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Welcome to the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show, I’m your host, Christopher Verdesi. And every week on Chartcrush, we do a deep dive into a year in Pop music and culture and count down the top ten hits according to our exclusive recap of the weekly charts published at the time in Billboard, the music industry’s top trade mag.

This week on Chartcrush, we’re counting down 1985, the year the Pop revolution wrought by MTV, video and New Wave had unquestionably triumphed, and in so doing, crystalized into a slick, glossed-up “new normal” of precise beats, thunderous gated drums, processed guitars and atmospheric, cinematic soundscapes thanks to all the new synthesizers and sequencing and sampling tech that was coming online in the ’80s.

And it all sounded fresh and exciting on radio, records and of course on CDs with zero clicks, pops or static. CDs, still just 9% of music biz revenue in ’85, but that was three times what it was in ’84, and by ’86 it had more than doubled again. Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms: the first album recorded digitally and the first to sell a million on CD.

But the singular purpose to which all this new sonic wizardry was being marshalled in ’85? Well, it was right there every time you turned on your radio. Melodrama! Close your eyes (or for that matter open them if you’re watching MTV), and you’re climbing a mountain, soaring like a bird, walking through fire. All three if the song was John Parr’s theme from St. Elmo’s Fire, the brat-pack flick. And all as Bono wailed on U2’s Martin Luther King, Jr. homage “Pride,” in the name of love.

But why? How’d we go from vegemite sandwiches, getting physical and Tastee Freez chili dogs to all this over-the-top melodrama? Was it all the New Coke people were drinking (or, as it turned out, not drinking!)? Well, seeing it through a political lens (as critics are known to do sometimes), maybe it was a way to compensate for the shallow, materialistic values and ostentatious displays of wealth that got so much media attention as President Reagan sought to transition the country from government dependency programs to economic opportunity.

Reagan, of course, sworn in for his second term in ’85 as President after the biggest election landslide since 1972.

Or maybe emotionally-intense songs were resonating because people were inspired by Reagan and the new sense of pride and purpose he embodied.

Well, both those takes hold water, but a much simpler reason? Video! For decades, Hollywood had been using music to enhance the emotional impact of movies and sell tickets. Now, for the first time though, the music biz had all those tools of cinema to hit people right in the feels and sell records not just musically, but also visually.

MTV’s first Video Music Awards were at the end of ’84, and by ’85 it wasn’t just that a song had to have a video to be a hit; it had to be a great video. And even for a run-of-the-mill song, a great video could propel it into the top ten. Just ask Norwegian one-hit wonders a-ha, whose song “Take On Me” was released three times, but went nowhere until its famous pencil-sketch animation video hit MTV in ’85.

#10 Tears for Fears – Everybody Wants to Rule the World

That was Billboard‘s #10 year-end Hot100 hit of 1985, which shakes out at #18 on our Chartcrush ranking, so we’ll be kicking off our countdown with a different #10 that was Billboard‘s #7 song of the year: the U.S. chart breakthrough by a Duo that, unlike a-ha, had three more top10s later in the ’80s and even topped Billboard‘s Modern Rock chart launched in ’88—in 1993. Which put them on a pretty short list of successful ’80s New Wave acts that stayed relevant into the ’90s. At #10 it’s Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith (a.k.a. Tears for Fears) scored big in their native U.K. with their first album and its three top five singles in ’83, but it was “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” off their second set, #10 on our Chartcrush Countdown of 1985’s top ten hits, that cracked the code in the U.S.: #1 for two weeks in June.

Their anthem “Shout” was next: #1 for three weeks in August, but not on the chart as long, so it comes out #12 on the year.

“Everybody Wants to Rule” showed up later in ’85 in the closing scene of the movie Real Genius, then stayed on the radar through the ’90s as the theme song of HBO’s Dennis Miller Live, the precursor to Real Time with Bill Maher.

#9 Madonna – Crazy for You

Now after ’84 when five of the top ten songs of the year were from movies, ’85 was another a big year for theme songs: the aforementioned theme from St. Elmo’s Fire “Man in Motion,” Huey Lewis & The News’ “Power of Love” from the year’s top box office hit Back to the Future, Duran Duran’s Bond theme, “View to a Kill” and from John Hughes’ era-defining film The Breakfast Club, Simple Minds’ “(Don’t You) Forget About Me.” All those hit #1, plus one from TV, Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme.”

But only two soundtrack hits are in the top ten on the year and up next at #9, one by the Singer who, it turned out, was Billboard‘s Top Artist of ’85, but back in ’83 when the filmmakers tapped her to sing it, that wasn’t at all clear. And the movie Vision Quest came out February ’85, just after the song that made her an icon had completed its six weeks at #1. At #9, Madonna’s first of many hit Ballads “Crazy for You.”

