UK Top 40 Singles 5th January 1980 (Spotify playlist #9)

This week's playlist sees us travelling all the way back to the first chart of the 1980s - or, if you're being finicky, the final chart of the 1970s; it's for the week ending 5th January 1980 anyway, so would actually have first appeared on 29th December 1979. Hang on, I'll start again...

This week's playlist sees us travelling all the way back to the final chart of the 1970s. And what a week it was! But don't just take my word for it - cop a load of these.

(as ever, click on the link below to listen)

40 The Nolans - I'm In The Mood For Dancing
39 Booker T & The MG's - Green Onions
38 Diana Ross - It's My House
36 Boney M - I'm Born Again
35 Lena Martell - One Day At A Time
34 M - Moonlight And Muzak
33 Sheila & B. Devotion - Spacer
32 Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love
31 Dr Hook - When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman
30 Kurtis Blow - Christmas Rappin'
29 The Clash - London Calling
26 E.L.O. - Last Train To London (Double A-side with 'Confusion')
25 Matchbox - Rockabilly Rebel
24 Billy Preston & Syreeta - With You I'm Born Again
23 Skids - Working For The Yankee Dollar
22 Madness - One Step Beyond
21 Chic - My Feet Keep Dancing
20 KC & The Sunshine Band - Please Don't Go
19 Moody Blues - Nights In White Satin
18 Status Quo - Living On An Island
17 The Beat - Tears Of A Clown (Double A-side with 'Ranking Full Stop')
16 Blondie - Union City Blue
15 Rose Royce - Is It Love You're After
14 Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand - No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)
13 Elvis Presley - It Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You)
12 David Bowie - John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)
11 Michael Jackson - Off The Wall
10 The Three Degrees - My Simple Heart
9 Gibson Brothers - Que Sera Mi Vida
8 The Police - Walking On The Moon
7 Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight
5 The Pretenders - Brass In Pocket
4 The Tourists - I Only Wanna Be With You
2 ABBA - I Have A Dream

Listen here



The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that there are a handful of numbers missing from the list (including the number 1); this is entirely down to their lack of availability on Spotify, rather than any unilateral pruning on my part.

But, to fill in the blanks, below are archive performances of the missing songs. As with some of the tracks on the actual playlist, you might not thank me for them, but here they are all the same!

37 The Ramblers - The Sparrow



28 The Greedies - A Merry Jingle



27 Mike Oldfield - Blue Peter



6 Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmas Time



3 Fiddler's Dram - Day Trip To Bangor



1 Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall



That's all for now, but don't forget to join Tommy Vance same time, same place next week. (That's except for viewers in 2011.)

Three of a Kind #114

It's always a pleasure to chance upon one of the old Indie Top 20 compilations on one's travels - and that's exactly what happened to yours truly the other day when I got Volume 6 on CD for a quid in a charity shop. I already had this one on vinyl and if I'm honest it's not my favourite in the series - there are eight or nine songs on here that I could happily live out my days without ever hearing again - but it does house a handful of gems, three of which I've selected below.

So we've got David Gedge and chums giving us a French version of Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? (Tres bien! Ou est la bibliotheque? etc), the Colorblind James Experience thinking about relocating, and Sandie Shaw still clinging on to some indie credibility in the wake of her collaboration with the Smiths some five years previously. If this had been Five of a Kind, Bradford and The Parachute Men would have made the cut too. But hey, that's showbiz.

1 Pourquoi Es Tu Devenue Si Raisonable? - Le Cadeau De Mariage
2 The Things You Want - Snapdragon
3 The World Is Ours - Rose of Avalanche
4 Rent Act - Wolfhounds
5 Butterfly - Inspiral Carpets
6 Rain of Ruin - Suicide
7 Black Sun - Loop
8 This Is Not Blasphemy - Christian Death
9 Pas Mal - Young Gods
10 Revolution - Spacemen Three
11 Transcendental - Bam Bam, Shamen
12 Headhunter [VI] - Front Two Four Two
13 Voodoo Ray - A Guy Called Gerald
14 Tangiers - Screaming Trees
15 Blow Up - The James Taylor Quartet
16 Dodging Around in Cars - Bradford
17 Nothing Less Than Brilliant - Sandie Shaw
18 Sometimes in Vain - The Parachute Men
19 Considering a Move to Memphis - Colorblind James Experience

Le Cadeau De Mariage - Pourquoi Es Tu Devenue Si Raisonable? mp3

The Colorblind James Experience - Considering A Move To Memphis mp3

Sandie Shaw - Nothing Less Than Brilliant mp3

TV dinner

If you like 1980s pop and/or 1990s cult daytime cookery-based light-entertainment shows, these clips are for you! Gary Numan, August Darnell and Toyah Wilcox tuck in to lunch (and birthday cake) with Mel & Sue on Light Lunch, in 1997, on the occasion of Mel's 30th 29th birthday. (Fourteen years ago, Spike!)



