A-ha - the blue sky, 1985

"Anyone old enough probably remembers first hearing Norway’s top band a-ha. It was on one of my “dead-of-night” MTV aircheck videotapes where I first saw the video that changed everything for the band. But it didn’t stay in graveyard rotation for long. In record time the rotoscoped Steve Baron directed music video for “Take On Me” quite rightly zoomed to the highest standard of rotation on the channel that was still all about music videos in 1985."

Neil Young - get back to the country, 1985

"The more they tried to stop me, the more I did it. Just to let them know that no one's gonna tell me what to do. I was so stoked about that record. I sent them a tape of it that had eight songs on it."

New Order - sub-culture seven inch version, 1985

"Torn between my optimistic tendency to want to love everything that New Order produces – particularly (the vast majority of) their remarkable singles – and worrying that this may be tainting the truth that some tracks are just not that great."

Del Amitri - i was here, 1985

"Sounding like a gang of snotty pop antagonists, Del Amitri came out swinging on this quirky and often brilliant debut. Vocalist Justin Currie's lyrics were intelligent and witty, laced with sarcasm and venom. With jaunty rhythms and quirky melodies, calling them the bastard sons of XTC and Elvis Costello would not have been too far off the mark."

The Style Council - the lodgers or she was only a shopkeepers daughter extended mix, 1985

"As well as the song's single release, it has featured on various compilation albums released by the Style Council. The song was included on The Singular Adventures of The Style Council, The Complete Adventures of The Style Council, and Greatest Hits."

The Jesus And Mary Chain - never understand, 1985

"The effect is striking, but it has no depth and doesn't go anywhere after the first few seconds. In Hüsker Dü's music, the buzzing guitar and pop hooks enhance one another; Jesus and Mary Chain never puts the two together."

New Order - the perfect kiss, 1985

"The Perfect Kiss" is the ninth single by the British alternative dance and rock band New Order. It was recorded at Britannia Row Studios in London and released on 13 May 1985 by Factory Records. It is the first New Order song to be released as a single while also included on a studio album (Low-Life). The vinyl version has Factory catalogue number FAC 123 and the video has the opposite number, FAC 321."

Prefab Sprout - when the angels, 1985

"The song is a tribute to Marvin Gaye, who passed in April 1984. Instead of being a sad tribute, it is a celebration of Marvin, and perhaps a lighter justification to his passing than the dark reality. The angels take his beautiful voice away because they are simply jealous. (1986, Music Life) But he lives on eternally, as Paddy sings “Must get so blase, knowing you’ll never die/Lounging on a cloud, polishing the sky” which is true to the legacy he left behind. It’s a beautiful richly produced song and a fitting end to this fantastic album. You get everything in this song, all of the great production, the wonderful sound of the band working all together, and an homage to an amazing musician who passed to soon."

Prefab Sprout - appetite, 1985

"Paddy McAloon wrote "Appetite" in 1984. It was one of the first songs he had composed on a keyboard and was written using a "hip-hop-type groove" on a drum machine. The song's lyric is about "a pregnant girl so in love with her child that she wants to name it after all the good things in her life".

REM - gardening at night live, 1985

"We were driving at night after a show (I don't remember where), and I was at the wheel of our old car, with a rental trailer in tow. One of my three passengers aimed a directive at me. Rather than inform me of his desire to evacuate his bladder, he instead suggested that I pull over so that he might engage in the task of roadside 'night gardening.' To four guys in their early twenties this was a glaring catalyst for a new song."

