31 August 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	11	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
2	2	15	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
3	3	13	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
4	4	9	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
5	5	20	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
6	7	9	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
7	6	12	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
8	8	18	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
9	10	11	Obsession	–	Animotion
10	9	17	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
11	14	9	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury
12	15	7	I Wanna Rock	–	Twisted Sister
13	11	16	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
14	12	19	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
15	18	6	Imagination	–	Belouis Some
16	17	10	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
17	13	18	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
18	21	5	Crazy for You	–	Madonna
19	23	4	Crazy in the Night (Barking At Airplanes)	–	Kim Carnes
20	20	8	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	–	Simple Minds
21	16	12	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
22	26	3	Frankie	–	Sister Sledge
23	25	5	We Close Our Eyes	–	Go West
24	19	16	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
25	22	16	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
26	29	3	The Power of Love	–	Jennifer Rush
27	28	4	Slave to Love	–	Bryan Ferry
28	30	2	Live is Life	–	Opus
29	24	23	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
30	New	1	Turn Up the Radio	–	Autograph

Café Society’s ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ enjoyed a second week at 1 while Kimera’s ‘The Lost Opera’ sat at 2 for those 2 weeks. The songs at 3, 4 and 5 were also unchanged giving us the 34^th time (excluding when the whole chart was frozen) where the top 5 songs were unchanged.

Kim Carnes’ ‘Crazy in the Night (Barking At Airplanes)’ and Sister Sledge’s ‘Frankie’ shared the climber of the week award as they both moved up 4 to land at 19 and 22 respectively. They were the only star raters this week. Within the top 20 we saw 3 songs climb 3 places to be the climbers within that part of the chart. These 3 were Freddie Mercury’s ‘I Was Born To Love You’, Twisted Sister’s ‘I Wanna Rock’ and Belouis Some’s ‘Imagination’ which moved up to 11, 12 and 15 respectively.

The faller of the week award was shared between Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Breaking Up My Heart’, The Power Station’s ‘Some Like It Hot’ and Tears For Fears’ ‘Everybody Want To Rule The World’ which all fell 5 places and landed at 29, 24 and 21 respectively. Within the top 20 the faller was DeBarge’s ‘Rhythm Of The Night’ which dropped 4 from 13 to 17.

‘Some Like It Hot’ and ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ were the only 2 songs falling out of the top 20 and they were replaced by 2 crazy’s, namely Kim Carnes ‘Crazy In The Night’ and Madonna’s ‘Crazy For You’, which were the 4^th and 5^th songs to chart with the word ‘crazy’ in the title (previous 3 being Geli & Billy’s ‘Hazy Hazy (Crazy, Crazy), Queen’s ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘You Drive Me Crazy’). There would only be 1 more ‘crazy’ song to come.

The lyrics of Paul Young’s ‘Every Time you Go Away’ goes ‘Every Time you go away/you take a little piece of me’, but this time when he went away he took his whole self as the departure of his song from the chart meant the end of his SA chart career. ‘Every Time You Go Away’ managed 3 weeks and peaked at 27. He had managed 4 hits, of which only 1 made the top 20 and that was ‘Love Of The Common People’ which got to 8. His weeks total was 35.

The new entry was ‘Turn Up The Radio’ by American rock band Autograph. Apparently the band had to fight to get the song included on their debut album ‘Sign In Please’ as the record label thought it wouldn’t have commercial appeal. The song turned out to be their only US Hot 100 hit to date, going to 29 there. You could say that it is Autograph’s signature tune (sorry). Apart from its American success, it seems SA was the only other place they had chart action, making the main SA charts this week and getting to 13 on the Radio 5 ones, but failing to get onto the 702 or Capital 604 ones. Autograph would break up in 1988 and then reformed for a bit in 2013.

The number of hits in the top 30 by US acts now equalled those by acts from the UK with both accounting for 13 hits each. The Brits had led the way for 8 weeks and 9 weeks back the nations were level.

Shakin’ Stevens saw his weeks count tick over to 80 and he sat 36^th overall for weeks. He was the highest placed on this list of all the acts on our chart this week.

Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ spent a 3^rd straight week at 20 and it was the 6^th song to manage this.

Last week Dire Straits’ ‘So Far Away’ equalled the record to date for consecutive weeks climbing just 1 place. The previous songs to do this were Marbles’ ‘Only One Woman’, Geraldine’s ‘Have I Told You Lately That I Love You’ and Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson’s ‘The Girl Is Mine’. This week Dire Straits set a new record of 4 weeks in a row moving up 1 place as it climbed from 17 to 16. In total it had seen six (non-consecutive) 1 place climbs and was just off the record of 7 which Yazoo’s ‘Don’t Go’ and John Waites’ ‘Missing You’ had managed.

You may have noticed that the songs in positions 10 to 15 all began with the letter ‘I’. This was only the second time we had seen 5 songs in adjacent positions all start with the same letter (this excludes punctuation and the word ‘The’). The only other time we had seen this was on 10 June 1977 when the songs in positions 14 through to 19 all began with the letter ‘S’.

The number of songs that had topped the UK and/or the US charts dropped from the record high to date of 11 to 10 with ‘Everytime You Go Away’, a US number 1, having departed.

Jennifer Rush’s ‘Ring Of Ice’ became the 120^th song to spend at least 20 weeks in the charts.

Youtube playlist:

24 August 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	10	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
2	1	14	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
3	3	12	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
4	5	8	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
5	4	19	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
6	6	11	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
7	7	8	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
8	8	17	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
9	11	16	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
10	10	10	Obsession	–	Animotion
11	9	15	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
12	12	18	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
13	13	17	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
14	15	8	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury
15	19	6	I Wanna Rock	–	Twisted Sister
16	14	11	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
17	18	9	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
18	24	5	Imagination	–	Belouis Some
19	16	15	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
20	20	7	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	–	Simple Minds
21	22	4	Crazy for You	–	Madonna
22	17	15	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
23	23	3	Crazy in the Night (Barking At Airplanes)	–	Kim Carnes
24	21	22	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
25	26	4	We Close Our Eyes	–	Go West
26	27	2	Frankie	–	Sister Sledge
27	28	3	Everytime You Go Away	–	Paul Young
28	29	3	Slave to Love	–	Bryan Ferry
29	30	2	The Power of Love	–	Jennifer Rush
30	New	1	Live is Life	–	Opus

This week saw the 300^th different song top our charts and to make it extra special, it was a song by a local act. Café Society’s ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ took over the top spot from ‘The Lost Opera’ which had spent a total of 5 weeks at 1 in a broken run of 2 weeks, then 2 weeks at 2 then a further 3 week at 1. It had been 203 weeks since we last had a local hit at 1 and that was when David Kramer’s ‘Hak Hom Blokkies’ was the top song. This was the biggest gap between local hits at 1 that we had seen. The previous biggest gap was the 77 weeks between Des Lindberg’s ‘Die Gezoem Van Die Bye’ which spent it’s last week at 1 on 27 May 1966 and Four Jacks & A Jill’s ‘Timothy’ which took the top spot on 17 November 1967. ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ had been the 35^th local chart topper and sadly would be the last.

Belouis Some’s ‘Imagination’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 6 places from 24 to 18 and it was the only new entry into the top 20. It replaced REO Speedwagon’s ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ which was the faller of the week, dropping 5 from 17 to 22.

Within the top 20 it was Twisted Sister’s ‘I Wanna Rock’ which took the climbing honours, moving up 4 from 19 to 15 while The Power Station’s ‘Some Like It Hot’ fell 3 from 16 to 19 to take the faller award for that part of the chart. It had been in the top 20 for 10 weeks and peaked at 10 making it the 67^th song to have and equal top 20 weeks and peak figure. The 2 aforementioned climbers were the only star raters this week.

Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Breaking Up My Heart’ spent a second week as the oldest in the top 30 as it moved on to 22 weeks while ‘We Are The World’ by USA for Africa was still the oldest in the top 20 as it moved on to 16 weeks in that part of the chart.

Only 1 song left the chart this week and that was Gino Vannelli’s ‘Black Cars’. It had spent 11 weeks in the charts and peaked at 23. This was the second longest run in the top 30 without cracking the top 20 with Kool & The Gang’s ‘Joanna’ holding the record with a 13 week run. It peaked at 21. Gino still had a few hits to come.

The new entry was our first chart hit by an Austrian band. Opus hailed from Graz in Austria and they had been around since 1973 but only seemed to record their first record in 1980 (a single called ‘My Style’ and an album called ‘Daydream’). They hit the big time in 1985 when their hit ‘Live Is Life’ (our new entry this week) went to the top of the charts in Austria, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden and just missed out in Belgium, Norway, Switzerland and Zimbabwe where it got to number 2. It made it to 6 in the UK and even managed a peak of 36 on the US Hot 100. The only local radio chart it made was the Capital 604 one where it got to number 9. Austria was the 29^th country to produce an SA chart hit. In 1987 Laibach, an industrial rock band from Slovenia, recorded a rather dramatic version of the song and that version went to number 11 on the UK Indie charts.

UK acts accounted for 10 of the top 20 hits this week. It had been 19 weeks since they had made up at least half the top 20.

Jennifer Rush moved on to 20 weeks in the charts, accumulating 2 weeks this week as both ‘Ring Of Ice’ and ‘The Power Of Love’ were in the charts. We also saw Duran Duran reach 60 weeks. They were the 75^th act to reach this milestone.

This week was the second with a record equalling 11 songs in the charts that had topped the UK and/or the US charts and these were the same 11 that were listed for last week’s chart.

Youtube playlist:

17 August 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	13	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
2	2	9	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
3	5	11	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
4	3	18	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
5	6	7	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
6	4	10	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
7	13	7	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
8	7	16	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
9	8	14	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
10	10	9	Obsession	–	Animotion
11	9	15	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
12	11	17	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
13	12	16	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
14	16	10	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
15	18	7	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury
16	14	14	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
17	15	14	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
18	19	8	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
19	20	5	I Wanna Rock	–	Twisted Sister
20	21	6	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	–	Simple Minds
21	17	21	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
22	24	3	Crazy for You	–	Madonna
23	28	2	Crazy in the Night (Barking At Airplanes)	–	Kim Carnes
24	25	4	Imagination	–	Belouis Some
25	23	11	Black Cars	–	Gino Vannelli
26	26	3	We Close Our Eyes	–	Go West
27	New	1	Frankie	–	Sister Sledge
28	29	2	Everytime You Go Away	–	Paul Young
29	30	2	Slave to Love	–	Bryan Ferry
30	New	1	The Power of Love	–	Jennifer Rush

‘The Lost Opera’ by Kimera & The Operaiders became the 7^th song to spend at least 3 weeks at 1 after regaining the top spot.  Dawn’s ‘Knock Three Times’ had managed 4 weeks while Daniel Boone’s ‘Beautiful Sunday’ managed 4 weeks, then after another week off took the top spot for another week, giving a total of 5 weeks after first regaining the top spot. ‘The Lost Opera’ had now spent a total of 5 weeks at 1 and was the 82^nd song to clock up this many.

Climber of the week was Dead or Alive’s ‘Lover Come Back To Me’ which moved up 6 from 13 to 7. It was the second time for the song as it had picked up the award 4 weeks earlier. It would be the climber in both the top 20 and the top 30. The only other star rater climb this week was Kim Carnes’ ‘Crazy In The Night’ which moved up 5 from 28 to 23.

Shakin’ Stevens became the 46^th act to pick up at least 6 biggest faller awards as his ‘Breaking Up My Heart’ scooped up the honours this week with a 4 place drop from 17 to 21. It was the only song leaving the top 20 and it was replaced by Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ which moved up from 21 to 20. The biggest faller in the top 20 was shared between 4 songs and they were REO Speedwagon’s ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’, The Power Station’s ‘Some Like It Hot’, Glenn Frey’s ‘The Heat Is On’ and Duran Duran’s ‘A View To A Kill’ which all fell 2 places to land at 17, 16, 11 and 6 respectively.

‘Breaking Up My Heart’ had been the oldest in the top 20 and that honour now fell to USA For Africa’s ‘We Are The World’ which was on 15 top 20 weeks. However, ‘Breaking Up My Heart’ did become the oldest in the top 30 as the oldest on last week’s chart, Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’, was 1 of 2 songs to depart the chart. ‘Loverboy’ had been with us for 24 weeks and spent 11 weeks at 1, the tied 3^rd highest number of weeks at 1. This ended a 43 week run with at least 1 hit in the chart for Ocean.  It was the 4^th longest run we had seen to date.

Also going was Nik Kershaw’s ‘Wide Boy’ which lasted just 2 weeks and peaked at 27. This would mark the end of the SA chart road for Nik who had seen 3 hits chart, accumulated 29 weeks in total and saw a best peak of 9 with ‘The Riddle’.

The first new entry was Sister Sledge’s ‘Frankie’. The song was written by Denise Rich and was her first major success as a songwriter. She went on to write songs for Diana Ross, Celine Dion and Anastacia amongst others. Production credits went to Chic’s Nile Rodgers, giving him his 10^th credit on an SA chart hit. He was the 39^th producer to have seen 10 hits although with any stats around producers, the caveat that producer credits are not always noted must apply. ‘Frankie’ would go to number 1 in the UK and spend 4 weeks at the top of the charts there. The music video portrays Frankie as a postman, but apparently the song is about Frank Sinatra. It was not as successful in the US where it only got to number 75. It would go top 10 in Belgium (#4), The Netherlands (#10), New Zealand (#3) and Zimbabwe (#2). On the local radio charts it made it to the top of the Capital 604 ones and peak at 4 on Radio 5 and 6 on 702.

Jennifer Rush became the 90^th act and the 16^th female artist to see at least 2 in the charts in the same week as ‘The Power Of Love’ joined ‘Ring Of Ice’ in the top 30. ‘The Power Of Love’ was the 2^nd of 3 different songs with that title to make the UK charts in the space of 9 months with Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s song kicking off the run, charting on 1 December 1984. Rush’s song charted on 22 June 1985 and the Huey Lewis & The News’ ‘The Power Of Love’ started its chart run on 31 August 1985. Like the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song, Jennifer Rush’s one would also top the UK charts. It would see a run of 5 weeks at 1 and go on to be the biggest selling single in the UK for 1985. It would also top the charts in Australia, Austria, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway. Rush also recorded a Spanish version which topped the charts in Spain. It would get to 4 in Zimbabwe and top the Radio 702 charts. It was less successful on the Capital 604 and Radio 5 charts where it peaked at 12 and 17 respectively.

After 3 weeks of having 15 or more in the charts, the UK acts dropped below accounting for half the chart as their count fell to 14 of the top 30. Groups still accounted for more than half the chart with 16 of the 30 being by them.

Dire Straits clocked up their 20^th week in the charts while we saw the 30^th week in a row where there was no change in position on the top 20 list for weeks by acts. This was a new record run for an unchanged top 20 overall weeks list. It had been 104 weeks since we last saw a change in the top 20 of the local weeks count list.

With both new entries having topped the UK charts, we now had a record equalling 11 hits which had topped the UK, US or both charts. These hits were ‘19’ (UK), ‘A View To A Kill’ (US), ‘We Are The World’ (both), ‘I Know Him So Well’ (UK), ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ (US), ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ (US), ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ (US), ‘Crazy For You’ (US), ‘Frankie’ (UK), ‘Every Time You Go Away’ (US), ‘The Power Of Love’ (UK). This was the 3^rd week where we had seen 11 UK/US chart toppers with the previous 2 times being 8 July 1983 and the week after it, 15 July 1983.

