countdown')

(17) HAPPY HOUR - THE HOUSEMARTINS

Paul Heaton is a master wordsmith and an A1 level song writer. The Beautiful South song 'A Little Time' is one of the greatest singles of all time, in fact, most of The Beautiful South's singles were brilliant. 'Happy Hour', lyrically, is superb, taking a swipe at sexism, 'yuppies' and godawful people who think they're something they're not. The chorus glues the whole thing together and Heaton's voice lends a jovial sardonic tone which ensures the song doesn't tip over into anything too acerbic. Genius really.

The song reached number 3 in June behind Wham!'s 'Edge of Heaven' and Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach'. Not bad for a first hit single.

(16) SPIRIT IN THE SKY - DOCTOR AND THE MEDICS

I can never think of this as a novelty single. The Gothic costumes, backing singers with creepy wigs and accompanying hand dances, over the top makeup, huge theatrics and a glam-rock infused re-imagining of the Norman Greenbaum classic all pointed towards 'novelty'. But you know what? It totally works as a genuine assault on the chart. That filtered guitar riff at the beginning is so crisp, it opens the track perfectly. The original got to number 1 in 1970 and sixteen years later, Dr. and the Medics took it to number 1 again for three weeks.

(15) TOUCH ME (I WANT YOUR BODY) - SAMANTHA FOX

You shouldn't ever really do what pop singles tell you to but, if you have to, make sure you've got at least two bottles of hand sanitizer. This single was a genuine surprise. Someone who was famous for something else entirely, releasing a pop single? When has that ever gone well? Well - right here actually.

Ms. Fox had a perfectly decent pop voice (she'd been auditioned by a record company who were looking for a new British Madonna) and with this track, sold the entire thing perfectly well. I'm a little troubled by the metaphor in the second verse : 'Like a tramp in the night, I was begging for you'. Not entirely sure she knows what a tramp is but regardless of that, a decent number 3 hit was a good way to start a much more dignified career.

(14) WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING - BILLY OCEAN

If the musicians union weren't miffed enough by the advent of synthesizers and miming on Top of the Pops, they were forced to write a strongly worded letter when Billy Ocean's video featured Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito singing backup (as they were in the film 'The Jewel of the Nile' of which 'When the Going Gets Tough' was the theme song) even though they weren't the vocalists on the record. The video was then temporarily banned from Top of the Pops when it turned out that Danny DeVito (who mimed playing a saxophone) wasn't in the Musicians Union and that was 'against the rules'. This begs the question of how Jason Donovan ever got on Top of the Pops?

Whoever wrote that moogling (sic) bassline at the start of the song needs a trophy of some sort. The song hit number 1 and stayed there four weeks in April.

(13) HOLDING BACK THE YEARS - SIMPLY RED

The perfect song to explain my opinion of what makes a great song and what makes a great single. 'Holding Back the Years' is a masterpiece. Vocally, musically, atmospherically, lyrically, sentimentally, emotionally - brilliant song but not the best single. It's a song that takes a while to take hold of you, a good few listens to understand fully - a single should grab you straight away. Mick Hucknall wrote it when he was 17 and on it's first release in 1985, it peaked at 51. This was after the band's breakthrough with the number 13 hit 'Money's Too Tight to Mention'.

The song is backed by a beautiful video, filmed in the gorgeous Yorkshire town of Whitby. Just delightful.

(12) IF YOU WERE HERE TONIGHT - ALEXANDER O'NEAL

One of my favourite songs of all time was the single preceding this Alex classic, 'A Broken Heart Can Mend'. I get the same chills I had on first listen whenever I pop it on. It only managed to climb to number 53 in the UK. However, when 'If You Were Here Tonight' appeared and climbed to number 6, I knew Alex was going to be massive. The decorative piano riff which persists throughout the track is gorgeous, layer that with Alex's Galaxy Caramel voice and you've got something wonderous to put on repeat for an hour (at least). The B-side 'What's Missing' is, if anything,  better than the A-side, making it a must buy (if you've got a time machine).

(11) PAPA DON'T PREACH - MADONNA

From the stabbing orchestral intro to the perfect synth bass, this is a perfectly produced piece of glossy pop loveliness. Of course, there's the Madonna-signature controversial lyrical content but it made for an interesting and compelling song with an actual story and message - something not always present in the bubble-gum pop of the time (such as 'Do Ya Do Ya (Wanna Please Me)' by Samantha Fox).

It spent six weeks in the top 3 and three weeks at number 1. The song was tainted for me slightly when 'vocalist' Kelly Osbourne took it to number 3 in 2002 somehow. This was before downloads counted towards chart positions so people were actively physically leaving their houses to part with actual money to own that song. Ladies and Gentlemen, the power* of reality TV.

*iniquity

(10) BIG MOUTH STRIKES AGAIN - THE SMITHS

Originally the 'La-di-da ha-ha' bits in this song annoyed me. It made me wonder how the record executives involved in making the decisions around the production and release of this song hadn't noticed. Then, I got older and my appreciation of such things matured. These days, I look back on this as a watershed for pop music. Everything about this single is magnificent. Joan of Arc's Walkman, smashing teeth, Roman noses and having no right to take a place in the human race - wonderful wordsmithery by the Smiths - maybe that's how they got their name?

The final chart position of number 26 doesn't in any way reflect the genius of this song - probably because none of us were ready for it. Maybe we're still not.

(9) SLEDGEHAMMER - PETER GABRIEL

I'm not sure there was a human being in the UK who hadn't seen the Sledgehammer video. How successful this song would have been without the video, I'm not sure, but it's very well crafted all the same. The parent album 'So' is one of the best of the 80s and in 'Mercy Street' has one of the best songs of the 80s. A number 4 placing matched that of 'Games Without Frontiers' as Peter Gabriel's highest chart placing to date.

(8) THROUGH THE BARRICADES - SPANDAU BALLET

From their debut, a number 6 hit with 'To Cut a Long Story Short', Spandau managed at least one top 10 hit in each of the first five years of the 80s. They skipped 1985 but came back with a bang in 1986 with 'Fight for Ourselves' and this masterpiece of a song 'Through the Barricades'. It was mature and beautifully structured; it showcased Tony Hadley's voice wonderfully too. This, their last top ten hit, mirrored the first in that it climbed to number 6.

(7) WE DON'T HAVE TO TAKE OUR CLOTHES OFF - JERMAINE STEWART

This is exactly how to have a hit single. The muted beginning to the song promises so much and then, after the bass-scratch, squirts pop music in your face like a pressure washer. I taped this when it was on the television and watched it back every single night for weeks. It was the song around which all other songs revolved in 1986 for me. Jermaine did have other hits despite his billing as a one-hit-wonder. His 1988 track 'Say it Again' is brilliant.

You don't have to take your clothes off to have a good time, which is a good job because it never gets above 8 degrees here in the North East of England. The track reached number 2 for two weeks stalling behind The Communards' 'Don't Leave me This Way'.

(34) LIFE IN A NORTHERN TOWN - DREAM ACADEMY

What a debut single this was. Problem was, they didn't follow it up; this number 15 peaking single was their only UK chart entry. Co-writer Nick Laird-Clowes had none other than Paul Simon as a mentor and when he told him he was going to call the song 'Morning lasted all day', Simon told him that was rubbish and to try again. 'Life in a Northern Town' was born, a tale of the decline of the Shipping Industry. The African-esque chorus was sampled by Dario G in 1997 for their hit single 'Sunchyme'.

(33) MIAMI VICE THEME - JAN HAMMER

It's Hammer time, and Jan  can be seen programming a Fairlight in the video - oh how jealous I was. I had to put up with a slightly out of tune upright piano in 1985 but it certainly added a certain jaunty air to 'Alex F' that the composer hadn't intended. This was the theme tune to the hugely popular Miami Vice, a TV show I was too young to either watch or understand. The synth stabs part-way through bear too much similarity to the main hook of 'Celebrate' by Kool and the Gang for my liking. However, this was a very exciting record which paved the way for more electronic instrumental singles in the coming years.

(32) THERE MUST BE AN ANGEL (PLAYING WITH MY HEART) - EURYTHMICS

Long before Mariah Carey tried using every single available note in every song, Annie Lennox managed it in this chart topping piece of perfection. It was Dave and Annie's first and only number 1 single after which they diversified from their winning formula of accessible jaunty pop music into more brooding and serious songs which always made the best of Annie's unique and beguiling vocals. I don't care for many Eurythmics songs but I listen anyway for the vocal performances alone.