The Durutti Column - cocktail, 1985

"You also get the ripples and rushes of ‘College’ (‘formerly ‘The Sea Wall’) and ‘Journeys by Vespa’, which are both in line with the gently hair-raising thrills of earlier tracks like ‘Madeleine’ and ‘Danny’, where Reilly’s guitar weaves complex, dazzling textures, the down-tempo, desolate spaces of opener ‘At First Sight’, which does sound a lot like Without Mercy, although not identically so. ‘Destroy, She Said’ is one of a few pieces which ties the album to the year it was made, but like I said, not in a negative way. You know, in that a sitar in a pop song is most likely going to be a mid-1960’s song just because a song is immediately recognisable from a particular era, doesn’t mean it has dated. Anyway, despite all of what I just said, ‘Destroy, She Said’ is not one of my favourite pieces here, erring closer to the jazzier spectrum of Durutti that I’m not so keen on. ‘Model’ (formerly ‘Little Horses of Tarquina’) is a brief and gorgeously spectral guitar solo. ‘Take Some Time Out’ and ‘A Silence’ both have vocals – the former is a lighter than average creation, though Reilly’s singing can’t help but conjure an air of downtrodden misery! The latter is not as good, a bit Durutti-by-numbers. ‘Mirror A’ and ‘Mirror B’ are quite different pieces, ‘A’ being a decent if lightweight, fully electronic piece with vocals by ‘Pauline’, and ‘B’ a piano-led dirge, punctuated by Eric Sleichim’s saxophone, not one of my favourite elements of the Durutti sound circa this time, I have to say. In-between those two pieces we get ‘Cocktail’, which is lighter than ‘Mirror B’ but has the same saxophone problems, and ‘Telephone Call’ which has saxophone too, but used to much better effect. This piece is quite jazzy actually, but the more melancholic, late-night, drowsy side of jazz. It’s good! The album concludes with ‘A Room in Southport‘ (formerly ‘Snowflakes’), a very gentle, shuffling thing of beauty, with some lovely harp playing from Anne Van Den Troost."

The Cure - a night like this, 1985

"A Night Like This" contains a saxophone solo by Ron Howe from Fools Dance."

Prefab Sprout - faron young, 1985

"Name dropping can certainly get you places and in music it’s no different; both Madness and Bananarama sang about Michael Caine and Robert De Niro respectively but surely no one drops more names, in song anyway, than Prefab Sprout. They named their 1985 album Steve McQueen and the track that opened that album was named after the country music singer Faron Young."

Elton John - the man who never died, 1985

"Released as a B-side to "Wrap Her Up." The instrumental tribute to John Lennon was written soon after he died. But with Taupin having separately written "Empty Garden," this song, strongly resembling "Song For Guy," remained unreleased for five years."

Fine Young Cannibals - couldn't care more, 1985

"When Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger split from the rest of the English Beat to form General Public, guitarist Andy Cox and bassist Dave Steele originally advertised on MTV for a new lead singer for the Beat. When that didn't pan out, Cox and Steele hooked up with the unique vocalist Roland Gift and the trio formed the Fine Young Cannibals, issuing their self-titled debut album in 1985. Along the lines of early Everything But the Girl (the two groups share a producer, Robin Millar) with a heavier Motown influence, the songs on Fine Young Cannibals are uniformly strong."

The Cure - in between days, 1985

"It has the bittersweet feel of a New Order record, with a hyperstrummed acoustic guitar for depth. The boys even offer a genuine glimmer of hope, and the tune fairly breezes by on its own momentum."

Del Amitri - keepers, 1985

"The lead singer (and main songwriter) of Del Amitri, Justin Currie, is quite simply one of the greatest troubadours I have ever heard. I've only seen him live once on a recent tour for his third solo album, but it was transcendent experience to say the least."

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - secret, 1985

"Secret" is a 1985 song by English electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), released as the second single from their album Crush. Paul Humphreys sings lead vocals on the track. It became their second US Billboard Hot 100 entry, peaking at number 63, and also made number 34 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was featured in the 1988 movie Arthur 2: On the Rocks and on its soundtrack album; it was also re-released to radio in the US as the follow-up to The Best of OMD track "Dreaming", approximately one month prior to the movie's premiere. Though it received renewed airplay on several US contemporary hit stations, it did not re-chart on the Hot 100."

Fine Young Cannibals - blue, 1985

"The lyrical content on most cuts isn't terribly complicated, one thought turned around a few times; but the sparseness lays snug next to the inlays and wrap-arounds of Gift's voice, along with the more than competent instrumental work, forever keeping the vocals buoyed up."

U2 - a sort of homecoming live, 1985

"A Sort of Homecoming" is live from Wembley Arena in London on 15 November 1984. The song was produced by Tony Visconti and recorded during a soundcheck at the concert, with the crowd noise mixed in later during post-production at Good Earth Studios."