1980 St Winifred's School Choir: There's No-one Quite Like Grandma

Ah, the broadest of all barn door targets; volumes and tomes could be filled with the outpouring of bile and hatred vomited in the direction of this song over the years, but I'm afraid I'm not inclined to add to it. How could I? Only the most calcified of hearts could take aim and offence at a troupe of primary school children whose only sin is to love their Grandma. And at Christmas time too (a similar sentimental seasonal bullseye had already been scored by Clive Dunn in 1971 with his 'Grandad').

If this was sung at the school Christmas concert then it would have brought the roof down; is it the fault of the kids that they were ushered into a recording studio and made to commit to vinyl what should have been a transitionary moment between them, their parents and their parent's parents? Is it the fault of the kids that the resulting effort was given a full commercial release and let loose into the national charts where it kicked John Lennon off the Christmas number one spot? No and no. And that's kind of my point - this sort of thing works perfectly well when kept in the family dynamic; just as holiday snaps or baby photos bring hours of delight to parents and close relatives, they bore the pants off the rest of us when the 'golden moments' are shared wider. No, if you want to blame anybody for this, then blame the writer, Gordon Lorenz who saw the chance to make a quick buck from a cute, gap toothed girl and her mates, and then blame the one million slack jawed, sentimentally overdosed punters who fell for it and, in confusing treacly sentimentailty with festive spirit, were only too happy to make him rich by buying it. A plague on all their houses.

1980 John Lennon: (Just Like) Starting Over

The very title of '(Just Like) Starting Over' is apt and ironic in equal measure. Apt, because this was Lennon's comeback single after five years in the wilderness and would also mark a stabilisation within his personal life, a kiss off to the drink and drug fuelled lost weekends of old and a public acknowledgement of a new commitment to his wife Yoko Ono after a period of semi retirement in which they raised their son. "It's been too long since we took the time no-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly. But when I see you darling, it's like we both are falling in love again" - the autobiography is obvious and Lennon once remarked that his five year recording hiatus was largely due to the fact he no longer found music interesting. 

If that truly was the case, then the artist seems to be in no mood to break any new ground on his own behalf - musically, '(Just Like) Starting Over' harked back to earlier days of Fifties rock and roll and doo wop, the upshot being that there's nothing remotely controversial or confrontational about it and was a letdown to those who expected a major statement of intent from the angry and angsty young man they knew of old, if only just to stick two fingers up at the bland contemporary fayre McCartney was churning out. The disappointment and 'ho hum' factor is neatly underlined by the fact '(Just Like) Starting Over' only managed to reach number eight on first release in October 1980 and was outside the top 20 when Lennon was shot in December, events which inevitably powered it to the top of the charts.

To be fair, though '(Just Like) Starting Over' is not the music Lennon will be remembered for in ten, twenty or a hundred years time, it is the sound of a man comfortable in his own clothes and at ease with his own legend. As a diversion, it's more than passable, but whether the subdued and retrospective middle aged tone of this and the whole of the parent 'Double Fantasy' album would be a signpost to any future music, or whether it was Lennon dipping his toes back in the water to build confidence again by doing what he knew best we will never know. And in that factor alone, the title of '(Just Like) Starting Over' carries a bitter irony in that a start was all that Lennon was allowed to achieve in this stage of his career.

1980 Abba: Super Trouper

Probably the only song set in Glasgow and about a concert spotlight that ever has or ever will be written, 'Super Trouper' was a continuation of the cold war of disatisfaction within Abba's ranks. Instead of the internal relationship conflicts of 'The Winner Takes It All', 'Super Trouper' details the group's dislike of the treadmill of touring and playing live, prefering by this stage to confine their activities to the studio; "I was sick and tired of everything when I called you last night from Glasgow. All I do is eat and sleep and sing, wishing every show was the last show": Biting the hand that feeds rarely makes for a good song, but rather than a bitter dirge of whiny self pity, Abba dress the song up all shiny with a chorus the lights the gloom very much in the manner of the titular spotlight. Anna Frid may sound like she's singing the lines "Shining like the sun. Smiling, having fun" through very gritted teeth, and I suppose she really is, but it doesn't detract from the Europop bounce and we can all smile at the nonsense of the 'sup-p-per troup-p-per' counterpoint refrain from the men, even if nobody else in the band is.

