#86: The War Song by the Culture Club
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: November 1984
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #15
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #17
Peak Position on Ireland Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Spain Singles chart ~ #4
YouTube: “The War Song”
Lyrics: “The War Song”
The Culture Club are an English new wave band formed in 1981. Led by singer and frontman Boy George, whose androgynous style of dressing caught the attention of the public and the media in the early 1980s, the band have sold more than 50 million records. Its original lineup consisted of Boy George, Mikey Craig, Roy Hay, Jon Moss, and added Phil Pickett and Helen Terry in 1982. George Alan O’Dowd was born in 1961 in Greater London. His father, Jerry O’Dowd, was physically and and mentally abusive and beat his wife when she was pregnant with George. In 1980, he was a member of the new wave band Bow Wow Wow. He left the band within a year and formed a new band initially named the Sex Gang Children.
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#34: Blue Monday by New Order
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Stations: CFMB | CKOI
Peak Month: April 1983
Peak Position in Montreal CFMB ~ #1 | CKOI ~#2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on New Zealand Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on West German Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Dutch Singles Top 100 ~ #3
Peak Position on Austrian Single chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Ireland Singles chart ~ #4
YouTube: “Blue Monday”
Lyrics: “Blue Monday”
Bernard Sumner was born in 1956 in Salford, Lancashire, England. In his youth he learned to play guitar, keyboards, synthesizer and melodica. After graduation from public school, he got work with Stop Frame as a television animator cartoonist. After Sumner and his childhood friend Peter Hook saw the Sex Pistols at a concert in Manchester, they decided to form the post-punk band Joy Division. Born Peter Woodhead in 1956 in Salford, he took his stepfather’s surname, Hook, after his mother remarried. Peter Hook learned to play bass guitar, guitar, melodica, electronic drums and synthesizer. Stephen Paul David Morris was born in 1957 in the market town of Macclesfield, 16 miles south of Manchester. He learned to play the drum from a young age. Over the years he added percussion, keyboards and synthesizer to his resume.
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#42: There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) by Eurythmics
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: November 1985
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #22
Peak Position on Finland Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Ireland Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Norway Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Spain Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Sweden Singles chart ~ #2
YouTube: “There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)”
Lyrics: “There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)”
The Eurythmics were the duo of Annie Lennox and David Stewart. They were part of the New Wave music with a heavy reliance on a synth-pop sound. They were especially successful in the UK with hits that included “Love is a Stranger”, “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This”, “Who’s That Girl?” and “Here Comes the Rain Again”. They had a successful duet with Aretha Franklin in 1985 titled “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves”.
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#47: Mind Games by John Lennon
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CJMS
Peak Month: February 1974
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #8
YouTube: “Mind Games”
Lyrics: “Mind Games”
John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool in 1940. His middle name was after Britain’s current Prime Minister Winston Churchill, during World War II. In 1957, Lennon wrote his first song titled “Hello Little Girl”. It became a Top Ten hit in the UK in 1963 for the Merseybeat band the Fourmost. He became part of the Quarrymen, along with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Stuart Sutcliffe, each on guitar. The latter was replaced by Ringo Starr, who was a drummer, after the band had already been renamed the Silver Beatles and finally the Beatles. In the Sixties, Lennon and McCartney became the most successful singer-songwriting team for the Fab Four (as the Beatles were known).
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#18: Domino Dancing by Pet Shop Boys
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: December 1988
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #12
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #18
Peak Position on Finland Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Spain Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Denmark Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Italy Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on West Germany Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Ireland Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Puerto Rico Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Norway Singles chart ~ #5
Peak Position on Sweden Singles chart ~ #5
YouTube: “Domino Dancing”
Lyrics: “Domino Dancing”
The Pet Shop Boys are a duo formed in 1981 by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. Tennant was born in 1954 in North Shields, Northumberland, England. He attended an all-boys’ Catholic school in Newcastle upon Tyne. He would later write several songs, including “It’s A Sin”, referencing his days at the Catholic school. He taught himself to play guitar and piano, and learned cello in school. In his teens, he played in a folk group named Dust. In the mid-70s, Neil Tennant worked as a production editor with Marvel (Comics) UK. He was responsible for anglicizing the dialogue to suit British spelling. He was offered a job at Smash Hits as news editor of the British teen pop magazine in 1982. He went on to edit The Smash Hits Yearbook from 1982 to 1985. Continue reading →
#49: Situation by Yazoo
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: October 1982
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #3
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
Peak Position on Belgium Singles chart ~ #7
YouTube: “Situation”
Lyrics: “Situation”
Geneviève Alison Jane Moyet was born in 1961 in Billericay, Essex, England. After leaving school at 16, she worked as a shop assistant and trained as a piano tuner. She was involved in a number of punk rock, pub rock and blues bands in the South East Essex area during the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the Vandals, the Screamin’ Ab Dabs, the Vicars and the Little Roosters. At the age of 21, Moyet’s mainstream pop career began in 1982 with the formation of the synth-pop duo Yazoo with former Depeche Mode member Vince Clarke.
