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  1. #26
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    I love Super Trouper too. The video is superb, and I love Anifrid's jumper in that one, so blue and colourful. I also love the way Agnetha winks to camera and points at the spotlight (the Super Trouper of the title) and then holds up her finger to indicate she feels like a number one.
    One of the great misheard lyrics of all time though surely with the lines "I was sick and tired of everything, when I called you last night from Tesco"
    Seriously though, great song, and the album's not bad either with some exellent tracks that could have been released as singles, listen to "The Piper"
    with its haunting lyrics, hinting at a darker side to ABBA. A favourite of Ed Stewart on Children's Choice as I recall.

  2. #27
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    Super Trouper is one of their best songs. In fact it was the first ever single I ever owned. I still have it tucked away safely somewhere. I remember hearing it on the radio all the time when it came out.

    Si xx

    I've just got my handcuffs and my truncheon and that's enough.

  3. #28
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    On 18th October 1980 one of the earliest New Romantic singles entered the charts, but only spent two weeks there getting to the giddy heights of number 60. I'm talking about David Sylvian's band Japan, the single was Gentlemen Take Polaroids from the album of the same name.
    Sylvian formed Japan in 1974, modelling themselves on the Glam Rock movement that was by then fading. They released their first single and album, Adolescent Sex, in 1978. It wasn't until their third album, Quiet Life, in early 1980 that the band really got themselves noticed, although Quiet Life didn't really get going until they released their fifth and biggest album, Tin Drum, in 1982.
    Sylvian's vocal style was often compared to that of Bryan Ferry, and it was actually the comparison to Ferry that drew me to Japan's albums at this time. The aforementioned Gentlemen Take Polaroids contained several top twenty hit singles in 1982 that went unnoticed on its original release in late 1980. It was the release of Tin Drum and its singles Cantonese Boy, Visions of China and Ghosts, the group's biggest hits, and the ones that brought them to the attention of the great British record buying public. Ironically by this time the band had split, citing creative dificulties tearing them apart.
    Sylvian sought a solo career, and his first album, Brilliant Trees spawned two top forty hits in Red Guitar and The Ink In The Well, and also, along with Ryichu Sakamoto, the soundtrack to the Film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, which starred David Bowie in 1983. Although Sylvian's later chart success was very patchy, his albums were, and still are, critically acclaimed, the music and style very avant garde, and tbh, an acquired taste.

    More on the New Romantic movement later as we fade to grey.

  4. #29
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    There was no published chart for w/e 03/01/81 as S18 resumed after its festive break. I believe that officially it's the same as the Christmas chart, i.e. St Winifred's School Choir, but I did read once online that it was suggested it was John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War Is Over) which entered at #4 on the Christmas chart w/e 27/12 and was #2 w/e 10/01. One thing is for sure - during parts 2-4 of Warrior's Gate it was John Lennon's Imagine on top of the pile.

    My personal favourites with peak positions in January 1981 included :

    Antumusic - Adam and the Ants (2)
    Flash - Queen (10)
    Rabbit - Chas & Dave (8)
    I Am The Beat - The Look (6)

  5. #30
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    I never thought that Chas 'n' Dave's Rabbit would be more popular than Flash! Crikey!

  6. #31
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    If it helps, Flash did spend 3 weeks stuck at #10 whereas Rabbit spent just the one week in the Top 10, but it is one of those chart oddities and Flash really should have done better! Mind you, there's a much bigger chart injustice to report on shortly just as the Doctor was returning to N-Space...

  7. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonno Simmons View Post
    Mind you, there's a much bigger chart injustice to report on shortly just as the Doctor was returning to N-Space...
    It means nothing to me!

  8. #33
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    Passing virtually unnoticed in this thread is a great duet by Cliff and Olivia Newton John from November 1980. Suddenly,(from the film Xanadu, the title track of which featured ELO and Olivia, went to number one earlier in the summer), reached number 15 on the UK charts, one would have supposed that with two high profile artistes the song would have placed higher on the UK charts, but the film Xanadu wasn't exactly a huge success even though it featured veteran actor Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John (riding on the back of the huge success that was Grease just two years earlier). I guess a fantasy film about Greek Muses coming to Earth just wasn't to everyone's taste in 1980.

