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May 1984: Prince releases a song WITHOUT a bassline. Warner Bros. refused to put it out; Prince insisted. #1 Billboard for 5 weeks - the best-selling US single of 1984. Sunset Sound, one day, Prince plays everything himself: LinnDrum + OB-Xa + Stratocaster. The lyric is autobiographical - about his parents' 1968 divorce.
October 1987: the 24-year-old George Michael writes, produces and performs his solo debut alone. Title single #1 Billboard for 4 weeks, album 25M copies, 12 weeks at #1. Grammy Album of the Year 1988 - a first for solo pop. Gibson J-200 12-string and TR-909.
July 1987: New Order's first American top-40 hit - Billboard #32, UK #4. Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris, producer Stephen Hague. The signature synth riff - Akai S900. Bernard Sumner's lyric is ambiguous: drugs or faith. Philippe Decouflé's clip took the 1988 Brit Award - dance without music.
January 1986: Prince wrote it for Apollonia 6, then gave it to Susanna Hoffs under the pseudonym “Christopher”. #2 Billboard - blocked by Prince's own “Kiss”. Sunset Sound, 6 vocal tracks from the three Bangles on the chorus. Album 8M worldwide; the song collects 15M Monday-morning streams every week.
1981, New York: 22-year-old Suzanne Vega writes verses inside Tom's Restaurant on 112th Street. A cappella recording in 1987 - one take, 2:08, no instruments. 1990: the DNA remix hits #5 UK/US. 1991: Karlheinz Brandenburg picks the song to tune the MP3 codec at Fraunhofer. Every MP3 file in the world was polished on Vega's voice.
May 1982: UK #9, US #14 - not a chart record. But Russell Mulcahy's $250,000 Antigua-yacht video rewrote MTV aesthetics for 1982-87. Rio sold 12M worldwide. John Taylor's Fender Jazz Bass borrowed from Bernard Edwards (Chic). Patrick Nagel's sleeve became a visual icon of the 80s.
May 1985: a modest UK #8 and US #9 on release. But by 2024 - 100+ ad campaigns (Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Samsung, BMW), 40+ films and 60+ TV series. Author Kimberley Rew earns $1M+ a year - $25M total across 40 years. The lyric works because it's universal, with no specifics.
September 1984: 25-year-old Sade Adu, a former model, releases her debut single. #5 UK and Billboard. Ray St. John's lyric about a con man. Power Plant Studios, producer Robin Millar. Stuart Matthewman's sax solo cut in one take after 12 hours of non-stop play. Diamond Life sold 10M and launched sophisti-pop.
April 1983: UK #1 for four weeks, Billboard #4. Compass Point Studios, Bahamas; producers Jolley & Swain. Gary Kemp wrote about unrequited love for Clare Grogan (Altered Images). Steve Norman's tenor sax solo - one take after seven rehearsals. P. M. Dawn sampled it in 1991 - about $1.8M came back to Kemp.
February 1982: David Paich writes “Africa” on a Yamaha CS-80 after a PBS doc. No Toto member had been to Africa. #1 Billboard 1983, 11 vocal tracks on the chorus, 2.3B streams after the Reddit revival.
January 1981: 20-year-old Kim Wilde's debut - lyric by 19-year-old brother Ricky, music by 50s pop star father Marty. Nobody in the family had been to America. UK #2, #1 in four European countries, US #25. Eden Studios, Roland Jupiter-4, 172 BPM, 3M+ copies. Ricky produced at 19.
May 1985: Swiss duo Yello (Meier+Blank) drop “Oh Yeah” on Stella. #51 Billboard - not a hit. 1986: editor Paul Hirsch slots 3 seconds over a Ferris Bueller scene, John Hughes greenlights it in 5 seconds. Since then - 200+ films, $40M in licensing. Yello have never played a live show.
September 1984: Moroder and Philip Oakey (Human League) cut the title theme of “Electric Dreams” - a comedy about a computer in love with the neighbour. #3 UK, #1 Denmark. Musicland Munich, four days, one-take vocal. LinnDrum, Moog Source, DX7. The film bombed ($4.6M), the song lived - and is timely again in the AI era.
20 June 1980: the single drops 33 days after Ian Curtis's death. The 23-year-old frontman hanged himself on 18 May in a Manchester flat, torn between wife Deborah and lover Annik Honoré. UK #13, 5M+ copies. Strawberry Studios, Martin Hannett, ARP Omni-2. The title became the only inscription on his grave.
October 1986: Jon wanted the song cut from the album - 12 New Jersey teens voting on tracks saved it. #1 Billboard for 4 weeks, Slippery When Wet 28M copies. Sambora's Heil Talk Box intro, key change E minor → F minor for the final chorus. Tommy and Gina - Italian-American names for the East Coast audience.
September 1982: Prince stacks three drum machines at once - LinnDrum, Oberheim DMX and TR-808 - with a three-vocalist trade-off. 8M singles and the idiom “party like it's 1999” entering English.
May 1984: Andrew Ridgeley accidentally writes “up up before you go go” twice on a fridge note. George Michael turns it into a song. UK #1 for 2 weeks, Billboard #1 for 3 weeks, #1 Netherlands for 8 weeks. Five days at Sarm West, Michael producing. Hamnett's “CHOOSE LIFE” T-shirts sold a million in six months.
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