Monday’s Music Moves Me: Billboard Year-End #1’s, 1980-1989

Monday's Music Moves Me 2 Minutes
Image by janeb13 from Pixabay

Another freebie Monday, and I have a simple one: the #1 songs on the Billboard year-end Hot 100 for each year in the ’80’s.

1980: Blondie, "Call Me": From the movie American Gigolo, which was a big box-office hit that year, as I recall.

1981: Kim Carnes, "Bette Davis Eyes": I tried to use the Vevo videos as much as possible, because they generally work everywhere, but for some reason I couldn’t add the official one for this song. Anyway, the comedian Bruce Baum did a parody version of this called "Marty Feldman Eyes."

1982: Olivia Newton-John, "Physical": Title track from her 1981 album, this entered the chart in late 1981 and spent an incredible ten weeks at #1 in 1982.

1983: The Police, "Every Breath You Take": If you listen very carefully, you realize he’s singing it from the standpoint of a stalker. A friend of ours was fooled and thought it was about Jesus…

1984: Prince & The Revolution, "When Doves Cry": From his Purple Rain album, this song reached #1 and stayed there for five weeks, giving it enough time to be the #1 song of the year.

1985: Wham!, "Careless Whisper": From their 1984 album Make It Big, it was the second single released from the album. It was a huge hit for them, selling 6 million records worldwide, 2 million of those in the US alone. In the US, it was credited to "Wham! featuring George Michael."

1986: Dionne & Friends, "That’s What Friends Are For": This song was originally recorded by Rod Stewart for the soundtrack of the 1982 film Night Shift. Dionne Warwick gathered three of her friends (Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder) and recorded it as a charity single to fund AIDS research, and made quite a bit for the cause…

1987: The Bangles, "Walk Like An Egyptian": This was The Bangles’ first #1 hit and the third single released from their 1986 album Different Light. It set off a whole new dance craze…

1988: George Michael, "Faith": Title track from his first solo album from 1987. It was the second single off the album and was only released in mid-October, so in roughly two months enough copies were sold to make this the #1 single of the year.

1989: Chicago, "Look Away": The #1 band from the 1970’s had the last #1 hit from the ’80’s. It was written by Diane Warren and sung by Bill Champlin for their 19th album, for which I bet you can figure out the name. It was released in September 1988, reached #1 in December for two weeks, was certified Gold in January and managed to still be the #1 song for 1989.

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for January 11, 2021.

Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by Marie, Cathy, Alana, and Stacy, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

22 thoughts on “Monday’s Music Moves Me: Billboard Year-End #1’s, 1980-1989”

  1. Pingback: Monday’s Music Moves Me: Billboard Year-End #1’s,1960-1969 – The Sound of One Hand Typing

  2. Bette Davis Eyes…that is when I knew it was all changing when I heard those the back ground electronic drums.

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      1. Yea and less of a head ache…but I could never get into them. We had our first recording session on an 8 track….the drummer couldn’t show so the engineer agreed to do his electronic drums… I just couldn’t…no…we will wait til next time…and we did.

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    1. The ’80’s are pretty much my young adulthood, and I was traveling a lot and listening to whatever they had on the radio, so they’re kind of my era, just not like the ’70’s.

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  4. OMG! Now this was really awesome! The 80’s was my era to shine. We totally rocked it. Some really great tunes here my friend. Thanks for picking the 80’s. Some really great memories here for me. Don’t ask me to pick a favorite because they were all favorites for each year! Great job! Woo Hoo!

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  5. Surprised myself by not knowing the Chicago song. The other ones, yes, they bring back memories. Especially my faves, That’s What Friends are For and Bette Davis Eyes. Thank you for the Vevo hint; since joining Music Moves Me I’ve wondered how you can tell videos that won’t play outside the United States.

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    1. If you look down the charts, you see that there was a lot of good stuff after the #1’s. Remember, Billboard goes by sales and radio plays (at the time, anyway) and a lot of 14-year-old girls have lots of money…

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  10. omg, I remember all of these and loved ‘call me’ and the movie ‘American gigolo.’ I can never hear this song without thinking of that movie

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