Stevie Wonder pops up half-way through with his harmonica - a prolific session musician, it would blow your mind if you saw the list of songs he'd lent his vocals, keyboard and harmonica skills to over the years. His harmonica can also be heard on Elton John's "I Guess That's Why they Call it the Blues", Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You" and Prefab Sprout's 'Nightingales".

(31) SUDDENLY - BILLY OCEAN

Ahh, the first song I attempted at Karaoke and quickly realised that 2-Unlimited's 'No Limits' was probably more my style. Billy had started his career strongly with two number 2 peaking singles in 1976/1977 before disappearing from the charts for 7 years. He popped back up again in 1984 with the release of his fifth album "Suddenly".

The song "Suddenly" was a surprise chart success in that the arguably more-radio-friendly "Caribbean Queen" and "Loverboy" had already been released from the album and reached 6 and 15 respectively.  This ballad (usually a mis-step for a Pop/Disco artist) did better than either, nestling in at number 4 in June. This surprise is borne out by the fact they didn't make a video for the song; it was just Billy on stage performing to an audience. Saved them a bit of cash I suppose and it didn't do the chart placing any harm at all. Billy's vocal here is as good as you'll ever hear on a pop record.

(30) ELECTION DAY - ARCADIA

Nonsense was Simon Le Bon's forte. He was able to write lyrics that sounded profound but on looking a bit closer, don't actually make any sense whatsoever. Simon invited Grace Jones to read a monologue in the middle of the song and wrote this for her : "Cut open murmurs and sounds be calm hands on skin. Carry further entangled strands." Nonsense aside, "Arcadia" is was what Simon, Nick and Roger did after Duran Duran took a hiatus. Everything was highly stylised from the look to the album art work and although the parent album was a masterpiece, it wasn't quite what the remaining Duranies were after. Neither though, was "The Power Station", the group John and Andy went on to form the same year.

"Election Day" reached a respectable number 7 in the UK.

(29) THE WORD GIRL - SCRITTI POLITTI

Thank goodness (Or EMI, whichever you prefer) for the series that was "Now That's What I Call Music". Having purchased every edition up to the then-current number 5 (on which "The Word Girl" appeared as track 2), I was baffled by how many songs in the circa. 30 tracks each edition contained that I'd never heard on the radio or Top of the Pops. This was one such song. A bouncy uplifting pop song with chirpy vocals and lovely bright keyboards. I still think "Scritti Politti" sounds more like a kind of skin disease though.

(28) CRY - GODLEY AND CREME

Kevin Godley was not only a member of 10cc but went on to direct music videos such as , U2's "Even Better Than the Real Thing", Erasure's "Blue Savannah" and Blur's "Girls and Boys". Along with former bandmate Lol Creme (which is what you text back if someone asks if you want milk or cream in your coffee), he directed Duran Duran's "Girls on Film", Frankie's "Two Tribes" and The Police's "Don't Stand so Close to me" among many many others. And so, when Godley and Creme released "Cry", and they needed a video, there were only two men for the job.  Before CGI, they used clever wiping and dissolving effects to make people with very different faces slowly morph into each other. (Something Michael Jackson did on his video for "Black or White" but with much more sophisticated tools.)

Serial producer of hit singles Trevor Horn is involved here but it's not clear whose idea it was to increase the pitch of the word 'cry' until only dogs could hear it right at the end. Sort of ruins the experience, like coming out of a film you've really enjoyed and having the ushers throw popcorn at you as you leave, sort of.

Despite it's mesmerising video and heavy rotation on many different mixed-media TV shows, the song only reached a paltry 19. Baffling really as it belies it's simplicity and is imbued with a wonderful, almost unique atmosphere. Try doing that in 2024.

Incidentally, after Gary Moore and Phil Lynott, this was the second time ex-bandmates had teamed up to release a song together in '85.

(27) SAY I'M YOUR NUMBER ONE - PRINCESS

I do feel a bit sorry for singers with such unique voices that could have gone stratospheric but for the right songwriting team. Kiki Dee is one and Lisa Stansfield is another. If only they'd been luckier with the songs made available to them. This was the case with Princess. She was a session singer and was hired by SAW (Stock, Aitken and Waterman) to do some vocal work on a project for Dee C. Lee. After winning over the production team, they worked on a few tracks together. Once this track was finished, no record label was actually interested in it so SAW created Supreme Records and released it themselves. It reached number 7 and based on SAW's output in the latter part of the 80s, you'd never guess this was theirs.  Sadly, her subsequent singles didn't reach the same heights.

(26) ONE VISION - QUEEN

Apart from the bizarre opening minute of the song, this is brilliant. It chugs along, taking you with it and never stops for breath. Brian May's excellent guitar riff is the kind of thing that makes a kid want an electric guitar for Christmas and Freddie's vocals are probably some of the best he ever laid down on tape bar "These are the Days of our Lives".

Bizarrely, the final iteration of the words "One Vision" are actually "Fried Chicken", which is a nod to a part of the writing process where they didn't have words for the chorus and started singing "One prawn, one clam, one shrimp, one chicken...".  It reached number 7 in November.

(25) THE TASTE OF YOUR TEARS - KING

King made two albums and then they were done. Shame really as they had some proper good singles. Despite the uncomfortable imagery that comes with thinking about someone tasting someone's tears, you'd be really proud of yourself if you'd written this song. It's got so much character and so many great moments - especially the second verse where lead singer Paul gets all shouty and passionate. It's definitely moreish and lights that little flame of nostalgia. Paul went on to host various shows on MTV and became a VJ (like a DJ but for Videos).

(24) WALKING ON SUNSHINE - KATRINA AND THE WAVES

I could never see Katrina and the Waves as a serious band after this single. They weren't a bubble-gum pop band full of optimism and jolly intentions - they were a Motown inspired mood band full of introspection and pessimism.  Although "Walking on Sunshine" was a hit, it ruined their ethos and regardless of anything profound they came up with later, they'd always be the "Walking on Sunshine" band. They leaned into this by writing something similar the following year but "Sun Street" wasn't as catchy and only reached number 22. "Sunshine" got to number 8 and is probably one of the most recognisable tracks of the decade.

Katrina re-emerged in 1997, representing the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest and winning with the song "Love Shine a Light" (which gave the band their highest chart placing with a quite impressive number 3).

(23) LOVERBOY - BILLY OCEAN

Robert "Mutt" Lange might not be a hugely familiar name to you but as a producer and a songwriter his accomplishments include producing the second biggest selling album of all time (AC/DC's "Back in Black") and the best selling album by a solo female, Shania Twain's "Come on Over" in 1997. He's also got his paw-prints all over Bryan Adams' "Waking up the Neighbours", The Corrs' "Breathless" and Heart's "All I Wanna do is Make Love to you".

It's clear from the blood-stirring intro to "Loverboy" that his influence was strong in this track. The best thing about it is it's non-linear style - there's no fear here in the production or the structure. Just listen to the experimentation in the middle 8 - it's so unusual for a commercial pop song. It works though and I've still got this on rotation 40 years later. Superb.

(22) SATURDAY LOVE - CHERRELLE WITH ALEXANDER O'NEAL

Cherrelle was and probably still is an unknown to UK music fans. Part of the successful Minneapolis stable headed up by Prince and Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis (Janet Jackson's Songwriting team), she shot straight into the R&B top 10 with Jam and Lewis' first ever composition "I Didn't Mean to Turn You on" (covered by Robert Palmer in 1986). She teamed up with another singer who'd worked with Jam and Lewis, Alexander O'Neal, on "Saturday Love" before he went on to have a string of UK hits in his own right.

I can't adequately describe the feeling I had when I first heard this. It was an entirely different musical experience to anything I'd heard before. I'd heard a few Prince songs and enjoyed "When Doves Cry" in particular and though this came from two of his proteges, it was the equivalent of having bad eyesight and putting on a pair of glasses. Music suddenly went up to 4K. When Alex's "Hearsay" album came out, I bought it, listened to it over and over for more years than I care to acknowledge and never looked back. It's not hyperbole to say that Jam and Lewis are probably two of the most important and influential musicians of the 1980s (and beyond).