Madonna also appears in Vision Quest singing “Crazy for You” fronting a live band in a dive bar while the stars Matthew Modine and Lisa Fiorentino share a slow dance. No dialog, but a month later, her supporting role as the title character in Desperately Seeking Susan hit theaters, and suddenly she was a movie star as well as the year’s top Pop phenom.

#8 Dire Straits – Money for Nothing

So like radio in the ’50s and ’60s, cable TV in the ’80s wasn’t controlled by a handful of big corporations. A patchwork of small, local operators decided what to carry, and subscriber demand, obviously, an important consideration. Enter veteran Ad Man George Lois, who repurposed a slogan used to sell Maypo syrup-flavored baby oatmeal in the ’50s, and turned it into one of the most iconic and effective pull campaigns of all time, “I Want My MTV.”

Print, radio, cable, broadcast, buses, subways, billboards and of course, on MTV itself; the ads were everywhere: Pop stars telling folks to pester their local cable providers to add MTV. And in 1985, the Band Dire Straits borrowed the slogan again, and made it their first and only #1. At #8, “Money for Nothing.”

Dire Straits at #8, with an assist from Police frontman Sting, who also happened to be on the Caribbean island of Monserrat windsurfing. So he dropped by the studio for dinner, sang “I Want My MTV” to the tune of the Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and got a co-songwriting credit for a #1 hit.

Ditto Dire Straits Songwriter Mark Knopfler, who’d been a news reporter in a past life, so when an appliance installer on break at a New York electronics store he was in started talking smack about Pop stars in front of a wall of TVs all tuned to MTV, out came the trusty pen and pad, and that’s the rest of the lyrics, transcribed verbatim.

“Money for Nothing,” indeed!

#7 Mr. Mister – Broken Wings

Well, we’re counting down the top ten hits of 1985 here on this week’s edition of Chartcrush, and at #7, a sterling example of the sonic and lyrical melodrama I was alluding to at the top of the show. It hit #1 for two weeks in December and all but the last eight of its 22 weeks on the chart were in calendar 1985, but you won’t find it anywhere on Billboard‘s year-end Hot100 because they unveiled a new policy in ’85: songs moving up the charts the last week of their chart year get their full runs counted the following year. So they have it as the #5 song of 1986.

Now at Chartcrush, we always count full chart runs, and we go by calendar years, not “chart years,” so we have it at #7 for 1985.

The black and white video of front man Tim Page cruising around the desert in a ’59 T-Bird convertible packs the same visual melodrama and smoldering suspense as does the song. At #7, it’s Mr. Mister, “Broken Wings.”

“Broken Wings,” Mr. Mister at #7 as we count down the top hits of 1985 here on this week’s edition of the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show.

So Billboard‘s new policy I mentioned of counting songs’ full chart runs for its year-end rankings? That was a long time coming! Up to ’85, they only factored weeks in the “chart year,” and the year-end charts came with a disclaimer, something like “these rankings don’t reflect the total popularity of records that peaked late last year or haven’t yet reached their peak.”

Well, no more! Now year-straddlers got the same shot at ranking high as hits with their whole chart runs within the chart year. Which worked out great—until 1989 when Chicago’s “Look Away,” a song that’d peaked in 1988 and already seemed dated, was, as renowned chart geek Chris Molanphy put it, the “what-the-fuckest of all of Billboard #1 end-of-year songs.”

So in 1990 Billboard reverted back to the old policy of counting just weeks in the chart year. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered at Chartcrush: counting full chart runs and using the exact same rules and point system to rank every year, ’40s to the present.

Mr. Mister was back in the top ten on the year in ’86 with their follow up, “Kyrie,” which also got two weeks at #1.

#6 REO Speedwagon – Can’t Fight This Feeling

At #6, more mid-’80s Rock Power Ballad melodrama, this time from the act who practically invented it, or at least re-invented it for the ’80s, with their lighters-up, eve of MTV chart-topper “Keep On Loving You,” Billboard‘s #10 song of 1981 that just misses our Chartcrush ’81 ranking at #12.

Flip that though for this one in ’85 though: #6 on our ranking and Billboard has it at #13 despite its three weeks at #1 in March. The Band had been at it since 1971 and this was the second single off their 11th studio album. It’s REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling.”

Well, add crawling on floors, crashing through doors, and throwing away oars to the list of dramatic gestures that ’80s Power Balladeers will do for love. REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” #6 on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1985: the song that kept “Material Girl” from becoming Madonna’s second #1, and instead it was the Ballad “Crazy for You” we heard at #9.

#5 Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin – Separate Lives

Which was the first of the two soundtrack hits in our countdown. At #5, the second from the musical drama White Nights starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines about Dancers with shifting allegiances during the Cold War, notable for its scenes shot in the Soviet Union’s second largest city, Leningrad.

