1981 Year-End Album Charts

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Exclusive MFD meta-analysis of the above charts:

1. Hi Infidelity
2. Paradise Theater
3. Double Fantasy
4. Crimes of Passion
5. Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits
6. Moving Pictures
7. The Jazz Singer
8. 4
9. Long Distance Voyager
10. Arc of a Diver

Top Singles of March 16, 1985

Let's take a look at what was topping the various single charts on March 16, 1985.

	Billboard	CashBox	Radio & Records	Gavin Report
1	"Can't Fight This Feeling" REO Speedwagon	"Can't Fight This Feeling" REO Speedwagon	"Can't Fight This Feeling" REO Speedwagon	"Material Girl" Madonna
2	"The Heat is On" Glenn Frey	"Careless Whisper" Wham! feat. George Michael	"Material Girl" Madonna	"Can't Fight This Feeling" REO Speedwagon
3	"Material Girl" Madonna	"California Girls" David Lee Roth	"One More Night" Phil Collins	"One More Night" Phil Collins
4	"California Girls" David Lee Roth	"The Heat is On" Glenn Frey	"Too Late for Goodbyes" Julian Lennon	"Too Late for Goodbyes" Julian Lennon
5	"One More Night" Phil Collins	"Sugar Walls" Sheena Easton	"Lovergirl" Teena Marie	"Only the Young" Journey
6	"Too Late for Goodbyes" Julian Lennon	"One More Night" Phil Collins	"Only the Young" Journey	"Lovergirl" Teena Marie
7	"Careless Whisper" Wham! feat. George Michael	"Easy Lover" Philip Bailey with Phil Collins	"High on You" Survivor	"High on You" Survivor
8	"Lovergirl" Teena Marie	"Material Girl" Madonna	"California Girls" David Lee Roth	"Crazy for You" Madonna
9	"Private Dancer" Tina Turner	"Too Late for Goodbyes" Julian Lennon	"Just Another Night" Mick Jagger	"California Girls" David Lee Roth
10	"Relax" Frankie Goes to Hollywood	"Lovergirl" Teena Marie	"Save a Prayer" Duran Duran	"I'm on Fire" Bruce Springsteen

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Exclusive MFD meta-analysis of the above charts:

1. "I Can't Fight This Feeling" (39 points)
2. "Material Girl" (30 pts)
3. "One More Night" (27 pts)
4. "Too Late for Goodbyes" (21 pts)
5. "California Girls" (20 pts)
6. "The Heat is On" (16 pts)
7. "Lovergirl" (15 pts)
8. "Careless Whisper" (13 pts)
9. "Only the Young" (11 pts)
10. "High on You" (8 pts)
11. "Sugar Walls" (6 pts)
12. "Easy Lover" (4 pts)
13. "Crazy for You" (3 pts)
14. (tie) "Private Dancer" and "Just Another Night" (2 pts)
16. (tie) ""Relax," "Save a Prayer" and "I'm on Fire" (1 pt)

Smash Hits Album Ratings - 1981 [part 1 of 2]

Smash Hits was a British teen music magazine that was issued fortnightly. On a scale of 1-10, here's how the magazine's reviewers rated albums released in the first half of 1981. Hope you find something new that you missed back in '81.

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January 8 issue
Rocky Sharpe & The Replays	Rock-It to Mars	6
Dollar	The Paris Collection	6
Jermaine Jackson	Jermaine	6
Showaddywaddy	Bright Lights	5
Black Slate	Amigo	5
Queen	Flash Gordon	2
The Clash	Sandinista!	5½
Linton Kwesi Johnson	LKJ in Dub	7

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January 22 issue
Boomtown Rats	Mondo Bondo	7½
Elvis Costello	Trust	9
The Runaways	Flaming Schoolgirls	2
Steve Winwood	Arc of a Diver	5
UFO	The Wild, the Willing, and the Innocent	5
Basement 5	1965-1980	6
Gen X	Kiss Me Deadly	2
Mtume	In Search of the Rainbow Seekers	8
Rose Royce	Golden Touch	6

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February 5 issue
Sheena Easton	Take My Time	7
Pearl Harbour	Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too	6
Phil Collins	Face Value	5
Heatwave	Candles	8
The Stranglers	The Meninblack	6
Mike Batt	Waves	3
Splodgenessabounds	Splodgenessabounds	3
Styx	Paradise Theatre	2
The dB's	Stands for Decibels	8

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February 19 issue
UK Subs	Diminished Responsibility	2
The Barracudas	Drop Out with The Barracudas	5½
Moon Martin	Street Fever	6
Jets	Jets	5
Nash the Slash	Children of the Night	4
Walkie Talkies	Surveillance	6
Joe Sample	Voices in the Rain	7
The Boys	Boys Only	6½
The Selecter	Celebrate the Bullet	5½
Nine Below Zero	Don't Point Your Finger	5

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March 5 issue
Sister Sledge	All American Girls	6
Stray Cats	Stray Cats	5
Rainbow	Difficult to Cure	7
Gang of Four	Solid Gold	7½
Eric Clapton	Another Ticket	3
Marvin Gaye	In Our Lifetime	7½
Todd Rundgren	Healing	6
Brian Briggs	Brian Damage	7
Defunkt	Defunkt	8½
Spandau Ballet	Journeys to Glory	7

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March 19 issue
New Musik	Anywhere	6½
Russ Ballard	Into the Fire	3
James Brown	Rapp Payback	6½
Detroit Spinners	Labour of Love	6
The Spizzles	Spikey Dream	6
Tata Vega	Giving All My Love	4
Shona Laing	Tied to the Tracks	3
The Vapors	Magnets	4
Wilko Johnson	Ice on the Motorway	4
Linx	Intuition	8