(21) ALIVE AND KICKING - SIMPLE MINDS

Only in the late 90s did I come to appreciate Simple Minds for what they were. Big songs with a huge voice, I always got the impression they were trying to be U2 but without the lyrical gravitas. Jim Kerr's voice was every bit as powerful and expressive as Bono's but the rest of the band lacked an identity and their songs were definitely written more for radio than for their own musical growth and enrichment.

I found the video for this song particularly stressful as they decided to set up all of their equipment at the edge of a precarious cliff. The production on the track was right up my street though with huge reverbed drums, glass piano chimes and soaring chorus vocals that dilate every blood vessel. It's a song that you could release in any year and get a top ten single. 1985 was brilliant wasn't it?

(20) RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT - DEBARGE

In the UK we didn't get a lot of information about American acts like DeBarge. For example, I didn't know if this was the same DeBarge who sang "Who's Johnny" on the Short Circuit soundtrack because that was by "El DeBarge" - I couldn't go to Google so that, and many other musical questions and mysteries, hung around until just now, when it popped back into my head and made me Google it. El DeBarge, it turns out, is the lead singer of DeBarge. Who knew?

Before "Miami Sound Machine" popularised the latin-beat on pop singles, it was present here - written by Diane Warren (who also wrote LeAnn Rimes' "Can't Fight the Moonlight", Aswad's "Don't Turn Around" and Michael Bolton's "How can we be Lovers") and omnipresent in April 1985. It peaked at number 4 in the UK.

(19) DON'T YOU (FORGET ABOUT ME) - SIMPLE MINDS

Simple Minds didn't want to record this song originally because they didn't write it. Several other artists also declined to record it for the soundtrack to the movie "The Breakfast Club". After a lot of persuasion, they agreed to record it and was a good job they did. Despite having a few low-grade hit singles, this catapulted Simple Minds into the zeitgeist and made the record buying public (and the radio) care about subsequent releases. If not for this song, Simple Minds might have continued to hover around the mid-twenties of the chart before vanishing altogether.

Despite the hollow production, this track is a bona fide generational classic.

(18) THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER - HOWARD JONES

Howard's chart career was quite short-lived despite him continuing to release albums and perform live to his army of fans to this day. He first charted in 1983 and his last hit fell out of the chart in 1986. This song has some of my favourite lyrics of the decade, framed by a brilliant musical framework. The backing track is a network of intricate motifs and keyboard genius. The single featured the support of backing group Afrodiziak who also featured on  The Jam's "Beat Surrender", Elvis Costello's "Everyday I Write the Book" among others and one of the group, Caron Wheeler, went on to perform lead vocals on the Soul II Soul song, "Back to Life".

Howard sings, "Treating today as though it was the last, the final show, Get to 60 and feel no regret. It may take a little time, a lonely path, an uphill climb, success or failure will not alter it." I think about this verse a lot for many reasons and were it not in a pop song, it should have won some kind of Pulitzer. The song reached number 6.

(17) A VIEW TO A KILL - DURAN DURAN

Being a self-confessed Duranie, I was all over this at the time. Little did I know it would spell the end of the five-some for nigh-on fifteen years. I bought the single and I went to see the film at the cinema three times in the week it was released. The faultless Christopher Walken plays perfectly off Roger Moore even if the movie is a little bit forgettable. The single stalled at number 2 because Paul Hardcastle's "19" was hogging the top spot, something which still baffles me to this day.

(16) THE HEAT IS ON - GLENN FREY

This song sounds like it was great to record. Every moment in it is filled with joy - from the saxophone intro to Glenn's "Woah-oh-wo-ho" and the "Tell me can you feel it" mantra. It's a blast from start to finish. It was written for the movie Beverly Hill's Cop by Harold Faltermayer (he of "Axel F" fame, from the same movie) and recorded by the second solo member of "The Eagles" to have a hit single in 1985 (the first being Don Henley). Competition for places in the charts that year meant it only reached number 12 despite sounding like a sure-fire number 1 all day long.

(15) HOW SOON IS NOW - THE SMITHS

There's many a dissertation that could be written about this song and still not fully capture what listening to it whilst nursing a tot of Jack Daniels whilst staring out of a rain soaked upstairs window can. Morrissey was always able to capture that sense of ennui behind every human interaction, however positive or mundane. The Smiths probably had no right to be in the pop charts at all - very little of what they released had commercial appeal but they spoke to millions of us in a way nobody else could. We loved that they understood how we were feeling and that we had someone up there in the midst of the important people who understood how we were living and more importantly, how isolated or ignored we felt socially or politically.

The work that went in to getting the tremolo guitar line (having to time oscillating amps in 10 second bursts, stopping and starting the tape to do so) and harmonising the slide guitar pays off hugely. This was one of the secrets of creating an enduring record - garnering a sound that nobody else ever had or ever could again. I'm still not sure if the line "I am the son and the heir" is meant to sound like "I am the sun and the air", but maybe that's part of the intrigue. As the song had already been released as the B-Side of "William, it was Really Nothing", when it came out in its own right, it only reached number 24.

(14) THE SUN ALWAYS SHINES ON TV - A-HA

After the huge success of "Take on Me", expectations were high for the follow up. Given the track records of bands who burst onto the scene with a huge smash hit, it was expected that the follow-up wouldn't reach the same heights. In one of those rare moments however, the follow-up absolutely smashed the first single out of the water. I'm talking metaphorically of course because "Take on Me" reached number 2 and this, number 1.

Where the video for "Take on Me" left off, the video for this picked up and led to the band standing on a stage in a church playing a concert to hundreds of mannequins. "The Sun Always Shines on TV" motors along with more energy than I've ever had in my entire life all the way though until the final bass piano note. Morten Harket's vocals soaring over and above everything else like no other pop singer in the world. This was the second of six consecutive top 10 hits in little over 12 months for the band.

One small tip, if the sun is shining on your TV, just shut the curtains.

(13) SHE SELLS SANCTUARY - THE CULT

The Cult hadn't done much for me; it wasn't the kind of music I leaned towards naturally and nothing they'd done sounded interesting enough to pay attention to - until this single. This has a unique energy which is as infectious as a Disco or Heavy Metal track, somehow incorporating sensibilities of both. Ian Astbury's vocals suit this perfectly, whereas I find them rather tedious on most of the other songs of theirs I've heard. This got to number 15, their second highest placing bar "Lil' Devil" which reached number 11 in 1987. Nope, me neither.

(12) WE CLOSE OUR EYES - GO WEST

Despite the sweaty video, this is a tour de force. The track is layered with so many cleverly written synth parts and overlaid with Peter Cox's gravelly vocals to the point where you almost have to switch it off halfway through to get your breath back. It was the duo's debut hit, reaching number 5 in February and followed by three more top 30 singles in 1985. Cox's vocal gymnastics are quite something - it's a shame they never really pushed on from this early promise (they didn't manage to enter the top 10 with any of their subsequent 8 singles).

(11) A NEW ENGLAND - KIRSTY MACCOLL

Written by Billy Bragg for his 1983 album Life's a Riot with Spy Vs Spy, the song becomes a little less impressive when you know that the opening lines were taken from a Simon and Garfunkel song (Leaves that are Green) and the tune was taken from a Thin Lizzy song (Cowboy Song). MacColl heard Bragg singing it in his rough busker style and immediately heard it differently in her head with harmonies and instrumentation.  She and then husband, Steve Lillywhite, set about recording it. She thought it was too short so Bragg wrote her another verse (and changed "I'm just looking for another girl" to "Are you looking for another girl").

This gave Kirsty her highest chart placing with a number 7 in February.

(10) BODY ROCK - MARIA VIDAL

This song breaks all the conventions of a hit pop single. The intro is weird, the verse doesn't have a "Whistlable" melody and the singer was a complete unknown. She had no further chart success but continues to provide background vocals for artists such as Seal, Aerosmith and the magnificent Lana Del Rey. She scored a respectable number 11 in the UK with this brilliant track.

(9) KAYLEIGH - MARILLION

Lead singer of Marillion, Derek Dick ("Fish" to his friends), looked like someone you'd get drawn against in the Darts Round-Robin at your local on a Friday night. I didn't like this song originally because it was good, which meant it was competing with Duran Duran's "A View To a Kill" for the top spot. Turned out both only reached number 2 behind The Crowd's "You'll Never Walk Alone" and Paul Hardcastle's "19" respectively.

