Friday 20 November 2020

Friday's 40th five (no.47/80)


Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:

1. Spandau Ballet - To Cut A Long Story Short. One of the defining bands of the eighties made their Top 40 debut this week with their debut single, and the highest new entry at no.18.

2. Madness - Embarrassment. The Nutty Boys are also new on the charts this week (no.31) with this track off Absolutely, allegedly about Lee Thompson's teenage sister.

3. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him (from Double Fantasy). ABBA were straight in to the album charst at no.1 this week, while Lennon & Ono's comeback album entered at a more modest no.27. Penned and sung principally by Yoko, this track was later remixed highlighting only Lennon's vocal for the 1984 compilation album Every Man Has a Woman

4. Bow Wow Wow - Louis Quatorze (from Your Cassette Pet). Opening track form the 'revolutionary' mini-album by Mlcolm McLaren's latest project which, as it wasn't released on vinyl, wasn't classified as an album at all, but only as an Ep and as such failed to make the singles Top 40. 

5. Motels - Days Are OK. Lead singer Martha Davis got the Record Mirror cover this week, with a full feature on the band inside "on the eve of their UK tour". British audiences hardly warmed to this Blondie-esque US band however and the single made slow progress.

6. Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic. First new material from the Rats in 1980, and the lead single from new album coming in '81. This new single was a new entry at no.23 this week and would eventually reach no.3 by Christmas.

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