Hot Adult Contemporary #1s for 1985

Beverly Hills Cop

Here are the Hot Adult Contemporary #1s for 1985. The category went from Easy Listening in 1965 to Adult Contemporary in 1979, to Hot Adult Contemporary with the 20 October 1984 Billboard.

There was a lot of crossover between these and the pop and soul charts.

Cherish – Kool and the Gang, six weeks at #1. It was #2 for three weeks on the pop charts.

Careless Whisper – Wham!, featuring George Michael, five weeks at #1, three weeks at #1 pop.

Say You, Say Me – Lionel Richie, five weeks at #1, four weeks at #1 pop

The Search Is Over – Survivor, four weeks at #1. It went to #4 pop.

One More Night – Phil Collins, three weeks at #1

Who’s Holding Donna Now – DeBarge, three weeks at #1. #6 pop.

Saving All My Love For You – Whitney Houston, three weeks at #1, one week at #1 pop

Part-Time Lover, three weeks at #1. “It was the first single from his twentieth studio album, In Square Circle. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, R&B, dance, and adult contemporary charts, becoming Wonder’s final number one hit to date.”

Separate Lives – Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin, three weeks at #1, one week at #1 pop

Two weeks at #1

All I Need -Jack Wagner. He was on the soap opera General Hospital. Madonna’s Like A Virgin kept him from reaching #1 on the pop charts

You’re My Inspiration – Chicago. #3 for two weeks pop.

Too Late For Goodbye – Julian Lennon. It was released in September 1984 in the UK, but not until January 1985 in the US, where it reached #5 on the pop charts. Sam Peckinpah directed a music video for the song, but I don’t know for certain that this is it. 

We Are The World – USA for Africa, #1 for four weeks pop. This is the radio edit. 

Suddenly – Billy Ocean. #4 pop.

Smooth Operator – Sade. #5 pop.

Axel F – Harold Faltermeyer, two weeks at #1. This is the “theme tune to the film Beverly Hills Cop, its eponymous character played by Eddie Murphy, and the film franchise it is based on.” It became an international number one hit in 1985, but only went to #3 on the pop charts for three weeks in the US. I believe it’s Faltermeyer in the video.

Every Time You Go Away – Paul Young,  two weeks at #1, #1 for one week pop

The only song to top the AC charts in 1985 for only one week was Rhythm of the Night—DeBarge. It went to #3 for two weeks on the pop charts. 

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

a social examination

I suppose the strange thing about going to see the movie Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale and the two previous films, the eponymous one and A New Era, is, as previously noted, that I never watched the television series.

But by this third film, I had become more familiar with the relationships.  Robert Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) has decided to pass the property management to his elder daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery). But then a “scandal” is revealed, making the transition more complicated. There’s a quick, funny bit about hiding under a staircase.

Meanwhile, the American-born Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern),  Robert’s wife and Mary’s mother, had left her brother Harold (Paul Giamatti) in charge of their resources in the US, and apparently, he has made a mess of things, despite the assistance of his charming friend Gus (Alessandro Nivola). I’m a big Paul Giamatti fan.

Changes

One definite relationship change was between Lady Mary and Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael).  Transitions are also taking place with the house staff, and at least one seems uncomfortable with letting go.  

Katie Walsh noted: “With its mix of old characters and new, worldly upheaval and small-town drama, [Julian] Fellowes illustrates what ‘Downton’ has always done best, which is a social examination of how much things have changed and how they haven’t changed at all.”

This movie has fun sets away from the main venue, the theater district in town, and a horse race track. The whole film was a joy to watch. 

And while she barely appeared, except in a large painting, the film created closure for the late Violet Grantham and her portrayer, the late Maggie Smith.  

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale received a 92% positive rating from the  Rotten Tomatoes critics, and the audience was more enthralled, with 96% positive. The first film was 84/94 and the second, 87/97. This was a suitable ending, if it is the last word from this Julian Fellowes universe.

My wife and I saw the movie at the Spectrum Theater in Albany in late September. After it ended and the lights came up, most people remained in their seats, absorbing what they had seen. It was fascinating

The freedom to read

Banned Books Week

Stealing from an APL email – check with your local library for more info:

The Albany Public Library always supports the freedom to read. But we put extra emphasis on this foundational belief during Banned Books Week (10/5-11) with programs and displays designed to draw attention to the dangers of censorship and encourage our community to stand up for the right to read. Please join us!

“I’m with the Banned” Book Display | Oct. 1-31 during open hours | Washington | For ages 0-18 | Check out a banned book and get a Stewart’s ice cream coupon.

Read for Your Rights: A Banned Books Readout | Oct. 7 at 6 pm | Washington | For teens and adults | Local artists, musicians, actors, and authors read selections from banned and challenged books that highlight the democratic freedoms of speech and expression. | Program partners: NYCLU Capital Region, League of Women Voters of Albany County, Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, and Delta Sigma Theta Albany Alumnae Chapter.

