| TW | LW | Weeks | Song | Artist | |
| 1 | 2 | 9 | The Power of Love | – | Jennifer Rush |
| 2 | 5 | 6 | My Toot Toot | – | Jean Knight |
| 3 | 4 | 8 | Live is Life | – | Opus |
| 4 | 11 | 10 | Crazy in the Night (Barking At Airplanes) | – | Kim Carnes |
| 5 | 1 | 17 | Woodpeckers from Space | – | Café Society |
| 6 | 10 | 9 | Frankie | – | Sister Sledge |
| 7 | 3 | 19 | You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul | – | Modern Talking |
| 8 | 8 | 11 | Crazy for You | – | Madonna |
| 9 | 12 | 6 | Champions of Love | – | Tom Inglis |
| 10 | 6 | 15 | Lover Come Back to Me | – | Dead or Alive |
| 11 | 7 | 13 | I Wanna Rock | – | Twisted Sister |
| 12 | 9 | 15 | I was Born to Love You | – | Freddie Mercury |
| 13 | 15 | 5 | In My Time | – | Teddy Pendergrass |
| 14 | 16 | 6 | Johnny Come Home | – | Fine Young Cannibals |
| 15 | 20 | 2 | There Must be an Angel (Playing With My Heart) | – | Eurythmics |
| 16 | 21 | 5 | We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) | – | Tina Turner |
| 17 | 13 | 16 | So Far Away | – | Dire Straits |
| 18 | 14 | 14 | Don’t You (Forget About Me) | – | Simple Minds |
| 19 | 23 | 2 | Around My Dream | – | Silver Pozzoli |
| 20 | 17 | 26 | Ring of Ice | – | Jennifer Rush |
| 21 | 25 | 2 | Dancing in the Street | – | David Bowie & Mick Jagger |
| 22 | 18 | 24 | We are the World | – | USA for Africa |
| 23 | New | 1 | Endless Road | – | Time Bandits |
| 24 | New | 1 | You’re Only Human (Second Wind) | – | Billy Joel |
| 25 | New | 1 | Into the Groove | – | Madonna |
| 26 | New | 1 | Part-Time Lover | – | Stevie Wonder |
| 27 | 27 | 3 | Glory Days | – | Bruce Springsteen |
| 28 | 26 | 5 | Look Mama | – | Howard Jones |
| 29 | 29 | 4 | All at Once | – | Whitney Houston |
| 30 | 30 | 4 | You Can Win if You Want | – | Modern Talking |
After 7 weeks at 1, Café Society’s ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ joined 5 other songs in falling to 5 from the top spot. This was the tied biggest fall from grace that we had seen in the 80’s, but 3 songs –1910 Fruitgum Company’s ‘Simon Says’, Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Sundown’ and ELOs ‘Livin’ Thing’ – had all fallen to 6, the first in the 60’s and the other 2 in the 70’s. UB40’s ‘Red Red Wine’ was the only song to fall to 5 from 1 in the 80’s. This would be the last time we saw a song fall as low as 5 from the top spot.
The new number one was Jennifer Rush’s ‘The Power Of Love’. This followed her debut hit, ‘Ring Of Ice’, also making the top spot and she was the 7th act to see their first 2 SA chart hits make the top of the charts. The others to do this so far were Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra (his second was with a duet with is daughter Nancy), Kim Wilde, Paul Simon and The Sweet.
Jean Knight’s ‘My Toot Toot’ moved into 2nd place and this was the 29th time we had seen the top 2 places occupied by solo female acts.
Kim Carnes’ ‘Crazy in the Night (Barking At Airplanes)’ picked up its 3rd biggest climber award as it moved up another 7 places from 11 to 4. The other star raters this week were Sister Sledge’s ‘Frankie’ (up 4 from 10 to 6), the Eurythmics’ ‘There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)’ (up 5 from 20 to 15), Tina Turner’s ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)’ (up 5 from 21 to 16), Silver Pozzoli’s ‘Around My Dream’ (up 4 from 23 to 19) and David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s ‘Dancing In The Street’ (up 4 from 25 to 21).
The biggest fall this week was 4 places which meant that ‘Woodpeckers From Space’ was one of the 7 songs that saw such a tumble. The other six were Modern Talking’s ‘You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul’ (down to 7), Dead Or Alive’s ‘Lover Come Back To Me’ (down to 10), Twisted Sister’s ‘I Wanna Rock’ (down to 11), Dire Straits’ ‘So Far Away’ (down to 17), Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ (down to 18) and USA For Africa’s ‘We Are The World’ (down to 22). It was a 5th faller of the week award for Dire Straits and as they had only accumulated 28 weeks in the charts. They now had the second lowest weeks total for an act getting to 5 fallers. Billy Ocean took 26 weeks and held the record.
Jennifer Rush’s ‘Ring Of Ice’ spent a 6th week as the oldest song in the charts as it moved on to 26 weeks and it became the oldest in the top 20 as the previous oldest, ‘We Are The World’, slipped to 22 as noted above. ‘Ring Of Ice’ had spent 22 weeks in the top 20 so far. Jennifer Rush became the 4th act to have the number 1 spot and the oldest hit in the same week but with different songs (this excludes all songs on the very first chart). The previous acts to manage this were Four Jacks & A Jill (‘Master Jack’ at 1 while ‘Timothy’ was the oldest), The Sweet (‘Co-Co’) at 1 while ‘Funny Funny’ was the oldest) and The Bee Gees (‘Stayin’ Alive’ at 1 while ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ was the oldest.
