In 1985, Prince was faced with following up the previous year’s Purple Rain, a massive success that made him one of the biggest stars in the world and an album that is still hailed as one of the greatest ever.
His response was to record a weird little psychedelic pop album that seemed to deliberately avoid comparisons with its storied predecessor. Around the World in a Day is Purple Rain‘s quirky cousin, popping in from out of town to make everybody a little uncomfortable.
Three albums released in 1985 are among the 40 top-selling albums of all time. I covered two of them in recent weeks: Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms and Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required.
The third is Whitney Houston’s self-titled debut, an album that crawled out of the gate in February of ’85 and slowly picked up steam, eventually becoming a record-breaking juggernaut. Despite coming out in early ’85, it ended up as the best-selling album of 1986. It also produced three #1 singles, a first for a debut album or an album by a solo woman.
Throwing back to the week of Nov. 30, 2013, we find Lorde atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Royals.’ The rest of the top ten is a mix of the same artists and songs that have been dominating the chart for several installments of Throwback Weekends, but we do have a new entry at #2.
Eminem’s ‘The Monster,’ featuring Rihanna, spent four weeks in the #2 spot before finally reaching #1 in December. This was Eminem’s fifth #1 on the Hot 100 (and, as of today, his last) and his first since 2010’s ‘Love the Way You Lie’ (another collaboration with Rihanna). As for Rihanna, this is one of 14 #1 hits on her resume, putting her behind only The Beatles and Mariah Carey on the all-time list.
Throwing back to the week of November 29, 2003, we find Beyoncé and Sean Paul still dominating the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Baby Boy.’ That song was in the last of its nine weeks atop the chart, soon to be replaced by #2 track ‘Stand Up‘ by Ludacris.
At #3 was the Outkast classic ‘Hey Ya!,’ a song that prompted me to wax nostalgic 12 years ago on the blog. That song would soon ascend to its own nine-week run at #1.
The Cure’s sixth studio album, 1985’s The Head on the Door, saw the band introducing a new pop sensibility to the mopey goth rock of earlier releases.
Sparked by successful lead-off single ‘In Between Days,’ the album gave the English band its first foothold in the U.S. and led to a run of platinum-selling albums in the late 80s and early 90s.
Meet Me In Montauk 