Youtube playlist:

10 August 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	12	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
2	5	8	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
3	2	17	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
4	4	9	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
5	7	10	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
6	12	6	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
7	3	15	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
8	6	13	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
9	8	14	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
10	19	8	Obsession	–	Animotion
11	9	16	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
12	10	15	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
13	15	6	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
14	13	13	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
15	11	13	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
16	16	9	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
17	14	20	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
18	21	6	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury
19	20	7	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
20	22	4	I Wanna Rock	–	Twisted Sister
21	24	5	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	–	Simple Minds
22	17	24	Loverboy	–	Billy Ocean
23	25	10	Black Cars	–	Gino Vannelli
24	29	2	Crazy for You	–	Madonna
25	26	3	Imagination	–	Belouis Some
26	27	2	We Close Our Eyes	–	Go West
27	28	2	Wide Boy	–	Nik Kershaw
28	New	1	Crazy in the Night (Barking At Airplanes)	–	Kim Carnes
29	New	1	Everytime You Go Away	–	Paul Young
30	New	1	Slave to Love	–	Bryan Ferry

Having regained the top spot last week, The Lost Opera’ held on to it to make it 2 weeks in a row and 4 weeks overall at 1. The song that interrupted its run, Jennifer Rush’s ‘Ring Of Ice’, dropped to 2 while Café Society’s ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ moved up to 2. We had to go back to 13 August 1983 to find the last time we had a local song riding so high in the charts and that was when John Ireland’s ‘I Like…’ was at 2.

Animation’s ‘Obsession’ took the climber of the week award with a 9 place jump from 19 to 10. This would be the climber both within the top 20 and the top 30. Paul Hardcastle’s ‘19’ and Madonna’s ‘Crazy For You’ were the only other star raters this week with the former climbing 6 from 12 to 6 and the latter moving up 5 from 29 to 24.

The faller of the week was Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’ which dropped 5 from 17 to 22. Ocean had been on 25 weeks when he picked up his 5^th biggest faller award and 28 weeks when he picked up his 6^th and those were the all-time record lowest weeks for picking up that many fallers. However, with this, his 7^th time, he had move on to 52 weeks and was 9 weeks ahead of the lowest weeks for a 7^th faller. That honour was held by The Sweet who saw their 7^th biggest faller when they were sitting on 43 weeks.

REO Speedwagon’s ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ and USA for Africa’s ‘We Are The World’ were the fallers within the top 20 as they both dropped 4 places to land at 15 and 7 respectively.

‘Loverboy’ was still the oldest in the top 30 sitting on 24 weeks, but we now had to look to Shakin’s Stevens’ ‘Breaking Up My Heart’ for the granddaddy of the top 20. It had spent 19 weeks in that part of the chart.

Apart from ‘Loverboy’ leaving the top 20, we also saw The Commodores’ ‘Nightshift’ fall, not only out of the top 20, but completely off the charts (more on that later). The new entries into the top 20 were Freddie Mercury’s ‘I Was Born To Love You’ and Twisted Sister’s ‘I Wanna Rock’ which moved up to 18 and 20 respectively.

Wham!s 50 week run in the charts with at least 1 in the chart came to an end this week as ‘Everything She Wants’ left the top 30. This had been the longest run by an act so far and George Michael, who had composed the Wham! tunes also saw his run as a songwriter end and he sat second overall for a run by a songwriter. ‘Everything She Wants’ had managed 20 weeks in the charts and peaked at 5, the band’s best peak and second best weeks figure to date. ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ had managed 24 weeks, but only peaked at 9. There was still more to come from them.

Madonna’s time with 2 in the chart lasted just 1 week as ‘Material Girl’ left the chart this week following ‘Crazy For You’s entry into the chart last week. ‘Material Girl’ had seen a run of 15 weeks in the charts and peaked at 6 which was 4 places lower and 2 weeks less than ‘Like A Virgin’ which was the first of her 3 hits to chart.

Kim Carnes returned to the charts 135 weeks after her last hit, ‘Voyeur’ had left. Carnes had topped the charts in 1981 with ‘Bette Davis Eyes’, but ‘Voyeur’ (her 1982 hit), only made it to 12. Her new one was ‘Crazy In The Night (Barking At Airplanes)’. Despite the bit in brackets being included in the title, there is nothing about barking or airplanes in the lyrics of the song. It was, however, a reference to the title of the album that the song was taken from, Carnes’ 9^th studio album. The song would get to 8 in Austria, 11 in New Zealand and 15 in the US. To date it remains her last top 20 hit in the US. She had a couple of Hot 100 hits after this, but neither made it to the top 50 there. On the local radio charts it made it to 9 on the 702 ones and 10 on Capital 604 but didn’t make the Radio 5 ones.

Paul Young saw his 4^th hit make our charts in the form of ‘Every Time You Go Away’. Two of his previous 3 hits had failed to get into the top 20, but he changed that with ‘Love Of The Common People’ which made it to 8. ‘Every Time You Go Away’ was written by Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates fame and that duo recorded their own version which appeared on their 1980 album ‘Voices’ but was not released as a single. Young’s cover version would bag him his only US number 1 to date where it lasted 1 week at the top spot. It would also top the Canadian charts, but just miss out in Ireland and Norway where it peaked at 2. On the local radio charts, it would make it to 3 on Capital 604, 4 on Radio 5 and 12 on 702.

The final new entry was Bryan Ferry’s ‘Slave To Love’. Ferry had already charted as lead singer of Roxy Music who had a hit in 1980 with ‘There’s A Band Playing On The Radio (Oh Yeah)’ and then again in 1981 with a cover of John Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy’. Ferry had penned their first hit and thus became the 44^th person to chart first as a song writer, then as a solo artist. He was the 20^th of those 44 who had been a member of the group that had charted earlier with their composition. ‘Slave To Love’ would feature Dire Straits’ Guy Fletcher on keyboards and Tony Levin (who worked a lot with Peter Gabriel) on bass guitar. It has featured in a number of films including the 1992 Roman Polanski directed ‘erotic romantic thriller’ ‘Bitter Moon’ and 1986’s ‘9½ Weeks’, an ‘erotic romantic drama’ (there seems to be a thing about it and ‘erotic’ movies). The song would chart in a number of countries, faring best in Norway where it went to number 5. Other good performances were in the UK (#10), Ireland (#8), Switzerland (#18), Belgium (#10) and New Zealand (#11). The only local radio chart it made was the Radio 5 ones, but it did get to number 1 there.

The British acts continued to close the gap between them and the Americans for number of hits to charts as they moved on to 728 and were now just 8 behind the Americans. It had been 542 weeks (i.e. going back to 21 March 1975) since the gap was last this low.

Elaine Paige saw her weeks total reach 20 while we saw no change in positions of the overall top 20 for weeks and this equalled the record to date run for no change of places on this this list. While there had been no change in place, we had seen Elton John (who sat 5^th) add to his weeks count, but not enough to move him up the list.

Youtube Playlist:

3 August 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	11	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
2	1	16	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
3	3	14	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
4	9	8	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
5	12	7	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
6	4	12	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
7	11	9	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
8	7	13	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
9	6	15	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
10	5	14	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
11	8	12	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
12	15	5	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
13	10	12	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
14	14	19	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
15	16	5	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
16	18	8	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
17	13	23	Loverboy	–	Billy Ocean
18	17	19	Nightshift	–	Commodores
19	19	7	Obsession	–	Animotion
20	21	6	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
21	22	5	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury
22	26	3	I Wanna Rock	–	Twisted Sister
23	20	15	Material Girl	–	Madonna
24	28	4	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	–	Simple Minds
25	27	9	Black Cars	–	Gino Vannelli
26	29	2	Imagination	–	Belouis Some
27	New	1	We Close Our Eyes	–	Go West
28	New	1	Wide Boy	–	Nik Kershaw
29	New	1	Crazy for You	–	Madonna
30	23	20	Everything She Wants	–	Wham!

