No playlist this week, as the days have passed too quickly and I’ve been too busy to cobble together a few songs. Doesn’t mean I will skip sharing a video from the Billboard Hot 100 chart of December 1, 1984.
“(Pride) In The Name Of Love” – U2
Last week was Madonna, which launched us towards 1985 and her ascension to pop music royalty. This week we get the first U2 song to crack the Top 40 in the US. It would take a couple more years, but soon U2 would be the biggest band in the world. It took me a few months to get into the band, as well. I bought The Unforgettable Fire sometime in the spring of 1985. That March I hung out with my uncle, who was into music, one evening. As we drove around, I played this song over-and-over, using his car stereo’s super-cool auto-reverse feature to quickly jump back to the beginning each time it ended. A few years later I noticed he had a vinyl copy of the album in his collection. My gift to him after years of him teaching me about bands.
It took six weeks, but this track nosed into the Top 40 at #39 on this countdown. It would rise to #33 before falling off the chart. About 30 months later the band would earn back-to-back #1 songs.
Kind of crazy that of all the bands I’ve included in this 1984 retrospective, U2 is still, in some ways, bigger than they were 40 years ago. Their singles aren’t as big as back then, but when they tour, they are pretty much guaranteed to sell out football stadiums. I think Springsteen is the only other artist from this series who is still alive and still touring who can make that claim.