My Musical History Part 12

A year of changes

Musically speaking, two things happened in 1983 that proved to be of long term significance. In March, the first compact discs went on sale. Tomorrow’s World had memorably introduced the technology to UK a couple of years earlier by focusing on its indestructible nature leading Kieran Prendiville to scratch it with a stone! However, if like me you remember him spreading jam on it, well it didn’t happen! BBC Breakfast spread honey on a CD in 1983 and around the same time Peter Powell may have spread jam on one. Website orchadoo.com goes into some depth if you’re interested – https://www.orchardoo.com/TWCompactDisc.htm

Initially, the CD was very expensive and the technology to play it on was even more expensive, so it was very much for early adopters for the first few years. Within a decade it had, however, pretty much killed off vinyl – But not for long! Eventually, vinyl would rise from its 7 & 12 inch graves and become the choice of those same music aficionados who had given away all their vinyl by the end of the decade and who ended up buying it back at hugely inflated prices!

The other, arguably just as influential, happening took place on 28 November 1983 when the first Now album was released. It is difficult to understand what a game changer it was. Other compilation albums, some excellent – Hot Wax in 1980 and Raiders of the Pop Charts in 1983 – and the rest pretty forgettable. What Now That’s What I Call Music (no numeral for the first one) did was bring together pretty much a whole year’s music on to a double LP in time for Christmas. It also made its only prediction as to a future Number 1 – Victims by Culture Club – and got that wrong, meaning that no future chart positions were predicted on the following 108 (at the time of writing) Now albums. Otherwise, it got pretty much everything else spot on. The mix of artists showed an ability to capture the pop charts of the time in all its variety and as a time capsule it’s fantastic. Without exception, I can look at the track listing and remember at least the chorus of every single one. It also helpfully gave the list of Number 1 records that year. It missed three huge records, Uptown Girl, True and Every Breath You Take. It also missed the Christmas Number 1 (which appeared on Now II – of which more later) and Billie Jean from Michael Jackson’s iconic Thriller album (which sold one million copies a week worldwide from its release to the end of 1983 – 32 million copies worldwide by the end of the year). These omissions were the result of rival record companies refusing EMI access to the tracks. It was, however, the start of a musical institution.

Politically, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party was still riding the wave of public acclaim from the previous year’s Falklands War and the election called in June gave the party a 144 seat majority. For better or for worse, depending on where you stood, Maggie was in for the long haul. It was the start of a political decade that would completely change the country, perhaps permanently in some ways.

Personally, I finally left the school I had hated for 7 years, only to go into a job I turned out to be completely unsuited for! On the plus side I made a really good friend while I was there who made things much more bearable and considerably less sober! The only good thing that happened in my last year of school was that I became involved with the school cricket team as a scorer which I turned out to have a certain amount of ability at and I ended the season as the scorer for my local cricket club which proved to be an absolute boon to my social life as well as a useful source of extra pocket money before my job started!

New stars and old favourites

In the middle of January, music lovers around the country breathed a huge sigh of relief as Renee and Renato together with his dodgy jumper and their gravity defying rose (watch the video if you dare!) finally gave up the Number 1 spot. It was taken by Phil Collins with his version of the Supremes classic, You Can’t Hurry Love. It marked the start of his imperial period. (The phrase was coined by Neil Tennant to describe the time five years later when he felt that the Pet Shop Boys were at their creative and commercial peak simultaneously. In 1983 he was still the editor of Smash Hits with his and Chris Lowe’s own music career more than two years away from exploding on to the scene.) As well as being a great record in its own right, it also introduced me and many others to Diana Ross and The Supremes of whom I quickly became a huge fan.

At Number 2 behind Phil Collins was 70s heartthrob David Essex with A Winter’s Tale. Despite being forever associated with Christmas it does not actually mention Christmas anywhere in the lyrics. It was written by the genius that is Mike Batt, whose work over the years has provided me with many soundtrack songs to my life. The combination of his ear for a melancholy tune and lyrics matched with the star quality of the brilliant David Essex, whose stage career gave ample proof of his vocal excellence, to create one of the best songs not to make Number 1. Still, as a staple of Christmas albums ever since it has become one of the public’s favourite seasonal classics.

