LAST UPDATED - 12.28.2006 @ 17:11 EST USA
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| THE MAJOR'S MASSIVE MEMORIES |
| A VAST COLLECTION OF CLASSIC HIT SONGS REPRESENTING 21 YEARS OF GREAT MEMORIES FOR MAJOR HITWAVES |
| 1 9 8 5 |
| PK | WKS | PTS | YRS | SONG TITLE & COMMENTS | ARTIST / SITE |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | 19 Paul Hardcastle took this techno track interspersed with actual news accounts of the Vietnam War all the way to # 1 for 5 consecutive weeks in his native U.K. in May and June 1985. It also reached the TOP 15 here stateside later that summer. 19 was the average age of a U.S. soldier in Vietnam. When this was a smash I was 18, and serving as a fresh new Airman Basic in the United States Air Force. | Paul Hardcastle |
| 3 | 10 | 226 | 1985 & 1989 | A Good Heart In November 1985 I arrived in the U.K. to move to my new home and job for the next two years. This song was active on BBC Radio 1 (AM 1053 & 1089) during those early days and weeks in England, and it was actually the # 1 song on the U.K. chart during those first two weeks. Ironically its greatest success here on our chart didn't occur until nearly 4 years later when it peaked at # 3 and spent 8 weeks on the chart in 1989 ! | Feargal Sharkey |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Can't Fight This Feeling During the last few days of July 1985 I arrived at Chanute AFB Illinois (next to the small town of Rantoul) after graduating from 6 weeks of Air Force Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio Texas. I was at Chanute AFB for about 3 months through the end of October 1985 for Technical Training as I learned all about my new Air Force job. I remember taking the train to Chicago to visit the big city. I also remember when my dad and little brother drove my 1980 Chevy Citation all the way from the Washington D.C. area to Rantoul so that I could drive around in it during the remainder of my stay in and around Rantoul and Champaign / Urbana. I only had an AM radio in that car, and one of the few radio stations it was able to pick up with virtually no static was the Chicago blowtorch WLS (AM 89) which was still a hit music radio station at the time. REO Speedwagon (from Champaign Illinois) released their "Wheels Are Turnin'" album in late-1984 that included 4 hit singles including their biggest hit ever - a U.S. # 1 smash for 3 weeks in March 1985 that was the # 28 song on The WLS Big 89 Countdown of 1985. | REO Speedwagon |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Dancing In The Street This was a MASSIVE International smash during the Autumn Of 1985 while I was learning, living, and driving all around Rantoul and Champaign / Urbana Illinois. It was a charity record where all of the proceeds went towards the Live Aid project for Africa. During my final days as an Air Force student in Illinois the 1985 World Series was going on not too far away featuring both teams from Missouri - the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals. After the 11-0 Game 7 massacre there was surely a lot of "Dancing In The Street(s)" all around Kansas City. | Mick Jagger & David Bowie |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Don't You (Forget About Me) In May 1985 Simple Minds hit the top of the U.S. pop chart with their very first stateside chart appearance. It's the signature anthem that essentially defined the smash 1985 teen coming-of-age movie - "The Breakfast Club". You may even argue that both the hit and the movie defined an entire generation at the time. It was my generation. I turned 18 and graduated from high school just a couple of weeks following its chart-topping peak. | Simple Minds |
| 8 | 3 | 18 | 1985 & 1986 | Do They Know It's Christmas ? Bob Geldof and Midge Ure co-wrote it in 1984 as a fundraising project to support famine relief in Ethiopia, and it was recorded by an all-star chorus of over 40 popular British and Irish singers known as Band-Aid during an 8-hour studio session late in November 1984. It was released as a single about a week later, and it became the fastest and biggest selling single of all-time in the U.K. (It hit # 8 on our chart a year later at the end of December 1985.) | Band-Aid |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Freedom On Saturday June 28th 1986 I attended the final Wham! concert at London's Wembley Stadium. It was the first of 17 concerts I attended while living in the U.K. in 1986 and 1987. But less than a year before that I was living at Chanute AFB near Rantoul Illinois. This was a TOP 3 smash on the U.S. pop chart back then. It sounded good on WLS AM 89 - the Chicago hit music blowtorch. | Wham! |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Get It On (Bang A Gong) In 1985 Robert Palmer, Andy Taylor & John Taylor from Duran Duran, and Tony Thompson from Chic got together to create an all-new sound with heavy guitar and persistent drums. Their self-titled album was produced by Bernard Edwards (who co-produced Chic with Nile Rodgers). This U.S. TOP 10 smash was their immediate follow-up to "Some Like It Hot" (also a TOP 10 smash stateside). | The Power Station |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Lost Weekend I departed on my transatlantic flight for London England on Saturday November 09th 1985 - and I arrived bright and early the next morning. It was my "Lost Weekend", and it was also the weekend that this very English hit debuted on the U.K. pop chart. It was one of the most memorable tunes on GWR-FM (Swindon Wiltshire) during my first few weeks at my new home in the U.K. countryside. | Lloyd Cole & The Commotions |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Obsession I was a Senior at Langley High School in McLean Virginia when this electronic tune ruled the radio airwaves during the early half of 1985. This chart didn't exist yet, but it hit # 6 on the U.S. pop chart during the first week of May 1985, and it hit # 5 on the U.K. pop chart several weeks later. Several years ago it was featured in U.S. television commercials for Voicestream (a mobile phone company). | Animotion |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | One Night In Bangkok It was originally released late in 1984, but it didn't become a smash here stateside until well into 1985 - the first year of eligibility for my MASSIVE Memories. It was sort of like an early rap song as Murray Head described his peaceful night in Bangkok playing in a chess tournament while others around him in the 'crowded, polluted, stinking town' were up to no good. Murray starred in the eventual London West End hit musical "Chess" in 1986, and this track was prominently featured in it. | Murray Head |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Road To Nowhere I arrived in London England on the morning of Sunday November 10th 1985 after an overnight Transatlantic flight from the States. England would be my new home for the next two years - specifically RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire - just north of Swindon along the A417. To get from London to RAF Fairford I took British Rail westward, and then a taxi to my final destination. As I began my taxi ride to RAF Fairford the very first song I ever heard on British radio was this one, and I truly believed that I was indeed on a "Road To Nowhere". But once I got there I realized that I was definitely somewhere ! | The Talking Heads |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Something About You Level 42 was formed over 25 years ago in early-1980. Over the next 14 years they released over 30 singles - 20 of which made it onto the U.K. TOP 40. This was their longest-running single on the U.K. pop chart - lasting 4 months. It peaked at # 6 late in 1985. It was also their longest-running and highest-peaking hit stateside. It was on the U.S. pop chart for over 6 months, and it reached # 7. | Level 42 |
| -- | -- | -- | 1985 | Take On Me This Norwegian track was MASSIVE on the radio during the Autumn Of 1985 when I - an 18-year-old teenager at the time - drove my beige 1980 Chevrolet Citation eastward along America's Interstate system from Rantoul Illinois to McLean Virginia. Less than a month later I moved to southern England, and this chart was born. | A-Ha |
| 1 | 4 | 66 | 1985 | We Built This City It's the hit song that started it all in Gloucestershire England. Back in November 1985 two unpublished test charts were compiled that listed this U.S. # 1 gold pop smash at the very top. On our very first published chart dated November 30th 1985 it was officially listed at # 1 in its 3RD week at that position. For a song that is currently listed as the # 1 'Most Awesomely Bad Song Ever' by VH1 and Blender Magazine it is really the song that started everything that you see on our web site today. Starship sang "We Built This City", and 'I Built This Chart'. | Starship |
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