Official Charts unveil 80s charts and launch new 80s Music Quiz app

The Official Charts Company is celebrating Royal Wedding week by basking in Eighties nostalgia – unveiling the Official biggest selling singles & albums of the Eighties and launching a brand new Official Charts 80s Music Quiz app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The Eighties was a decade of two royal weddings, between Charles & Diana and Andrew & Fergie - so this week has seen a wave of Eighties nostalgia. To join in the fun, the Official Charts Company today announces the Official best-selling lists for the decade, with Queen, Band Aid and Michael Jackson leading the way.

Band Aid’s Do They Know Its Christmas is confirmed as the biggest selling single of the decade, while Queen’s Greatest Hits is confirmed as the biggest selling album. The biggest selling studio album was Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The full Official Eighties Top 10s are outlined below.

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This week’s Official Number Ones – Adele’s 21 in the Official Albums Chart and Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO / Lauren Bennett / Goonrock – will go down in history as the UK’s 2011 Royal Wedding number ones.

By reigning at Number One at the time of tomorrow’s (Friday) marriage of Prince William Of Wales and Kate Middleton, the releases follow in the footsteps of other Royal Wedding Number Ones from Shakin’ Stevens, Cliff Richard and Madonna.

When Prince Charles and Lady Diana married on July 29 1981, Shakey’s Green Door was the Official Number One Single, with Cliff’s Love Songs the Official Number One Album. And on July 23 1986, when Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson married, Madonna had Number One in the Official Singles and Albums Charts, with Papa Don’t Preach and True Blue respectively. 

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To bring back memories of the last decade when the nation celebrated a major royal wedding, the Official Charts Company has also today launched an Official 80s Music Quiz application for users of iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Offering more than 1,000 questions, the app will offer the perfect opportunity for music fans to basking in the nostalgia of the age in which Charles and Di and Andrew and Fergie wed in front of a worldwide television audience of millions.

The app, which offers various types of questions including multiple choice, guess the year, matching pairs and true or false, is available now via the iTunes App Store and will be the first of three decade-specific quiz apps being launched by the Official Charts Company over the coming months.  It is priced 59p and available here: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/the-official-charts-80s-music/id424790584?mt=8

Among the questions posed are:
A. Who had a top five hit in 1980 with 'One Day I'll Fly Away'? Ruby Turner, Chaka Khan, Randy Crawford.
B. Who had a hit top 20 in 1982 with 'Videotheque'? Soft Cell, Altered Images, Dollar.
C. Leslie Wonderman was the real name of which artist? Taylor Dayne, Yazz, Pebbles.
(Answers are at the bottom of this press release)

The quiz app is the latest in a series of applications which are available through the iTunes App Store, including the Official UK Music Charts and Official #1s apps – which are both available here: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/the-official-charts-company/id299152440

Official Charts Company managing director Martin Talbot says, “As the nation looks to celebrate the latest Royal Wedding next week, much of the population will be basking in nostalgia – and our new app offers a perfect way of doing that, whether or not you are a royalist.

“It is also fascinating looking back at the Official Top 10s at the time of the previous Royal Weddings – they are like time capsules of popular music culture. When we pulled our archive charts out of the vaults, I couldn’t believe it is so long ago that Green Door was the UK’s Official Number One. Time has certainly flown.”

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The Royal Wedding has a chart pedigree of its own. Over the past 30 years, recordings of Royal Wedding services have made the Official Album chart in their own right – in August 1981, the BBC’s recording of Charles and Di’s wedding was the official Number One Album for two weeks.

Other wedding releases have seen Music For A Royal Wedding reach #7 in Dec 1973 (following Princess Anne’s wedding to Capt Mark Phillips), while Royal Wedding reached #55 in August 1986 (following Prince Andrew’s wedding to Sarah Ferguson). In turn, a recording of the funeral service for Diana Princess Of Wales reached number 3 in the Official Compilation Albums Chart in September 1997.

This year, Decca Records is releasing a recording of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding ceremony as a digital album for the first time. It will be released as a digital bundle within hours of the service ending tomorrow, before the CD is released in the UK and around the world from May 5.

The Official Charts Company is the industry-recognised compiler of the UK’s historic Official Singles and Official Albums charts, and the guardian of rights to six decades of Official Charts going right back to the Fifties – with a full, searchable Official Charts vault held on the website at www.theofficialcharts.com. The Company will lead celebrations of the 60th Anniversary of the Official Singles Chart next year (2012), with the 60th Anniversary of the Official Albums Chart following in 2016.