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#21: You Were On My Mind by Crispian St. Peters
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: August 1967
Peak Position in Fredericton: #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #36
YouTube: “You Were On My Mind”
Lyrics: “You Were On My Mind”
Robin Peter Smith was born in 1939 in Swanley, in Kent, UK, adjacent the the boundary of Greater London. At the age of fifteen, he learned the guitar and left school in 1954 to become an assistant cinema projectionist and also worked in a paper mill. In 1956, he gave his first live performance, as a member of The Hard Travellers. Through the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as undertaking National Service, he was a member of The Country Gentlemen, Beat Formula Three, and Peter & The Wolves. While a member of Beat Formula Three in 1963, he was heard by David Nicholson, an EMI Record publicist who became his manager. Nicholson suggested he use a stage name, initially “Crispin Blacke” and subsequently Crispian St. Peters.
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#66: 19 by Paul Hardcastle
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: August 1985
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #25
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
Peak Position on singles charts in Austria, Belgium,
Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway,
Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and West Germany ~ #1
YouTube: “19”
Lyrics: “19”
Paul Hardcastle was born in 1957 in London, England. He told the Guardian in a 2012 interview, “All my life I wanted to be a motorbike racer, until I had a bad crash and ended up in hospital for four months. While I was bedridden I listened to the radio all the time, especially clubby stuff, and thought: “I can do that.” So I swapped my video camera for a friend’s synthesiser and did.” Hardcastle began his career in 1981 when he became the keyboard player for British soul band Direct Drive. In 1982, Hardcastle and lead vocalist Derek Green left the band to form a duo under the name First Light. They achieved some minor success in the UK chart, but during 1984 Hardcastle moved on to pursue a solo career.
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#25: Fox On The Run by Manfred Mann
City: Fredericton, NB
Radio Station: CFNB
Peak Month: February 1969
Peak Position in Fredericton: #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #31
YouTube: “Fox On The Run”
Lyrics: “Fox On The Run”
Manfred Sepse Lubowitz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1940. Raised in a Jewish family, Manfred studied music at the University of the Witwatersrand, and formed a rock ‘n roll band called The Vikings in 1959. Lubowitz was against the South African system of Apartheid, first introduced in 1948, and becoming entrenched and expanded under the leadership of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. So Manfred Lubowitz moved to Britain. He began to write for Jazz News under the pseudonym, Manfred Manne. In time he shortened his adopted surname to Mann. In 1962 he met Mike Hugg at a holiday camp at Clacton-on-Sea. (Mike Hugg was born in Hampshire, England, in 1940, and had studied jazz growing up). They decided to start a band and named it the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers. They added Paul Jones and Tom McGuiness to the band, the latter who was with Eric Clapton’s band The Roosters.
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#81: Madam Butterfly by Malcolm McLaren
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: March 1985
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Ireland Singles chart ~ #10
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #13
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #16
YouTube: “Madam Butterfly”
Lyrics: “Madam Butterfly”
Malcolm McLaren was born in Greater London in 1946. While still an art student, McLaren had the first public exhibition of his work in 1967, which was based on an environmental installation staged at the Kingly Street Art Gallery in central London. In October 1971, McLaren took over the back part of the retail premises at 439 King’s Road in Chelsea, West London. The store sold rock and roll records, refurbished 1950s radiograms and dead stock clothing as “In The Back Of Paradise Garage”. McLaren converted the entire ground floor into the store and renamed it Let It Rock. The store was patronised by teddy boys and McLaren’s designs (along with his girlfriend) also appeared in such theatrical and cinematic productions such as The Rocky Horror Show and That’ll Be The Day. In spring 1973 the store was renamed Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die and began selling original 1950s-inspired leather clothing. In August 1973, McLaren and co-designer Vivienne Westwood visited New York to participate in the National Boutique Fair, where they began an association with the New York Dolls, supplying them with stage wear and joining their group on tour in the UK and France.
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