Blue Monday
1983
A die-cut sleeve modelled on a floppy disk, an Oberheim drum machine, and the best-selling twelve-inch single ever pressed.
★ 8.4
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1983
Showing 42 songs from 1983
Every Breath You Take
1983 · From Synchronicity
Sting woke at Fleming's Goldeneye with the melody; Summers cut that arpeggio in one take and made surveillance sound tender.
★ 8.2
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
1983
Recorded on a secondhand eight-track in a Chalk Farm attic, and an American number one by September.
★ 7.9
This Charming Man
1983
Marr stacked roughly fifteen guitar tracks and dropped a knife on the strings; Morrissey lifted a line from Sleuth.
★ 7.8
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
1983
Robert Hazard wrote it in 1979 from a man's point of view, and Lauper flipped it into female solidarity.
★ 7.7
Let's Dance
1983 · From Let's Dance
Nile Rodgers on rhythm guitar, an unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan on lead, and Bowie's biggest-selling single by a distance.
★ 7.7
Sucker MC's
1983 · From Run-D.M.C.
An Oberheim drum machine, a few scratches, and two voices. Everything before it suddenly sounded old school.
★ 7.6
Sunday Bloody Sunday
1983 · From War
Mullen's marching snare was cut at the foot of a Windmill Lane stairwell, and Bono insisted it was no rebel song.
★ 7.6
White LinesGrandmaster Flash
White Lines
1983
Doug Wimbish replayed Liquid Liquid's Cavern bassline, Melle Mel wrote the warning, and Flash's name went on the label anyway.
★ 7.3
Burning Down the House
1983 · From Speaking in Tongues
Frantz came home from a Parliament-Funkadelic show chanting it, and Byrne built the band's only American top ten.
★ 7.3
Blister in the Sun
1983
Busking outside a Milwaukee theatre got them discovered by the Pretenders, and Gano's riff has been filling dancefloors ever since.
★ 6.8
Ain't NobodyChaka Khan
Ain't Nobody
1983
Wolinski's synth loop, his threat to hand the song to Quincy Jones instead, and Khan sailing clean over it.
★ 6.8
Amarillo By Morning
1983
Stafford's idea, Fraser's overnight lyric, and a fiddle arrangement that rodeo crowds took for their own.
★ 6.8
New Year's Day
1983 · From War
A bass line Clayton stumbled on while decoding Visage's Fade to Grey, then Bono aimed the words at Poland's Solidarity.
★ 6.8
Between the Sheets
1983
Chris Jasper's keyboards and drum machine, Ronald Isley at his silkiest, and the loop under "Big Poppa".
★ 6.6
All Night Long (All Night)
1983
Those African-sounding chants are invented gibberish; Richie had no time for a translator and no reason to care.
★ 6.5
Pancho and Lefty
1983 · From Pancho & Lefty
Nelson cut his part after midnight, fetched Haggard from his bus, and kept the one take Haggard wanted redone.
★ 6.5
Holiday (Madonna)Madonna
Holiday (Madonna)
1983 · From Madonna
Mary Wilson and Phyllis Hyman turned it down; Benitez cut it at Sigma Sound in a week, cowbell included.
★ 6.2
Against All Odds
1983
A Face Value outtake with new lyrics for Taylor Hackford's film, and Collins's first American number one.
★ 6.0
Pink Houses
1983 · From Uh-Huh
Mellencamp waved at a man sitting outside a pink shotgun house near the highway, and wrote America's most misread chorus.
★ 5.9