I remember thinking this song was the spiritual successor to Hot Chocolate's "It Started With a Kiss"; love stories are always a winner, especially when sprinkled with regret, could-have-beens and lessons learned. But with lines like "Dawn escapes from Moon-washed college halls" and "Barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars", you just feel this song in your bones. A forever classic.

(8) THE POWER OF LOVE - JENNIFER RUSH

Hairstyles in the 80s were eclectic to say the least but the one Jennifer Rush sported during the chart run of the uber-successful "The Power of Love" made her look like she'd been electrocuted in a wind tunnel. This was brilliant, if you like this sort of thing, which I don't particularly, but I got why it stayed at number 1 for five weeks and troubled the chart for a total of 33 weeks. It didn't kickstart a successful chart career however as her follow-up single "Ring of Ice" only reached number 14 and everything else barely scraped the top 100. Shame really as her voice was phenomenal and really should have been given more exposure - I think she would have done to Beverley Craven's "Promise Me", what she did to this track but alas, it was not to be.

This was the second single entitled "The Power of Love" to enter the chart in six months (the previous one was by Frankie Goes to Hollywood) and there'd be another barely five weeks later when Huey Lewis and The News released the title track to 80s Blockbuster "Back to the Future".

(7) WEST END GIRLS - PET SHOP BOYS

Second song in a row I don't really care for but understand it's importance and unique genre shifting power. Neil Tennant had been a journalist for Smash Hits before turning his talents to 'singing'. It's probably an unpopular opinion but I thought The Pet Shop Boys could have been even better had they given their songs to other people to perform. They did this several times of course with much success (adding weight to my argument) writing "I'm not Scared" for Patsy Kensit and Eighth Wonder, Dusty Springfield's "In Private" and Liza Minelli's "Losing My Mind".

West End Girls won the best single award at the Brits and an Ivor Novello award no less.  It of course hit number 1 for two weeks and remained in the top 10 for 8 weeks.

(34) Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi's debut single spent seven weeks in the UK top 20, reaching as high as number 2 behind Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax". Written by Robert Hazard in 1979 as "Boys just want to have fun", Cyndi, with some lyrical and musical adjustments, turned it into a raucous feminist anthem with as fun a video as you're ever likely to see. Not a bad way to introduce yourself.

(33) Band Aid - Do They Know it's Christmas?

Released near Christmas to raise money for the famine in Ethiopia, this single had sold over three million copies by the end of the year. The brainchild of Bob Geldof was initially hoped to raise seventy thousand pounds, however the single has re-charted and been re-recorded twenty times to date and raised over two hundred million pounds. Despite the rush to get it written and recorded, it's a great single in its own right.

(32) Ultravox - Dancing With Tears in my Eyes

Seven albums into their career and they were still releasing music of this quality. Bands whose introduction to the charts was modest had a tendancy to improve with every release - whereas, those who stormed the charts immediately found it hard to match the quality of their first releases, for obvious reasons. Midge had been around well before Ultravox so I guess he never felt any pressure to match his other hit singles - which is very freeing creatively. The peaked at number 3.

(31) Slade - Run Runaway

Another band well into their career, Slade were 11 albums in and still releasing singles of this quality. It was a brilliant single actually and it was a hit in the USA where they'd failed to chart previously. I'd be surprised if there was anybody in the music industry these days who is capable of writing a song like this. It feels a lot like "Is this the way to Amarillo"; a song which sticks the first time you hear it, sounds so simple but is so well crafted musically, it couldn't be written by anyone new to song writing. Not sure if their lyric "See Chameleon lying there in the sun" was inspired by "Karma Chameleon" but if not, they're the only two songs I'm aware of that contain colour changing lizards.

(30) Bananarama - Rough Justice

Bananarama learned a commercial lesson with this release. It's brilliantly written (all three contributing music and lyrics along with their collaborators at the time, Jolley and Swain), brilliantly produced and performed. It was the kind of stuff I would have loved hearing more of from the Bananas but it's heavy themes didn't resonate with the record buying public and it stalled at number 23.

(29) The Weather Girls - It's Raining Men

You can't imagine anyone else singing this can you? Especially not Geri Halliwell. It's handy that they were called "The Weather Girls" and they just happened to be singing about rain. They didn't mention whether it was going to be sunny later or if a cold front was moving in from the east however. The song was written in 1979 as a post-disco dance track and offered to Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Cher and Barbara Streisand, all of whom decided against it. It was originally released in 1983 but only managed to get to number 73 - it's second release in 1984 reached number 2 behind Lionel Richie's "Hello".

(28) Echo & The Bunnymen - Seven Seas

It was the unusual lyrics in this song that hooked me into buying the 7". Ian McCulloch had one of those voices that were perfect for pop songs - it was such a pity the "Bunnymen" didn't come up with songs this good very often. They only had two top ten hits in the 80s (The Cutter and The Killing Moon which are fundamentally the same song) but bafflingly, their most poppy and commercial release "Seven Seas" only reached number 16.

(27) The Smiths - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

This is another song that deserves to go in a museum and sent up into space for aliens to understand completely what it feels like to be a human being from a working class town in the North. The Smiths were a band that encapsulated a sense of being. A lot of their songs had you nodding along and saying "Yes, that's exactly how I feel" without being terribly poetic about it. Morrissey absolutely loved Sandie Shaw and the title is a nod to her song "Heaven Knows I'm Missing Him Now". You haven't truly experienced ennui until you identify with the line "I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour but Heaven knows I'm miserable now."

There was a lot of wasteland around where I grew up in the early 80s; buildings that had been demolished and the broken glass and half-bricks left behind for kids to play with - so, the video for this song really resonated too. God bless The Smiths. It got to number 10.

(26) Blancmange - Don't Tell Me

My catnip in the 80s was a synth solo. "Take on Me", "I Won't Let the Sun go Down on me" and "We Close our Eyes" had particular appeal, so when I heard the Synth Calliope at the beginning of this song, I was hooked.  Reaching number 8 in the chart, they committed the cardinal sin of making their next release a song which had absolutely nothing to do with their sound, song writing or entire ethos as a group. They released a cover of Abba's "The Day Before You Came" which, being kind, is an awful song anyway, never mind the cover version. Maybe they thought they'd do what Soft Cell had done with "Tainted Love"? That release got to number 22 somehow and their last two singles in 1985 only scraped to number 40 and 77 respectively.

(25) Ollie and Jerry - Breakin... There's No Stopping Us

Breakdancing films were popping up all over the place and one in particular, "Breakin'", spawned this number 5 peaking single. 80's staple drum machines the TR-808 and Linn LM-1 were up front and centre here, oozing with 80s noises - here I am 40 years later, still listening to this and enjoying it as much as I did back then. There's something magical about music like that. The video for the song features a young Jean-Claude Van Damme doing a manic jig in the background.

(24) Kim Wilde - The Second Time

After a very strong start to her music career (her first five releases went top 20) things went a bit awry with the next three ("Child Come Away", "Love Blonde" and "Dancing in the Dark") which weren't quite as catchy, nor did they sell very well. Kim changed record companies in 1984 but still didn't manage to break the top 10 until late 1986. This song was truly magnificent however despite only reaching number 29. It's bombastic, it's catchy and it's got a great synth part. It just goes to show, even if you've got a brilliant single, you never know if the public will take to it or not.

(23) Alison Moyet - Love Resurrection

Another from the Jolley and Swain stable, "Love Resurrection" has all the sensibilities of "Robert De Niro's Waiting" but without the quirks and with a much better vocalist. Alison's debut album "Alf" was much anticipated after her success with Yazoo and it didn't disappoint. All her singles were immensely chart friendly, especially this one; the chorus allows her voice to soar and carry the words like an Albatross on a thermal. Just wonderful. I had the pleasure of seeing her live a couple of years ago when she supported Tears for Fears on their Tipping Point tour. Her voice is even better in person.

(22) The Bluebells - Young at Heart

There are so many stories attached to this song, I don't think I can fit them all in. Originally recorded by Bananarama and written by Siobhan Fahey and her boyfriend at the time, Robert Hodgens (aka Bobby Bluebell of The Bluebells), it appeared on the Nana's debut album in quite an unrecognisable form. Reworked in 1984, it reached number 8 and became the soundtrack to the summer (well, my summer at least). The violinist Bobby Valentino, who provides what is arguably the hook of the song, took legal action when he wasn't given a writing credit. He won and was subsequently compensated for his efforts.

