Money for Nothing just because of the CG music video. Just need to get through the awful power ballads coming up next and then we’re on to the best music of all-time: early 90s hip house and eurodance.
Pretty much - the single was billed as by George Michael, but Andrew Ridgeley cowrote it and Billboard credited it to “Wham! featuring George Michael”, so I decided invoke pollmaster fiat and bill it to Wham! for simplicity’s sake.
Also because Wham! is a fun name to type. Exclamation points make everything more exciting.
It’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” in a walk. Other possibilities were: “A View to a Kill”, “Crazy for You”, “Everytime You Go Away”, “Broken Wings”, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”, “Miami Vice Theme”, “Money for Nothing”, and “We Are the World”.
(I may be kidding about that last one.)
Finally a year with some good music. But it also has the single worst #1 single in history, and the biggest sell-out to Corporate Amerika as well.
I want to vote for a-ah, Duran Duran and Simple Minds, but Tears For Fears wins by an RCH.
Ah…so hard to choose…
Shout, A View to a Kill, Money For Nothing, and Take On Me are all deserving. Take On Me gets the nod, I think…
My initial reaction was to vote for Money For Nothing. That guitar riff is one of the very best from that decade and the music video was a milestone for the medium but on second thoughts, I don’t think that the rest of the song is that great.
So I chose Wham!'s Careless Whisper because that’s one luscious ballad, the only one I know that manages to be both terribly sad and ultra hot. And for once, the sax solo is a welcome addition. My second choice was Madonna’s Crazy for you, another sexy slow number. It may not be one of her best-known songs but I’ve always been partial to it.
By the way, Tears for Fears placed several songs at #1 in 1985? I’ve always found them bland as can be.
I went for “Money for Nothing.” “Take On Me” would be my choice for best VIDEO, though.
It only has one vote so far, but it’s a shame the “Miami Vice Theme” can’t win a bronze medal or something.
“We Built This City” is the worst song in the history of sound.
I continue to abstain from voting for any of this shite. I did start looking at all the years after this out of desperation, however, and I was shocked by how small this list is going to become in a few years.
Still, 1985 was a fantastic year for albums. Rum, Sodomy and the Lash! New Day Rising! Psychocandy!
From its beginning up until 1991, Billboard got its sales data from reports voluntarily submitted by record stores that they telephoned on a semi-random basis. Which was alright when it was the best you can do, but it meant that parts of the market that didn’t bother to submit their figures didn’t get included in the tabulations, and it was prejudiced towards the latest singles to be released since those were the ones managers were most likely to be keeping accurate tabs on, and it was at times prone to outright confabulation.
In 1991, Nielsen started tracking sales directly from record store POS systems, and Billboard started using their figures to calculate the Hot 100 in November of that year. This new system provided a far more accurate impression of what records were selling, and had the side effect of causing songs to have much longer runs in the charts than they had previously been able to. (As far as I can tell, the airplay data has always been acquired from Arbitron via pretty much the same methods that Nielsen used to tabulate TV ratings at the time.) After 1991, we rarely see more than 10-12 #1s in a given year because of the change, and we also see songs staying at #1 for months at a time when such a feat was previously close to impossible.
It’s also worth noting that, prior to the general collapse of the singles market in the early '90s, sales were weighted far more heavily than airplay, whereas the reverse has gradually become the case - sales have always been far more volatile and prone to rapid changes from week to week, while a song may have heavy rotation on the radio long after initial sales have dropped off. (Indeed, if you look at the airplay charts from the mid-'90s, several songs held #1 for months at a time that never even charted on the Hot 100, such as “I’ll Be There For You”, “Don’t Speak”, “Torn”, and “Lovefool”.)
So, long story short; it all comes down to how you collect the data.
^ Thanks for the education!
Actually, while I’m at it, thanks for the threads as well…they’re fun reading.
I’d vote for this entire list if I could. Not because I’m especially in love with any of these songs, on the contrary, I doubt if left alone in a room with a stereo that I’d ever think to play any of these. But taken together, as a playlist let’s say, this set takes me back to having a freshly minted driver’s license, a big car, and just enough gas money for me and my friends to drive around all night while listening to the radio.
I LOVE those. 
I’ll be the old softie sentimentalist in the thread and vote for We Are the World.
It’s not like we’re getting paid for this.
I can’t stand this indecision…
Aw, f-it. Gonna vote for EWTRTW
Funny how tastes differ - some posts about how awful this year was and out of all the polls, this one has the strongest roster for me. I’d contend that much of it is based on when you were born or came of age. I was born in 1977 and have fond memories of most of these songs even when they’re awful now. I still unironically love many of these songs.
I was thinking that, too. I suspect that we all vote differently. I know I should probably vote for the “best” song musically/artistically, but I usually vote for the one that has the strongest emotional connection for me. Sometimes it’s not even the song, but the artist.
I graduated high school in 1982 and just got home from an alumni day. These threads have brought up so many memories the last few weeks, and with today and seeing so many people I knew in high school, I’m kind of a weepy mess right now.:o
As an aside; until I got ready to post this thread today, I would never have known “Careless Whisper” by name, but when I looked it up, it took me about half a second to say “Oh, it’s the song that that soft porn sax solo comes from.”
I voted for Careless Whisper by Wham, the chorus “Guilty Feet Have Got No Rhythm” is a fine lyrical example. I also love the other Wham entry “Everything She Wants” I could listen to the opening all day. I voted for George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley in 1984 with “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”.
They had fun catchy songs, “Last Christmas” has got to be among the best Christmas tunes of the last 30 years, or since I was born.
George Michael is a great singer and an underrated song writer.
It’s weird that “Careless Whisper” is credited to both George and Wham, so it became the duo’s second #1 and George’s first #1, though I consider it a Wham song and not a proper George Michael single. It appears on Wham’s album “Make It Big”.
A quick run down of the songs from 1985:
Foreigner song: Okay, not my favorite from them.
REO Speed Wagon: Good song, among their best.
Wham: Explained above.
Phil Collins Entries are alright, but from that album “No Jacket Required” he had much better, like “Take Me Home”. Okay overall, plus I had only heard the duet once. He gets a lot of unnecessary hate while Peter Gabriel is worshipped.
USA FOR AFRICA: just okay, never cared for it.
The Madonna entry is good, but I plan on voting for Madge in the coming polls because I feel she had better #1’s.
Simple Minds is good, a played to death but still not tired of it. Originally offered to Billy Idol, he turned it down. Good but I also like other song by them.
Tears for Fears songs, EBWTRW has held better than “Shout”, it is a better song.
Bryan Adams, Duran Duran, Paul Young, Whitney Houston, and Mr. Mister songs are in my opinion, the last one has nice atmospheric background and the Whitney song has aged better than many of her other 80’s singles.
A- HA is good, though I don’t love it as much as others. Do not care for the John Parr, Ready for the World, Dire Straits songs.
Whew!
We’re very different people.