Topping the charts for a fourth week "Uptown Girl" continues to lose sales at a slow rate, just 9% in fact to 128,000 which takes its total to 605,000 well on course to be one of the biggest selling singles of the year with a mere 6 weeks left of it. All of which means we can take a brief look at the contenders for the Christmas No 1 slot:
VICTIMS- Culture Club- Current favourite at the bookies, the follow up to "Karma Chameleon" is of course hotly tipped to retrace that tracks progress up the charts and become the groups third No 1 in just 14 months.
MOVE OVER DARLING- Tracey Ullman- Another Cover from Ullman she almost went all the way with her last track "They Don't Know" and is looking good to go one better with her Doris Day remake.
RAT RAPPING- Roland Rat- If you fancy an outside punt then the self styled "saviour" of TV-AM is about to unleash his brand of humour on the charts and combined with the silly season in the top 40 he could just do it!
COLD AS CHRISTMAS- Elton John- Something more festive? Well Elton's had a great year with three top 20 hits and is back with a bang- who's to say he can't have a return to the top?
TELL HER ABOUT IT- Billy Joel, When it was originally released back in September it flopped but in light of his current No 1 nothing seems impossible for Joel and of course it's already topped the charts in the US!
With sales of "Uptown Girl" continue to dip coupled with the four weeks the song has already spent at the top, speculation is rife as to what will be the 17th No 1 of 1983. The current money is on Paul Young's cover of "Love Of The Common People" which rages 17-5 (63,000) and is another cut from his "No Parlez" album, it's been covered by many acts but the only version to be a UK hit was by Nicky Thomas who made No 9 in 1970 with the song. It was originally released earlier this year but was ignored by the record buying public, Young clearly knows when something is a hit!
Long a familiar face on London's club scene and a member of the New Romantic movement as well as Boy George affiliate, Marilyn may already be familiar to the pop world after his appearance in the Eurythmics video "Who's That Girl" (his real name is Peter Robinson incidentally) but now he has a hit in his own right with "Calling Your Name". The singer took his name from his Marilyn Monroe image and whilst some cynical music spectators have suggested his record contract owes a lot to Boy George and to the music industry's desire to find the next "gender bender" it seems that the song is genuinely popular rising 21-9 (37,000).
"Thriller" is the biggest selling album of 1983 by some stretch with over 1.3 million sold so far and now Michael Jackson plucks his 5th single from the album and it becomes his 5th top 10 hit. In addition it is also his fifth top 10 hit of the year and in doing so he becomes the first act to achieve that since 1961 when Elvis turned the trick, this single comes with 14 minute epic music video directed by John Landis who famously directed "An American Warewolf In London" which helps to explain the special effects in the promo, The album has now spent 32 weeks in the top 10 this year with 7 of those weeks at No 1, impressive but nowhere near the success the album has had in the US where it has been at no 1 for 20 weeks so far this year and has propelled the star into the biggest popstar on the planet over the last year! The song jumps 24-10 (36,000) this week.
Talking of Jackson he remains at the No 2 position in conjunction with Paul McCartney on a sale of 70,000 whilst Shaky holds at No 3 with 69,000 copies sold but both should be overtaken by The Assembly next week as they leap 10-4 (67,000) and could threaten Billy Joel next week if Paul Young fails to do so. Moving down are Lionel Richie 4-6 (61,000), Madness 5-7 (44,000) and the Cure 7-8 (41,000)
https://forum.popjustice.com/threads/80s-top-10-sales-week-by-week-1982-1983.34249/page-59
01 01 10 All Night Long (All Night) Lionel Richie
SIXTH WEEK AT NUMBER ONE
04 03 05 Union Of The Snake Duran Duran
03 01 11 Karma Chameleon Culture Club