As was a common trend in the charts, the song was featured in an advert in 1993, prompting the record company to re-release the track (The Bluebells themselves having disbanded long before) and saw it rise all the way to number 1. Just for context, the week it hit number 1, the rest of the top 5 was made up of "Oh Carolina" - Shaggy, "Informer" - Snow, "Mr Loverman" - Shabba Ranks and "No Limit" - 2 Unlimited. A song out of time indeed, probably because there wasn't another song of this quality on general release at the time. The Bluebells even had to reform for their appearance on Top of the Pops!

(21) Bob Marley & The Wailers - One Love/People Get Ready

Originally recorded in 1965 by The Wailers, this was re-recorded in 1977 and released as a single in 1984 to promote the release of the compilation album "Legend".  The video (much like The Eurythmics' "Who's That Girl") has a few cameo appearances from Paul McCartney, two members of Bananarama, Neville Staple of The Specials, members of Aswad and Musical Youth and Suggs and Chas Smash of Madness.

(20) Duran Duran - New Moon on Monday

Duran weren't far from a schism but this single from their third album is one of the reasons I'm still quite upset they split up when they did. Simon's voice does a lot of the work here and because of its register, this isn't a song they played live too often. Guitarist Andy Taylor has cited the video as one of the most embarrassing moments of his life - the director asking all five members to dance in the street whilst fireworks go off behind them. Watch it and it'll become the most embarrassing moment of your life too.

(19) Wham! - Last Christmas/Everything She Wants

Another key event in 80s popular culture was the announcement of a Wham! Christmas single. A special slot was created on TV for the premier of the video and we all sat round waiting for it to air. It didn't disappoint and the song has charted every single year since downloads and streams count towards chart positions (2007). The double-A side, "Everything She Wants" is Wham!'s best song by far but it was ignored by radio stations for obvious reasons. They missed out on a Christmas number 1 as the other song George Michael appeared on, "Do They Know it's Christmas" beat it to the top spot. It finally hit the top spot at Christmas in 2023 because of the absence of X-factor finalists and "Ladbaby".

(18) U2 - Pride (In the Name of Love)

A tribute to Martin Luther King, U2 had started to sound much more like a band who could sell singles to the general public. The infinitely catchy chorus and stunning guitar riffs go all the way to making this a single you wanted to replace the needle at the start of the disc and go again and again.

(17) Madonna - Holiday

Madonna's introduction to the wider music scene was quite modest by her standards. A quirky pop song about needing a Holiday reached number 6 in the UK but the look she sported in the video is one which everyone would recognise as Madonna. "Holiday" was re-released in 1985 after she's had four consecutive top 5 hits and it reached number 2 behind her own "Into the Groove". She tried this feat again with "Borderline" (which originally reached number 56) and this also peaked at number 2 in 1986. It wasn't third time lucky however as the re-release of her second single (the number 14 peaking "Lucky Star") only reached number 84. "Holiday" was released again in 1991 and reached number 5.

(16) Talk Talk - It's My Life

"It's My Life" only managed to reach number 46 in 1984 before disappearing. They re-released it in 1985 and it did even worse, only scraping in at number 93. The third release managed to capture a few imaginations and in 1990 it got to number 13, their highest ever chart placing. It throws up all sorts of questions about what used to make people go out and purchase a physical unit of music. This is a brilliant pop song but for whatever reason, it either didn't reach the ears of enough people or I'm completely wrong about how good it is.

(15) Bryan Adams - Run to You

Pop rock wasn't entirely new at this time, but something that sounded this good was. A lot of hair-rock bands like Whitesnake and Foreigner had been floating about in the charts remaining largely unnoticed or ignored but Bryan turned a lot of people onto the concept of loud upfront guitars without the sweat and tight leggings. It's arguable that he paved the way for the likes of Bon Jovi and Europe but "Run to You" is simplicity wrapped up in a joyously produced vocal bundle of rock ebullience.

(14) Hall & Oates - Out of Touch

First appearing in the UK charts in 1976 with "She's Gone" which reached a princely number 46, it took the duo six years to crack the top 10 with "I Can't go for That (No can do)". "Out of Touch" settled at a baffling number 48 in the UK despite it being their best single by far. This is borne out by the fact it hit the number 1 spot in America. It didn't get its moment in the sun in the UK until the group "Uniting Nations" covered it in 2004 and saw it climb to number 7.

(13) Level 42 - Hot Water

When I first heard this, I couldn't get it out of my head, to paraphrase Kylie. That's the mark of a great single isn't it? One that won't leave your head and makes you pop to Woolworths with your £1.49. Mark King's bass is superb and probably better framed in the 12" version of this song but as with a lot of Level 42 singles, the verse completely outshines the chorus (traditionally, the chorus is the main event). None of their first eight releases broke the top 20 and this, their 11th single, just scraped in at number 18.

(12) Tina Turner - What's Love Got to do With it

This is another single that made me reach for the volume button on my cassette radio. That synth-panpipe motif at the start is wonderful and it seems weird now but I remember thinking, "Who is this singing?" Having not released anything in the UK since 1973's "Nutbush City Limit", her comeback single "Let's Stay Together" had completely eluded me despite its number 6 chart placing. "What's Love Got to do with it" hit number 1 in the USA making her the oldest solo female chart topper (she was 44). She never managed a number 1 in the UK but this was her biggest selling single ever and gave her a career high of number 3 (Both "River Deep, Mountain High" and "We Don't Need Another Hero" peaked at number 3).

(11) Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Two Tribes

"Relax" had spent five weeks at number 1, nineteen weeks in the top 10 and sixty-three weeks in the top 100 between November 1983 and April 1985. It had dropped into the top 30 after it's run at the top when "Two Tribes" was released. This reignited sales for both singles and in July 1984, "Two Tribes" was at number 1 (for nine consecutive weeks) whilst "Relax" was at number 2. To say Frankie were a phenomenon is an understatement. They even spawned a T-Shirt craze which was basically a white T-shirt with "Frankie says Relax" written on the front in big black letters. "Two Tribes" was just as energetic and bombastic as "Relax" and was every inch a number 1 single (and even won Holly Johnson, Peter Gill and Mark O'Toole an Ivor Novello award).

(10) Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy - Kiss Me

Original vocalist with Duran Duran, Stephen Duffy fronted the band "Tin Tin" who released a version of this in 1982 but it failed to chart. He then recorded a solo version a few years later and saw it climb all the way to number 4. A few singles at that time contained the sampled "Dum Dum" voice which came on one of the floppy disks supplied with the $8000 Emulator-2 sampler (also used to great effect by "The Art of Noise", a group that included Trevor Horn and J. J. Jeczalic who both worked on the aforementioned "Two Tribes").

This is a wonderfully glossy pop song which frames Duffy's chirpy optimism perfectly.

(9) Prince - When Doves Cry

It's all about the spaces in this song. It's not over produced, it contains very little instrumentation, it has unique drum sounds and a wonderfully simple synth hook between verses. The lyrics are thought provoking and Prince's voice is allowed to sparkle amongst the motifs. They certainly don't write them like this any more. This was the first single from the "Purple Rain" album and if it was something you bought into, this period of Prince's career will still be regarded today as one of the most significant in the history of pop. This was his first UK top ten hit, reaching number 4.

(8) Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

Whoever you were, this song will have had your attention. It was the first number 1 hit for production team "Stock, Aitken & Waterman" (who removed all the musicians from the process of making records), and Dead or Alive's only number 1 hit. Pete Burn's vocals were always quite intense but on this song, they're slightly terrifying. The energy suits the urgency of the track though so it all combines to create a classic which has never aged a day.

(7) Tears for Fears - Shout

"Songs from the Big Chair" was one of the albums of the decade and spawned two of the singles of the decade. "Shout" graced the top ten for seven weeks, peaking at number 4. The Linn drum rhythm provides the platform for the entire thing but its the expert production that brings the song to life. Roland Orzabal has gone on record recently to say he wishes he could go back and rewrite the lyrics for the verses but to us Tears for Fears fans, the song remains a nugget of perfect pop.

