#9: Just An Illusion by Imagination
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: June 1982
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Italian Singles Chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Just An Illusion”
Lyrics: “Just An Illusion”
Imagination were a British trio. It was comprised of Leee John (born in 1957 in London), whose parents moved to England from St. Lucia in 1955. After his parents divorce, he moved to New York City and at the age of ten was signed to a record company. He provided backing vocals for a number of groups including The Delfonics and The Chairmen of the Board. He moved back to England in his teens. In college he recorded an album with EMI, but it was not commercially successful. While working as a backing singer, Leee met guitar and bass player Ashley Ingram. They formed a band called Fizz and began writing songs. The pair met Errol Kennedy in the early 80s and formed the group Imagination.
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#10: Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: January 1985
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #10
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #48
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #1
Peak Position on Netherlands Singles chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Smalltown Boy”
Lyrics: “Smalltown Boy”
James “Jimmy” Somerville was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1961. He moved to London in 1980 and attended the London Gay Teenage Group. In 1983 he co-founded Bronski Beat with Steven Forrest, the latter adopted the stage name Steve Bronski. Forrest was born in 1960 in Glasgow. Larry Steinbachek was also born in 1960, in his case in London. He worked as an electrician and was studying to be a musician prior to forming Bronski Beat. The three mates were sharing a flat in Brixton when they decided to form a group. They first performed publicly at an arts festival, September in the Pink. The trio were unhappy with the inoffensive nature of contemporary gay performers and sought to be more outspoken and political.
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#17: Be Still My Beating Heart by Sting
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: March 1988
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #28
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #15
YouTube: “Be Still My Beating Heart”
Lyrics: “Be Still My Beating Heart”
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was born in Wallsend on Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, England, in 1951. His mother was a hairdresser and his father was a milkman and engineer. When he was ten-years-old, young Sumner got introduced to Spanish guitar, when a family friend left it at the Sumner residence. After high school he was variously a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer. He went to college and from 1974-76 was a public school teacher. Sumner performed jazz in the evening, weekends and during breaks from college and teaching, playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname, “Sting,” due to his habit of wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought Sumner looked like a bee which prompted the name “Sting.” According to Sting, in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, “they thought I looked like a wasp, and they’d joke. They called me Sting. They thought it was hilarious…That became my name.”
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#1: Boys Do Fall In Love by Robin Gibb
City: Yellowknife, NWT
Radio Station: CJJD
Peak Month: September 1984
Peak Position in Yellowknife ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #37
Peak Position on South African Singles chart ~ #7
Peak Position on Italian Singles chart ~ #10
YouTube: “Boys Do Fall In Love”
Lyrics: “Boys Do Fall In Love”
Robin Hugh Gibb was born with his twin brother, Maurice Gibb, on December 22, 1949, on the Isle of Man. He was one of the three brothers who became the Bee Gees. Living in England, the brothers initially formed a band called the Rattlesnakes. The boys, with their older brother Barry and their parents, moved to Australia in 1959. Barry, Robin and Maurice began to perform locally and build up a reputation in their new hometown in Australia. The Gibbs brothers started to perform to raise spare change and spending money. They were introduced to Brisbane radio presenter jockey Bill Gates by dirt track racing promoter and driver Bill Goode, who had hired the brothers to entertain the crowd at the Redcliffe Speedway in 1960. The crowd at the speedway would throw money onto the track for the boys, who generally performed during the breaks. Gates changed their name from the Rattlesnakes to the BGs (Barry Gibbs initials).
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#21: Dance Little Lady Dance by Tina Charles
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKGM
Peak Month: December 1977
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Swedish Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #6
YouTube: “Dance Little Lady Dance”
Lyrics: “Dance Little Lady Dance”
Tina Charles was born Tina Hoskins in London, England, in 1954. By the age of 14, in 1969, she was working as a session singer. When Hoskins was taken to CBS Records, that year she released her first non-album single titled “Nothing in the World” with a then obscure piano player in the studio named Reginald Dwight (who was soon took the stage name Elton John). During the early 1970s, she supplied vocals for the Top of the Pops album series of cover versions of contemporary hits. In 1971, she made appearances in the first series of The Two Ronnies, the BBC1 sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, performing “River Deep – Mountain High”, “Ruby Tuesday” and other pop hits. Starting in the 70s, Tina Charles provided vocals and spoken word on a variety of TV commercials. These include Crosse & Blackwell, Vauxhall, Interflora and others.
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#29: Gold by Spandau Ballet
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: January 1984
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #11
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #2
Peak Position on Belgian Singles chart ~ #3
Peak Position on Dutch Singles Top 100 ~ #3
Peak Position on Ireland Singles chart ~ #4
Peak Position on Spain Singles chart ~ #4
YouTube: “Gold”
Lyrics: “Gold”
Spandau Ballet were an English new wave band formed in London, England, in 1979. Gary Kemp, on lead guitar, was the principal songwriter for the band. He was born in London in 1959. From the age of eleven, he appeared in several British children’s films. He performed on guitar for the children’s television show You Must Be Joking! in 1975. The following year he formed a band called Roots. The band subsequently changed its name to The Cut, The Makers and then Gentry. At this point, Gary’s brother Martin Kemp was in the band. Kemp was born in 1961 in London. He was also a child actor, in his case from the age of 7. He quit school at age 16 and worked as an apprentice at a print factory. He joined Gentry after learning to play bass guitar in three months.
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#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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