What song held the number one spot from the longest in 1984?
Even though the 1980s as a whole was a major sticking point for society, 1984 particularly seemed to be a year that changed the world.
It was the 12 months in which George Orwell predicted the future, Ghostbusters changed the notion of Hollywood sci-fi, and Madonna, well, was being peak Madonna. The music landscape was on the precipice of the moment that would change everything, Live Aid, and, as far as pop culture went, there was an electrifying energy fizzling in the air.
With the likes of Madonna, Prince, and Eurythmics setting off synths just as equally as Bruce Springsteen and Van Halen were well and truly breathing new life into guitar rock, 1984 was a musical smorgasbord of every taste and direction, but with every song creating a discography of greatest hits for the year as iconic as the last. The very nature of a less frantic sonic machine, compared to what we have now, meant that individual songs ruled supreme for longer at the top of the charts – but there was still one that outdid all the rest.
That crowning jewel was ‘Two Tribes’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, released during the summer of 1984 but languishing at the top of the UK charts for a good portion of the rest of the year, amassing a stint of nine weeks in total. While not only being a defining track of 1984 in particular, however, ‘Two Tribes’ went a long way in representing what the music canon of the 1980s meant as a whole. This was a Liverpool band that harboured something totally transcendental.
Why was ‘Two Tribes’ so successful in 1984?
‘Two Tribes’ hit a nerve with the public – not just because of the chaos Frankie Goes to Hollywood stirred up with their bold image, but because the track landed squarely in the middle of a moment when society felt on edge. It captured the mood of the time in a way that was impossible to ignore.
Broiling with its anti-war sentiment against the threat of nuclear annihilation at the height of the Cold War, ‘Two Tribes’ was a song with a message. It may sound like an oversimplified statement, but that carries more weight than you might believe, compared to the landscape in which we find ourselves today. Being bold enough to take a stand and say it with conviction, in Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s case, was absolutely worth their while – because with 1.58 million single sales and the longest time spent at number one of any song of the 1980s, their point was well and truly proven.
It seems like achievements like that were simply synonymous with that time period and can never be replicated again, but 1984 is not yet such a distant memory. This is not a call to arms that we should return to wild hair and sporting legwarmers, but at least in a musical sense, its spirit was something that shouldn’t be lost. Frankie Goes to Hollywood can attest to that.
