1980: Pop (Patreon)

The halfway point in the poll is also the bracket with some of the biggest beasts of 1980. But while in previous year polls, “Pop” was fairly easy to demarcate by genre, this bracket is far more sprawling (and quite a few other tracks could have made their way in here).

It’s probably best understood in terms of audience not style - these are (mostly) songs which were aiming for as wide a public as possible, whether because that’s what their makers always did (ABBA), or because they were determinedly breaking out of their usual sound to score a pop hit (Dolly Parton), or because they were keeping that sound but tooling it to be as accessible and immediate as possible (OMD).

In a lot of cases, that meant being open to corniness - to the possibility of being uncool - in a way that would be anathema to a lot of groups in the earlier brackets. The polymorphous pop underground was changing fast in 1980 but the overground pop marketplace had shifted more slowly and the hits of 1980 are a fabulous melange of the futuristic and the foolish, the new and the naff. Hybridisation is the name of the game, even within each song - “9 to 5”’s country-disco, “Call Me”s disco-rock, “Xanadu”’s disco-showtune.

(And yes, disco, disco, disco, is a common ingredient to so much here - disco seeds taking root across every element of pop, in ‘death’ becoming more powerful than its haters could possibly imagine)

There are so many highlights here - this is purposely built to be one of the toughest brackets we’ve ever had. Kate Bush’s ridiculous identity-swap story! ABBA’s wintry peak! Adam Ant unplugging a gigantic jukebox! Bowie’s art-skronk take on the new wave! And much more. I hope everyone doesn’t hate me for it too much.

POTENTIAL WINNER: Perhaps oddly, while this bracket is absurdly strong, I can’t necessarily see a winner coming through it. And I’ve made the groups so hard that just getting into Round 1 will be an achievement. But “9 To 5” is a monster, and will surely reach far into the competition.

DARK HORSE: “Echo Beach” is as perfect a new wave record as ever existed and the joy of brief freedom from drudgery is as relevant now as it ever was - I would hope (and expect) that it does well!

FAVOURITE TRACK: Am I always in the mood for it? No. But “The Winner Takes It All” is ABBA’s late masterpiece and one of the greatest break-up ballads ever written, the “Nothing Compares 2 U” of adult boomer pop.

DISCOVERY: Lol no. But I can imagine Hot Chocolate’s very strange disco ballad about a UFO encounter, “No Doubt About It”, is new to some of you, and what a treat you have in store.

DON’T MISS: Irene Cara pretty much kick-starting 80s pop culture with “Fame”.