Kimera’s ‘The Lost Opera’ became the 30^th song to regain the top spot after dropping from there and it was the 11^th to see a gap of at least 2 weeks between losing the top spot and regaining it. The Bee Gees’ ‘Don’t Forget To Remember’ still held the record of being absent from the number 1 spot for 3 weeks before re-taking it. Jennifer Rush’s ‘Ring Of Ice’ had been the number 1 in the 2 weeks between ‘The Lost Opera’s runs at 1.

Café Society’s ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ picked up a second biggest climber award as it moved up 7 from 12 to 5. It had been the climber 3 weeks previously. Duran Duran’s ‘A View To A Kill’, Modern Talking’s ‘You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul’, Twisted Sister’s ‘I Wanna Rock’ and Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ were the other star raters this week climbing to 4, 7, 22 and 24 respectively with ‘A View To A Kill;’ climbing 5 and the others all climbing 4.

Wham picked up their 4^th faller of the week award as ‘Everything She Wants’ dropped 7 from 23 to 30. But it was not all doom and gloom for the band as they celebrated their 50^th straight week with at least 1 in the chart. They had passed the previous record of 45 (which Alan Garrity had managed) a few weeks back, but it should be noted that they needed the help of positions 21 to 30 to get this record, an advantage Garrity did not have. As a song writer, George Michael also celebrated 50 weeks with a composition in the chart, but he was still along way off the Terry Dempsey record of 92 straight weeks and, with ‘Everything She Wants’ being odds on to leave the chart next week, he would not get closer unless he had a new hit waiting in the wings. Stay tuned to find out what happened.

The faller within the top 20 was DeBarge’s ‘Rhythm Of The Night’ which dropped 5 from 5 to 10.

Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ was the only song to leave the top 20 this week and it was replaced by Dire Straits’ ‘So Far Away’ which moved up from 21. This meant that Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’ was still the longest serving song in the top 20 as it moved on to 22 weeks in that part of the chart. It was also the oldest in the top 30 as it moved on to 23 weeks there.

Three songs left the top 30 with the first of these being King’s ‘Love And Pride’. It has seen a run of 17 weeks and a peak of 7. This would be their only SA chart hit. Also seeing their only SA chart hit were Ashford & Simpson. Their ‘Solid’ managed 18 weeks and a peak of 4. They had also had success as a song writing team with Diana Ross’ ‘It’s My House’ which, if added to the performance of ‘Solid’ gave them a weeks total of 32. ‘Solid’ had the better peak with ‘It’s My House’ getting to 7.

Last to go was Tears For Fears’ ‘Shout’ which was with us for 20 weeks and peaked at 2, the band’s second hit to peak there. They had not had a chart topper yet, however, ‘Everybody Want To Rule The World’ was still in the charts.

The first new entry was ‘We Close Our Eyes’ by British band Go West and this was their SA chart debut. The band, consisting of Peter Cox and Richard Drummie, formed way back in 1982, but this was their first hit and it fared well across Europe going to 5 in the UK, 14 in Belgium, 11 in Ireland, 9 in Italy, 22 in The Netherlands, 19 in Switzerland and 14 in Germany. It would also get to 8 in Australia, 4 in New Zealand and 5 in Zimbabwe. It would top the Radio 5 charts and go to 7 on the Capital 604 ones but didn’t make the 702 charts.

Our second new entry was Nik Kershaw’s ‘Wide Boy’. This was hit 3^rd hit to make our charts. The song was recorded for Kershaw’s debut album, ‘Human Racing’ but they decided against including it on that album but it surfaced on his second album, ‘The Riddle’. It would go to 9 on the UK charts as well as charting in Ireland (#5), Australia (#7), New Zealand (#21), Germany (#25) and The Netherlands (#47). It would fare well on the local radio charts, topping the Radio 5 ones and going to 5 on both the Radio 702 and Capital 604 charts.

Madonna retuned to the charts with her 3^rd SA chart hit in the form of ‘Crazy For You’ and in doing so became the first Female act to see 3 hits spend time in the charts in a calendar year since 1976 when Barbara Ray, Tina Charles and Caroline du Preez managed it. She was now just 1 off the record of 4 in a year which Lucille Starr (1968), Barbra Ray (1971) and Gloria Gaynor (1975) managed. ‘Crazy For You’ was written by John Bettis and Jon Lind for the film ‘Vision Quest’ which starred Matthew Modine and Linda Florentino. South African born Phil Ramone was the music director of the film and he suggested getting Madonna to record a song for the film. Bettis had seen chart action before as a songwriter co-writing The Pointer Sisters’ ‘Slow Hand’ and Maria Vidal’s ‘Body Rock’ while Lind had co-written Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘Boogie Wonderland’. ‘Crazy For You’ would top the charts in Australia, Canada and the US and would get to 2 in Ireland, New Zealand and the UK. In Zimbabwe it would get to 11 and would top the Capital 604 charts while going to 7 on the 702 ones. Radio 5 decided not to let it get on their charts. Madonna now had 2 in the charts (‘Material Girl’ was at 23) and she was the 27^th act to see more than 1 in the charts with 2 different pairings.

The gap between the number of hits we had seen by American acts and those by British acts was down to single figures for the first time in 539 weeks. It was 4 April 1975 when the gap was just 9 and this week it was back to that figure. The Americans had brought us 735 to the British acts’ 726.

Bruce Springsteen saw his weeks total reach the 40 weeks milestone while Wham!’s ‘Everything She Wants’ became the 118^th song to reach 20 weeks in charts making Wham! the 8^th act to see 2 songs reach 20 weeks. On the points front, Shakin’ Stevens celebrated reaching 800 top 20 points. He sat 43^rd overall for this.

Youtube playlist:

27 July 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	15	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
2	2	10	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
3	3	13	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
4	5	11	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
5	6	13	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
6	4	14	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
7	7	12	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
8	8	11	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
9	9	7	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
10	11	11	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
11	12	8	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
12	13	6	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
13	10	22	Loverboy	–	Billy Ocean
14	15	18	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
15	17	4	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
16	18	4	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
17	14	18	Nightshift	–	Commodores
18	19	7	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
19	20	6	Obsession	–	Animotion
20	16	14	Material Girl	–	Madonna
21	24	5	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
22	25	4	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury
23	21	19	Everything She Wants	–	Wham!
24	22	20	Shout	–	Tears for Fears
25	23	18	Solid	–	Ashford & Simpson
26	30	2	I Wanna Rock	–	Twisted Sister
27	26	8	Black Cars	–	Gino Vannelli
28	28	3	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	–	Simple Minds
29	New	1	Imagination	–	Belouis Some
30	29	17	Love and Pride	–	King

Having captured the number 1 spot last week, Jennifer Rush’s ‘Ring Of Ice’ held on to it this week, but the 2 previous chart toppers, Kimera & The Operaiders’ ‘The Lost Opera’ and USA For Africa’s ‘We Are The World’ were unmoved at 2 and 3 respectively. Also starting to mount a challenge was Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’ which moved up from 5 to 4.

The climber of the week was last weeks’ new entry, Twisted Sister’s ‘I Wanna Rock’ which moved up 4 from 30 to 26. This would obviously be the only star rater climb this week. For the 3^rd time in 5 weeks the biggest climb within the top 20 was only 2 places and 2 songs managed it this week. They were Paul Hardcastle’s ‘19’ and REO Speedwagon’s ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ which moved up to 12 and 15 respectively.

Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ was the faller both within the top 20 and the top 30 as it dropped 4 from 16 to 20.

There was no movement on or off the top 20 so Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’ remained the oldest in that part of the chart, moving on to 21 weeks. It was also the oldest in the top 30 moving on to 22 weeks there, however, it no longer shared the title with The Everly Brothers’ ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ which was the only song to leave the top 30 this week. It had been with us for 21 weeks and peaked at 6. This brought their SA chart career to an end with 2 hits to their name and clocking up 23 weeks. Their previous hit, ‘It’s My Time’ managed just 2 of those weeks and peaked at 18, making ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ their best performer by far.

The departure of ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ from the charts heralded the end of Paul McCartney’s involvement in our charts. McCartney had written the hit for the Everly Brothers. His total chart involvement was as follows:

• Beatles: 4 hits, 42 weeks, 1 number 1 (‘Help’)
• Solo: 4 hits, 28 weeks, Best peak 6 (‘Junior’s Farm’)
• Wings/Paul McCartney & Wings: 5 hits, 65 weeks, 1 number 1 (‘Mull Of Kintyre)
• Duets (2 with Michael Jackson, 1 with Stevie Wonder): 3 hits, 50 weeks, Best peak 3 (‘Ebony & Ivory and ‘Say Say Say’)
• Songwriter (excl own and Beatle hits): 4 hits, 48 weeks, Best peak 4 (‘Michelle’ by The Overlanders)
• Producer (excl own and Beatle hits): 2 hits, 17 weeks, best peak 2 (‘Those Were The Days’ by Mary Hopkin)
• Total: 22 hits, 250 weeks, 2 number 1’s, 6 weeks at 1.
• His overall weeks total is more than Abba’s 237 which was the most to date, but this excludes Benny & Bjorn’s additional hits as songwriters.

The new entry in place of ‘On the Wings Of A Nightingale’ was ‘Imagination’ buy a bloke called Neville Keighley. Neville decided to use the stage name Belouis Some. I have a vague recollection of hearing somewhere that he liked the name Louis and wanted to ‘be Louis some’thing, hence Belouis Some, but that may just have been DJs joking. By the time ‘Imagination’ charted on our charts, it had already seen an 11 week run in the UK charts, but had only managed to peak at 50 by then. It was a re-release of the single in 1986, after his, ‘Some People’ had managed to get to 33, that ‘Imagination’ made it to 17. It would surface on the UK charts again in 1995 for 1 week and in honour of the year, peaked at 95. The video for the song was rather controversial as it contained scenes of full frontal female nudity (the one included in the playlist below is the edited version). The song would get to 40 in Belgium, 48 in Germany, 7 in Italy, 30 in Switzerland, 16 in Ireland, 38 In New Zealand and 88 in the US. It would top the Radio 5 and 702 charts and get to 6 on the Capital 604 ones. With a band called Imagination having charted we now had the 14^th case of an act and song with the same name charting. This includes The Moody Blues with Elvis Presley and Mark James’ ‘Moody Blue’, which you may wish to exclude. Imagination the group, in case you have forgotten, had hits with ‘Just An Illusion’, ‘Looking At Midnight’ and ‘New Dimension’. Belouis Some was exactly the same age as Tom Jones was when his ‘Thunderball’ charted, giving us the 50^th time an act had charted at exactly the same age as another act was when they charted.

After 2 weeks with 20 songs by groups in the charts, their total dropped to 19. We had seen this record of 20 for the previous 2 weeks and then 4 weeks previously but we would never see 20 or more by groups in the chart in a week again. The British acts, meanwhile were having a good time and were back up to accounting for half the chart with 15 of the 30 being by UK acts. It had been 17 weeks since we had last seen as many as 15 songs by Brits in the charts.

And one of those British acts, Tears For Fears, were seeing their song, ‘Shout’, become the 117^th song to manage at least 20 weeks in the charts. More significantly, they were the 7^th act to see at least 2 songs get to 20 weeks in the charts as their first hit, ‘Mad World’ had also done so.

Freddie Mercury and REO Speedwagon were clocking up their 20^th week in the chart while Billy Ocean hit 50 and Tears For Fears reached 60.

Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’ ticked over to 358 top 20 points and entered the overall top 20 for points by a song using a top 20 basis.

Youtube playlist:

20 July 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	14	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
2	1	9	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
3	3	12	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
4	4	13	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
5	5	10	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
6	6	12	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
7	7	11	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
8	8	10	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
9	10	6	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
10	9	21	Loverboy	–	Billy Ocean
11	13	10	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
12	14	7	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
13	15	5	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
14	12	17	Nightshift	–	Commodores
15	17	17	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
16	11	13	Material Girl	–	Madonna
17	21	3	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
18	22	3	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
19	20	6	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
20	24	5	Obsession	–	Animotion
21	16	18	Everything She Wants	–	Wham!
22	18	19	Shout	–	Tears for Fears
23	19	17	Solid	–	Ashford & Simpson
24	27	4	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
25	28	3	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury
26	26	7	Black Cars	–	Gino Vannelli
27	25	21	On the Wings of a Nightingale	–	Everly Brothers
28	29	2	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	–	Simple Minds
29	23	16	Love and Pride	–	King
30	New	1	I Wanna Rock	–	Twisted Sister

Kimera’s ‘The Lost Opera’ lasted just 2 weeks at 1 before it was ousted this week by Jennifer Rush’s ‘Ring Of Ice’ with the former dropping down to 2 in a straight place swap with the new number 1. Positions 3 to 8 were unchanged. ‘Ring Of Ice’ was the 110^th song by an American act to top the charts and the 38^th by a solo woman (note: the Kimera hit is attributed to Kimera & The Operaiders and has therefore been classified as a group).

The climber of the week award was shared between Paul Hardcastle’s ‘19’, Dead or Alive’s ‘Lover Come Back To Me’ and Animotion’s ‘Obsession’ which all moved up 4 to land at 17, 18 and 20 respectively. Not only were they the only star raters this week, they were also the only 3 new entries into the top 20 and they replaced Ashford & Simpson’s ‘Solid’, Tears For Fears ‘Shout’ and Wham’s ‘Everything She Wants’ in that part of the chart.

The biggest climb within the top 20 was just 2 places and 4 songs managed that. They were The Power Station’s ‘Some Like It Hot’, Modern Talking’s ‘You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul’, Café Society’s ‘Woodpecker from Space’ and Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Breaking Up My Heart’ which moved up to 11, 12, 13 and 15 respectively. ‘Breaking Up My Heart’ was on 17 weeks in the top 20 and only 2 other songs had been on this many weeks when picking up a climber award in the top 20. Gallery’s ‘Nice To Be With You’ also managed it on 17 weeks while Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ managed it in its 21^st week.

King’s ‘Love And Pride’ took a 6 place tumble from 23 to 29 and this was enough to give them the faller of the week award. Madonna’s ‘Material World’ was the faller within the top 20. It dropped 5 from 11 to 16.

There was no change to the oldest in the chart with Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’ and The Everly Brother’s ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ being the oldest in the top 30 on 21 weeks and ‘Loverboy’ becoming the 80^th song to spend 20 weeks in the top 20 and enjoy its 5^th week as the oldest in that part of the chart.

The number of local songs in the chart dropped to 1 as Hotline’s ‘Jabulani’ was the only song to depart the chart this week. It had seen a run of 16 weeks and peaked at 9. This ended their SA chart run. They had managed 3 hits which spent a total of 43 weeks in the charts. Their best peak was with ‘Feel So Strong’ their duet with Steve Kekana which managed to get to 6. ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ was left as the only song flying the local flag in the charts.

