The Face's Best Recordings 1983

The Face. It was soooo stylish, wasn't it? It was like, made entirely from style held together by cool. It was so ahead of the curve, it would appear through your letterbox before the paper lad had opened your front gate.

Or was it?

In a totally non-scientific survey, we're going to go back thirty years in time. Come with us to 1983, a time when the bands who appear on NME's cover today would only have been 20 to 25 years into their careers. What did The Face consider to be the very best music created in that year? Rocklistmusic.co.uk has got the list in full. We're going to dip into it...

I've been struggling a bit with the entry "Pacman by The Pacman", as it's a bugger to track this down. Is it something to do with Richard James' 1982 Pacman theme cover versions? (Presumably not, as that was under the name Power-Pill?

While that one's up for pondering, here's Christian Bale advertising a Pac-Man themed breakfast cereal:

I wonder how much he swore at the crew on that one?

Here's the list in full:

Billie Jean – Michael jackson
Blue Monday – New Order
Pills And Soap – Elvis Costello
Juicy Fruit – Mtume
1999 (LP) – Prince
Autodrive – Herbie Hancock
Duck Rock (LP) – Malcolm McLaren
Native Boy – Animal Nightlife
Kiss FM Mastermixes Vol. II (LP) – Various
Let’s Stay Together – Tina Turner
You Brought The Sunshine – Clark Sisters
Every Soul – Ruby Turner Band
Don’t Mess With Bill – Ruth Pointer
Lert’s Dance – David Bowie
The Leader (LP) – Fonzi Thornton
I Just Gotta Have You – Kashif
Out Come The Freaks (II) – Was Not Was
Ain’t Nobody – Rufus
Get Loose – Evelyn King
Portrait (LP) – Gwen Guthrie
Soweto/Zulu’s On A Time Bomb – Malcolm McLaren
Long Hot Summer – Style Council
Look At Granny Run (reissue) – Howard Tate
Little Red Corvette – Prince
Let The Music Play – Shannon
Swordfishtrombone (LP) – Tom Waits
The Land Of The Good Groove (LP) – Nile Rodgers
Jam On Revenge – Newcleus
Hip Hop Don’t Stop – Mann Parrish
Coup – 23 Skidoo
Get Wet – C Bank
Rockin Radio – Tom Browne
The Roxy – Phase Two
Power, Corruption And Lies (LP) – New Order
Soul Mining (LP) – Matt Johnson
Love Town – Booker Newbury III
Labour Of Love (LP) – UB40
Just Fascination – Cabaret Voltaire
Daddy Rollin’ Stone (reissue) – Derek Martin
Last Night A DJ Saved My life – Indeep
Une Sale Histoire – Fab Five Freddy
A Fool In Love (reissue) – Ike & Tina Turner
Thriller (LP) – Micahel Jackson
Pacman – The Pacman
Candy Girl – New Edition
Just Be Good To Me – SOS Band
Go Deh Yaka – Monyaka
I (LP) – Steve Arrington
Outstanding – The Gap Band
White Lines (Don’t Do It) – Grand Master & Melle Mel

Some of these I think we can take as so familiar as to not be worth spending time on, so let's start with Costello, shall we?



Except wasn't this released under the name The Imposter? Did The Face struggle with names?

Elvis's 1983 election-campaign counterpoint. (And, incidentally, one of the two thousand songs which might have been a better use of download-effort during the week of the Thatcher entombening.) Yeah, you can have that one, The Face.