For the last month and a half, Classic Pop was soliciting votes for The Top Singles Of The 1980s. They weighted the votes based on how many songs you sent in (up to 10) and everyone could vote only once. Wisely, they avoided posting on fan sites to keep the fervent few from skewing the polls. It's all over now and 93 of the Top 100 can be listened to in the playlist below with single edits used whenever available (disappointingly, the official playlist curated by Classic Pop only has 88 songs). The playlist is listed #1-#100 with The Human League coming in at #1.
Naturally, given Classic Pop's country of origin and somewhat low key polling system (HERC didn't know about it), the list skews unanimously and overwhelmingly to the eastern shores of the Atlantic Ocean. But how does the list shake out on a year by year basis? HERC crunched the numbers, using original UK release dates and offers the results below:
Classic Pop also posted a small sidebar of the songs that bubbled under the list of 100 - listen to them below.
| 1980 | 9 | |
| 1981 | 18 | |
| 1982 | 16 | |
| 1983 | 16 | |
| 1984 | 16 | |
| 1985 | 11 | |
| 1986 | 5 | |
| 1986 | 4 | |
| 1988 | 2 | |
| 1989 | 3 |
An astonishing few singles (14) from 1986-1989, a full 40% of the decade, made the list. By using UK release dates, several singles that would be considered 1982 releases in the US are actually in the 1981 group. The UK seems to somewhat agree that 1982 was the greatest year ever in pop music. Or at least the fans that voted in the poll.
Classic Pop also posted a small sidebar of the songs that bubbled under the list of 100 - listen to them below.
Two bubbling under tracks are Spotify no-shows: Heaven 17's magnificent "Let Me Go" (the song is listed but links to an undesired track) and Haysi Fantayzee's "John Wayne Is Big Leggy".
That is a very interesting list. Believe it or not, a couple songs that made it I do not have. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping an album list isn't far behind.
ReplyDelete