The new entry was Twisted Sister’s ‘I Wanna Rock’. The song was the follow up to ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ which remains the biggest of their 3 US Hot 100 hits to date. It peaked at 21 there. ‘I Wanna Rock’ managed to get to 68 in the US. The band were more popular in the UK where they have managed 5 hits and a best peak of 18 which ‘I Am (I’m Me)’ managed in 1983. ‘I Wanna Rock’ is the lowest peaking of their 5 UK hits as it just scraped a number 98 peak. It would also chart in New Zealand and Norway where it got to 10 and 5 respectively. It would not make any of the local radio charts.

This week was the 150^th time the total number of positions songs moved up was exactly equal to the number of positions songs moved down. This includes the week when the charts were frozen over an Easter weekend.

As one group was replaced with another, we still had the record 20 songs by groups in the charts. There were 7 hits by solo males, 2 by solo female and 1 duet.

Kimera’s ‘The Lost Opera’ moved on to 9 weeks and, as this was the only song to chart by a South Korean act so far, it meant Korea drew level with Kenya for weeks by acts by a nation. All Kenya’s weeks had come from a Roger Whittaker hit. The 2 nations were tied 25^th out of 28 nations.

Madonna saw her weeks total hit the 30 mark while Wham moved on to 70. So far 56 acts had made it to at least 70 weeks.

Billy Ocean saw his top 30 points reach the 1,000 milestone as he ticked over to 1,009. There had been 104 acts now that had reached that milestone. He also was celebrating his 40^th straight week with at least 1 in the charts. The run had consisted of 19 weeks with ‘African Queen (No More Love On The Run)’ and the week it left the charts, ‘Loverboy’ came into the top 30. The latter had, as mentioned above, reached 21 weeks in the charts, giving Ocean his 40 week run. He was the 5^th act so far to manage a 40 consecutive week run with Wham holding the record (and adding to it this week) of 48 weeks.

Youtube playlist:

13 July 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
2	4	13	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
3	2	11	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
4	3	12	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
5	10	9	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
6	6	11	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
7	8	10	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
8	11	9	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
9	5	20	Loverboy	–	Billy Ocean
10	14	5	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
11	7	12	Material Girl	–	Madonna
12	9	16	Nightshift	–	Commodores
13	19	9	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
14	22	6	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
15	24	4	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
16	12	17	Everything She Wants	–	Wham!
17	17	16	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
18	13	18	Shout	–	Tears for Fears
19	15	16	Solid	–	Ashford & Simpson
20	20	5	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
21	28	2	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
22	29	2	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
23	16	15	Love and Pride	–	King
24	25	4	Obsession	–	Animotion
25	18	20	On the Wings of a Nightingale	–	Everly Brothers
26	26	6	Black Cars	–	Gino Vannelli
27	27	3	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
28	30	2	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury
29	New	1	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	–	Simple Minds
30	23	16	Jabulani	–	Hotline

Kimera’s ‘The Lost Opera’ spent a second week at 1 with Jennifer Rush’ ‘Ring Of Ice’ moving up 2 from 4 to be the main contender to take over the top spot. The previous chart topper, USA For Africa’s ‘We Are The World’ dropped from 2 to 3.

We saw a local act take the biggest climber award for the first time since éVoid’s ‘Taximan’ scooped up the award on 2 March 1984. This week it was Café Society’s ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ which took the award with a 9 place climb from 24 to 15. It was the 18^th local song to climb 9 or more in a week and the first since Ballyhoo’s ‘Man On The Moon’ in the October of 1980. Within the top 20 it was The Power Station’s ‘Some Like It Hot’ that managed the biggest climb as it moved up 6 from 19 to 13. Apart from these 2 climbers we saw 5 other star raters and they were Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’ (up 5 from 10 to 5), Duran Duran’s ‘A View To A Kill’ (up 4 from 14 to 10), Modern Talking’s ‘You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul’ (up 8 from 22 to 14), Paul Hardcastle’s ‘19’ (up 7 from 28 to 21) and Dead or Alive’s ‘Lover Come Back To Me’ (up 7 from 29 to 22).

On the falling front it was Hotline’s ‘Jabulani’, The Everly Brothers’ ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ and King’s ‘Love And Pride’ which shared the honours, each falling 7 places to land at 30, 25 and 23 respectively. With Café Society being one of the climbers, this was the 53^rd time we had seen a local climber and faller in the same week and (spolier alert) this would be the last time. We had to go back to 2 July 1982 for the last time we saw this when we had Mike Eager’s ‘Just How High’ as the climber and Anneli van Rooyen’s ‘Sewe Sakke Sout’ as the faller. The faller within the top 20 was Tears For Fears’ ‘Shout’ for a second week running. It dropped 5 more places from 13 to 18.

‘Loverboy’ by Billy Ocean and The Everly Brothers’ ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ enjoyed a 3^rd week as the oldest 2 songs in the charts as they both ticked on to 20 weeks in the top 30 and became the 115^th and 116^th songs to clock up this many weeks. ‘Loverboy’ had spent 19 of those 20 weeks within the top 20 and enjoyed its 4^th weeks as the oldest in that part of the chart.

‘Love And Pride’ and ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ fell out of the top 20 and were replaced by ‘You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul’ and ‘Woodpeckers From Space’. ‘You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul’ was the 38^th song by a German act to make the top 20 and the Germans took the outright lead for number of top 20 hits by acts from a non-big 3 nations (i.e. not from the UK, the US or SA), moving ahead of Canada and The Netherlands who had seen 37. The arrival of ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ into the top 20 meant that we had only been 1 week with no local songs in the top 20 which was an improvement on the previous 2 gaps which were 20 and 25 weeks respectively and were the second biggest and biggest gaps we had seen to date.

Phil Collins had seen his first 4 hits all go top 10 and spend 10 or more weeks in the charts. He was the 16^th act to manage this. However, it all went a bit pear shaped with his 5^th hit, ‘One More Night’ which lasted just 6 weeks in the charts and peaked at 21. This would be the only song leaving the top 30, but Phil had a couple more hits to come to redeem himself.

Simple Minds saw their first SA chart action as their ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ was the new entry to replace ‘One More Night’. The song was written by Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff, the latter being a member of the Nina Hagen Band. Forsey had seen 4 previous hits as a songwriter with 3 of them being written for films (Irene Cara’s ‘Flashdance’, Limahl’s ‘The Neverending Story’ and Glenn Frey’s ‘The Heat Is On’) with only 1, Irene Cara’s ‘Why Me’ not being from a film. ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ added to Forsey’s ‘film hits’ as ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ featured in ‘The Breakfast Club’ which starred Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy. Forsey had written the song with Simple Minds in mind to record it, but they turned him down. Bryan Ferry, Billy Idol and The Fixx all turned it down while Forsey rejected a suggestion that Corey Hart sing it. Eventually Simple Minds, following further pressure from A&M records and The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde who was the wife of Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr at the time. The band recorded the song and allegedly and ironically forgot about it. However, with the box office success of ‘The Breakfast Club’, the song went to the top of the US charts for 1 week and started a run there of 9 out of 11 number 1’s being by UK acts. It would also top the charts in Canada and The Netherlands. It would get to 7 in the UK. Closer to home it would make 15 in Zimbabwe and would just miss out on a clean sweep of number 1’s on the local radio stations, topping the Radio 5 and 702 charts, but peaking at 2 on Capital 604.

George Michael still had one of his compositions in the chart and he moved into outright second place for consecutive weeks with at least 1 in the chart for a songwriter. He had featured in the charts as a songwriter for 47 weeks and moved ahead of Mike Hazlewood, Albert Hammond and Girgio Moroder.

