Billboard #1s for the Week Ending May 11, 1985

This week’s Time Capsule!

Chart	Title	Act	Weeks
Hot 100	Crazy For You	Madonna	1
R & B	We Are the World	USA for Africa	2
Country	Somebody Should Leave	Reba McEntire	1
Adult Contemporary	Smooth Operator	Sade	1
Rock	Trapped	Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band	1
Album	We Are the World	USA for Africa	3

This week sees a long-running Puerto Rican boy band log their only Hot 100 hit. Edgardo Diaz had some success in Spain, producing the teen band La Pandilla. When he returned home to Puerto Rico in 1977, he created the group Menudo, featuring five to seven teen boys. Wanting to keep the energy fresh and young, he “retired” members as they got too tall, began showing facial hair, or passed the age of 16. The group recorded primarily in Spanish, racking up big chart success in Latin American and parts of Asia.

The mid-80s are considered the group’s golden era, featuring some of their biggest songs, a couple of English-language albums, and vocals by later international superstar Ricky Martin. This week the song Hold Me breaks into the Hot 100 at #85; it peaked at #62 in June during an 11-week run.

Menudo lasted until 1997 releasing dozens of albums and singles and featuring over 30 members. A New Menudo debuted on reality TV in 2007 and quietly vanished in 2009.

Billboard #1s for the Week Ending June 19, 1982

This week’s Time Capsule!

Chart	Song	Act	Weeks
Hot 100	Ebony & Ivory	Paul McCartney with Stevie Wonder	6
R & B	Let It Whip	Dazz Band	4
Country	Slow Hand	Conway Twitty	1
Adult Contemporary	Any Day Now	Ronnie Milsap	1
Rock	Hurts So Good	John Cougar	1
Album	Asia	Asia	3

This week sees one of the most frustrated Top 5 singles of the rock era blast into the Hot 100. Fleetwood Mac had been away from the charts for a couple of years. With Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham winding up the chart success of their first solo albums, the band got back together and recorded Mirage, a great return to form. The first single was Hold Me, a delightfully lusty number sung by Lindsey and Christine McVie. It entered the charts at an impressive #33. After a slow second week (#30), it leapt up the chart (22 – 12 – 6), landing at #4 in its sixth week. And there it stuck.

It’s unusual for a song to stay at its peak for more than two or three weeks (unless it’s #1 or #2). Hold Me held on to #4 for seven weeks, longer than any other song peaking there. For its first six weeks in fourth place, #1 was held down by Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger, the monster hit of the summer. A handful of big hits squeezed in between Survivor and Fleetwood Mac.

• Rosanna by Toto spent its fourth and fifth weeks at #2.
• John Cougar had his first Top 10 hit with Hurts So Good, which spent its third and fourth weeks at #3 and then four weeks at #2.
• Steve Miller returned to the Top 10 after a five-year absence with Abracadabra. It took Cougar’s place at #3 for four weeks then slipped into #1.
• Chicago made a similar chart comeback, resting at #3 for Hold Me‘s final week at #4.More on Chicago and Miller’s dance at the top in a future Time Capsule.

After its long run at #4, Hold Me slipped to #7 for two weeks, staying in the Top 10 for an impressive ten weeks. (As an interesting side note, just one year earlier Stevie Nicks also spent ten weeks in the Top 10, stalling at #3 for six weeks with Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.)