Everybody's looking for something

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

1983 : Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) - Eurythmics

This is another surprising winner - but in a completely opposite way to the "mighty US track steamrollering all UK opposition" issue we've seen previously.  I'm really pleased to see this here, but intrigued as to how it's emerged from what must be a very crowded field.  Let's hope I do a better job at understanding the situation than I managed last time...

But first, let's enjoy all 3:36 of the track and its official video!  Firstly, we have to consider Annie's look and remember how much of a fuss it caused at the time - particularly combined with Boy George outraging everyone, everyone got VERY confused about how they were supposed to tell boys and girls apart and the end of the world was likely to result.  It feels like a different time (it was 40 years ago, after all!), but also still depressingly contemporary in terms of manufactured outrage - if anything, things are worse now because a lot of people perfectly understand the issues but choose to be outraged anyway.  Oh well, maybe I should just put my soapbox away and enjoy the video...

The first half is very much as I remember - a very young Annie in some kind of boardroom pointing at things and hitting the table, whilst Dave taps away on a keyboard and everyone has a good time with video effects which look horrendously dated now.  I'd completely forgotten the second half though, when they go on in a field and play cellos (with Annie in a dress and a wig), loads of cows get involved for no obvious reason, then they go and sit in a boat and finally Annie gets into bed and goes to sleep.  It is, of course, an absolute pile of nonsense but it's a very good looking pile of nonsense and that was what was important back then (and still is now, one suspects).

Wikipedia tells us that, whilst writing it, Annie was feeling very down for a variety of reasons and Dave was feeling upbeat because he'd just survived surgery on a punctured lung and it certainly sounds like it made for an interesting creative process.  It's very detailed on the technology involved - a Movement Systems Drum Computer (one of only 30 built that they bought for £2k), a Roland SH-101 and a Oberheim OB-X were all involved.

It was their fifth single released, but was most definitely their global breakthrough hit.  It peaked at #2 in the UK and was #11 in the year-end list.  The record company weren't going to release it in the US, but a Cleveland DJ picked up on it and the response was positive, so they gave it a go.  And it took its sweet time but eventually topped the chart (after first spending four weeks at #2) and selling over a million copies over there - it also got to #1 in France and Canada as well.  It hasn't done so well on its re-releases and there have been a few over the years - '91 (#48 in the UK), '95, '06 (#19 in France), '10 and '20 (#37 in Poland)!

And how about cover versions?  Wikipedia gives us a '95 version from Swing featuring Dr Alban which got to #58 in the UK, but did much better in Europe (which isn't surprising when you hear it), another '95 version from Marilyn Manson (which looks and sounds exactly like you'd expect) and a '16 cover from JX Riders featuring Skylar Stecker (you remember them, right?  No?  Well you'd still expect their version to sound like this).  secondhandsongs.com offers up 223 versions which is a LOT but I've never heard of most of the artists, with the exceptions being Yo La Tengo (taken from the album Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics - with good reason), Bat For Lashes (not bad, but could have been better), Delta Goodrem (ditto) and Weezer (remarkably faithful).  I was quite surprised at how most people didn't try something different - it seems quite an obvious track to slow down like Emily Browning (never heard of her!) did to good effect.

So, I'm coming to the conclusion that doing well in the US greatly increases the changes of tracks winning the year and that certainly appears to be the case here - I like the track but I imagine there are plenty of others from the year that are just as good, if not better.  The top five selling tracks for the year are Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon" (which feels very '83), Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" (with its enjoyably cheesy video), UB40's "Red Red Wine" (really?), David Bowie's "Let's Dance" (with its odd video) and Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" (now that really is an odd video, which has a great literal video version).  All in all, not the best selection - I suspect the charts can come up with some superior offerings.

Well, the first one that comes up is Keith Harris & Orville's "Orville's Song", so that's going to be tricky to beat - but we just about manage it with Laura Branigan's "Gloria", Echo & The Bunnymen's "The Cutter", U2's "New Years Day", Wham!'s "Wham Rap", The Style Council's "Speak Like A Child", Orange Juice's "Rip It Up", Culture Club's "Church Of The Poison Mind" (probably my favourite track of theirs), Spandau Ballet's "True" and "Gold", Heaven 17's "Temptation", The Police's "Every Breath You Take", Yazoo's "Nobody's Diary", Hall And Oates' "Maneater", Madness "Wings Of A Dove" (probably my fave of theirs), Genesis's "Mama", New Order's "Blue Monday", Black Lace's "Superman" (OK, maybe not) and The Cure's "Love Cats".

The US charts tells us that, somewhat surprisingly, The Police's "Every Breath..." was the best selling track of the year - most of the top ten were big over here with the exception of Michael Sembello's "Maniac" (which I do remember) and Patti Austin and James Ingram's "Baby Come To Me" (which I don't).  Other oddities that are thrown up are Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science", Styx's "Mr Roboto", Stray Cat's "Stray Cat Strut" and Musical Youth's "Pass The Dutchie".  

There were some odd tracks around in '83 and no mistake - and no obvious winner to me, so I'm perfectly happy to give it to Eurythmics for a fine track that's very much of its time but also hasn't dated horribly.

1982 - The cheese fest continues
1984 - Not even close to being George's best track of even that year