(54) Phil Everly & Cliff Richard - She Means Nothing To Me

The Everly Brothers were probably just as important to the base-rock of popular music as Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry or Little Richard. There are hundreds of 60s, 70s and 80s acts who were massively influenced by 50s music, certainly those who crafted their vocals or played actual musical instruments when they went into the studio.  It was pleasing that Phil and his mate Cliff were able to sell records in 1983 and probably not just to people in their early 40s who grew up in the 50s and 60s listening to their music.  I was 8 and loved this as much as I loved Joan Armatrading or Howard Jones. I'm not sure what my point is however. This got to number 9 and gave Phil Everly his first top ten hit for 18 years.

(53) Elton John - I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues

I've never been able to work out if Elton John is an angry man with diva-ish qualities who treats people badly or if he's a cheeky scamp who likes to dance about in massive glasses being everyone's best friend. Probably both. He'd released a string of awful songs in the 70s with the odd gem scattered amongst them; here, he broke free of that and started releasing some of the absolute best songs of all time. Not sure what changed or what influences in his life had come and gone, but if he could have bottled the inspiration he was having in this period, I'd like a few litres please. This got to number 5.

(52) Prince - 1999

Here he is everyone, he's arrived finally. His previous 'hit', the number 41 peaking 'I wanna be your lover' was ahead of it's time and ahead of everyone who heard it's readiness for such raw energy.  '1999' only got to number 25 because, again, the American invasion hadn't quite happened properly yet. Michael Jackson was probably the only exponent having massive hits. This 25 peak wasn't quite the end of the story for this song though because in 1985, it was reissued with 'Little Red Corvette' on the B side and got to number '2', the highest he ever managed bar 'The Most Beautiful Girl in the World'. Stupidly, it was reissued again in January 1999 - I saw it on the counter at HMV in Edinburgh and thought, 'eh?', it's about New Year's Eve 1999, not January 13th 1999. Never mind, it got to number 10 then anyway.

(51) Rocksteady Crew - Hey you

Nothing says 'We use synthesizers' like saying the word 'digital' four times in the introduction to your song. You could tell this was written the first day their keyboard player got a new synth, it's got that 'ooh, an echo setting' vibe all over it. This song sparked my love affair with the 'Now that's what I call music' series.  The first ever album had this on it along with 14 other songs in this top 60 count down. At primary school we had a day when we could bring a Vinyl album in and play it whilst doing work, craft projects I think. My best mate brought in 'Number of the Beast' by Iron Maiden which made me question his ethics and morals. I brought in Duran Duran's first album and someone, I forget who, brought in 'Now that's what I call music 1', though it was just called 'Now that's what I call music'.  This was the first time I heard this song and by 3pm I was singing 'Hey You, the rocksteady crew, Bee Boy Blah Begga-lecka boogaloo'. I've just Googled it and the lyrics are actually 'B-Boy breakers electric boogaloo'. Nope, me neither.

(50) Wang Chung - Don't be my enemy

This is a cheeky little song which probably nobody remembers but you should definitely give it a spin. It's quintessentially what the early 80s were all about and perfectly produced.

(49) Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination

Even Phil Oakey admitted the other two blokes who sing on this were better vocalists than him - although, I can't actually tell which of the singing parts are Phil and which aren't, apart from when Joanne and Susan sing of course. The video for this was ground-breaking, like a lot of videos made in the early 80s (because none had really been made before, they were all quite pioneering in some way). They actually painted a house and street red so from above it looked like a big red dot. They room they're performing in is derelict too and I think that street was actually demolished not long after the shoot. This slowly climbed to number 2 in the chart but once there, fell out of the 40 sharpish, it was only on the chart for 7 weeks.  The production was really weird - it wasn't until I heard the digital version of this that I realised my record player wasn't playing up during the intro. It does sound like the belt on the player is slowing down and speeding up. The little tinkers.

(48) Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart

The video for this was quite spooky, choirboys with glowing eyes and Bonnie being chased through a wet stately home. Jim Steinman penned this song for a Vampire musical he was writing and you can just hear Meat Loaf singing it - but it suits Bonnie's voice perfectly. She'd not even hinted at performing songs like this before so either she begged her record company to let her realise her potential as a vocalist or it all happened by accident. Whichever, the result is a song that will always get the blood pumping and a lesson to all those weakly 'talented' idiots we're lumbered with in the charts these days. There'll never be music like this in the charts ever again - let that slowly sink in like spilt jam on a cardigan.

(47) Kajagoogoo - Too Shy

Produced by Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes, this was as good a debut hit as you're likely to hear. They had two more hits, the band fell out, Limahl was fired, he went on to have some solo success, Kajagoogoo then had two more hits without him and then saw their last week on the chart ever, less than a year after this hit number 1. Nick Beggs was on lead vocals for some of their best work regardless of chart positions though, it's a mystery why all he seems to do these days is follow Howard Jones around playing weird shaped bass guitars.

(46) The Police - Wrapped around your finger

I completely missed this first time around. I definitely wouldn't have got it anyway - the subject matters of Police songs weren't the type of thing an 8-year-old would be interested in anyway. This was about having an affair with a much older woman, 'Every breath' was about stalking, 'Don't stand so close' was about a 'teacher-pupil' situation and 'Invisible Sun' has elements of war and poverty. The album 'Synchronicity' is titled after a Carl Jung philosophy. I have to admit, I was more drawn towards the theme tune to Inspector Gadget at the time. These days though, 'Wrapped around your finger' has more emotional depth than Inspector Gadget and a little more gravitas than the theme tune to 'Rainbow'.

(45) Toto - Africa

Just in case you didn't know what shape Africa was, Toto have drawn it on the wall behind them, helpfully including Madagascar in case you were in doubt that it was part of the continent despite being an island.  They're not in Kansas any more, but in the song they do say that 'Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus' using a mountain as a metaphor for a mountain.

The structure and instrumentation on this song is as good as you'll hear in 1983, and the result is a song that'll endure forever, probably.

(44) Thompson Twins - Love On Your Side

Joe is giving Allanah a foot-up over Tom's back-garden wall so they can steal his apples. At least, I think that's what's going on, on the cover. What a bad idea to include the lyric (Rap boy rap) on the cover. It's like they wanted to ride the slipstream of the zeitgeist but they didn't need to - they were doing just fine doing their own brand of pop music.  One of the best moments in pop music occurs on this song when Tom sings 'I played you all my favourite records' and then plays an excerpt from their earlier minor hit 'In the name of love' like product placement or when YouTube interrupts what you're watching to tell you about some new self-folding trousers.

They had nine successive top 40 hits, some brilliant and some rather less so ('We are detective'????) The legend goes that their record company demanded that they write 'Hold me now' two, despite their protestations that you can only write what you feel like writing next.

(43) Joe Fagin - Breakin' away

I'm not sure if it's nostalgia or whether this is a great single but I absolutely loved Auf Weidersehen Pet, still do in fact, I watched all four series back to back last year and enjoyed every single second, all over again. This was the song that played over the introductory credits and put me in mind of the theme tune to the likely lads. 'Oh, what happened to you, whatever happened to me? What became of the people we used to be?' - that's such a sad lyric and one I only 'got' much later in life. Similarly with this song, 'Breaking away', it didn't have much effect on me in 1983 but these days, 'Don't want tomorrow to be like today, Until the good times roll around again, Auf Weidersehen'.

(43) Fun Boy Three - Our Lips Are Sealed

After the Specials had hit the top with their seventh hit 'Ghost Town', Terry Hall departed to form 'The Fun Boy Three' which I'm sure was a sarcastic reference to the look on his face most of the time. This was TFB3's seventh single, and by far their best. It was co-written by Jane Wiedlin, of the Go-Go's and 'Rush Hour' fame. It got to number 7 here and the Go-Go's had a top 20 hit with it state side.

(42) Men At Work - Overkill

To me, it seemed everyone looked at Men at Work as a novelty comedy band. When the video to their song 'Down Under' came out, it was played for laughs and kind of undermined the talent behind what they were doing. Madness got away with it because they represented a movement, a style, an identity - it wasn't all about the music, but Men at Work just came over as a group of physical comedians who had a 'Baron Knight's' style song about Veggie Mite sandwiches.  'Overkill' is a fabulous song but only got to number 21. Colin Hay appeared on US sitcom 'Scrubs' singing it acoustic-style before Dr. Cox takes his guitar and smashes it against the wall. Iconic.

