The S19 contemporary music thread.
Here we go again, a new season, a new era, and time to look at the charts of early 1982.
As we begin a new year we see some of the Christmas novelty hits hanging around in the charts. Holly and The Ivy's with Christmas on 45 ( a pastiche of all the Stars On, beat handclap, beat handclap, singles that were in vogue throughout '81) Chas and Dave also cover this genre with their hit Stars over 45 which in the first week of the year is at its peak of #21. We also find re-issues of Slade and John Lennon's Christmas hits at 31 and 28 respectively. Undoubtedly though the biggest novelty hit comes from The Snowmen with Hokey Cokey which reaches a high of #18.
The Christmas #1, and for the first two weeks of January, comes from The Human League with Don't You Want Me.
I give you now the top twenty for the w/e 9th January 1982.
20 Diana Ross Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
19 Kim Wilde Cambodia
18 Imagination Flashback
17 The Tweets The Birdie Song
16 Duran Duran My Own Way
15 Police Spirits In The Material World
14 Rod Stewart Young Turks
13 Status Quo Rock n Roll
12 Foreigner Waiting For A Girl Like You
11 Godley and Creme Wedding Bells
10 Altered Images I Could Be Happy
9 Jon and Vangelis I'll Find My Way Home
8 Dollar Mirror Mirror
7 Kool and The Gang Get Down On It
6 Cliff Richard Daddy's Home
5 Abba One Of Us
4 Madness It Must Be Love
3 Adam and the Ants Ant Rap
2 Bucks Fizz The Land Of Make Believe
1 Human League Don't You Want Me
A couple of singles of note just ouside the top twenty this week include Phil Lynott's Yellow Pearl which will reach #14 in a couple of weeks time. This track was used as the new theme for Top Of The Pops for a little while.
At # 31, and after three weeks on the chart, we find Brown Sauce with I Wanna Be A Winner. Brown Sauce were of course Noel Edmonds, Maggie Philbin and Keith Chegwin from Swap Shop. The song was written by B A Robertson and eventually reached # 15, it was written as a theme for the "Eric's", awards Edmonds gave out to various personalities, it became popular with Swap Shop viewers who clamoured to buy it when it was released as a single.