Also leaving the top 20 was Kimera’s ‘The Lost Opera’ (which fell off the charts completely) and the 2 new entries into that part of the chart were Tina Turner’s ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)’ and Silver Pozzoli’s ‘Around My Dream’.
‘The Lost Opera’ managed a run of 20 weeks in the charts and spent 5 weeks at 1 in a run that was broken by Jennifer Rush’s ‘Ring Of Ice’ for 2 weeks. This was the 9th song to leave the top 30 from within the top 20. Kimera would return to the charts at a later date.
We also bid farewell to Katrina & The Waves’ ‘Walking On Sunshine’ which lasted just 2 weeks in the charts and peaked at 28. This would be their only contribution to our charts.
Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson both saw their SA chart careers come to an end as their duet ‘I Know Him So Well’ fell out of the top 30. It had been with us for 24 weeks and managed to get to number 2. It would be the best peak for both artists. Dickson had managed 2 other hits and spent a total of 44 weeks in the charts while Paige only managed 1 other hit and her weeks total was 28.
Paul Hardcastle’s ‘19’ also finished its chart run. It had seen 14 weeks of chart action and peaked at 4. He too was seeing the end of his SA chart career and ‘19’ would be his only hit.
The first of the new entries was ‘Endless Road’ by The Time Bandits. It was the 38th song by a Dutch act to make the charts, but this was not enough to help The Netherlands catch up with Canada and Germany who were both sitting on 39 and leading the way for the non-big 3 nations. The song was written by the band’s lead singer, Alides Hidding, who also produced the track alongside a guy called Willem Ennes. The song would have some success in Europe going to 19 in Belgium and 18 in The Netherlands. Elsewhere it got to 41 in New Zealand and 18 in Zimbabwe. It proved very popular with the local DJs as it topped the Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702 charts.
Billy Joel’s ‘You’re Only Human (Second Wind)’ had the honour of being the 2,200th song to make the charts. It was his 7th hit SA chart hit and he was the 51st act to clock up this many. Joel, who had once considered suicide, wrote the song to help people suffering from depression and contemplating suicide. The royalties from the track were donated to the National Committee for Youth Suicide Prevention in the US. While recording the song, Joel fluffed one is his cues and laughed. Paul Simon and Christine Brinkley (his wife at the time) who were listening in to the recording suggested he keep that in the final mix as a show that he was only human. The song, which featured Santana bass player David Brown, would go top 10 in Australia (#6) and the US (#9). The only local radio chart it made was the Capital 604 one where it got to 18.
In the previous 21 years, we had only seen 1 year where a female act managed to see chart action with a record to date 4 hits and that was in 1967 when Petula Clark managed this. To this list we could now add Madonna who had seen ‘Like A Virgin’, ‘Material Girl’ and ‘Crazy For You’ chart and this week she added ‘Into The Groove’ to her list of 1985 hits. In both Madonna and Petula’s case, the 4 songs were all new entries in the year and not a hang over from a previous year. ‘Into The Groove’ was taken from the soundtrack to the film ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ in which Madonna starred alongside Rosanna Arquette and Aiden Quinn. It would give Madonna her first UK number 1 hit, spending 4 weeks at the top of the charts there and would also go to number 1 in Australia (as a double a-sided single with ‘Angel’), Belgium, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain. It would not chart in the US as it was not released as a single there, only appearing on the b-side of the maxi single for ‘Angel’, thus not qualifying for the charts. It would top the Radio 702 and Capital 604 charts and peak at 11 on Radio 5. American alt rock band Sonic Youth covered the track under the name Ciccone Youth (Ciccone being Madonna’s surname) and changed the title slightly to ‘Into The Groove(y)’. That version got to 20 on the UK Indie charts. Madonna was exactly the same age as Brian Hyland was when his ‘Gypsy Woman’ charted and this was the 51st time someone had charted at exactly the same age as a previous artists had been when they charted. Madonna was the 3rd person to appear on the list twice with her and Peter Vee both charting at exactly the same age (Madonna with ‘Material Girl’ and Vee with ‘He (Can Build A Mountain)’. Cliff Richard and Leo Sayer were the other 2 to share the same age with others twice. With ‘Crazy For You’ also in the charts, Madonna became the 9th act and first female to see 2 or more in the charts with 3 different combinations of songs.
The final new entry saw a return to the charts for Stevie Wonder. ‘Part-Time Lover’ would be his 4th SA chart hit. The song would top Billboard’s Hot 100, R&B, Dance and Adult Contemporary charts in the same week, making Wonder the first act to see number 1 on 4 different Billboard charts in the same week. It would also go to 1 in Belgium, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and Zimbabwe while peaking at 3 in the UK. It featured Luther Vandross, Earth, Wind & Fire’s Philip Bailey and Peter Byrne from Naked Eyes (they had a minor SA chart hit in 1983 with ‘Promises Promises’ – 1 week at 29). It topped the Capital 604 charts, got to 2 on the Radio 702 ones and peaked at 4 on Radio 5.
We now had 15 of the top 30 songs being by US acts and it had been 19 weeks since they last represented at least half the chart.
Bruce Springsteen had the honour of being the 100th act to get to 50 weeks in the charts. He also celebrated hitting the 700 mark using a top 30 points basis.
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