Pop

Pop is the music that had to sell. It begins with a machine, Edison's phonograph in 1877, and everything after is downstream of the fact that a performance could suddenly be a product. The disc, the 45, the transistor radio, the cassette, MTV, Napster, the iPod, Spotify and TikTok each rearranged what a song was allowed to be: how long, how loud, how quickly it had to get to the chorus. Around that machinery grew an industry very good at manufacturing feeling on schedule, Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building, Motown, the Swedish songwriting camps, the Korean training system, and a century-long argument about whether music made that way can be any good, which mostly ended when the critics lost. The centre of gravity has moved too. The story is not only Elvis and the Beatles and Taylor Swift; it is Teresa Teng and Umm Kulthum, Lata Mangeshkar and Hikaru Utada, Seo Taiji, Daddy Yankee, Burna Boy and Bad Bunny, who won Album of the Year in 2026 with a record in Spanish. This archive is the whole apparatus: the records, the stars, the technology, the machine, the sound, the argument, the show, and where it all stands now.

A chronological documentary of 796 moments on Loreline.

Curated by Olivier · last updated 2026-09-03

1. 1840-06-15 - Aileen Mavourneen, ballad. The words by Mrs. S.C. hall, the music by A.D. Roche -…. Title: Aileen Mavourneen, ballad. The words by Mrs. S.C. hall, the music by A.D. Roche / on stone by A. Newsam; P. S. Duval lith. Abstract/medium: 1 print: lithograph; sheet… Photograph/scan dated 1840.
2. 1900 - Musical instrument, music, band, violin, cello, double bass, flute, dulcimer, tabl…. Tags: musical instrument, music, band, violin, cello, double bass, flute, dulcimer, tableau Photographed/dated 1900.
3. 1916 - 20109-Bad Elster-1916-Konzert auf dem Badeplatz-Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag. Bad Elster; Konzert auf dem Badeplatz Photograph/scan dated 1916.
4. 1916 - 20152-Bad Elster-1916-Konzert auf dem Badeplatz-Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag. Bad Elster; Konzert auf dem Badeplatz Photograph/scan dated 1916.
5. 1917 - 20637-Bad Elster-1917-Auf dem Badeplatz während des Konzertes-Brück & Sohn Kunstve…. Bad Elster; Auf dem Badeplatz während des Konzertes Photograph/scan dated 1917.
6. 1918 - Bring me a letter from my old home town cover. sheet music cover of "bring me a letter from my old home town" Photograph/scan dated 1918.
7. 1918 - Cheer up, mother. sheet music cover Photograph/scan dated 1918.
8. 1943 - Eddie ó Neil Record Sleeve APR 7 1945. Record Sleeve / Mailing envelope of message sent home to mum in Ireland APR 7 1945 Photograph/scan dated 1943.
9. 1956-01-27 - Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel. Elvis's first RCA single and first US number one, cut at RCA's Nashville studio with Scotty Moore and Bill Black.
10. 1956-06-05 - Elvis Presley on the Milton Berle Show, June 1956. The 5 June 1956 broadcast whose hip movements triggered national press condemnation and led networks to shoot Presley from the waist up.
11. 1956-07-13 - Elvis Presley - Hound Dog. Elvis's rewrite of the Big Mama Thornton blues, recorded July 1956 and issued as a double-A side with Don't Be Cruel.
12. 1956-09-09 - Elvis Presley performs Don't Be Cruel on The Ed Sullivan Show. Elvis's first Sullivan appearance, watched by roughly 60 million Americans.
13. 1956-10-28 - Elvis Presley Performs 'Hound Dog' on Ed Sullivan. The 28 October 1956 Ed Sullivan Show performance, at the centre of the era's moral panic over Presley's stage movement and its television censorship.
14. 1958-02-22 - Chuck Berry performs Sweet Little Sixteen on the Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show. Berry performs his newly released Chess single on ABC's Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show hosted by Dick Clark.
15. 1958 - Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode. The guitar figure and the story of a country boy who could play, the template for rock songwriting.
16. 1958 - Little Richard - Good Golly Miss Molly. One of the defining rock and roll records, cut at J&M Studio in New Orleans and released on Specialty.
17. 1958-08-17 - Domenico Modugno sings Volare on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Sanremo-winning Nel blu, dipinto di blu performed for American television at the height of its US chart run.
18. 1959-11-01 - Paul Anka sings Put Your Head On My Shoulder on The Ed Sullivan Show. Teen-idol pop at its peak: Anka performs his ABC-Paramount hit for Sullivan's audience.
19. 1961-11-25 - Johnny Hallyday sings Retiens la nuit on French television. France's rock and roll import performs the Charles Aznavour-penned ballad on ORTF at the start of the yé-yé years.
20. 1964-02-09 - The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand, live on The Ed Sullivan Show. The 9 February 1964 broadcast watched by an estimated 73 million Americans, the moment the British Invasion began.
21. 1964-02-22 - The Beatles return home to England from their first US tour. British Pathe newsreel of the Beatles facing reporters and fans at London Airport after conquering America.
22. 1964-03-19 - The Beatles receive the Variety Club show business award. Newsreel of the Variety Club Showbiz Dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, where Harold Wilson presented the Beatles their award.
23. 1964-06-10 - The Beatles arrive in Holland. British Pathe newsreel of the Beatles landing at Schiphol to play I Saw Her Standing There in Amsterdam.
