Wednesday, December 10, 2008

- Countdown to Festive Season #4: 1984

'Why festive season and not Christmas' I hear hardly any of you ask? Well, living in a predominently Muslim country means that I've gained a bit of perspective on how others view this time of year. Sadly, they've gone the whole hog as far as the commercial aspect goes, but the true meaning it seems is being lost just the same as is the case elsewhere. Tradition here in Turkey is that people exchange presents on New Year's Eve, which is good news for my young 'uns who basically get two sets of presents.

On to business... 1984 was a big year for me. I moved to the North of England from the South, which had quite an impact on how my life panned out from that point on. Elsewhere, big brother wasn't watching that closely just yet, although lots of stuff did happen. Hulk Hogan won the World Wrestling Federation Championship from the Iron Sheik, in New York's Madison Square Garden. Hulkamania was born as a consequence. Konstantin Chernenko succeeded Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and famously appeared in this video with Ronald Reagan, who defeated Walter Mondale to be re-elected in one of the largest electoral landslide in United States election history.


Great video for this year's FF #25

This also happened in 1984...


Torvill and Dean in Sarajevo

This year's Festive 50 marked the start of The Smiths' short-lived but nonetheless remarkable domination of the chart. The Cocteau Twins were also at the height of their FF activity, while elsewhere there were entries for, ahem, Peel favourites The Cult and The Sisters of Mercy. There were also some classic entries from best band ever The Fall, most notably (if you ask me) at #9. The chart was broadcast between 18th December, 1984 and January 1st, 1985. Those of you who are interested in listening to the shows can do so here, here, here, here and here.

My long-lost (now found) half sister Gemma also arrived this year.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much. I had started to listen to Peel in 1984, but the first F50 I heard was the following year. This one will doubtless contain many of my favourite songs. Cheers !

Anonymous said...

I got Pt 1 to 4, thanks, but Pt 5 doesn't seem to be working for me.

entrailicus said...

I'll check it out and make alternative arrangements if necessary. Thanks

Anonymous said...

I'm still having a problem with Pt 5. Had no such problems with 1992 FF - that worked a treat, thaks a million.

entrailicus said...

If all else fails I'll upload it to divshare. Sorry about this, please bear with me!

Anonymous said...

I think I worked it out. The link for Pt 5 is to 85.5 and doesn't work. If I modify the URL to 84.5 it works, so that file is there okay, but I can't work out how to download that. If you update the link to 84.5 it should fix it. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Got it ! I saved the page source to my C:, changed the link and opened it and Hey Presto !

entrailicus said...

I'm glad you managed to work it out because it had me flummoxed and I can't find the copy I have on DVD!

Nice work BK.

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