It was Director Taylor Hackford’s follow-up to his 1984 Noir remake Against All Odds, for which our Artist at #5 had written and recorded the title song, and it became his first #1 and got him an Oscar nomination.

So they tried it again, this time a Duet, and a song written by Soft Rocker Stephen Bishop, whose own chart fortunes had waned since 1983. But not so our act at #5. “Against All Odds” was barely off the charts when his third album No Jacket Required dropped, and in early ’85 its first two singles “Sussudio” and “One More Night” had become his second and third #1s, respectively. So he was red hot. At #5, it’s Phil Collins teamed with Singer Marilyn Martin, “Separate Lives.”

Phil Collins, “Separate Lives” at #5, duetting there with Marilyn Martin. Never heard of her? Well, you’re not alone. She was a backup and session Singer that Atlantic Records’ chief Doug Morris tried to break, unsuccessfully, it turned out. Her album, which dropped while “Separate Lives” was still in the top ten yielded only one minor hit.

As for Collins, it was on to the next project by his group Genesis, their 13th studio album Invisible Touch and its string of five top10s in ’86 and ’87.

#4 U.S.A. for Africa – We Are the World

So Billboard‘s year-in-review article for ’85 leads off with the observation that Rock turned 30 in ’85. Bummer. But “maturity has its positive side, like awareness of the world community and willingness to do something for it.” The big “something” in ’85 was U.S.A. for Africa, which staged the Live Aid benefit in July.

By the way, Phil Collins, the only act that played both Live Aid stages, London and Philadelphia, thanks to the supersonic Concorde jet and its three-and-a-half hour trans-Atlantic flight time.

But months before Live Aid, Thriller Producer Quincy Jones got a who’s who of Pop talent already in L.A. for the American Music Awards in January to come to a studio afterward for an all-night session to record what became the bestselling single of all-time ’til then, co-written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, with all proceeds going to poverty relief in Africa.

It got four weeks at #1 but only shook out at #20 on Billboard‘s year-end Hot100. On our Chartcrush ranking for 1985 we’re counting down the top ten from this hour, it’s #4: U.S.A. for Africa’s “We Are the World.”

Prince, the big no-show at the “We Are the World” sessions. He wanted to contribute a guitar solo and Quincy Jones said “no thanks,” so he partied at a nightclub a few blocks away instead, and caught a ton of flak for that, including, some say, Purple Rain losing Best Album at the Grammys a month later to Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down. He didn’t play Live Aid in July either, but he did contribute a song for the We Are the World album.

#3 Foreigner – I Want to Know What Love Is

Well we’re down to #3 in our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1985, and if you thought we were done with melodrama, hold on—this one’s got a full Gospel choir and lyrics about climbing a mountain!

It was the group’s second trip to the Power Ballad well; their first in ’81, “Waiting for a Girl like You,” spent nine weeks at #2 behind Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical,” and then Hall & Oates’ “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” moved up and made it ten weeks, shattering the record for weeks at #2 without ever getting to #1.

Four years later in ’85, though, they got their first chart topper, two weeks in February. At #3, the lead single from Foreigner’s fifth studio album Agent Provocateur, “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

Foreigner, with “I Want to Know What Love Is.” #3 on our ranking of 1985’s hits we’re counting down the top ten from here on this week’s edition of Chartcrush. Billboard had it #4 on the year.

Lou Gramm with that melodramatic vocal, but Songwriter Mick Jones roughed out the song in the middle of the night and woke up his soon-to-be second wife, British-born New York Socialite and Jewelry Designer Anne Dexter to hear it. “What do you mean?” she asked with a fixed stare. “Don’t you already know what love is?”

Whoops! But despite that, they stayed married 25 years, then divorced in 2007 and remarried ten years later.

Hey, it’s a process, learning what love is!

By the way, Dexter is DJ/Producer Mark Ronson’s mom from her first marriage. Ronson scored 2015’s top hit, “Uptown Funk!” featuring Bruno Mars.

#2 Wham! featuring George Michael – Careless Whisper

Next up, the Duo that had two hits in the top ten on Billboard‘s year-end Hot100 for ’85: their U.S. breakthrough from late ’84 and its even bigger follow-up which they named the #1 hit of the year.

Now by our reckoning, that first hit, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” is a 1984 song, so we have just the follow-up: the one Billboard named #1. But it comes out #2 on our ranking. Billboard‘s point system for ’85, much more generous for weeks in the top ten than ours, so that’s the difference.

At #2 it’s Wham! featuring George Michael (credited as a George Michael solo record everywhere but the U.S.), “Careless Whisper.”

In Wham’s first big U.S. hit, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” George Michael sings “I’m not planning on going solo.” But with “Careless Whisper” we just heard at #2, he did just that! The idea was to broaden his appeal beyond Wham!’s Teen audience, and it worked! “Careless Whisper” was #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart two weeks longer than the Hot100, and Billboard described it as “a ballad adored by 12-year-old girls and their grandmothers alike.”