Another 70s singer was enjoying a renaissance courtesy of the irresistibly bombastic Total Eclipse of the Heart. Bonnie Tyler had had a couple of Top 10 hits in the mid seventies with Lost in France and It’s a Heartache. In 1983 she teamed up with Jim Steinmann, the producer and writer, who had sent Meatloaf into the rock stratosphere with Bat out of Hell. The often unheralded Roy Bittan, the pianist for both the E Street Band (Bruce Springsteen’s live band) and Meatloaf provided the basis for Bonnie Tyler to launch herself on the song. Her performance is a tour de force of emotion, but his brilliance is what gives the song its heart. He is one of those musicians whose appearance on a record is a guarantee of quality as artists as diverse as Dire Straits, David Bowie, Shania Twain and Celine Dion could attest to. It’s funny which musicians and singers really appeal to you, especially if they are largely in the background, but as soon as I heard the song I knew it was Steinmann, as did everyone else, and I also knew it was Roy Bittan from those first few piano notes. Do yourself a favour and investigate his musical output over the years, and you will realise that he is without doubt one of the foremost rock pianists of the last 50 years.

The first three months of 1983 saw a whole slew of artists release career defining records that either set them on the path for greatness or proved to be a single highpoint. In the former category you had the Eurythmics with the once in a generation voice of Annie Lennox. Her voice was seductive, smooth and above all dangerous. Even before seeing the iconic video, you knew that this was a woman who had a personality to match. I loved Sweet Dreams and pretty much everything else the Eurythmics did after that. The combination of her voice and Dave Stewart’s music was a match made in heaven that owed an awful lot to their combined devilment! Nearly four decades on, the thing you notice most about Sweet Dreams is how fresh and up to date it still seems.

Somewhere in the middle, Fun Boy Three, an offshoot of The Specials, had great success with the sublime Tunnel of Love, a smart, sarcastic song that married some of the great pop lyrics of the time to a fantastic, instantly recognisable tune. My favourite line sums up its bleakness perfectly as the marvellous Terry Hall sardonically intones the ‘inevitable’ end to the Tunnel of Love.

But the trial separation worked
And ended up in a divorce case

You gave up your friends for a new way of life
And both ended up as ex-husband and wife
There were 22 catches when you struck your matches
And threw away your life in the tunnel of love

It wasn’t their biggest hit, and it wasn’t their final hit, but if you wanted to sum up the appeal of Fun Boy Three this song is the epitome of their style. Terry Hall’s ability to put across a song has always been unquestioned and all these years later he is still adding his quality to The Specials.  

A group who had one big hit and then disappeared were the Scottish band Orange Juice. What a hit though! Rip it Up is an all time classic of the era that just oozes class and positivity. It’s the type of track that puts a smile on your face the instant you hear it and which stands the test of time as well as any of the more famous songs of the era. It was also groundbreaking in that it was the first Top 40 hit to use the Roland TB-303 synthesiser.

March saw my 18^th birthday in 1983, and a certain young lady bought a certain album for me. Whilst that young lady was never crazy about me in the way I was about her at the time, we are still very much in touch and the album Deep Sea Skiving by Banarama is still one of my treasured LPs all these years later!

An all time classic and some breakthrough tracks

In the next three months, there were three tracks at Number 1, David Bowie with Lets Dance, Spandau Ballet with True and Every Breath You Take by The Police. Interestingly, despite its ubiquity on radio playlists, Every Breath You Take was outsold comfortably by the other two, appearing 4^th, 6^th and 16^th respectively on the bestselling singles list. At the time, like most other people, I thought that Every Breath You Take was a song about love, but of course the truth was very different! I think that really epitomises the genius of The Police. They had already sent songs about prostitution, suicide, an infatuated teacher lusting after a student, and the troubles in Ireland into the Top 10, sometimes with the record buyers being unaware of the lyrical content! Their ability to marry up a fantastic tune with multi-layered lyrics was what set them apart from everybody else in a 5 year burst of songs with few parallels at the time or since. They were the first group whose poster adorned my bedroom wall, and the intervening years have not reduced my affection for them at all. So thank you Sting, Stuart Copeland and Andy Summers for making my mid-teens that much more bearable.  

Outside of those blockbusters there were some tracks that instantly take me back to my 18 year old self. The French singer F.R. David was almost a one hit wonder in the UK charts, but after Words which got to Number 2, he released Music which got to Number 71. The track featured a vocal performance that had elements of Roy Orbison in its phrasing, and unfashionable though it was to like it, it became a favourite of mine in April and May. Another record that caught my imagination at this time was the brilliant We Are Detective by Thompson Twins, a British trio whose name came from the detectives in Tin Tin. It was a song full of atmosphere that combined an instantly recognisable tune with clever lyrics. It was a sign of things to come for a group who would become used to the top end of the charts in the next year or so.

