Archives – 1985  

1985 B-Sides SEMI FINALS!
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Democracy hasn’t had a great run of it in recent years but it can still deliver a result like this – a pair of B-Sides semi finals which give voters a window seat at the birth of Detroit Techno, Chicago House and Dancehall.

These will be the last set of Peoples Pop Polls before we move to the new site – there’s still the Final to come but I’ll run that on Twitter as I don’t want polls to be ongoing when the actual move starts.

There will be an exciting new destination (and URL) for People’s Pop and Freaky Trigger will go back to hosting everything I/we do that isn’t polls or Number 1 song reviews (yes, those will be back again).

Thanks for taking part – I’ve already learned plenty about how the new poll plug-in works and I’m looking forward to seeing you on the new, specially designed for polls, site next week for the opening matches of our charity pop poll.

OK, let’s do some polling…

[ays_poll id=29][ays_poll id=30]

THE WORLD CUP OF 1985! B-Sides Round 2 Matches 5-8
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Four more matches of lesser-known or lower-voted tracks from 1985.

This time we’ve got a YouTube playlist set up, starting with Youssou N’Dour

And matches involving Youssou, Indochine, John Cale, The Woodentops, Wayne Smith, Zazou Bikaye, The Dead Milkmen and The Chameleons.

First up it’s a spicy Senegal v France clash – Youssou N’Dour v Indochine.

[ays_poll id=9]

Then John Cale’s stentorian balladry faces the indie-skiffle of The Woodentops

[ays_poll id=10]

Match 7 sees Wayne Smith’s iconic riddim up against French-Congolese pop from Zazou Bikaye

[ays_poll id=11]

And finally, the not wholly serious Dead Milkmen battle the really very serious indeed Chameleons.

[ays_poll id=12]

There’s also a Spotify playlist which has lots of missing tracks (those B-Sides are obscure!) but has everything in match order.

THE WORLD CUP OF 1985! B-Sides Round 2 Matches 1-4
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Our first actual on-site polls (I hope they work!)

These are our B-Side matches – lesser-known tracks put under the spotlight. Four head-to-heads with 12 more to come, assuming these function as planned.

First off, Detroit proto-techno from MODEL 500 vs Monsoon’s SHEILA CHANDRA

[ays_poll id=4]

Then it’s an industrial v hair metal clash – COIL v RATT

[ays_poll id=6]

Dancehall don TENOR SAW is up against alternative pop songwriter MARTI JONES

[ays_poll id=7]

And finally a brutal indie-on-indie match between WORLD DOMINATION ENTERPRISES and THE LOFT

[ays_poll id=8]

I’ll be advertising this secret den of polling violence on Twitter too, comment there or here – ultimately I want comments to mostly move here though, but it’ll be much easier once we do Twitter integration on the new site.

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