We also saw 20 of the top 30 hits being by groups which equalled the record set 2 weeks back. They had dropped to 19 last week.

This week was the 4^th most shook up chart we had seen. If we added all the places songs moved up to those moved down this week we got to a total of 102 which was 1 behind the 3^rd highest total, 5 behind the 2^nd highest total and 42 behind the leading week (8 March 1985).

Youtube playlist:

6 July 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	4	7	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
2	1	10	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
3	2	11	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
4	5	12	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
5	3	19	Loverboy	–	Billy Ocean
6	9	10	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
7	6	11	Material Girl	–	Madonna
8	8	9	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
9	7	15	Nightshift	–	Commodores
10	12	8	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
11	15	8	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
12	11	16	Everything She Wants	–	Wham!
13	10	17	Shout	–	Tears for Fears
14	20	4	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
15	13	15	Solid	–	Ashford & Simpson
16	14	14	Love and Pride	–	King
17	17	15	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
18	16	19	On the Wings of a Nightingale	–	Everly Brothers
19	19	8	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
20	22	4	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
21	21	6	One More Night	–	Phil Collins
22	23	5	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
23	18	15	Jabulani	–	Hotline
24	26	3	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
25	25	3	Obsession	–	Animotion
26	27	5	Black Cars	–	Gino Vannelli
27	28	2	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
28	New	1	19	–	Paul Hardcastle
29	New	1	Lover Come Back to Me	–	Dead or Alive
30	New	1	I was Born to Love You	–	Freddie Mercury

USA For Africa’s ‘We Are The World’ lasted for just 2 weeks at 1 before Kimera & The Operaiders’ ‘The Lost Opera’ dislodged it this week. The former number 1 dropped to 2 while ‘The Lost Opera’, which jumped up from 4, was the 60^th song to take pole position from 4 or lower in the charts.

Duran Duran’s ‘A View To A Kill’ gave the group their 5^th biggest climber award as it moved up 6 from 20 to 14 to take the honours this week. It was the climber both within the top 20 and the top 30. The only other star rater was REO Speedwagon’s ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ which moved up 4 from 15 to 11.

Hotline’s ‘Jabulani’ was the faller of the week as it dropped 5 from 18 to 23. As this drop took it out of the top 20 we were once again without a local song in that part of the chart but we did still have 2 local hits in the top 30 as Café Society’s ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ was at 24. Within the top 20 it was Tears For Fears’ ‘Shout’ which was the faller for a second week running as it dropped 3 from 10 to 13. They did, however, now have 2 in the top 20 as their ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ took ‘Jabulani’s place in that part of the chart. They were the 82^nd act to see at least 2 in the top 20 at the same time.

Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’ was the oldest in the top 20 on 18 weeks. It was also the oldest in the top 30 but shared that title with The Everly Brother’s ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ with both songs having spent a total of 19 weeks in the charts.

Howard Jones’ ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ was the first of 3 songs to leave the chart this week. It only managed 6 weeks and peaked at 25, so the title of the song was fairly apt. Howard did have one more hit to come so he would have been hoping that things did get better.

Things for Flash And The Pan were getting worse. Their first hit, ‘Down Among The Dead Men’ managed just 1 weeks at 19 when the charts were just a top 20. Now they saw their second hit, ‘Midnight Man’ last just 1 week at 29. Sadly for them, they would see not further chart action in SA, with the 2 hits and 2 weeks being the sum total of their chart career. They were the 4^th act to see 2 hits spend only 1 week in the charts (previous ones; Cliff Richard, Jody Wayne and the Rolling Stones), but would be the first of just 2 acts who where those 2 hits were their only ones (it should be mentioned that the other act’s second hit was a new entry on the very last chart). Harry Vanda and George Young (brother of AC/DC’s Angus Young) who made up the group had, as mentioned in an earlier post, seen a fair bit of action as song writers, but their run in that capacity also came to an end. They had managed 11 hits as song writers, seen their compositions spend 85 weeks in the charts, managed 2 number 1’s (John Paul Young’s ‘I Hate The Music’ and his ‘Yesterday’s Hero’) which both spent 2 weeks at the top of the charts.

Last of the leavers was 38 Special’s ‘Teacher Teacher’ which made it to 11 during a 15 week run. This would be the band’s only contribution to our charts.

Our first new entry was described by Tears For Fears’ Roland Orzabal as a ‘dialogue collage’ and not a song, although that could have been sour grapes as Paul Hardcastle’s ‘19’ took the Ivor Novello International Hit of the Year award in favour of Tears For Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’. That aside, Orzabal does have a point in that ‘19’ was a collage of sampled parts of the narration and quotes from a TV documentary on the Vietnam War called ‘Vietnam Requiem’ played over the music. The narrator of the show was a US announcer called Peter Thomas. Hardcastle recorded the song after seeing the documentary and comparing his life at 19 to those who had to go fight in Vietnam. The result was a worldwide success which topped the charts in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. It spent 6 weeks at 1 in the UK and kept Duran Duran’s ‘A View To A Kill’ at 2 for 3 of those weeks. In the US it would get to 15. It resurfaced on the UK charts in 2011, spending 1 week at 40 after Manchester United used it to celebrate their 19^th Premier League win. Closer to home the song would get to 3 in Zimbabwe, top the Capital 604 charts and get to 2 on Radio 5. Rory Bremner, a British impressionist, recorded a parody of the song mimicking the radio Cricket commentators of the time and called the song ‘N-n-n-ninet (Not Out)’ and the group The Commentators. That made it to 13 on the UK charts.

Despite topping the charts in the UK with ‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)’, Dead or Alive’s SA chart debut only came with the follow up single ‘Lover Come Back To Me’. Dead or Alive had been around since 1980 and an early incarnation of the band included Wayne Hussey who went on to form goth band The Mission. Led by Pete Burns, Dead or Alive had 4 UK chart hits (including getting to 22 with a cover of KC & The Sunshine Band’s ‘That’s The Way (I Like It)) before hitting it big with ‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)’. ‘Lover Come Back To Me’ would peak at 11 in the UK and get to 75 in the US. Elsewhere it performed well in Ireland (#6), Japan (#9) and Switzerland (#5). The only local radio chart it would make would be the 702 ones where it got to 15. Lead singer Pete Burns would sadly die of a heart attack in 2016 aged of 57.

The final new entry saw the return of Freddie Mercury to the charts as a solo artist. ‘I Was Born To Love You’, his second SA chart hit in his own right, was written by Mercury and produced by him along with Reinhold Mack who had also produced Mercury’s previous hit, ‘Love Kills’ along with some Queen tracks and Billy Squier’s ‘Everybody Wants You’ which made it to 13 on our charts. Queen would re-work ‘I Was Born To Love You’ for their ‘Made In Heaven’ album 4 years after Mercury’s death. The video for the song was choreographed by Arlene Phillips who was one of the judges on the BBC’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. ‘I Was Born To Love You’ would peak 1 place lower in the UK charts than ‘Love Kills’, getting to 11 there. It would make it to 9 in Austria, 17 in Belgium, 25 in Germany, 24 in The Netherlands, 27 in Switzerland and 76 in the US. On the local radio charts it would reach 15 on the Radio 702 charts and 27 on the Capital 604 ones, but failed to make the Radio 5 charts.

With all 3 new entries and only 1 of the leavers being by British acts and 1 of the other leavers being by an American act, we saw the Brits take the overall lead for number of hits in the top 30 for the first time in 12 weeks. There was now a total of 14 hits by UK acts and 11 by Americans in the charts. Two local hits and 1 each for Canadian, German and South Korean acts made up the balance.

