16 January 1981

Pos LW Weeks Song Artist
1 1 13 Woman in Love  – Barbra Streisand
2 3 6 Love on the Rocks  – Neil Diamond
3 7 5 Can You Feel It  – Jacksons
4 2 14 Man on the Moon  – Ballyhoo
5 4 9 Don’t Stand so Close to Me  – Police
6 5 7 Give Me the Night  – George Benson
7 6 13 Another One Bites the Dust  – Queen
8 20 2 Passion  – Rod Stewart
9 13 4 (Just Like) Starting Over  – John Lennon
10 12 3 The Tide is High  – Blondie
11 9 8 Shine On  – Spirits Rejoice
12 10 12 The Wanderer  – Donna Summer
13 8 18 Upside Down  – Diana Ross
14 17 2 I’m Alright (Theme from “Caddyshack”)  – Kenny Loggins
15 11 5 You Win I Lose  – Leo Sayer
16 15 8 9 to 5 (aka Morning Train)  – Sheena Easton
17 14 4 There’s A Band Playing On The Radio (Oh Yeah)  – Roxy Music
18 New 1 Love Connection  – Plastik Mak
19 New 1 Celebration  – Kool & The Gang
20 18 7 Me Myself I  – Joan Armatrading

Barbra Streisand’s ‘Woman In Love’ joined 13 other songs in having spent 8 weeks at number 1 as it clung on to the top spot. However the song that had spent those 8 weeks at number 2, Ballyhoo’s ‘Man On The Moon’, finally dropped down the charts, falling 2 to 4. This made way for Neil Diamond’s ‘Love On The Rocks’ to move into 2nd place climbing up from 3. Barbra moved into tied 16th place for weeks at 1. She had 9 to her name (the other 1 being with ‘Mother’). She joined The Hollies, Joy and Richard Jon Smith in tied 16th place.

Rod Stewart became the 9th act to see a song climb 10 or more in a week on 2 occasions as ‘Passion’ took the climber of the week award with a 12 place jump from 18 to 8. His previous hit to manage a 10 or more place climb was ‘Sailing’ which managed an 11 place jump on 14 November 1975. The 12 place climb by ‘Passion’ was the biggest we had seen so far in the 80s. These 2 climbs were his only 2 biggest climber awards with his next best jump was only 4 places.

There were 2 other star raters this week and they were The Jacksons’ ‘Can You Feel It’ which moved up 4 from 7 to 3 and John Lennon’s ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ which climbed 4 from 13 to 9. It was Lennon’s 5th time with a star rater climb and he moved ahead of Paul McCartney who had only managed 3, however, Paul had seen a further 10 as a member of Wings. In terms of solo success of ex-Beatles, Ringo still led the way for the most star rater climbs as he had seen 7 while George was only on 3.

Diana Ross’ ‘Upside Down’ was the faller of the week. It dropped 5 places from 8 to 13 to give Ross her 3rd biggest faller award. She could take some comfort from the fact that the song was enjoying its 18th week in the charts and its 5th as the oldest.

Suzi Quatro’s SA chart career came to an end as her hit, ‘Rock Hard’ departed from the chart. It had been with us for 10 weeks and peaked at 5. She had seen 6 hits make our charts, of which only 1 failed to make the top 10 (‘Mama’s Boy’ peaked at 12). She spent a total of 72 weeks in the charts which at this point was the tied 36th best effort overall and the 4th highest for a female act. She fell just 1 week short of equalling Petula Clark in 3rd place on 73 weeks. So far she was the highest placed American woman on the weeks count list.

‘Shouldn’t Fall in Love’ by City Limits was the other song to go. It had spent 9 weeks on the charts and peaked at 8. They would see 1 other hit make our charts.

The first new entry was by a band that had already had 1 hit on the charts, but ‘Love Connection’ by Plastik Mak featured a completely different line up to the one that featured on their previous hit, ‘Shake Your Body’. The band began life as a fictious one in a film called ‘Follow That Rainbow’ and ‘Shake Your Body’ from the film featured Michael McGovern, Judy Page and Crocodile Harris on vocals while the film appeared to have Joe Stewardson, Joan Brickhill and Paul Ditchfield in the band. Due to the success of the fictitious band, Terry Dempsey, who wrote their previous hit, assembled Zayn Adams, Assie O’Donnel and Joanna Field to form a real group going under the same name. It was this line up that scored a hit this week with ‘Love Connection’. This was written by Terry Dempsey and gave him his 28th hit as a song writer. Terry had recently been coming under pressure from Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn for the top spot on the list of hits by a song writer, but he was now 3 ahead of them as they sat on 25.

Kool & The Gang saw their SA chart debut this week in the form of ‘Celebration’. The band had already had 15 US chart hits (4 of which had gone top 10) before ‘Celebration’ came along and it would be their first US chart topper. It knocked Blondie’s ‘The Tide Is High’ off the number 1 spot before spending 2 weeks at 1. It was dethroned by Dolly Parton’s ‘9 to 5’ but sold over 2 million copies in the US in the process. It would also top the charts in Canada and New Zealand. In the UK it would only make it to number 7, but did sell a quarter of a million copies in doing so. In 1987 a band called Dragon took a cover version to number 11 in Australia and in 1992 a Kylie Minogue cover went to 21 in Australia and 20 in the UK as well a charting in Belgium (#26) and Ireland (#11). In a 2001 episode of ‘Friends’, Ross trying to learn to play the bagpipes attempts to play ‘Celebration’ when showing off his new ‘skill’ to his friends.

Rod Stewart saw his weeks total reach the 30 milestone while John Lennon hit 50. Lennon was the most successful of the solo Beatles, but fell 15 short of the 65 that Paul McCartney’s post Beatle Group, Wings, had managed so far. Ringo was second of the solo Beatles with 45 weeks followed by Paul and George who were tied on 24. The Beatles themselves had seen 42.

On the weeks count list we saw Leo Sayer move into tied 17th place alongside Olivia Newton-John. They were both on 93 weeks. And on the points front, Neil Diamond reach the landmark of 1,500 points. He was the 7th act to accumulate this many.

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