And therein lies the problem - just what are you meant to feel once the song is over? 'Super Trouper' is a mix of grown up angst and feel good flair that flits uneasily from both between verse and chorus, verse and chorus, making it a schizophrenic listen that's hard to sing along to and even harder to empathise with. In hindsight, the duality marked the watershed in the band's fortunes; it was their last UK number one and was the moment where Abba left the party for good and went to sit on the stairs on their own.

1980 Blondie: The Tide Is High

Blondie were never averse to releasing cover versions as singles ('Denis', 'Hanging On The Telephone') and their third number one of the year was a straight ahead version of this John Holt rocksteady tune originally recorded in 1967 by The Paragons. There are essentially two problems with this. 

Firstly, the original song was written from a male point of view; "Every man wants you to be his girl, but I'll wait, my dear, 'till it's my turn" - Blondie necessarily swap the gender, but would the Debbie Harry we all knew and loved show such vulnerability by passively waiting in line for the man of her dreams? Or would she, red in temper and nailpolish, pounce and dispatch the competition by any means necessary? And what competition could she possible have? From day one, Harry came across as feisty and independent with a 'look but don't touch' aura that was defiantly not girl next door so to see her neutered like this is a bit of a disappointment.

Secondly, and as noted above, 'The Tide Is High' was originally a John Holt rocksteady track, and there is something rather incongruous about five white New York blokes in skinny ties playing rocksteady behind a blonde white woman singing it. Admittedly, the strings and horns add a certain je ne sais quoi to the mix, but they are not enough to hide the fact that this version simply doesn't groove; in the hands of The Paragons, the slow backbeat and holes in the bassline were there to be filled with the rhythmic body motion on the dancefloor which itself became part of the music. Here, the flow is jerky, showing it's 'new wave' origins and the overall impression is of something created and dubbed note by note in a studio, something that was never once played through as a single piece of music by a band together in the same room. Blondie would again venture into black culture with their next (and far more interesting) single 'Rapture', but from three in a year it would be nigh on twenty more until their next number one. In 1980 'The Tide Is High' was the sound of a friendly beach party though the briefest of glimpses below the surface showed that rather than walking confidently on the water, the band were furiously treading it.

1980 Barbra Streisand: Woman In Love

Being a kind of latter day Judy Garland, Streisand had made her fame and fortune from Broadway musicals long before the Bee Gees, with their stock at an all time high, were approached with a view to collaborate. The resulting album was 'Guilty' and 'Woman In Love' was the lead single, her one and only UK number one to date. Rather than the full on disco strut of 'Tragedy' or 'Stayin Alive' though, the brothers Gibb stick firmly to the middle of the road with this one and play the whole thing out in a minor key with some earthereal guitar and backing strings and a lack of drums to let you know that the only dancing you're meant to be doing to this is the slow one at the end of the night. Which is a bit of a shame really because if you're not dancing then you may end up listening to the lyrics, and they don't bear close scrutiny.

"Life is a moment in space, when the dream is gone it's a lonelier place. I kiss the morning goodbye, but down inside you know we never know why": I have no idea what that means and  I doubt Streisand does either, but she she's as good as her word and gives it her all, using her (admittedly magnificent) voice from the heart to spin this straw into an approximation of gold. And in the course of her spinning, Streisand is too much of a showgirl not to know that when all else fails, hitting and maintaining a high note (as she does on the 'I give you it all' line) for over ten seconds is the quality kitemark that's all the average listener needs to hear to know that she really means it and that there's some serious heartbreak going down along with the curtain (just ask Whitney or Maria; they should know, they've built whole careers on this simple con trick). You can almost picture the tearfully jilted, unrequited and lovelorn with running mascara and an overfilled wineglass, gripping it's stem so tightly it breaks as she does it. Amateur dramatics maybe, but effective nonetheless. 'Woman In Love' is a professional job from first to last. And yet for all it's professionalism, it lacks the emotional substance that it so obviously aspires to, making listening to it akin to eating a whole box of chocolates in one sitting; enjoyable enough at the time, but ultimately resulting in little more than a sickly feeling in the stomach and a self questioning 'now what was the point of that?' shortly afterwards. I can't say that it's my cup of tea, but in terms of each of the participants it does nobody's careers any harm at all.