This week also saw George Michael join Mike Hazlewood, Albert Hammond and Giorgio Moroder in second place for the longest run with at least 1 hit they composed in the charts. He had seen at least one of his songs in the charts for 46 straight weeks. This effort was still a way off the record of 92 straight weeks that Terry Dempsey managed. The 46 weeks had all seen a Wham! hit in the charts as well as George’s solo hit for 21 of those weeks, but the 46 weeks for Wham! set a new record run for an act, moving past Alan Garrity’s run of 45 weeks. The latter did, however, remained the best run in the top 20 as Wham! had been absent from the top 20 for 3 weeks their 46 week run in the top 30.

Youtube playlist:

28 June 1985

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	We are the World	–	USA for Africa
2	3	10	I Know Him So Well	–	Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson
3	2	18	Loverboy	–	Billy Ocean
4	4	6	The Lost Opera	–	Kimera & The Operaiders
5	5	11	Ring of Ice	–	Jennifer Rush
6	7	10	Material Girl	–	Madonna
7	6	14	Nightshift	–	Commodores
8	9	8	The Heat is On	–	Glenn Frey
9	10	9	Rhythm of the Night	–	DeBarge
10	8	16	Shout	–	Tears for Fears
11	11	15	Everything She Wants	–	Wham!
12	14	7	I’m on Fire	–	Bruce Springsteen
13	12	14	Solid	–	Ashford & Simpson
14	13	13	Love and Pride	–	King
15	17	7	Can’t Fight This Feeling	–	REO Speedwagon
16	15	18	On the Wings of a Nightingale	–	Everly Brothers
17	18	14	Breaking Up My Heart	–	Shakin’ Stevens
18	16	14	Jabulani	–	Hotline
19	20	7	Some Like it Hot	–	Power Station
20	21	3	A View to a Kill	–	Duran Duran
21	22	5	One More Night	–	Phil Collins
22	23	3	Everybody Wants to Rule the World	–	Tears for Fears
23	24	4	You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul	–	Modern Talking
24	19	15	Teacher, Teacher	–	38 Special
25	30	2	Obsession	–	Animotion
26	29	2	Woodpeckers from Space	–	Café Society
27	28	4	Black Cars	–	Gino Vannelli
28	New	1	So Far Away	–	Dire Straits
29	New	1	Midnight Man	–	Flash And The Pan
30	25	6	Things Can Only Get Better	–	Howard Jones

‘We Are The World’ by USA For Africa spent a second week at 1 with Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson’s ‘I Know Him So Well’ breathing down its neck as the latter moved up from 3 to 2 in a place swap with the previous chart toper, Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’.

One of last week’s new entries, Animotion’s ‘Obsession’, took the climber of the week award as it moved up 5 from 30 to 25. Within the top 20 the biggest climbers were Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’ and REO Speedwagon’s ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ which moved up 2 to 12 and 15 respectively. Apart from ‘Obsession’ there were no other star raters this week.

Falling honours went to 38 Special’s ‘Teacher Teacher’ and Howard Jones’ ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ which both dropped 5 to land at 24 and 30 respectively with ‘Teacher Teacher’ being the only song to leave the top 20. It was replaced by Duran Duran’s ‘A View To A Kill’. Within the top 20 it was Tears For Fears’ ‘Shout’ and Hotline’s ‘Jabulani’ which took the honours as they both fell 2 to land at 10 and 18 respectively.

Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’ was the oldest within the top 20 as it moved on to 17 weeks in that part of the chart. There was, however a change in the oldest in the top 30 as the 2 songs that shared that title last week both dropped out of the charts and ‘Loverboy’ and The Everly Brother’s ‘On The Wings Of A Nightingale’ took over the title of granddaddy. They were on 18 weeks in the top 30.

The 2 oldest on last week’s chart had been Murray Head’s ‘One Night In Bangkok’ and Foreigner’s ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’. They both spent 23 weeks in the charts with the former spending 6 weeks at 1 and the latter peaking at 2 for 2 weeks stuck behind ‘One Night in Bangkok’. This would be the end of the SA chart road for both acts with ‘One Night In Bangkok’ being Head’s only hit while Foreigner managed 5 hits, 67 weeks and 6 weeks at 1 with ‘Urgent’, their best performing hit not only in terms of peak, but also for top 20 points, getting 255 with ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’ coming second with 222 points.

Both the acts on the 2 new entries had been absent from the charts for more than 300 weeks. This was the 3^rd and would be the last time we would see 2 new entries were the acts were last seen more than 300 weeks earlier. The previous 2 occasions we saw this were on 24 October 1975 when Paul Anka (335 weeks) and Gene Rockwell (411 weeks) had new entries and on 14 May with Paul McCartney (371 weeks) and Stevie Wonder (637 weeks) had new entries.

The first of our new entries this week was Dire Straits’ ‘So Far Away’ which arrived 314 weeks after their previous hit, ‘Sultans Of Swing’, spent its last week on the charts. ‘So Far Away’ was the first single off their ‘Brothers In Arms’ album which became the first album to shift over 1 million CD’s, the CD having been recently become a medium for releasing music. While the album would do phenomenally well, the first single had moderate success only reaching 20 in the UK charts and 19 on the US ones. It made a number of other charts, but only went top 10 in Norway (#4), Spain (#6) and Switzerland (#6). In Zimbabwe it would just miss out on the top 10, peaking at 11. On the radio charts it made 4 on 702, 7 on Capital 604 and 11 on Radio 5.

The second new entry was Flash & The Pan’s ‘Midnight Man’. They were last in our charts on 9 February 1979 with ‘Down Among The Dead Men’ and this was 333 weeks earlier (the biggest gap we would ever see between hits by Aussie acts). Flash & The Pan were Harry Vanda and George Young who, apart from writing both their hits, had written all of John Paul Young’s SA chart hits (6 in total) as well as John Edmond’s ‘Pasadena’, 5000 Volts’ ‘Can’t Stop Myself From Loving You’ and Chilly’s ‘Friday On My Mind’, giving them a total of 11 hits as song writers. This was the 34^th song by an Australian act to chart, but Australia was still stuck in 7^th place overall for hits by acts from a nation with The Netherlands on 37, Germany on 38 and Canada on 39 above them apart from the big 3 of SA, the UK and the US. ‘Midnight Man’ was a minor hit in Europe going to 33 in Belgium, 7 in Germany, 23 in The Netherlands, 20 in Sweden and 16 in Switzerland. It didn’t chart in Zimbabwe but did make it to 9 on both the Capital 604 and Radio 5 charts. It failed to make the 702 ones.

The number of hits by groups in the charts kept going up and up and we now hit 20 of the 30, the 3^rd new record in as many weeks. [Spoiler alert] This would be the all-time highest total of groups we would see in the top 30. It would be equalled but never beaten.

The American acts were celebrating their 7,500^th week in the chart and, counting their weeks from the top of the chart down, it was The Commodores’ ‘Nightshift’ which had the honour of getting them to this milestone.

The Everly Brothers reached 20 weeks in the charts while Barbara Dickson celebrated her 30^th. Dickson also celebrated reaching that milestone without ever picking up a biggest faller award. She was the 30^th act to manage such a run and the 4^th woman to do so after Lucille Starr, Cyndi Lauper and Audrey Landers. The Seekers run of 58 weeks before picking up a biggest faller was still the record to date.

Billy Ocean’s ‘Loverboy’ saw its top 20 points total ease past the 300 mark and it was the 61^st song to get to this milestone. Ocean along with Tears For Fears saw their top 20 points count move past the 500 mark and Tears For Fears along with Phil Collins moved past the 1,000 mark using a top 30 basis.

Wham! had seen at least 1 hit in the charts for 46 weeks running and this equalled the record to date which was set by Alan Garrity. It should be mentioned that Garrity’s run was only within the top 20 where Wham! had missed 3 weeks in their top 20 run which, had they not missed those weeks, would only have been 41 weeks long.

Youtube playlist: