(Credits: Far Out / NASA / Uwe Conrad)
Fri 26 September 2025 19:00, UK
Only a year into the 1980s, and the pop world was already rapidly shifting.
The previous decade’s era of the blockbuster album wasn’t over; the 1980s delivered mammoth records from AC/DC and Michael Jackson that still stand as the two biggest-selling albums of all time. But punk and new wave, while still boasting fantastic LPs, did herald the single’s resurrection, bringing primacy back to an artist’s A-side unseen since the days of rock and roll’s coveted 45.
Such a comeback for the single was pushed by the revolutionary impact of MTV. The moment The Buggles’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ launched the fledgling cable channel on August 1st, 1981, the demand for a shiny, big-budget promo to sell a song added a whole new dimension to the Billboard Hot 100, unleashing a new form of pop star whose visual identity was as essential as their music. Before long, Madonna, Prince, and the cohort of cartoon hair metallers found a new optic foil for their stardom, and the Woodstock generation wandered blearily into the new world, battling confusion and irrelevance in MTV’s glitzy fug.
1981 was the year that synthpop, new wave, and the broader second British invasion exploded in earnest. With dizzying pace, the likes of Billy Idol were swept up from a bit part of punk’s so-called Bromley Contingent to posterboy pop sensation adorning the walls of American teens, and A Flock of Seagulls singer Mike Score was a hairdresser in possession of a second-hand Korg MS-10 synthesiser one moment, to playing America’s famous US Festival ’83 the next.
The new wave naturally held a major presence on UK charts. Both sharing the year’s longest held top spot, Adam and the Ants’ glam camp ‘Stand and Deliver’ and The Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’ synthpop soap opera spent five consecutive weeks at number one. Both bands would fall as easily as they rose, never enjoying the same commercial success or cultural cachet after those electric few months of 1981.
So, what song was number one the longest in 1981?
While MTV was pushing the crop of British new wave stars into American households in earnest in 1982, the cable channel was yet to find its niche during those first few months of broadcast, playing the likes of Rod Stewart, REO Speedwagon, and Phil Collins over the future decade-defining stars we know today.
The British invasion’s sequel was well underway, but America’s number one record for 1981 hadn’t quite gotten the memo yet. After rejections from Rod Stewart and Tina Turner, songwriters Terry Shaddick and Steve Kipner, the future hitmakers behind Natasha Bedingfield’s ‘These Words’ and Christina Aguilera’s ‘Genie in a Bottle’, shopped around a dance-pop disco demo that was eventually picked up by clean-cut, British-Australian singer and Grease star Olivia Newton-John.
Leading her 11th album, ‘Physical’, coupled with its kitschy and steamy workout video, launched to the top of the Hot 100 in November after its September release, staying put for six straight weeks before returning to number one again in 1982 for four weeks, making ‘Physical’ the longest-running US number one of the decade.
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