What song held the number one spot for the longest in 1985?
Historians use all sorts of cultural artefacts to dissect the prevailing mood and attitudes of a certain time period, but, in terms of modern history, the pop charts are an easy place to start, particularly when looking back upon the neon hues and hairspray clouds of the 1980s.
Contrary to the popular image of the 1980s, which is typically one of brightly coloured nightclubs, endlessly upbeat pop music, and some questionable fashion choices, the decade of digital revolution was not all that bright for a lot of ordinary people. 1985, for instance, saw the government of Margaret Thatcher come down hard on industrial action, bringing an end to the Miners’ Strike, meanwhile sectarian violence in the North of Ireland reached one of its bloodiest periods, and famine continued to sweep vast areas of Ethiopia.
Inevitably, all of those endlessly complex issues were captured in the pop charts. In the UK, for instance, the year was ushered in by the continued dominance of Band Aid, the charity single that typified the Christmas period of 1984, in the aim of providing aid to millions of starving people in Africa. Our American cousins weren’t far behind, either, with their take on Band Aid, ‘We Are The World’ becoming one of the landmark releases of the year on their side of the Atlantic, with the added help of everybody from Bob Dylan to Michael Jackson.
Alongside its penchant for political pop, 1985 also saw some big-hitters dominate proceedings, with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Prince, and Madonna all scoring major transatlantic success stories over the course of the year.
In fact, Madonna boasted the joint-longest-running number-one US single of the year, with the Tarantino-favoured ‘Like A Virgin’ spending four weeks at the top spot in January, matching the success of ‘We Are The World’ later on in the year.
So, what was the longest-running UK number one in 1985?
Despite the extensive success of both singles, the Billboard chart chose to elect ‘Careless Whisper’ by Wham! as its hottest single of the year, having spent three weeks at the top of the pops, even though it was released the year prior. Over in the pop powerhouse of Britain, though, neither George Michael, nor Madonna, nor ‘We Are The World’ could match the success of an unlikely revolutionary by the name of Paul Hardcastle.
Perfectly blending the year’s political intricacies and injustices with the emerging innovations of electronic music sweeping pop, Hardcastle created his magnum opus, ‘19’, in 1985, and it quickly shot to the top of the pop charts, where it remained for a whopping five weeks. It is easy to see why, too; a catchy hook, a strong message, and otherworldly electronic sounds which ushered in a new age for pop music, Hardcastle’s song was an absolute triumph.
Employing various sampling and production techniques which had, in 1985, still yet to be fully adopted by the musical mainstream, Hardcastle’s track featured a strong anti-war message centred around the fact that the average age of US soldiers fighting in Vietnam was 19. Although the conflict in Vietnam was wrapped up a decade prior, ‘19’ still managed to capture the anti-war sentiment which was rife during the mid-1980s, as the Cold War continued to hang the threat of nuclear warfare over an increasingly disenfranchised population.
In hindsight, ‘19’ not only became the longest-running number-one single of 1985, but it also became one of the most important pop masterpieces of the Cold War, capturing both the prevailing anti-war sentiment of the general public and the technological advances which drove both music and warfare into bold new avenues over the course of that revolutionary decade.