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The Official Eighties Top 10s

Singles
1    DO THEY KNOW IT'S CHRISTMAS? - BAND AID (1984)
2    RELAX - FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1983)
3    I JUST CALLED TO SAY I LOVE YOU - STEVIE WONDER (1984)
4    LAST CHRISTMAS/EVERYTHING SHE WANTS - WHAM! (1984)
5    TWO TRIBES - FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1984)
6    DON'T YOU WANT ME - HUMAN LEAGUE (1981)
7    KARMA CHAMELEON - CULTURE CLUB (1983)
8    CARELESS WHISPER - GEORGE MICHAEL (1984)
9    THE POWER OF LOVE - JENNIFER RUSH (1985)
10    EYE OF THE TIGER - SURVIVOR (1982)

Albums
1    GREATEST HITS - QUEEN (1981)
2    THRILLER - MICHAEL JACKSON (1982)
3    BROTHERS IN ARMS - DIRE STRAITS (1985)
4    BAD - MICHAEL JACKSON (1987)
5    DIRTY DANCING - ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK (1987)
6    LEGEND - BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS (1984)
7    THE JOSHUA TREE    - U2 (1987)
8    BUT SERIOUSLY - PHIL COLLINS (1989)
9    TRACY CHAPMAN - TRACY CHAPMAN (1988)
10    TANGO IN THE NIGHT - FLEETWOOD MAC (1987)



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The Official Charles & Diana Wedding Charts – August 1981

The Official Singles Chart
1    GREEN DOOR - SHAKIN' STEVENS
2    GHOST TOWN - SPECIALS
3    CHANT NO.1 (I DON'T NEED THIS PRESSURE ON) - SPANDAU BALLET
4    HAPPY BIRTHDAY - STEVIE WONDER
5    STARS ON 45 (VOL.2) - STAR SOUND
6    CAN CAN - BAD MANNERS
7    HOOKED ON CLASSICS - ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
8    BODY TALK - IMAGINATION
9    LAY ALL YOUR LOVE ON ME - ABBA
10    DANCING ON THE FLOOR (HOOKED ON LOVE) - THIRD WORLD
       
The Official Albums Chart
1    LOVE SONGS - CLIFF RICHARD
2    SECRET COMBINATION - RANDY CRAWFORD
3    STARS ON 45 - STAR SOUND
4    KIM WILDE - KIM WILDE
5    NO SLEEP TIL HAMMERSMITH - MOTORHEAD
6    CATS - VARIOUS ARTISTS
7    HI INFIDELITY - REO SPEEDWAGON
8    HOTTER THAN JULY - STEVIE WONDER
9    KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER - ADAM AND THE ANTS
10    DURAN DURAN - DURAN DURAN



The Official Andrew & Fergie Wedding Charts – July 1986

The Official SIngles Chart
1    PAPA DON'T PREACH - MADONNA
2    THE LADY IN RED - CHRIS DE BURGH
3    EVERY BEAT OF MY HEART - ROD STEWART
4    LET'S GO ALL THE WAY - SLY FOX
5    SING OUR OWN SONG - UB40
6    MY FAVOURITE WASTE OF TIME - OWEN PAUL
7    CAMOUFLAGE - STAN RIDGWAY
8    WHAT'S THE COLOUR OF MONEY? - HOLLYWOOD BEYOND
9    VENUS - BANANARAMA
10    HAPPY HOUR - HOUSEMARTINS

The Official Albums Chart
1    TRUE BLUE - MADONNA
2    THE FINAL - WHAM!
3    A KIND OF MAGIC - QUEEN
4    REVENGE - EURYTHMICS
5    INTO THE LIGHT - CHRIS DE BURGH
6    EVERY BEAT OF MY HEART - ROD STEWART
7    NOW - THE SUMMER ALBUM - VARIOUS ARTISTS
8    BACK IN THE HIGH LIFE - STEVE WINWOOD
9    BROTHERS IN ARMS - DIRE STRAITS
10    INVISIBLE TOUCH - GENESIS


Official 80s Music Quiz answers
A: Randy Crawford. B: Dollar. C: Taylor Dayne.