Monday, April 14 through Friday, April 18 is WYEP’s Decades Week. On Monday, all the music played from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. will be from 1975. On Tuesday, it’s all 1985. 1995 takes center stage on Wednesday. Relive 2005’s best music on Thursday. And wrap up the week with a journey back to 2015.
Let’s preview some of the songs that will be heard on WYEP on Tuesday, April 15, from 1985.
Duran Duran was so huge in 1985 that their James Bond theme “A View To A Kill” topped the pop chart—still the only Bond theme song to achieve that feat—while multiple side projects also had hits. The Power Station (featuring the parent group’s bassist and guitarist) had two top 10 hits in “Some Like it Hot” and their cover of T. Rex’s “Get It On.” Meanwhile, Arcadia—the splinter band featuring the rest of Duran Duran—had a top 10 hit with “Election Day.”
Other representatives from the early 1980’s Second British Invasion were flexing their success in 1985, including Simple Minds, Eurythmics, and Howard Jones. Simple Minds’ “Don't You (Forget About Me)” from the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club topped the U.S. pop chart, while both Eurythmics and Howard Jones hit #5 with “Would I Lie to You?” and “Things Can Only Get Better,” respectively.
And Kate Bush had a minor hit with her song “Running Up That Hill” (stalling out at #30 in the fall of 1985) 37 years before it would become a major hit in 2022 after inclusion in the TV series Stranger Things.
American artists were, of course, also making big songs in 40 years ago. Stevie Wonder’s “Part-Time Lover” topped the pop chart in November of 1985, his eighth time hitting #1. And “The Old Man Down the Road” by John Fogerty became his only top 10 hit as a solo artist.
Some songs from 1985 remain as little capsules of that “New Coke” time period. The stylish cop show Miami Vice debuted in 1984, but its theme song by Jan Hammer became a rare instrumental to top the pop chart in November of ’85 (only one instrumental song has done so since: Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” in 2013). Cyndi Lauper’s “The Goonies 'R' Good Enough” takes one right back to when it peaked at #10 that summer. Spring of 1985 was dominated by the chart-topping famine relief single “We Are the World” by the ad hoc supergroup U.S.A. For Africa. The fall was taken over by Norwegian group A-ha and their single (and music video) “Take on Me,” which hit #1 in October of 1985.
It wasn’t a top 40 hit, but Billy Crystal made a run for the pop charts with his single “You Look Marvelous,” a catchphrase Crystal made famous as “Fernando” on a series of Saturday Night Live sketches in the ’84-’85 season. The comedy song made it to #58 in August of 1985.
