• Banana Republic 5
• Mondays 4
• Lookin After No 1 7
• Trash Glam Baby 1
• Shes So Modern 6
• Tonight 3 
• NIAMY 2

Looking after number one 7

I don't like Mondays 6

She's so modern 5

Trash Glam Baby 4

Never in a million years 3

Banana Republic 2

Tonight 1

suss wrote:

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Really interesting to see how Mondays ranks. Not one top vote to date. I'm reasonably certain I would have put it top if we had done this vote in 84, and doubt TGB would have edged it had latest album been say mid 80s. It seems the mists of time have dimmed its popularity, certainly amongst fans with knowledge of all albums, and we're possibly underestimating just how ground breaking it was. Familiarity breeding contempt?

I'd go with 

 

Mondays 7 (victim of its own success I think)

She's So Modern 6 (the song that convinced me this was a band I needed to find out more about)

Lookin After No 1 5 (never gets old)

Trash Glam Baby 4 (would have been a hit if released in heyday)

NIAMY 3 (love the vocals and lyrics on this 'wall of sound')

Banana Republic 2 (great lyrics, as always, but the sound has never grabbed me)

Tonight 1 (although this is still a personal favourite - the only single I can't abide is Charmed Lives)

 

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Think you missed my rating of 7 for Mondays Suss. Our top and bottom rated first lifts coincide in fact, with some differences over the other 5, but speaking for myself, we really are often talking cigarette papers with those 5. My appreciation of Million Years has soared over the last 40 years. The wall of sound production, emotion in the vocals, the quality of the defiant lyrics, all combine with the music to result in a tremendous single, cruelly denied a higher chart placing in my view. 

suss wrote:

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Apologies Mark, and Ian it seems, I'd missed your top scores amongst the majority lower scoring. As you say, very difficult to rank when they're pretty much all great tracks, with only the fickle finger of fate determining chart position really, governed by release date and popularity more than merits of the songs. Still wonder if Mondays released say 5 years later would have been a hit.....

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 No worries. I think yes, released any time up to 83/84, it would have been a big hit. To me, it has that killer impact, like when I first heard Come on Eileen, Two Tribes or The Reflex. Any later, it would have struggled as we drifted into mid 80s synth pop /ballads.

Perhaps we should do Rate the 2nd Single? And so on (except we only had 2 singles from the first album and Mondo Bongo in the UK). I'll have a think, but I can feel an especially high rating coming on for Drag me Down.

 I recall one paper saying it was a vacuous  example of  mid-eighties  production  pop  with  only  Bob's  voice  to  show it's  The  Rats  at  all. Bob  was  a  fan  of  Duran  and they went on that you could hear  that  in  the  synth-y  sheen  and  the  contrived  "Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee  Oh a Woh  oh  woh "  chants  that  constitute  the  song's  hook  line. The  lyrics they said were vaguely  saucy -"My  soul's  in  your  wrist" - but  mostly  meaningless. I just love it and was staggered it stalled at 50.

Derek The Dane wrote:

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Stuart you have given BR and SSM the same score

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 Next time, might be worth having a poll .  Are you going to publish a final league at the end of the month?

Sorry citizens

I'm  going Shes so modern 5