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April 2 issue
The Shakin' Pyramids	Skin 'Em Up	5
Rico	That Man is Forward	8
Change	Miracles	5
Landscape	From the Tea Rooms of Mars to the Hell Holes of Uranus	8
Chas'N'Dave	Mustn't Grumble	4
Slade	We'll Bring the House Down	6
The Who	Face Dances	4
British Electronic Foundation	Music for Stowaways	9
Diana Ross	To Love Again	6
Status Quo	Never Too Late	7

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April 16 issue
Dave Edmunds	Twangin	7½
Incognito	Jazz Funk	8
Public Image, Ltd.	Flowers of Romance	8
Stiff Little Fingers	Go for It	7
The Cure	Faith	7
Whitesnake	Come An' Get It	4½
The Jags	No Tie Like a Present	4
Cockney Rejects	Greatest Hits, Vol 3	11
Roger Taylor	Roger Taylor's Fun in Space	3
B.A. Robertson	Bully for You	6

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April 30 issue
Gillan	Future Shock	4
Girlschool	Hit and Run	5
Tenpole Tudor	The Swords of a Thousand Men	7
REO Speedwagon	Hi Infidelity	4
The Keys	The Keys Album	5
Quincy Jones	The Dude	7½
Sharon Redd	Sharon Redd	8
Snips	La Rocca	6
The Isley Brothers	Grand Slam	5
The Scars	Author! Author!	8

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May 14 issue
The Undertones	Positive Touch	9
Holly and The Italians	The Right to be Italian	4
The Plastics	Welcome Back	7½
Split Enz	Waiata	7
The Lambrettas	Ambience	7
The Tubes	The Completion Backward Principle	4
Ruts DC	Animal Now	8
Albania	Are You All Mine	7
Kraftwerk	Computer World	4
The Beat	Wha'ppen?	7
Squeeze	East Side Story	9
The Cramps	Psychedelic Jungle	8
The Searchers	Play for Today	5

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May 28 issue
Original Mirrors	Heart-twango and Raw-beat	7
Richard Strange	The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange	6½
Joe Walsh	There Goes the Neighborhood	5
Shakatak	Drivin' Hard	7
Grace Jones	Nightclubbing	8
Bill Nelson	Quit Dreaming and Get on the Beam	8
Classic Nouveaux	Night People	6
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers	Hard Promises	7
Wild Horses	Stand Your Ground	4
The Psychedelic Furs	Talk, Talk, Talk	8
Sparks	Whomp That Sucker	6
Positive Noise	Heart of Darkness	5
Toyah	Anthem	3

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June 11 issue
Elton John	The Fox	5
Echo and The Bunnymen	Heaven Up Here	9
Doll by Doll	Doll by Doll	8
Jean-Michel Jarre	Magnetic Fields	7
UB40	Present Arms	7½
Ken Lockie	The Impossible	6
Phil Seymour	Phil Seymour	4
Black Uhuru	Red	7½
Eddy Grant	Can't Get Enough	9

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June 25 issue
Killing Joke	What's This For	7½
Third World	Rock the World	5
TV Smith's Explorers	The Last Words of the Great Explorer	5
Duran Duran	Duran Duran	4
Magazine	Magic, Murder, and the Weather	7
Siouxsie and The Banshees	Juju	5
Thompson Twins	A Product of...	6
Peter Tosh	Wanted Dread & Alive	4
Yoko Ono	Season of Glass	3
Modern Eon	Fiction Tales	8
Barbara Dickson	You Know It's Me	4

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h/t to Brian McCloskey over at Like Punk Never Happened

MFD Random Five #26

In which I click the shuffle icon on the iTunes app and listen to the first five songs that pop up from the years 1976-85.

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1. "Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang" by Silver (1976, Arista)
   Starting off this random five with a one-hit wonder from a California country-rock band. Not bad for an obvious Eagles knock-off. I could do without the aggressive string hits in the chorus, but it's fairly catchy otherwise. I'm reminded of summer trips to the pool in the summer of '76 with the AM radio blaring.


2. "Tumble and Twirl (Extended Dance Mix)" by David Bowie (1984, EMI America)
   I like the Tonight album better than most and this song is in the top half of the tunes on it. The extended mix doesn't do much to the album version (except inexcusably removing some sweet background vocals and move the drums up front in the mix), but that's okay as the driving original version is good on its own. The bridge is shite but the tasty horn parts in the chorus more than make up for it.


3. "Words" by Missing Persons (1982, Capitol)
   Great new wave tune that somehow missed the Top 40, but I was watching more MTV than listening to the radio by this time. Probably the first tune I heard from the group, back when Dale Bozzio's quirky vocal tics were entertaining. A friend had given me his copy of Spring Session M and I quickly learned why he gave it away - other than the singles, the filler was wretched. But I still appreciate Warren Cuccurullo's guitar work here and love the way Dale says "But it's less than nowhere now..."


4. "One Lonely Night" by REO Speedwagon (1984, Epic)
   I'm not the biggest REO Speedwagon fan, usually calling them REO Journeywagon or OREO Chuckwagon or some such mockery. As such, I don't remember this tune too well. I dig the chorus and bridge, but there's not much to the verse, the guitar solo is rather generic, and the ending totally exposes Kevin Cronin's vocal limitations.


5. "Send Her My Love" by Journey (1983, Columbia)
   Speaking of the Journeywagon. By '83, I considered myself too cool to listen to Journey, so I didn't give this one much of a chance when I probably should have. It's a good tune, not great, but Steve Perry and Neil Schon bring the goods despite mediocre material.