    Incidentally this very week thirty years ago Lennon's Just Like Starting Over entered the UK top 40.

  9. #34
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    I loved Xanadu but I have no recollection at all of "Suddenly". I'll see if I can find it on YouTube and see if it sparks any memories!

    Now onto February 1981 and John Lennon dominates still with Imagine still top when Traken began, then his Woman replaced Imagine at #1 while Traken 2 and 3 were on air, and when Traken finished it was Joe Dolce with Shaddup You Face. A pretty awful song at the best of times, but worst of all for me was the fact that throughout its 3 week run on top, Ultravox's Vienna was stuck at #2, having climbed there as Woman spent its second week on top. Even my Mum liked Vienna (probably the slight classical/operatic feel to it) and it's one of my all time favourite songs.

    Other personal favourites that peaked in February included :

    Fade to Grey - Visage (8)
    Romeo & Juliet - Dire Straits (8)
    I Surrender - Rainbow (3)
    Sgt Rock (Is Going To Help Me) - XTC (16)
    Please Don't Touch - Motorhead/Girlschool (5)

  10. #35
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    Oh Vienna! Ultravox's third stab at the singles chart, the other two, Sleepwalk and Passing Strangers, reached 29 and 57 respectively on the charts earlier in 1980.
    Synthesisers had been used to a lesser degree in pop records for years, the earliest was arguably back in the early sixties with Telstar by The Tornadoes. Rolf Harris popularised the Stylophone in the late sixties, and David Bowie featured one heavily in Space Oddity. Bowie was so enamoured by the instrument he revived it for his Heathen album in 2002.
    In 1975 Tomorrow's World did a feature on German group Kraftwerk, who were about to tour the UK, and who used synthesisers to create their sound. Needless to say, their first UK hit soon followed as Autobahn hit the top twenty.
    Over the next few years other bands jumped on the synthesiser bandwagon and began to refine the sound, which was sounding too stark, clinical, and downright depressing, to be commercially successful.
    The Human League found success in mid 1980 with their album Reproduction and first hit singles, Being Boiled (Hoilday '80 ep) and Empire State Human in the summer of that year.
    Ultravox too were experimenting with these new sounds, and, after a line-up change (John Foxx left and had several minor hits of his own) Midge Ure took over as lead singer and led the band to commercial success. Vienna reached #2 early in 1981, and, as Jonno has pointed out, spent three weeks there while Joe Dolce languished at the top of the charts.
    Lennon's death cast a shadow over the charts, it could be argued that due to the number of his singles in the charts, and at #1 throughout the early part of '81, that Joe Dolce's light hearted single lightened the mood as several other singles were also quite depressing at that time. However, it was a relief when Roxy Music went to #1 just a few weeks later, even if it was with another Lennon song.

  11. #36
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    I feel very ignorant saying this, but I must admit that I had never heard of John Lennon until the news of his being shot. When he then got to number 1 with "Imagine" I, naively, thought it was spooky that he'd just released a new song a week before being shot - not realising it was a reissue, because of his death. A great song though.

    Oh and, erm, my brother bought the single of Shaddap You Face. We've still got it here somewhere...

  12. #37
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    I'm listening to Dire Straits Making Movies album, it's their third album in two years, and I'd been a fan since Sultans of Swing hit the charts in early '79. Making Movies contains some brilliant guitar work from Mark Knopfler, and Romeo and Juliet, the album's lead single still sends shivers down my spine.

  13. #38
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    Joe Dolce was still top of the charts for the first half of Logopolis and then Roxy Music took over for the remaining two parts. I remember being aware it was their "tribute" to John Lennon, so I figured it was a new compostion about him and had no idea it was a cover of a Lennon song! I really like it though, with the sax bit being particularly haunting.

    My personal favourites that peaked in March 1981 included :

    Kings of the Wild Frontier - Adam & The Ants (2)
    Something 'Bout You Baby I Like - Status Quo (9)
    Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads (14)
    Kids In America - Kim Wilde (2)
    Reward - Teardrop Explodes (6)
    Star - Kiki Dee (13)
    Planet Earth - Duran Duran (12)

    Two classic consecutive singles from Adam & The Ants that both would have been #1s were it not for the Lennon factor - Ant Music #2 behind Imagine in January and Kings #2 behind Jealous Guy.

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