22 August 1980

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Paradise Road	–	Joy
2	3	8	Call Me	–	Blondie
3	6	7	More Than I Can Say	–	Leo Sayer
4	5	7	Down the Mississippi	–	Barbara Ray
5	2	12	Take That Look off Your Face	–	Marti Webb
6	4	6	I See a Boat on the River	–	Boney M
7	10	6	Boat on the River	–	Styx
8	9	5	Don’t Make Waves	–	Nolans
9	8	10	It Hurts too Much	–	Eric Carmen
10	7	16	Brass in Pocket	–	Pretenders
11	15	4	New York by Night	–	Dennis Parker
12	13	5	Alaska	–	Malie Kelly
13	11	12	Day-O/Island in the Sun	–	Richard Jon Smith
14	12	12	It’s My House	–	Diana Ross
15	17	4	What’s Another Year	–	Johnny Logan
16	19	2	Space Invaders	–	Player (1)
17	14	13	Crying	–	Don McLean
18	18	6	Buzz Buzz a Diddle It	–	Matchbox
19	New	1	Can’t Stop the Music	–	Village People
20	New	1	Aloha-oe, Until We Meet Again	–	Goombay Dance Band

Joy’s ‘Paradise Road’ stretched its run at 1 to 4 straight weeks but had to deal with a challenge from Blondie’s ‘Call Me’ which moved up from 3 to 2, dislodging the previous chart topper, ‘Take That Look Off Your Face’ by Marti Webb from second place as the latter dropped to 5. Also making a bid for the top spot was Leo Sayer’s ‘More Than I Can Say’ and Barbara Ray’s ‘Down The Mississippi’ which moved up 3 to 3 and 1 to 4 respectively.

Dennis Parker’s ‘New York By Night’ snatched up the climber of the week award with a 4 place jump from 15 to 11. This meant that 3 of the 4 hits written by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo that had charted had taken the climber award. The other 2 to do so were The Ritchie Family’s ‘Brazil’ and The Village People’s ‘Y.M.C.A.’. The one to miss out was The Ritchie Family’s ‘The Best Disco In Town’. ‘New York By Night’ was the only star rater this week.

While there was only 1 climber, there were 3 that shared the faller of the week award. The first of these was Don McLean’s ‘Crying’ which fell 3 from 14 to 17. It was his 3^rd time with the award. The Pretenders’ ‘Brass In Pocket’ fell from 7 to 10 to give them their first award and Marti Webb also picked up her first one as ‘Take That Look Off Your Face’ dropped from 2 to 5. ‘Brass In Pocket’ did have and excuse for being the faller of the week as it was the oldest on the chart on 16 weeks and it was its second week as the oldest.

Dr Hook’s ‘Sexy Eyes’ became the 32^nd song which would only spend 1 week at the bottom the charts. It was the first song in 1980 to spend just 1 week at 20. We had not seen such a chart run in 1979 with the previous one being John Paul Young’s ‘The Day That My Heart Caught Fire’ back in the December of 1978.

Also departing the chart was Fern Kinney’s ‘Together We are Beautiful’ which had seen a run of 14 weeks in the charts and had peaked at 5. This would be her only SA chart hit.

Both of the acts on the new entries this week were seeing their second hit chart. The first of these was The Village People’s ‘Can’t Stop The Music’. Like their previous hit mentioned above, Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo had a song writing credit on it giving the 2 their 5^th SA chart hit as song writers. They shared the credit with Peter Whitehead and Phil Hurtt. Hurtt also had a song writing credit on The Ritchie Family’s ‘The Best Disco In Town’. ‘Can’t Stop The Music’ was used in a sort of biographical film about the Village People which shared a name with the song. The lead vocals were by Ray Simpson who was the replacement ‘cop’ when previous lead singer and ‘cop’ Victor Willis left. The Village People had seen 5 songs make the US charts, but ‘Can’t Stop The Music’ was their first single release since they first charted not to do so. It did, however, reach number 1 in Australia and went to number 2 in New Zealand. In the UK it made it to number 11. A sad fact about the soundtrack to ‘Can’t Stop The Music’ is that it was the first album I ever bought. At least the first record I bought was a lot cooler as that was Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Hungry Heart’ single.

The second new entry was The Goombay Dance Band’s ‘Aloha-oe, Until We Meet Again’. The song would top the charts in Austria, go to 3 in Belgium, 4 in the Netherlands and 5 in Germany. It was the 24^th song by a German act to make our charts and they were the 4^th German act to see more than 1 hit on our top 20. Michael Holm was still the leader for hits by a German act with 5 to his name. Chilly, Peter Maffay and now The Goombay Dance Band were all tied second with 2. Germany sat 6^th overall for number of hits by acts from a nation and were 2 behind The Netherlands who were in 5^th place.

The Village People hit took America to a new record gap at the top of the hits count list. They were on 576 which was 54 ahead of the British acts on 522.

Player (1)’s ‘Space Invaders’ had the honour of picking up the 200^th week in the charts for an Australian act. Australia sat 9^th on the weeks by a nation list, 9 behind Ireland who were in 8^th place.

Richard Jon Smith joined Jody Wayne in position 8 on the local weeks count list. The 2 of them had seen 72 weeks each.

Boney M became the 11^th act to see their points total reach or pass 1,300. They ticked over to 1,313 and sat 11^th overall.

We were down to just 4 hits in our top 20 that had topped the charts in either the UK, the US or both. The 4 were Blondie’s ‘Call Me’ (both), The Pretenders’ ‘Brass In Pocket’ (UK), Johnny Logan’s ‘What’s Another Year’ (UK) and Don McLean’s ‘Crying (UK). It had been 16 weeks since the total was this low.

We did see the groups go back to having at least half the chart after 3 weeks of having less than 10 in the charts. Groups had 10 this week with solo men having 6 and solo women 4.

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