11 December 1981

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Endless Love	–	Diana Ross & Lionel Richie
2	2	12	Urgent	–	Foreigner
3	3	5	Going Back to My Roots	–	Odyssey
4	5	5	It’s My Party	–	Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin
5	10	3	It’s You, It’s You, It’s You	–	Joe Dolan
6	7	7	Start Me Up	–	Rolling Stones
7	4	8	Green Door	–	Shakin’ Stevens
8	6	10	Wired for Sound	–	Cliff Richard
9	8	13	Queen of Hearts	–	Juice Newton
10	11	5	Dancing on the Floor (Hooked On Love)	–	Third World
11	13	3	Prince Charming	–	Adam & The Ants
12	9	10	Hold on Tight	–	Electric Light Orchestra
13	14	6	Everlasting Love	–	Rex Smith & Rachel Sweet
14	17	4	Arthur’s Theme (Best That You can Do)	–	Christopher Cross
15	12	8	Hooked on Classics	–	Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
16	20	2	Under Pressure	–	Queen & David Bowie
17	18	7	Love Hurts	–	Mattisson Brothers
18	15	3	Pretend	–	Alvin Stardust
19	New	1	Japanese Boy	–	Aneka
20	New	1	Young Turks	–	Rod Stewart

Bubbling under (thanks to Kevin Farquhason for the info):

Stevie Wonder	Happy Birthday (official bubble)
The Frank Barber Orchestra	Glen Miller Today
Soft Cell	Tainted Love
Police	Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

The duet between Diana Ross and Lionel Riche, ‘Endless Love’, spent a 3^rd week at 1 while the previous chart topper, Foreigner’s ‘Urgent’, had not moved from 2 since conceding the top spot.

Joe Dolan picked up his 5^th biggest climber award as ‘It’s You, It’s You, It’s You’ moved up 5 from 10 to 5. And sticking with a 5 theme, he was the 5^th act to see the number of places moved up equal the number of biggest climbers the act had had and also equal the position the song landed at. The previous 4 acts to manage this were Middle Of The Road, George Baker Selection, Cliff Richard and Suzi Quatro.

Moving up 4 to be the only other star rater this week was Queen & David Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure’ which climbed from 20 to 16.

There were 4 songs that fell 3 places this week and they shared the faller of the week award. These were Alvin Stardust’s ‘Pretend’ (down from 15 to 18), The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s ‘Hooked On Classics’ (down from 12 to 15), ELO’s ‘Hold On Tight’ (down from 9 to 12) and Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Green Door’ (down from 4 to 7). The observant amongst you may have notice that ‘Green Door’ spoilt things by not dropping from 6 to 9 to have the 3 highest placed fallers all drop into the position vacated by the faller just lower than them.

Juice Newton’s ‘Queen Of Hearts’ spent a 13^th week in the chart and clocked up its 3^rd week as the song that had been on the chart the longest of those in the top 20.

Jim Steinman’s ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams Come Through’ was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart. It had managed a run of 9 weeks and peaked at 5. This would be Steinman’s only hit as an artist, but he would see more chart action as a producer and song writer. We had seen 25 songs so far that had entered the charts at number 10 or higher of which ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams Come Through’ was the latest, but of these 9 had failed to go on to top the charts. 7 of the 9 had peaked at 2 while Steinman’s hit and Tommy Dell’s ‘Little Rosa’ which both only managed to get to number 5 shared a lowest peak for a song entering the charts at 10 or higher.

Also going was The Pointer Sister’s ‘Slow Hand’. It lasted 5 weeks and peaked at 10, which was 10 weeks less and a peak 10 places lower than their only other hit to date, ‘Fire’, which had topped the charts in a 15 week run in the top 20. This was the 3^rd and final song we would see that would have exactly the same weeks and peaks figures for its UK charts run. The previous 2 to manage this were Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell’s ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’ and Adam & The Ants’ ‘Antmusic’. The Pointers Sisters were not yet done with their SA chart career.

The first new entry was by a Scottish woman called Mary Sandeman who went under the name Aneka. Her song, ‘Japanese Boy’ would top the UK charts for 1 week, knocking Shakin’ Stevens ‘Green Door’ from the top spot before being dethroned by Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’. It would also top the charts in Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland. Aneka would go on to have 1 more UK hit, ‘Little Lady’, which made it to 50 there, and another hit called ‘Ooh Shooby Doo Doo Lang’ which would chart in Austria, Germany and The Netherlands.

Rod Stewart’s ‘Young Turks’ was his 5^th song to make our charts and he became the 77^th act to reach 5 hits. The song would top the charts in Israel and would go top 10 in Australia (#3), Belgium (#5), Canada (#2), Ireland (#9) and the US (#5) as well as getting to 11 in the UK. It would top the Radio 5 charts. It was one of only a few non-instrumental tracks that made our charts where the song title doesn’t appear in the lyrics and would be his 25^th UK chart hit (this includes 3 hits where he shares credits with another act).

It had been 26 weeks since the Brits last accounted for 10 or more of the top 20 and this week there were 11 hits by acts from the UK in the chart. We actually had to go back 492 weeks (to 7 July 1972) to see the last time they had this many in the top 20.

The Rolling Stones clocked up their 130^th week in the charts and were 8^th overall for weeks and now just 1 behind 7^th placed Elvis Presley. Joe Dolan saw his weeks count move onto 108 which put him level with Boney M in 13^th place overall.

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