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26 October 1981: Queen and David Bowie release a track born from a 24-hour jam at Mountain Studios, Montreux. UK #1 for 2 weeks, US #29. John Deacon worked out his seven-note bassline on a smoke break. In 1990 Vanilla Ice sampled it for “Ice Ice Baby”, denied the borrow on MTV, then settled out of court.
July 1986: Ivana Spagna with producer Pignagnoli. UK #2 (blocked by The Communards), #1 Germany 5 weeks, #3 France. First Italian woman in UK top-3 with an English-language track - and one of the last Italo-disco UK mainstream hits before house.
September 1986: Liam Sternberg wrote the song after watching passengers on an English Channel ferry. Toni Basil, Lene Lovich and The Go-Go's all passed before The Bangles took it. #1 Billboard for 4 weeks, top-selling US single of 1987. After 9/11 CNN added the track to its list of 164 inappropriate songs.
June 1985: Knopfler overheard delivery workers at a New York appliance store and put their words into the lyric. #1 Billboard for 3 weeks, UK #4. Sting sings “I want my MTV” - for a 25% writing credit. The $350K video, with pop's first full 3D animation, became MTV Europe's first clip in 1987.
May 1982: from the Rio album. UK #5 immediately, US flop at #80. In December MTV puts Russell Mulcahy's $35K Sri Lanka clip in heavy rotation; by January 1983 - Billboard #3. The first case of MTV pulling a song from failure into the top 5. 1983 Grammy for Best Music Video.
February 1986: Prince wrote “Kiss” for Mazarati then took it back. #1 Billboard for 2 weeks, blocking The Bangles' “Manic Monday”. Sunset Sound, one night. Three elements: a Hohner G3T acoustic, LinnDrum and Prince's falsetto. No bass, no synths. 1987 Grammy for Best R&B Performance.
January 1984: Van Halen with an Oberheim OB-Xa synth - alien to hard rock. David Lee Roth and the band hated it; Eddie insisted. #1 Billboard for 5 weeks - the band's only #1. 5150 Studios, producer Templeman. Roth shot the $600 video himself. Album: 10M US copies. Roth quit nine months later.
December 1984: George Michael wrote the song alone in one February 1984 night. Advision Studios, DX7 and sleighbells. UK #2 - blocked by Band Aid, on which George himself sang. He donated single profits to Ethiopia. On 2 January 2021 the track finally hit UK #1 - a 36-year record gap from release.
June 1984: Lauper and Rob Hyman (The Hooters) write the song in half a day at The Record Plant. Title from a 1979 H. G. Wells film. #1 Billboard for 2 weeks, UK #3, 1985 Grammy for Best Pop Vocal. Yamaha CP-70 and Eric Bazilian's mandolin. Miles Davis cut a jazz cover in 1985 - 500+ versions followed.
May 1984: Prince releases a song WITHOUT a bassline. Warner Bros. refused to put it out; Prince insisted. #1 Billboard for 5 weeks - the best-selling US single of 1984. Sunset Sound, one day, Prince plays everything himself: LinnDrum + OB-Xa + Stratocaster. The lyric is autobiographical - about his parents' 1968 divorce.
October 1987: the 24-year-old George Michael writes, produces and performs his solo debut alone. Title single #1 Billboard for 4 weeks, album 25M copies, 12 weeks at #1. Grammy Album of the Year 1988 - a first for solo pop. Gibson J-200 12-string and TR-909.
July 1987: New Order's first American top-40 hit - Billboard #32, UK #4. Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris, producer Stephen Hague. The signature synth riff - Akai S900. Bernard Sumner's lyric is ambiguous: drugs or faith. Philippe Decouflé's clip took the 1988 Brit Award - dance without music.
January 1986: Prince wrote it for Apollonia 6, then gave it to Susanna Hoffs under the pseudonym “Christopher”. #2 Billboard - blocked by Prince's own “Kiss”. Sunset Sound, 6 vocal tracks from the three Bangles on the chorus. Album 8M worldwide; the song collects 15M Monday-morning streams every week.
1981, New York: 22-year-old Suzanne Vega writes verses inside Tom's Restaurant on 112th Street. A cappella recording in 1987 - one take, 2:08, no instruments. 1990: the DNA remix hits #5 UK/US. 1991: Karlheinz Brandenburg picks the song to tune the MP3 codec at Fraunhofer. Every MP3 file in the world was polished on Vega's voice.
May 1982: UK #9, US #14 - not a chart record. But Russell Mulcahy's $250,000 Antigua-yacht video rewrote MTV aesthetics for 1982-87. Rio sold 12M worldwide. John Taylor's Fender Jazz Bass borrowed from Bernard Edwards (Chic). Patrick Nagel's sleeve became a visual icon of the 80s.
May 1985: a modest UK #8 and US #9 on release. But by 2024 - 100+ ad campaigns (Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Samsung, BMW), 40+ films and 60+ TV series. Author Kimberley Rew earns $1M+ a year - $25M total across 40 years. The lyric works because it's universal, with no specifics.
September 1984: 25-year-old Sade Adu, a former model, releases her debut single. #5 UK and Billboard. Ray St. John's lyric about a con man. Power Plant Studios, producer Robin Millar. Stuart Matthewman's sax solo cut in one take after 12 hours of non-stop play. Diamond Life sold 10M and launched sophisti-pop.
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