ROCK '83: CRUMBLIN' DOWN!
1983 was the 12 month period us scribble-counters at CREEM have been gleefully anticipating for years! We knew all along (or, gambledj our dizzy-if-right-thinking electorate would eventually come through and kick all the old folks down the rusty fire escape of reality.
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ROCK '83: CRUMBLIN' DOWN!
POLICE
1983 was the 12 month period us scribble-counters at CREEM have been gleefully anticipating for years! We knew all along (or, gambledj our dizzy-if-right-thinking electorate would eventually come through and kick all the old folks down the rusty fire escape of reality.
The biggest upheaval occured in the Flesh & Blood section, where heavy metal groups in particular and new faces in general came out of nowhere and took over almost all of the top slots. Outfits like Rush, who fell from #1 last year to #18 this year; the Mick Jones-less Clash (#3 to #17); and the Go-Go's (#9 to limbo) got their butts kicked but good.
Even more impressive were the gains made by such groups as Iron Maiden (#16 to #6); Motley Crue (noplace to #10); Noo Musickers U2 and Duran Duran (both entering this year's chart in the Top 5); and this year's #1 act, Def Leppard, who slipped in at #17 last time.
A similar shakeup occured in the individual categories, where Def Lep's Elliott, Clark, Savage, and Allen all went from oblivion to the top in one year's time (#2 for Clark, who hadda tackle Eddie VH). Only nonLepper to score big in the instrumental categories was Duran Duran's keyboard-wiper Nick Rhodes, who also made his debut in the poll at #1.
The CREEM readers'tradition of love/hate relationships with certain bands—from the New York Dolls and Kiss to Van Halen—remained strong as ever, with Boy George and Culture Club knocking David Lee Roth and Van Halen off the top of the Worst Band and Most Pathetic heaps. Boy also snagged the #1 position in Fashion Plate, again pushing Van Halen's blond howlbag aside. The single biggest margin was scored by 1983's Punk Of The Year, Billy Idol, who went from seventh to first, whipping (he wishesj runner-up Wendy-0 Williams by a ten-to-one margin!
And, of course, you goofs went totally nuts once again in the dreaded Sundry categories. Readers voting for themselves as Rock Critic Of The Year outdistanced almost half of the actual finalists. Joining the tweetypies in Couple Of The Year was the firstever male pair (Boy George and Jon Moss) to make the top ten. Fad of the year was particularly zany, with some of the more imaginative candidates including everything from Making The World Safe From Commies (#19) to a certain "popular" venereal disease, which spread to #24.
Hope you have a little more fun than us'n's who were buried under landfills of ballots. Hey, listen—if the above mentioned luv-dose were as widespread as paper cuts are here at America's Onliest, everybody would be signing up for Nun School!
— The Editors
DEF LEPARD
