80's Top Hits Usa Chart

Number One Hits contains 18 #1 records from the charts of Billboard, who somehow didn't rank "Crying in the Chapel," "In the Ghetto," "Burning Love," and "Way Down" as chart-toppers, although other national surveys did. In fact, according to RCA, every copy of "Way Down" was sold out within days after Presley's death, not just here but all over the planet, and somehow, amazingly, it didn't even make the magazine's Top Ten!

Until the arrival of the Sugarcubes, jazz fusion band Mezzoforte was Iceland’s best-known musical export. The group was formed in 1977 at a Reykjavik high school by Fridrik Karlsson (b. 24 April 1960; guitar), Eythór Gunnarsson (b. 9 September 1961; keyboards), Jóhann Ásmundsson (b. 30 March 1961; bass), and Gunnlaugur Briem (b. 8 September 1962; drums). They signed a recording contract with local label Steinar, and with the assistance of Stefán S. Stefánsson (saxophone) recorded their debut album. Bjorn Thorarensen (keyboards) joined in time for the recording of the band’s second long-player. Kristinn Svavarsson (saxophone) was featured on the exuberant ‘Garden Party’, which was a Top 20 hit in the UK in 1983.

The singularity of Dionne Warwick is defined by what the singer isn't as much as what she is. Although Warwick grew up singing in church, she is not a gospel singer. Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan are clear influences, but she is not a jazz singer. R&B is also part of her background, yet she is not really a soul singer, either, at least not in the sense that Aretha Franklin was. Sophisticated is a word often used to describe Warwick's musical approach and the music she sings, but she is not a singer of standards such as Lena Horne or Nancy Wilson. A pop singer of a sort with an aching yet detached alto voice, In all likelihood, Warwick could only have emerged out of the Brill Building environment of post-Elvis Presley, pre-Beatles pop in the early '60s. That's when she hooked up with Burt Bacharach and Hal David, songwriters and producers who tailored their unusually complicated songs for her distinctive instrument.

Judas Priest was one of the most influential heavy metal bands of the '70s, spearheading the New Wave of British Heavy Metal late in the decade. Decked out in leather and chains, the band fused the gothic doom of Black Sabbath with the riffs and speed of Led Zeppelin, as well as adding a vicious two-lead guitar attack; in doing so, they set the pace for much popular heavy metal from 1975 until 1985, as well as laying the groundwork for the speed and death metal of the '80s….

Possibly the most influential artist of all time, Wonder has sold over 100 million albums and continues to produce music today.
This release will take you back to the Motown days and bring you up to the present, through the best live performance footage and the most knowledgeable of critics. Including: Interview with Lloyd Bradley, journalist and author; one of the most prominent and respected authorities from the black music scene. Bradley began contributing to NME in the 80's and has written for countless other since. Interviews with Geoff Brown and Phil Sutcliffe, veteran journalists with a combined portfolio including MOJO, Black Music Magazine, The Face, Q and Smash Hits.

Dire Straits emerged during the post-punk era of the late '70s, and while their sound was minimalistic and stripped down, they owed little to punk. If anything, the band was a direct outgrowth of the roots revivalism of pub rock, but where pub rock celebrated good times, Dire Straits were melancholy. Led by guitarist/vocalist Mark Knopfler, the group built their sound upon the laid-back blues-rock of J.J. Cale, but they also had jazz and country inflections, occasionally dipping into the epic song structures of progressive rock. The band's music was offset by Knopfler's lyrics, which approximated the winding, stream-of-conscious narratives of Bob Dylan…