09 Nov 2001
summers, sting, copeland: SNARKBITE
Some UK Hits: Nov 1981
| 1 |
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic |
| Police |
| 2 |
Joan Of Arc |
| Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark |
| 3 |
When She Was My Girl |
| Four Tops |
| 4 |
Under Pressure |
| Queen & David Bowie |
| 5 |
Happy Birthday |
| Altered Images |
| 6 |
Begin The Beguine |
| Julio Iglesias |
| 7 |
Labelled With Love |
| Squeeze |
| 8 |
Favourite Shirts (Boy meets Girl) |
| Haircut 100 |
| 9 |
Tonight I'm Yours (Don't Hurt Me) |
| Rod Stewart |
| 10 |
It's My Party |
| Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin |
| 11 |
Physical |
| Olivia Newton-John |
| 12 |
Let's Groove |
| Earth Wind & Fire |
| 13 |
A Good Year For The Roses |
| Elvis Costello |
| 14 |
Bed Sitter |
| Soft Cell |
| 15 |
I Go To Sleep |
| Pretenders |
| 16 |
Hold Me |
| BA Robertson & Maggie Bell |
| 17 |
When You Were Sweet Sixteen |
| Fureys & Davey Arthur |
| 18 |
The Birdie Song |
| Tweets |
| 19 |
Open Your Heart |
| Human League |
| 20 |
Why Do Fools Fall In Love? |
| Diana Ross |
|
**********
 We
have been refused permission to reproduce charts from this era,
so please note that the list of singles on this page does not
represent any one UK chart; compiled from many different
sources, the list is a general guide to the most popular singles of
the month, ordered loosely by sales and peak chart position.
|
|
You've
got to say we were spoiled between 1979 and 1983: 14 Top 20
entries by The Police (including five No. 1's) and every one
of them top class stuff. Since
the mid-eighties, Summers, Sting and Copeland have developed their
own careers, but have still come together quite regularly to play and
record. The band itself has won a long list of awards,
starting with Best British Group at the 1982 inaugural Brits.
Every Little
Thing... was their fourth No. 1, and was voted Best Pop Song at
the 1982 Novello Awards.
|
|
At
No. 6 is Julio Iglesias, the ultra-smooth Madridian who
reached No. 1 in October with this 1935 Cole Porter song. Not
everyone's taste, but Julio won't worry about that: the world's
leading Latino singer for decades, he released his 77th album in
2000, and has sold in total a staggering 250m albums worldwide -
more than anyone else. He also has an remarkable and enviable
reputation with the women, though Julio himself has laughed off the
more extravagant numbers that have been suggested. So
knock the music if you will, but it can't be a bad life.
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14
weeks in the Top 50 for teeny idols Haircut 100 with Favourite
Shirts, written by vocalist Nick Heyward. This was the
first of their four Top Ten hits in 1981-1982. After
Heyward left the group at the end of 1982, they had no further
success and split up in 1984.
|
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Quite
a lively chart this, with Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin
partying and crying away at No. 10, and Olivia Newton-John getting
physical at No. 11. Classiest of all is at No. 16: BA
Robertson and ex Stone The Crows vocalist Maggie Bell reviving the
PJ Proby hit from 1964 (more on PJP another time). BA has been with Mike and the Mechanics since
1985.
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No,
I'm not going to be rude about The Tweets, at No. 18 - why should I?
The Birdie Song contributed absolutely nothing to music, and in
any normal sense it was awful; you knew it, I knew it, and
The Tweets themselves and the whole world knew it. But people got
tanked up, did a daft dance, and generally had a bit of a
laugh. You can do worse than that on a Saturday night. Having said
all that, thank God the follow-up failed and we never heard
from them again.
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