Pick a Day

Music History Events: Charts

October 3, 1987 Smokey Robinson holds the #10 spot on the Hot 100 with "One Heartbeat," while a song about him, "When Smokey Sings" by ABC, is at #8.

August 8, 1987 U2 land their second American #1 as "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," from The Joshua Tree, goes to the top.

November 17, 1986 Thanks to the hit "You're The Voice," John Farnham's album Whispering Jack goes to #1 in Australia, where it spends an astounding 25 (non-consecutive) weeks.

September 13, 1986 The Communards hit #1 in the UK with their cover of "Don't Leave Me This Way," an American #1 for Thelma Houston in 1977. Their version becomes the top-selling UK single of 1986.

March 20, 1986 Country singer Kathy Mattea releases her third album, Walk The Way The Wind Blows, featuring her breakthrough single - a cover of Nanci Griffith's "Love At The Five And Dime." It peaks at #3 on the country chart.

December 28, 1985 Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time" goes to #2 in the US, held back by Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me." Written and produced by Rick James, it charts higher than any other James composition.

September 7, 1985 "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" hits #1 in the US. David Foster and John Parr wrote the song for the film St. Elmo's Fire, but they wrote it about Rick Hansen, who went around the world in his wheelchair raising money for spinal cord research on his "Man In Motion" tour.

August 3, 1985 Tears For Fears' "Shout" hits #1 in the US for the first of three weeks. It's the English synthpop duo's second chart-topper, following "Everybody Wants To Rule The World."

July 27, 1985 Paul Young hits #1 with "Everytime You Go Away," a cover of a Hall & Oates song released in 1980. It's the only Hall & Oates cover ever to make the Top 40.

April 27, 1985 The Judds' "Girls' Night Out" goes to #1 Country, where it stays for one week. It's the second chart-topper from the duo's debut album, Why Not Me.

April 20, 1985 The Commodores land their first (and only) post-Lionel Richie hit with "Nightshift," which reaches #3 in the US. The song is a tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye.

March 16, 1985 "Nightshift" by The Commodores, a tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, knocks Diana Ross' "Missing You," a tribute to Gaye written by ex-Commodore Lionel Richie, from the #1 spot on the R&B chart.

February 2, 1985 "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner begins a two-week run at #1 in the US, the first song with a gospel choir to top the chart. The song was written by Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones and inspired by the woman who would later become his wife: Ann Dexter-Jones.

June 30, 1984 The Huey Lewis & the News album Sports claims a week at #1 in the US. It's one of just five albums to top the chart in 1984, the others being Thriller, Purple Rain, Born in the U.S.A., and the Footloose soundtrack.

May 19, 1984 The song "Thriller" falls off the Hot 100, ending a run of hits from the Thriller album that started on November 6, 1982, when "The Girl Is Mine" entered the tally. In that stretch, only two weeks went by without a Thriller song on the chart.

March 17, 1984 Van Halen's 1984 rises to #2 on the US albums chart, held off by Michael Jackson's Thriller, which has already topped the tally for 31 weeks. 1984 stays one spot behind Thriller for two more weeks before dropping down. Perhaps it would have hit #1 if Eddie Van Halen hadn't done the guitar solo on "Beat It."

October 8, 1983 "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" by Bonnie Tyler stays at #1 in America, with "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" by Air Supply at #2, a configuration that holds for three weeks. Both songs were written and produced by Jim Steinman, making him the first solo writer and producer to hold the top two spots.

September 17, 1983 Howard Jones' debut single, "New Song," is released in the UK, where it will go on to chart at #3.

July 16, 1983 Twenty of the songs in the US Top 40 are by British acts, the most since 1965. The Police are at #1 with "Every Breath You Take," followed by Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue."

June 2, 1983 The 12-inch remix of "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats goes to #1 on the Billboard Dance chart. MTV begins playing the huzzah-worthy video, and the song soon rises up the Hot 100.More

May 28, 1983 "Candy Girl" by New Edition goes to #1 in the UK, becoming the first song with a rap to top the chart in that territory.

May 21, 1983 "Little Red Corvette" goes to #6 in the US, giving Prince his first Top 10 hit on the Hot 100. The video is one of the first by a black artist to go in hot rotation on MTV.

November 6, 1982 The first single from Michael Jackson's Thriller album, the Paul McCartney duet "The Girl Is Mine," enters the Hot 100 at #45. With the exception of a two-week stretch between "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" and "Thriller," at least one song from the album is on the chart every week until May 19, 1984.

October 16, 1982 Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," a #1 Country hit in 1974, goes back to the top spot thanks to its use in the movie The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. This makes it the first song to top that chart twice.

December 26, 1981 The AC/DC album For Those About to Rock We Salute You goes to #1 in America for the first of three weeks. It's their first #1 album in that country (their previous album, Back In Black, was a slow build and reached just #4), and their last until Black Ice in 2008.

October 3, 1981 Two months after MTV's debut, Blue Öyster Cult's "Burnin' For You" reaches its peak of #40 in the US - their first Top 40 since "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - thanks to a video shot in a Los Angeles culvert. Few American acts are making videos, so established rockers like BÖC and REO Speedwagon can get airtime. This changes a few years later when more photogenic artists make videos on a regular basis.

October 2, 1981 The Police's fourth album is the last in a sequence of four annual autumn releases. The title, Ghost in the Machine, is taken from a psychology book by Arthur Koestler and breaks their erstwhile tradition of giving their records French-sounding titles. It is a #2 hit in the US, led by the hit single "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic."

August 15, 1981 Pat Benatar spends the only week of her career at #1 on the US albums chart when Precious Time takes the top spot.

August 15, 1981 "Endless Love," a duet between Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, tops the Hot 100 for the first of nine weeks. It's the theme song from a movie of the same name, starring Brooke Shields.More

September 20, 1980 With a re-released "Modern Girl" reaching #8 in the UK, Sheena Easton becomes one of the few British female singers to place two songs in the Top 10 simultaneously ("9 To 5" is also on the charts.)