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Our 1980s Top Twenty Chart Poll
The final chart. Many thanks for all your boosts and votes.
A clear divide between the top ten and bottom ten in this poll. Out of season, Fairytale of New York was not popular, while Bruce Springsteen did not do as well as I expected.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World and Time After Time quietly climbed the chart, but didn’t quite reach the qualifying places. Purple Rain in particular was extremely unlucky to miss out. More about the qualifying in a separate post.
What are your thoughts on this poll? How did your favourites fair?
Only a few votes separated Once in a Lifetime and Running Up That Hill.
Fast Car started strongly, dipped midway, then recovered.
Love Will Tear Us Apart also started strongly, but once it dropped out of the top five it never really looked like getting back in there.
@HannahHowe As usually, if given a choice between a sampler containing the top ten or one containing the bottom ten songs, I'd choose the latter. 
@HannahHowe really interesting how this panned out. I generally prefer the songs in the top half. My favourite (Joy Division) faded at the sharp-end, but really pleased to see such strong showings for Kate Bush and Eurythmics.
@HannahHowe The one I don’t *quite* get is Let’s Dance ranking so high. I like Bowie, but for some reason. I don’t love that particular song. From that album I’d put Modern Love and maybe even China Girl over Let’s Dance.
@HannahHowe Also, while I’m thinking about it - thanks for taking the time to put this together. This is always a nice little joyful distraction during the day.
@HannahHowe Mon oor Annie!
I’m surprise perennial favorite Everybody Wants to Rule the Word didn’t do better but then Head Over Heels was always a better song IMHO.
CC: @HannahHowe@toot.wales
.My unsolicited comment on the results: I'm a bit surprised that Down Under is so low in the list (being one of the most uplifting songs ever and, of course, Australia's national anthem
). I also wished Tears for Fears to be up in the list, being one of my favourite bands. I even never heard the song by The Pogues before (but I'm from Spain, and I know this was from the UK top lists). And, honestly, I'm also surprised Fast Car to be that up (not bad, but fourth?).Thank you very much to all the people involved in this, and specially Hannah for the ride!
@angel Thank you for your interest. I’m glad you enjoyed it
@HannahHowe Hard to argue with the top five but unlucky for Purple Rain to lose out by such a fine margin.
@HannahHowe Can't argue with the top 4 - any of the next three would have been worthy qualifiers.
I don't really think of Born to Run as an eighties song (well, unless we're talking about the Frankie version) - Born in the USA might have fared better (or maybe not, it divides opinion)
@HannahHowe I like the final ranking. I have some personal favourites (cough…Peter Gabriel) that I would put higher but I think the chart reflects the overall strength of the songs. Sweet Dreams in particular is a song that I can hear very strongly in my head regardless of whether I've heard it recently or not.