(41) Lotus Eaters - The First Picture Of You

The greatest mysteries of all time include the Loch Ness Monster, who shot JR/JFK and how this song only got to number 15. They didn't chart again either. It's such a well written, produced and crafted song - it belongs in a museum - this one in fact!

(39) Paul Young - Wherever I Lay My Hat

Paul took this old Marvin Gaye B-side all the way to number 1. It's not the most politically correct song of all time but Paul's voice turned it from gentle bland faire to true soul classic. I bought the parent album 'No Parlez' on vinyl last year and the whole thing still sounds fresh. It's criminal that 'Behind your smile' wasn't on the album.

(38) Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

See previous comment regarding Michael's single covers. This is the song which launched the already pretty famous Michael Jackson to cosmic stardom. He performed his little moonwalk (a move he nicked from Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar) on the 25th anniversary Motown concert here 

At the time, everyone thought the song was about Billie Jean King, one of the greatest Tennis players of all time. It wasn't though, it was about fans who claimed their children had been fathered by one of the Jackson 5, but they would go on to say, 'But the ched is not my son'.

(37) UB40 - Red Red Wine

One of my sister's friends said to me, at the time this song was in the charts, 'it's such a sad song, it makes me cry'. I didn't have the foggiest clue what she was on about - as I said above, the true gravitas some of the songs in the charts had didn't hit me until I'd gone through some 'things' and seen other 'things' in the course of my life. Of course, I've had my own 'Red Red Wine' moments now so I totally get why it's so sad - however, my sister's friend was 13 at the time so I'm concerned as to how she'd understood the message of the song to the point it had such an emotional impact.

(36) Prince - Little Red Corvette

I was introduced to this song in the late 80s when a school friend gave me a mixtape of various music from the Minneapolis stable. Safe to say, I never looked back - this song is so smooth and representative of what Prince did best, oozing with personality and atmosphere.

(35) China Crisis - Christian

China Crisis are definitely the best group you've never listened to. Criminally underrated and ignored by the mainstream, their back catalogue is littered with wonderful tunes, if not the most exciting ones, they're quirky, melodic and gently soothing. This song calms me right down and always makes me happy when I hear it. This got to number 12 in January and they wouldn't follow it up until the following year when Wishful Thinking got to number 9 in January 1984.

(34) Tracey Ullman - They don't know

Purists will cite Kirsty MacColl (one of the greatest humans to ever exist) 's version of this song as the best and original (she wrote it after all). However, Tracey was having a great start to her career on TV and now in music, so anything she released was getting attention. There's a note in the middle after the solo where it goes 'Baby!', which was too high for Tracey to sing so Kirsty stepped in to do it for her (or it was copied from the original vocal take on Kirsty's version). Getting your hands on the original MacColl version is quite difficult as at the time, she told Stiff Records that she didn't want to extend her deal with them so, out of spite, stopped printing the single and stopped promoting it so it didn't have a hope of charting.

(33) Michael Jackson - Thriller

The song is great but as previously mentioned, tie-in a song and a movie and you've got gold for both. People who like movies will hear the song and people who like songs will see the video and become aware of the movie, doubling your audience for both!

The 'Thriller' video was, in all respects except length, a movie and the visuals definitely brought the public's perception of the song up from where it would have been without the video. I recorded the video off the telly and learned the dance. There's a bit where three zombies turn to look at the camera half-way through the dance, and I never knew what to do at that point - it still annoys me to this day. Then they released 'The Making of Thriller' on VHS which I rented from the local video rental shop about four times and watched at least three times on each rental period. Safe to say I was obsessed and looking back, I can see why - the 80s was littered with these big events. Wham's video for 'Last Christmas' was a massive deal as was Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Two Tribes', there was Band Aid and Live Aid of course, and a lot of what Madonna was doing in both music and movies dominated the landscape. If there's one period in history I'm grateful to have existed it's between 1983 and 1986 - add in the release of Tears for Fears 'Songs from the Big Chair' and it pretty much underlines that small section of history as one of the greatest in pop culture. Whatever you think of Michael Jackson, he was absolutely one of the greatest pop stars in the history of history.

Ed Sheeran? LOL!

(32) Rod Stewart - Baby Jane

Red pleather aside, this song is the perfect vehicle for Rod's voice. His heyday was coming to a close and he'd soon be joining the stable of other 70s pop stars who were still capable of having hits but weren't lighting up the record collections of us under 18s like Wham! and Duran Duran were. This song had mass appeal though and hit number 1 without much effort. He managed to outstay all those young pretenders like Adam Ant and Limahl, and he's still releasing records these days!

(31) Men without hats - Safety Dance

We can dance, We can dance, everybody look at your pants. This song was a protest at the fact people were told to stop 'pogoing' on dance floors because they were bumping into people, standing on people and knocking drinks out of people's hands. So the 'safety' dance was one that was much gentler and kinder on people's toes. This got to number 6 and the band didn't trouble the charts ever again. The video is very very strange too.

(30) Ryan Paris - Dolce Vita

If you've read my commentary on my top 40's of the late 70s, then you can add this song to the list of those in my formative years that attached themselves to the part of my brain that absorbs unique sounds. The keyboard sound on Racey's 'Lay your love on me' will always take me back to 1978 - likewise the keyboard motif on this number 5 peaking hit. It's just so sonically pleasing - it makes my brain happy.

(29) Icehouse - Hey Little Girl

Talking of sonically pleasing, this is quite a unique sounding single and as far as I know, the only one of the 1980s that fades in rather than out (there's bound to be more but I don't know of any). I don't know if the lead vocalist was trying to sound like David Sylvian or Bryan Ferry or David Bowie or whether he just sounded like this - maybe he was doing an impression of David Sylvian doing an impression of David Bowie?

(28) U2 - New Year's Day

U2 weren't very well known at the time but it was probably The Edge who carried the band at this point of their career. If you listen to the parent album 'War', there's lots of interesting stuff going on, bombastic drumming, enthusiastic bass guitar and lots of Bono yelling and not quite hitting top notes, but it's in the Guitar layers and textures that the album really lives. It wasn't until 'The Unforgettable Fire' when they started to really gel and well, by the time 'The Joshua Tree' came out, they'd all reached a place where they were all contributing as much as each other. 'New Year's Day' is a favourite among U2 fans and it's easy to see why, bar Bono's shouting.

(27) The Kinks - Come Dancing

Probably the saddest song I've ever heard. Ray Davies sister died of a heart attack whilst dancing at one of the old-time dance halls (The Lyceum). This song isn't specifically about that though, it's a fictional tale of a young boy whose sister goes dancing at the Palais dance hall on Saturday nights.  The reason why this song is so sad is not only because of the inspiration behind it which is tragic in itself but it's that moment in your life when you realise parts of your own life have gone forever. My old primary school was demolished about 15 years after I left it. Seeing a gap where it used to stand was devastating. It wasn't that I wanted to go back there or anything but a lot of my most important memories and friendships were made there. Most of the songs in this list remind me of there too - the song 'Come Dancing' is sung from a time when the Palais has been knocked down and since then a bowling alley, supermarket and now a car park stand on the site. So when Ray Davies sings

'The day they knocked down the palais
My sister stood and cried
The day they knocked down the palais
Part of my childhood died, just died'

you really feel it. There are parts of your life that just ended and you didn't realise until years later when a totem to those times disappears. It makes people go 'why are they knocking that down' when really, its practical use these days is zero, it's just a reminder of when times were different, simpler, better - but only because we were young and all that mattered was dancing, drinking and dating.

(26) Limahl - Only for love

It was actually the best thing for Limahl when he was kicked out of Kajagoogoo, especially when he had a hit pretty much straight away with this and (see previous comments about song-movie tie-ins) 'Never-ending Story'.  'Only for Love' appeared on disc 1, side 1 of 'Now That's what I call Music' and 'Too Shy' appeared on disc 1, side 2. Not sure if any other artist has had two entries on the same volume, can't be bothered to check, but it's a good pop quiz question nonetheless.