Visit APL branches to view Banned Books Week displays and borrow books that have been banned or challenged in other cities.

To that end, the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024 from the American Library Association. Every year, the American Library Association compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books based on reports from the field and media coverage.

Unite Against Book Bans

The 2025 Banned Books Week theme — Censorship Is So 1984 — couldn’t be more timely and urgent. As many predicted, 2021’s explosion of community book banning has escalated beyond the point of crisis. Federal government censorship is now dominating the headlines.

This moment demands unprecedented visibility, advocacy, and action.

During Banned Books Week—and especially on Saturday, October 11, the Let Freedom Read Day of Action—we must make noise together. Here’s how we can stand up:

  • Defend our fundamental rights to read and speak freely by proudly using them.
  • Speak out on behalf of those already targeted, intimidated, or silenced. Read and share their stories.
  • Voice your concerns about censorship in a letter to the editor or by calling your elected representatives. Ask them to defend the right to read in your community.
  • Gather to support our libraries and librarians, teachers and students, authors and bookstores.

Courage may feel scarce, but it spreads when we model it. We must be bold, visible, and act now. Will you lend your voice and call upon others to join this fight?

Unite Against Book Bans is proud to partner with Public School Strong to connect Banned Books Week events with advocates nationwide. Through a new interactive calendar and map, communities can share, discover, and support local efforts to defend the freedom to read.

DelSo: The Librarians and the fight for free speech

APL Book Reviews and other special events

These are all on Tuesdays at 2 pm at the Washington Avenue auditorium, 161 Washington Avenue.

October 7 | Special Program | Alex Ashby & Amy Walsh of the Albany Water Department discuss Sustainable Forest Management for Water Quality.

October 14 | Book Review | The Connection Cure:  The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging by Julia Hotz.  Reviewer:  Melanie Metzger, assistant director, APL.

October 21 | Book Review | Germinal by Émile Zola.  Reviewer:  Carl Strock, author & award-winning journalist.

October 28 | Special Program | Andrea Nicolay, Executive Director of APL, will talk about the APL and Current Events.

Robert Redford

He made helping others seem cool.

From the NYT (gift link): Robert Redford, Screen Idol Turned Director and Activist, Dies at 89. “He made serious topics like grief and political corruption resonate with the masses, in no small part because of his own star power.”

From 1440: Born Charles Robert Redford Jr. on Aug. 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, he became one of Hollywood’s defining figures over a career spanning six decades. [Famously, some records note his birth year as 1937 because his parents were married only three months before his birth.]

I probably saw Redford in early 1960s dramas such as Maverick, Perry Mason, Dr. Kildare, and The Defenders. I definitely saw the “Nothing in the Dark” episode of The Twilight Zone, in which Redford played Death personified.

The first film I saw with him was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) followed by The Way We Were (filmed partly in Schenectady’s Union College), The Sting, All The President’s Men, The Natural, Out Of Africa, A River Runs Through It (the narrator; he also directed), The Horse Whisperer (also directed), and Avengers: Endgame, all in the cinemas..

I also saw Barefoot In The Park, The Candidate, Sneakers, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier on television/video/DVD. Kelly wrote about Sneakers and linked to some James Horner soundtrack music.

PARADE: 10 Best Performances Ranked

But his most striking film was Ordinary People, his directorial debut, for which he earned an Oscar. He also directed the fine Quiz Show.

Sundance

THR: “From the filmmakers’ labs to its marquee Sundance Film Festival, the Redford-founded Sundance Institute has helped launch hundreds of careers, including Steven Soderbergh, Ryan Coogler, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloé Zhao, and Quentin Tarantino.” He was always was described as generous with his time and advice.

Variety: “In his ’70s heyday, few actors possessed Redford’s star wattage, aided considerably by his tousled blond locks, granite jaw and million-dollar smile,” writes Steve Chagollan in his obituary. “With his environmental activism, anti-establishment approach to filmmaking, and pioneering efforts in providing a platform for indie filmmakers, Redford was able to use his celebrity to subvert the status quo while advancing his own creative agenda.”

THR: Robert Redford’s Biggest Hollywood Innovation Was to Make Helping Others Seem Cool. “We seldom stop to think how, long before all of them [Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio], Redford was casually embracing causes, leveraging his power to help creatures and ecosystems via the NRDC and the Redford Center; protecting Native American rights; and, with his son James, helping to raise awareness for organ transplants.”

Watch three CBS “Sunday Morning” interviews with actor, director, and activist Robert Redford (from 1994, 2006, and 2018) about movies, Sundance, and his legacy.

Redford received the National Medal of Arts in 1996, an honorary Oscar in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. 

September rambling: Tohubohu

a dangerous assault on democratic oversight

Word of the Day: Tohubohu – A state of chaos; utter confusion.

Threatening Vulnerable People Is No Way to Mourn Someone Who Was Murdered. Those who had nothing to do with the violence against Charlie Kirk are being menaced—just like always.