1980 The Police: Don't Stand So Close To Me

Well first things first - I think the 'problem' with any discussion of 'Don't Stand' is that there's an elephant in the room. You know what I mean, what lazy journalists refer to as that lyric. So let's get it out of the way: "Its no use, he sees her, he starts to shake and cough, just like the old man in that book by Nabakov" - a clumsy rhyme for sure, but in the context of the song's subject matter (teacher having indecent thoughts about a jailbait pupil with a crush on him) it works well enough; I can just imagine a member of academia trying to find justification for his longings in literature where none exists in morality (the book is 'Lolita' in case anyone didn't know). It's certainly not the biggest stick with which this song can be beaten. 

By 1980, The Police had achieved an extraordinary run of success and were on a roll, but the toll of releasing two albums in the previous twelve months was biting and 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' is the sound of a formula being stretched transparent. Structurally, 'Don't Stand' is basically a slowed down and spaced out re-run of their earlier 'Can't Stand Losing You' that swaps Andy Summer's choppy guitar skank for a more straightforward delivery, rather like a once sharp knife with the edge dulled. To compound this, Sting delivers the verses with an attitude of detached, almost embarrassed disinterest, as if he realises he's on dodgy ground with his tale of schoolgirl jailbait and can't wait to rush past it and on to the chorus (introduced by Copeland's kick drum that acts as a full stop to all the nonsense that has gone before) which he knows will sell the song to anybody with a ear for a catchy tune.

In the end,'Don't Stand' is a classic 'eighties' song - it may lack all the bombast of the later bands and songs of the decade, but it's still basic pop dressed in a grown up's clothes to create an air of gravitas and importance that is never fulfilled. We never know the outcome of the scenario that unfolds and what the teacher does when he stops coughing and shaking. Maybe Sting knows but thought it was a step too far to describe. And maybe the imagined is worse than the knowing. But nevermind; the chorus soon kicks in to fade so nobody worries about it too much and everybody's happy.

1980 Kelly Marie: Feels Like I'm In Love

From the streets and clubs of New York, disco spread it's influence as far and wide as Paisley, Scotland, where Jacqueline McKinnon heeded the trumpet call, changed her name to Kelly Marie, (but not bothering to hide one chip of her hard as granite Scots accent) and hit number one with this Ray Dorset (of Mungo Jerry fame) track that was originally intended for Elvis Presley. I'm not certain what sort of fist Mr Presley would have made of it, but I don't think it could have been too much worse than this.

Dance music is often derided as being machine made by and robotic in structure. There are plenty of examples that disprove this overly simplistic and one eyed viewpoint, but in 'Feels Like I'm In Love', the prosecution has it's key witness. The jury will observe that from the opening bars, the whole thing chugs along like a horse drawn cart with an offset wheel that ensures any smooth ride is going to be broken at regular intervals along the way. Let the jury further note that although dance music is meant to be liberating in both mind and body, the only 'dance' that can be realistically 'done' to this is to either march up and down on the spot, or to mime pulling an imaginary rope in time to the music. It works best too if your back is kept ramrod straight. The more adventurous may do both together, but any attempts at moving the hips, head or shoulders will soon see you all at sea. Just keep in mind a fixed robotic arm spot welding car frames on a production line and you'll not go far wrong.

The only concession to this is that you may mime pushing an imaginary button or throwing an imaginary switch whenever the 'boop boops' arrive - and don't worry, they're well telegraphed by the lyrics which Ms Marie shrieks out in a thick Caledonian squall that is more pint pot than cut glass. Filming the video on a battleship harboured off the North Sea with two men dressed as sailors may have been a cynical attempt to catch the gay ear, but it did nothing to hide the illusion that this was a cheap as chips own brand Corn Flakes. You had to go elsewhere for the Kellogg's because Kelly sure as hell wasn't selling it.