(25) Paul Young - Come back and stay

Another single from 'No Parlez', this time an up-tempo affair which showcased the talents of his backing group 'The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts' who were Maz Roberts and Kim Lesley who were instrumental in giving the album its unique signature along with Pino Palladino on bass and the Simmons drum machine. In fact, it was the 'tarts' who made sure this single worked, without them, it wouldn't have been up to much.  They featured on the next album 'The secret of association' and again elevated 'I wanna tear your playhouse down' with their unique sound but then faded into the background for the rest of the album, or, more likely, were absent. Shame.

(24) Spandau Ballet - True

This is one of those songs you recognise from one note. It was massive at the time but I don't think time has been kind. It's a bit boring and not as good as the much more dynamic 'Gold'. This was the third single from the album and if they'd released it a bit earlier, we would probably have already forgotten all about Renee and Renato.

(23) Altered Images - Don't Talk To Me About Love

Don't talk to me about love and don't talk to me about drawing people's heads in proportion to their bodies.  This was the only decent single from the album - which was a bit more grown up than their earlier efforts but then, it was the playful fun vibe that people liked about Claire Grogan and the gang. They'd released two albums and six singles in six months! Because they weren't turning any work down at all (it had taken so long to get any at all, they were flying to Europe for interviews, back to the studio and back out to Europe without a break) they were fresh in the radio station exec's minds - this single was played about ten times in the week before it was released - which was unheard of!

(22) Grand Master Flash - White lines

Now that's what I call music 3. I had the cassette version and I remember on Sunday afternoon with my Walkman and orange sponge headphones curled up on the settee, listening to the whole thing. This is the track that stood out - I'd not heard it on the radio for whatever reason but here it was in all it's glory. It reminded me of those videos you were shown in school about not talking to strangers - only this one was cool people telling you not to do drugs.

I was once on the bus with my wife going to work and there was a bloke on the front of the bus listening to his Walkman, which everyone could hear. He was listening to 'Two Tribes' and from my time listening to 'Now that's what I call Music 3' so many times, I always expect 'White lines' to follow it. So when it was about to finish I said, 'I bet he listens to 'White Lines' next.'  As predicted, 'White Lines' came on. My wife was freaked out. It was just a guess that he was listening to NTWICM3 but now I knew he was, here was my chance to freak out everyone sitting near me too. 'I bet 'Free Nelson Mandela' comes on next', I said loud enough for the people around me to hear ... ... ... 'Freeeee-heeee Nelson Mandela!' Hilarious!

I had to get off the bus before the next song came on - I couldn't remember what the next one was anyway - probably Love Wars by Womack and Womack, which nobody remembers.

(21) Spandau Ballet - Gold

You've got the power to know, you're indestructible!

Great video, great voice and an iconic song to be played whenever anyone wins at the Olympics.

(20) Eurythmics - Who's That Girl

The soundtrack to my summer this. The 6 weeks holidays from school, down the seaside, going on fairground rides, playing on arcades, wading in the sea up to the bottom of your turned-up trousers. The video had various cameos in it like members of Bucks Fizz, Kiki Dee, Hazel O'Connor, Kate Garner (of Hayzi Fantayzee) and Keren Woodward and Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama, the latter of which later married Dave Stewart!

(19) Michael Jackson - Beat It

More Jackson in Jeans but this time completely overshadowed by the quality of the song. Probably his best ever, and with the West Side Story themed video, a masterpiece of pop music. The opening growl is played on a Fairlight - it got me thinking that in the early 80s when this sort of technology was emerging, you really had to seize those new noises. I was writing a song a few years ago and I've got a Fairlight plug-in, which is a software emulation of the original and I came across the instrument that does the opening note for 'Beat it'. Obviously, I can't use this sound in any of my songs because it's already associated so strongly with 'Beat it', it'll never find it's own signature or personality. It's like that for a lot of the new sounds emerging in the 80s, groups had to get the new kit, find all the new cool sounds and get them in their songs sharpish before someone else came along and used it first. Like the synth brass on Van Halen's 'Jump' or the opening to 'Take on Me'.  Anyway, the guitar solo on 'Beat it', speaking of Eddie Van Halen, is stupidly good.

(18) Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Probably the most iconic 80s song ever. It's the one Absolute '80s plays whenever they've had a technical breakdown, like its their screen saver. Dave Stewart came up with the bass line when the thing he was playing wasn't working so he played what he'd written, backwards. That sparked the rest of the song. Annie's voice here is just head and shoulders above anything else that you'd heard before, if you'd grown up in the 80s that is. It hit number 1 in the US but only managed a measly number 2 here.

(17) Belle Stars - Sign Of The Times

I was really disappointed with the rest of the output from the Belle Stars because this song is superb. The rest of their singles were ok - which often happens I suppose. Bands like this unfairly get labelled as one-hit-wonders when in fact, they had one massive song and a few others that entered the top 40 but weren't given much air-play so the casual music lover would never be aware they even ever released any other music.  Their other notable hit was 'The Clapping Song' which was a novelty cover-version.  'Sign of the times' got to number 3.

(16) Depeche Mode - Everything counts

I liked this song originally because it has a Melodica in it. My teacher at school at the time, Mr Dowson, used to have one in his top drawer and would whip it out whenever we listened to 'Singing Together' on Radio 4. We'd sing songs like 'Green Grow the Rushes 'O' and 'Cockles and Mussels'. I loved it and always wanted a go on his Melodica - but never did because it was full of his saliva.  Anyway, Depeche Mode came to my attention because their album was named after a toy I always wanted but never asked for, for Christmas, for some reason, the 'Speak and Spell'.  This tune is particularly invigorating and stands out because of all the 'found' sounds that Martin Gore used as percussion and the like. It enjoyed a number 6 peak in the UK.

(15) The Thompson Twins - Hold me now

I liked this at the time but didn't buy the single. It was in 1999 when I was watching the Adam Sandler film 'The Wedding Singer' when one of the scenes was preceded by this song that I thought, 'Oh yeah, I loved that song'. Still a few years away from YouTube and even more away from Spotify, I bought the soundtrack to the movie on CD in order to get my hands on a few forgotten gems from the 80s I hadn't heard in over 10 years including 'How soon is Now' by The Smiths.

This was the Thompson Twins' biggest selling single, entering at number 31 it peaked at number 4 and stayed on the chart for 15 weeks.  On the later Thompson Twins albums you can hear some of the melodic motifs from their hits being repeated, and not very well - which just makes you want to go back and listen to this again instead.

(14) Nik Kershaw - I won't let the sun go down on me

Nik in an early version of Sonic the Hedgehog

There was a girl I liked at school and I thought I'd impress her by singing the lyrics to this, directly to her face one playtime. She looked like she was enjoying it until I got to the bit where he says 'Old men in stripy trousers', at which she burst out laughing, said 'I love that bit' and then wandered off.  I used to know all the lyrics to all the songs in the top 10 at the time but this song had particularly unusual lyrics so I found them fascinating.  'Here in our paper houses stretching for miles and miles' and 'Pinball man power glutton, vacuum inside his head' were wonderful word patterns to an 8 year old.  It started my love affair with Mr. Kershaw (not in that way) and he's now the artist I've seen live more than any other.

This didn't crack the top 40 when it was first released but after 'Wouldn't it be Good' and 'Dancing Girls' had both been hits, it was re-released and got to number 2!

(13) Howard Jones - New Song

Howard had a great look in 1983 didn't he? His sound was so different to the other synth solo artists and his voice really carried over the glassy twinkling.  This song has a resemblance to Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel but it's just a passing resemblance. It reached number 3 and launched his career. Howard is the artist I've seen the second-most live - even if I'm terrible at grammar.

(12) KC and the sunshine band - Give it up

Excuse me, can I have my table cloth back now?

Summer sun, playing catch in the park, feeding the ducks, lazy Sunday afternoons. That's this song for me. It's so catchy and up-beat and classic and surely finds its way into most people's top 100 of the 80s. If you want to see someone dancing to this as if they've been told their dog's just died, watch the video for the song. Harry Casey looks like he's being told he won't be fed unless he performs the song for us.

(11) Lionel Richie - Running with the night

For me, this is Ironing Board Face's best song. It only reached number 9 in the UK and if you listen close you can hear Richard Marx on backing duty.  The string stab in the chorus was the first time I was aware of it anywhere outside of a slasher-horror movie and it works so well. The guitar solo from that bloke out of Toto rivals that one from Eddie in Beat it.