Big Tech Data Centers Compound Decades of Environmental Racism in the South

Scholars’ group cites mass civilian killings, starvation, and official incitement as evidence, while Israel and the United States reject the genocide label.

Pentagon press clampdown sparks First Amendment alarm. Journalists and free press advocates warn that new restrictions requiring pre-approval of even unclassified information represent a dangerous assault on democratic oversight.

Robert Reich on FOTUS’ Calamitous Crypto Corruption

Cartoon: The road to fascism

FOTUS to U.N.: ‘Your Countries Are Going to Hell.’ Read his full address at the U.N. General Assembly. 

Elizabeth Daniel Vasquez lays out what she found about the degree to which every New Yorker is being tracked, the harms that tracking is already inflicting, and the reasons to fear that things might get much worse, here and across the nation.

Modern dogs now occupy roles historically reserved for close human relationships and often receive greater moral concern than people.

RFK Jr., HHS secretary, “is correct that reported autism rates have exploded in the last 30 years — they’ve increased roughly 60-fold — but he is dead wrong about the causes,” the psychiatrist Allen Frances writes in The Times Opinion. “I should know, because I am partly responsible for the explosion in rates.”

FOTUS Has ‘Strong Feelings’ About Autism; the Issue Is Personal

Rural Health Clinics Begin to Fall Under Crushing Weight of Big, Ugly Bill

Nanoplastics are not just in seafood; a new study finds small plastic particles penetrate crops

Potential Trouble for Retirees: A Wealth Adviser’s Guide to the OBBB’s Impact on Retirement

History

In October, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine will reach an extraordinary milestone: 1 trillion webpages preserved. Record a video answering the question: “Why is the Wayback Machine important to you?”

The last look at American poverty? New data shows 41% of Americans are poor or low-income, revealing deep racial and regional disparities ahead of sweeping federal cuts.

Netanyahu: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 

Thieves Steal and Destroy Solid Silver Statue of Abraham Lincoln Created by Mount Rushmore Sculptor Gutzon Borglum

American Hindenburg -“the worst air disaster you’ve never heard of”

Jordan Klepper’s The Daily Show interview of John Fugelsang talking about his book Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds. There is a lovely George Harrison reference as well. 

10 of the Oldest Cities in the U.S.

Why Romania Excels in International Olympiads

Internet Archive Designated as a Federal Depository Library

The Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation Settlement Administrator has sent me $38.36 USD. I’m RICH!

John Masius,  St. Elsewhere, Emmy-winning writer, and Touched By An Angel creator, dies at 75

‘Jeopardy!’ Contestant Ben Scripps Dies at 52 After Losing Battle With Cancer

Baseball’s Davey Johnson (1943-2025)

Now I Know: Why The Dot Got Dashed

Jimmy Kimmel

The Death of Free Speech – Legal Eagle

The FCC: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

He is Back!

HCR

Heather Cox Richardson, about the first of her Letters from an American newsletter six years ago: “In that first letter where I warned of rising authoritarianism, I wrote: ‘So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…

“If you are tired from the last six years, you have earned the right to be.

“And yet you are still here, reading, commenting, protesting, articulating a new future for the nation. And I am proud to be among you.

“I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities: the idea that we all have the right to work to become whatever we wish. I believe that American democracy has the potential to be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives.”

MUSIC

Freedom of Speech – Marsh Family parody of “Under the Sea” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”

Sonny Curtis, member of the Crickets who wrote the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” theme song, dies at 88; here he was on CBS Sunday Morning in 2022

Love Is All Around – Sonny Curtis; Mary Tyler Moore Show – Seasons 4-7 Intro & Theme

I Fought The Law – Bobby Fuller Four (1966), written by Sonny Curtis; I Fought The Law – the (post-Buddy Holly) Crickets (1959), featuring Curtis

Ouvertüre zum Lustspiel “Ein Morgen, ein Mittag, ein Abend in Wien” by Franz von Suppé

From – Bon Iver

Wuthering Heights score by Alfred Newman, composed for the 1939 film of the same book.

Makin’ Whoopee – Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks, September 9, 2025 – Radio Free Birdland #34

Need A Ride – Kathleen Edwards

Wuthering Heights suite from the 1939 film by Alfred Newman

Elegy by Mark Camphouse

Helter Skelter – The Beatles (Second Version, Take 17) [Anthology 2025]

K-Chuck Radio: Celebrating Earth, Wind & Fire Day

Ivonny Bonita – Karol G

Full Moon by Ludovico Einaudi

Sesame Street: Pentatonix Counts (and Sings) to Five 

Flash Gordon – Queen

Coverville 1549: Interview with Jeff Kanan of The Keep Recording and 1550: Cover Stories for Fee Waybill of The Tubes and B.B. King

J. Eric Smith’s Best Albums of 2025 (Third Quarter)

St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) – John Parr

Money For Nothing – Dire Straits
Ramblin' with Roger
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