The Summer of Freedom

There’s something instantly different about the summer just after you leave school for the final time, especially if like me, and I suspect most other people, you absolutely hated the school you were at. The sense of relief, the feeling of freedom and that interlude between school and work or higher education is a time when you consciously relax and prepare yourself for the rest of your life. As someone whose life has been largely defined by music I would have been irritated, in retrospect, by a nondescript summer Number 1 for that defining summer. Luckily for me, KC and the Sunshine Band came to my rescue with the catchy, memorable, and altogether brilliant Give It Up. As soon as that instantly recognisable synth track kicks in I remember being 18 and by the time the sing along chorus arrives the years have just melted away. It’s not a song that regularly gets talked about when great summer hits are the subject, but musically it’s a superb track and in terms of the memories it brings back it is a time capsule like few others.

Looking at some of the other songs around at the time, the ethereal strains of Moonlight Shadow by Mike Oldfield and Maggie Reilly seemed to come from nowhere, but it made a lasting impact on many music fans and reminded us of the talents of Mike Oldfield, who for most of us was at best vaguely remembered for the album Tubular Bells. Good though the tune was, it was Maggie Reilly who turned it into a hit with her fantastic vocals. The lyrics were mysterious and open to a number of interpretations, including it being a reference to the killing of John Lennon. There was something about a song that had an almost wintry feel appearing in July that made it even more effective.

I could pick a huge number of tracks from that summer and have memories attached to each of them. There was a glut of quality tracks that year which could easily have been bigger hits in a year that was less blessed with quality. Looking at the records from the time that instantly conjure up a time or place you have, I’m Still Standing by Elton John, Club Tropicana by Wham, Come Live with Me by Heaven 17, Gold by Spandau Ballet and Flashdance by Irene Cara. It was also the start of Paul Young’s solo success with his Number 1 track Wherever I Lay my Hat.

There was a massive Number 1 with an instantly recognisable beginning, a harmonica solo and a chorus that just demanded to be sung along to. With 6 weeks at the top, the biggest selling single of the year was Karma Chameleon by Culture Club. Culture Club had released a couple of well received singles following their breakthrough the previous year with Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, with Church of the Poisoned Mind being particularly memorable thanks to Helen Terry’s fantastic gospel style chorus. Karma Chameleon was a worldwide smash, giving Culture Club their first US Number 1 and paving the way for Boy George to become a breakout star on MTV with a rather brilliant Deep South style video featuring a paddle steamer and a watery end for a would be swindler.

The return of some more old favourites and a memorable Christmas Number 1

Taking over from Karma Chameleon at Number 1 in 1983 was the classic 60s style, Four Seasons influenced sing along from an artist who had been ignored by the bulk of the British buying public despite being massive in the US. Everything changed for the fantastic Billy Joel, one of my music idols, with the release of Uptown Girl from the Innocent Man album. With its instantly memorable video featuring tongue in cheek choreography at a garage, and the supermodel Christie Brinkley, Uptown Girl was an instant smash and stayed at Number 1 for 5 weeks, becoming an 80s classic that is still instantly recognisable to music lovers who weren’t even born when it came out.

Once again, the brilliant tracks that filled those three months from October to December would become staples of the 80s radio stations to this day. Tracey Ullman got to Number 2 in the charts with the gorgeous They Don’t Know, a song that demonstrated the quality of her voice and the ability to use her comedy background to give us some hilarious videos. Blue Monday by New Order became the first 12” only release to hit the Top 10. The Love Cats proved that The Cure had a sense of fun buried beneath their goth exteriors. Men Without Hats taught us the importance of the Safety Dance in one of the catchiest songs of the year. Hold Me Now gave The Thompson Twins another Top 10 hit as they really got into their stride. Any of those songs could have made it to Number 1 in a less competitive year, and I genuinely think that if you look at the list of Top 10 tracks during 1983 that there is a clear argument for it being the strongest year for music that I have ever seen.

Finally, we reach the battle for the Christmas Number 1. In one corner were 70s legends Slade who had found the key to unlock the charts once again with their anthemic My Oh My. It was very different to their 70s heyday, but it proved once again that Noddy Holder and Jim Lea had few peers when it came to writing memorable rock songs. The success of My Oh My even led to Merry Christmas Everybody getting back into the Top 20 in the days when you actually had to sell physical records! In any other year, Slade would have had their 7^th chart topper, but not in 1983. Their competition in the other corner were a group of socialist rabble rousers singing an acapella version of Yazoo’s Only You which had been a hit the year before. The Flying Pickets, named after union members who would go to any strike to help man the barricades took the record buying public by surprise and found themselves with one of the most unlikely Christmas Number 1 singles ever. What was its secret? If I knew I would be sitting in the lap of luxury now counting my money having cracked that age old question of how to manufacture a hit! If I had to guess though, it would be the sheer unlikeliness of this track, the fact that Christmas charts are always a law unto themselves and that the track itself is one of the most beautiful and haunting arrangements of the human voice imaginable.

Next time

It’s 1984 and the hits keep coming!