Michael and partner Andrew Ridgeley, as Wham!, became the first Western Pop act to tour communist China in ’85, but in ’86 the split became official.

#1 Madonna – Like a Virgin

So if not “Careless Whisper,” what is the #1 song here on our 1985 Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown? Well we’re about to find out! Billboard had it at #2 on the year despite its six weeks at #1 to “Careless Whisper’s” three.

The Singer’s 1983 debut album yielded a pair of top10s and put her on the map as an up-and-coming Dance Pop Act, but she still didn’t rate an invite from Quincy Jones to sing on “We Are the World.” And then, in September ’84 at the first MTV Video Music Awards, she debuted the title song from her upcoming second album wearing a white-lace bustier, fingerless gloves and “Boy Toy” belt, and the next day it was all anyone was talking about.

Who else but Madonna? We heard her first hit Ballad from later in ’85 back at #9, “Crazy for You,” but at #1, the hit that made her an overnight icon, “Like a Virgin.”

Now given Madonna’s penchant for courting controversy with her own carefully crafted material going forward, you’d think “Like a Virgin” was her song. But nope; it was handed to her by her label A&R guy, written by pro Songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly—two dudes!

But Madonna loved it from the jump, and with Nile Rodgers in the control room and his band Chic backing her, she made it her first of seven #1s in the ’80s and her signature song, prompting Parents Music Resource Center co-founder Susan Baker to accuse her of teaching little girls to act like “a porn queen in heat.” The PMRC’s high-profile Senate hearings in September led to Parental Advisory stickers on offensive records and CDs.

And that’s the top ten here on our 1985 edition of Chartcrush, but with all the differences in ranking methodology, four songs from the top ten on Billboard‘s year-end Hot100 for ’85 are absent from ours; three because they shake out as 1984 hits when you do things by calendar years instead of Billboard‘s chart years. I mentioned Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” They had that at #3 for ’85; we have it at #12 for ’84. Chaka Khan’s “I Feel for You,” #5 Billboard; our #17 song, again, of ’84, not ’85. And Hall & Oates’ “Out of Touch,” #6 for ’85 in Billboard; #11 in our ’84 Chartcrush ranking.

Which leaves one legit 1985 hit.

#18 a-ha – Take On Me

Which was #10 song on Billboard‘s ’85 ranking. I mentioned it in the intro as an example of a song that was lifted on the charts by its innovative, must-see storytelling video that mixed live action with pencil-sketch animation: a-ha’s “Take On Me.”

Turn on MTV for an hour in the Fall of ’85 and you were bound to see Steve Barron’s riveting video of a-ha members jumping back and forth between live-action and pencil-sketch animation universes that won six moon-man trophies at MTV’s third Video Music Awards in ’86.

And speaking of 1986, three songs from Billboard‘s ’86 top ten were really 1985 hits doing things by calendar years. Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings” was Billboard‘s #5 song of ’86; that was in our ’85 countdown at #7. The other two didn’t fare as well though.

#19 Eddie Murphy – Party All the Time

Billboard‘s #7 song of ’86: #19 on our ’85 ranking. SNL and Beverly Hills Cop star Eddie Murphy cut it, he said, to settle a bet with Richard Pryor over whether he could sing: “Party All the Time.”

#2 for three weeks December ’85 into January ’86 behind Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me,” Eddie Murphy’s wager song to prove he could sing, “Party All the Time.” I wonder if Richard Pryor paid up?

#17 Klymaxx – I Miss You

And finally, the third song from Billboard‘s year-end top ten for 1986 that shakes out as a 1985 hit in our Chartcrush rankings. It was on the chart 29 weeks, longer than any other song in either year, and peaked at #5 for four, also while “Say You, Say Me” was #1 December into January. Again, Billboard was being very generous to weeks in the top ten in those years, so they ranked it #3 for ’86. It’s the breakthrough hit by L.A. Girl Group Klymaxx, “I Miss You.”

Klymaxx’s “I Miss You,” Billboard‘s #3 song of 1986 but it peaked the last week of 1985 and racked up more ranking points scaling up the chart than the tail end of its run in early ’86 so we have it at #17 for 1985.

And that’s gonna be a wrap for our 1985 edition of the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show. I’ve been your host, Christopher Verdesi. Hey, if you have a minute and you like what you heard this hour, why not head over to our website, chartcrush.com for a transcript of the show and a link to stream the podcast version, plus rad extras like our full top100 chart and interactive line graph of the Billboard chart runs for the top10 hits. Which we do for every year, 1940s to now, and it’s all on that website, again, chartcrush.com. Thanks for listening and tune in again next week, same station, same time, for another year and another edition of Chartcrush.

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