"Uptown Girl" only just defeated Lionel Richie last week but there's no competition this week as the track accelerates away from the rest of the field selling a cool 161,000 copies as parent album "Innocent Man" moves 20-12. All of which leaves Richie a distant second on a still respectable sale of 93,000 copies but does at least top the album charts this week with "Can't Slow Down" something that he never did with the Commodores.
1983 has been a quiet year by normal Shakin' Stevens standards, his only single so far "It's Late" narrowly missed the top 10 but he's got a new album out later this month ("The Bop Don't Stop") and it will also feature his current single which has no problem in becoming his 9th top 10 single. "Cry Just A Little Bit" is written by Bob Heatlie who of course wrote Aneka's "Japanese Boy" which topped the charts back in 1981 and this week his new composition becomes Shaky's first top 5 hit in almost a year as it rockets 19-4 (57,000).
Shaky has still some way to go to be the act with the most top 10 hits in the decade, Madness are the current leaders and are continuing to chalk up the hits, "The Sun And The Rain" becomes their 15th top 10 hit from 17 releases- an impressive tally by any acts standards. The single's cover incidentally is 'The Storm' by Narcisse Virgile Diaz De la Pena (in case you wondered), and the band have already announced that this will be a stand alone single (an increasing trend from them) but it seems their fans are still snapping up their every release as this flies 21-9 (42,000).
Formed all the way back in 1976 The Cure's initial releases failing to crack the charts in the late 70s with "A Forest" coming their first hit when it made No 31 back in 1980. Their last single "The Walk" was their first to hit the top 20 (a No 12 smash) but they go even better with "Love Cats" which leaps 12-10 (38,000) to become their biggest hit, it's taken from the album "Japanese Whispers" a kind of "Best Of" covering the last year of the band's life and is a nice recap for newer fans.
Elsewhere Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney are back with "Say Say Say" which returns to the top 10 moving 14-3 (72,000). It's full chart history so far is 25-10-13-14-3, the reason for its surprise about face? Well it now comes with a promo video which was heavily aired over the week including TOTP, unusual as it was dropping down the charts but it does the trick, McCartney's album "Pipes Of Peace" from which the track comes debuts at No 4 this week.
Adam Ant continues his revival jumping 9-5 (52,000) but losing ground are Duran Duran 3-6 (49,000) and Men Without Hats slip 6-7 (46,000) whilst Culture Club are down and out falling 4-8 (45,000).
01 01 08 All Night Long (All Night) Lionel Richie FOURTH WEEK AT NUMBER ONE
05 04 03 Union Of The Snake Duran Duran 
04 03 18 Safety Dance Men Without Hats
