Which song held the number one spot for the longest in 1983?
Exchanging the tweed jackets and mustard hues of the 1970s for neon lights and enough hairspray to put a sizeable dent in the ozone layer, pop music reigned supreme back in the 1980s, and every week the charts seemed to be populated by exciting new artists bedecked in ghastly white suits and shoulder pads.
Still, some of the decade’s pop output was more memorable than the rest.
Contrary to its nostalgia-fueled image, purported both by those desperate to relive their younger years and those who never experienced the decade in the first place, the 1980s weren’t all sunshine and space shuttles. In the United Kingdom, particularly, the 1980s were an age of darkness and discontent: unemployment reached record highs, meanwhile, the country became embroiled in the Falklands War, and Margaret Thatcher’s government waged war on striking workers as “the enemy within”.
If that wasn’t bad enough, there was the constant overarching threat of potential nuclear war between Earth’s great superpowers. In other words, everybody was skint, scared, and beginning to lose hope for the future. For many young people, though, a sense of solace was brought by the weekly pop charts, providing an opportunity to escape from the rather depressing realities of 1980s life by looking at videos of Simon Le Bon posing on some yacht or other.
While there were certainly artists willing to reflect the reality of those times within their music – the likes of The Specials, Billy Bragg, or The Housemartins – the pop charts were largely full of escapism throughout the 1980s, and 1983 was a particularly good year for pop masterpieces. From Spandau Ballet’s ‘True’ to Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’, the year that gave Aberdeen FC a European trophy also gave the world a deluge of pop smashes.
A multitude of utterly iconic tracks came and went from the top spot of the singles charts over the course of the years, with Billy Joel, UB40, and the aforementioned David Bowie all scoring particular highlights. However, the longest-running number-one single of the year in the UK went to Culture Club, for their defining track ‘Karma Chameleon’, which spent six weeks at the top of the pops beginning in September.
The single was only the band’s second to make an impact on the pop charts, but its new wave soul slant, along with the ready-made popstar that Boy George was, seemingly did enough to commit the track to the collective consciousness of the UK for decades to come. Its success wasn’t just limited to old Blighty, though. ‘Karma Chameleon’ also topped the charts in 15 other countries, stretching from Peru to the Netherlands, and including the United States.
Although the track’s success was transatlantic, it only managed three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1984. Instead, the longest-running number-one of 1983 in the US was The Police’s stalker anthem ‘Every Breath You Take’, which spent eight weeks at the top, doubling its four-week run in the UK.
In many ways, the pop successes of 1983 were a good example of transatlantic unity for once, with both tracks reaching number one in the UK and the US, albeit staying there for different lengths of time. What’s more, it’s telling of the musical quality emanating from the UK at that time that both tracks came from British artists, too.