A slightly bewildered Peter Purves joins them for afters.

The Eighties Alternative II (Spotify playlist #6)

Well, my first 80s playlist seemed to go down reasonably well, so here's another; The Eighties Alternative II - or The Alternative Eighties Alternative, if you like. As ever, there are 32 songs in the list (honestly, I'm so inflexible) and it can be listened to simply by clicking on the link underneath the list of tracks. Subject to availability. Terms and conditions don't apply. Please listen irresponsibly.

Tracie and the sometime band

Just stumbled on a minor eighties classic on YouTube, with Weller protégé Tracie Young performing a rather spiffing live version of her big 1983 hit The House That Jack Built backed by the Modfather himself on bass, Mick Talbot on keyboards and what looks like a pair of fourteen-year-olds with guitars.



Mildly Interesting Pop Fact(s): Winner of the Most Fanciable Female Award in the 1983 Smash Hits Readers' Poll, Tracie is now a local radio DJ on Chelmsford Radio 107.7 in Essex, where she presents in the 10-am-2pm Monday - Saturday slot. (Whatever happened to weekday DJs getting the weekend off, by the way? Or does that just apply to the big-time charlies on national stations?)

Tracie still dabbles in music as well - playing it I mean, rather than, umm, playing it! - (behold her MySpace page), and made a one-off appearance supporting erstwhile Faith Brothers frontman Billy Franks in a double bill to savour for the discerning eighties pop fan, at the Shepherd's Bush Empire last year. (Surely it can only be a matter of time before that place is rebranded the Vodaphone Empire or the Iceland Shepherd's Pie Empire or something equally unedifying, by the way).

Cherry Red have recently released Tracie's 1984 debut album, Far From The Hurting Kind on CD, complete with ten bonus tracks (including The House That Jack Built), which you can order direct from their website.

Confused? You will be...

Not much in the way of new blog entries from yours truly of late - the disappointment of the Netherlands entry not actually making the Eurovision final after all obviously must've hit me harder than I first feared. In fact, I've not really got anything new to offer today either (why change the habits of a lifetime? etc).

I have, however, been watching the odd music vid on YouTube over the past week or so, including these two largely forgotten (at least by me - until last night) 80s classics from Womack & Womack, 1984's Love Wars and 88's Teardrops. And who knew that Linda Womack was actually Sam Cooke's daughter? Not me for one. Linda married Cecil Womack, who'd previously been married to Motown's own Mary Wells. Linda and Cecil's marriage created controversy as Cecil's brother Bobby (of Bobby Womack fame) had himself married Sam Cooke's widow Barbara just three months after the legendary crooner's murder in 1964. (Seldom has Soap's trademark "Confused?" line seemed so apt.)

Anyway, yes, love wars and teardrops all round I'd imagine!





In other eighties-related news, Rick Astley was a guest on Jonathan Ross's Radio 2 show this morning. What a thoroughly likeable, down-to-earth chap he comes across as. Modest too, insisting that he'd never really cracked America, despite having enjoyed two number ones on the Billboard singles chart and a few more top ten hits besides (we only learnt this information at all because Ross had to shoehorn it in amidst Rick's protestations of failure).

I also love the fact that that supposedly ironic but actually quite snidey "Rickrolling" campaign is what seems to have thrust our man back into the spotlight, as evidenced by his current unexpected comeback. Anyway, hurrah. Whatever you think of Rick's music - and no one's ever been more withering on this particular subject than the late, great Bill Hicks - it's refreshing to see someone with a bit of humility getting on well in the business of show. The new single's bloody awful though.

7th Heaven - Hot Fun

Because it's high summer all of a sudden and this reminds me of school holidays of yore and more innocent times in general, when members of the public weren't used to living their whole lives on camera. If they made this video today it'd just be to a backdrop of distracted faces and mobile phones held aloft. *sigh*

First person to correctly identify the UK seaside resort featured in this vid wins an improvised lolly-stuck-in-a-stick-of-rock microphone by the way. Except they don't, obviously. What do you think we are, made of money?



Tragically (well, slightly disappointingly), Hot Fun stalled at #47 in the Gallup charts, a fate possibly influenced by the fact that it didn't enter the top 75 until the week of 14th September 1985 i.e. just as the summer had ended. By the cringe the record company (Mercury) were slow out of the blocks with this one!

7th Heaven - Hot Fun mp3