24. 1964 - The Beatles - Eight Days A Week. A Beatles For Sale track issued as an American single and the group's seventh US number one.
25. 1964 - The Supremes - Come See About Me. The Supremes' third consecutive American number one for Motown.
26. 1964-06-17 - The Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go. The Supremes' breakthrough number one, the first of five consecutive US chart-toppers.
27. 1964-09-17 - The Supremes - Baby Love. Holland-Dozier-Holland's second number one for the Supremes and the record that made Motown a global pop machine.
28. 1964-09-27 - The Beach Boys perform I Get Around on The Ed Sullivan Show. Brian Wilson's group play their first US number one on Sullivan's stage.
29. 1964-10-18 - The Animals perform House Of The Rising Sun on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Newcastle band bring their transatlantic number one to American television during the British Invasion.
30. 1964-12-27 - The Supremes perform Come See About Me on The Ed Sullivan Show. A colourised print of the Supremes' Sullivan appearance as Come See About Me topped the American chart.
31. 1965-04-09 - The Beatles - Ticket To Ride. The Help! single McCartney later called one of the first heavy-metal records.
32. 1965 - The Supremes - Stop! In The Name Of Love. Holland-Dozier-Holland's fourth number one for the group, from More Hits by The Supremes.
33. 1965-12-03 - The Beatles - We Can Work It Out. A Lennon-McCartney double-A side with Day Tripper, promoted with one of the earliest pop promo films.
34. 1966-05-28 - Mina sings Se telefonando on Studio Uno. Mina gives the first television performance of Ennio Morricone's Se telefonando on RAI's Studio Uno.
35. 1966-06-10 - The Beatles - Paperback Writer. The single whose bass sound the group pushed the EMI engineers to make far louder than usual.
36. 1966 - The Beach Boys - God Only Knows. Brian Wilson and Tony Asher's Pet Sounds ballad, sung by Carl Wilson.
37. 1966 - The Beach Boys - God Only Knows, live in 1966. Official live audio of the Pet Sounds centrepiece from the year of its release.
38. 1966-09-25 - The Supremes perform You Can't Hurry Love on The Ed Sullivan Show. Diana Ross and the Supremes deliver the Holland-Dozier-Holland hit on American prime time.
39. 1967-03-02 - Umm Kulthum sings Fat El Maad at Cairo University. A filmed concert by the Arab world's most important singer, with Baligh Hamdi's composition and Morsi Gamil Aziz's lyric.
40. 1967-04-16 - Christophe: I keep singing so I can buy cars. The French ye-ye singer interviewed on ORTF's Bouton rouge about his obsession with fast cars.
41. 1967-04-29 - Aretha Franklin - Respect. Aretha's rewrite of Otis Redding's song, cut at Atlantic and turned into an anthem of self-assertion.
42. 1967 - Mina and Celentano sing La coppia piu bella del mondo on Sabato Sera. Italy's two biggest pop stars perform together on RAI's Saturday-night variety show.
43. 1967 - Miriam Makeba performs Pata Pata on The Ed Sullivan Show. The exiled South African singer performs the Xhosa-language song that became a worldwide hit.
44. 1967-09-24 - The Mamas and the Papas perform California Dreamin' on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Los Angeles harmony group play their signature song for Sullivan.
45. 1968-02-18 - Paul Mauriat plays Love Is Blue on The Ed Sullivan Show. The French orchestra leader performs the instrumental that spent five weeks at number one in America.
46. 1968-03-15 - The Beatles - Lady Madonna. McCartney's Fats Domino-styled piano single, the group's last for Parlophone before Apple.
47. 1968 - Caetano Veloso - Tropicalia. The song that named the Brazilian movement, released the year before Veloso's exile by the military regime.
48. 1968 - Zum Zum Zum, the opening titles of Canzonissima 1968. The title sequence of Italy's flagship song contest television series, with Maestro Canfora's theme.
49. 1968 - Mina - Che vale per me. A recording from the peak of Mina's imperial run as Italy's dominant pop voice.
50. 1968 - Umm Kulthum sings Hazihi Laylati in Omdurman, Sudan. The Georges Jurdak lyric set by Mohammed Abdel Wahab, performed at Umm Kulthum's Sudan concert.
51. 1968-10-27 - Mary Hopkin sings Those Were The Days on The Ed Sullivan Show. The first Apple Records hit, produced by Paul McCartney, performed on American television.
52. 1968-12-12 - Dalida breaks down remembering Luigi Tenco on French television. Pierre Tchernia revisits Dalida's career on ORTF and she collapses in tears at archive of Luigi Tenco, who died the previous year.
53. 1969 - Fairuz - Al Bostah. The Rahbani Brothers' comic bus song, one of Fairuz's most widely known recordings.
54. 1969 - Kishore Kumar - Tum Bin Jaoon Kahan (Pyar Ka Mausam). R.D. Burman's score for Nasir Hussain's Pyar Ka Mausam, with Majrooh Sultanpuri's lyric.
55. 1969-12-14 - The Jackson 5 perform I Want You Back on The Ed Sullivan Show. Motown's new signings, with a ten-year-old Michael Jackson, make their Sullivan debut.
56. 1970 - Roberto Carlos - Meu Pequeno Cachoeiro. Roberto Carlos's song for his home town in Espirito Santo.
57. 1970 - Mina sings La voce del silenzio in a Carosello advert. Mina performs for Barilla's Carosello slot, directed by Valerio Zurlini - Italian television advertising as pop stage.
58. 1970 - Roberto Carlos - Pra Voce. A ballad from the 1970 album that consolidated Roberto Carlos as Brazil's biggest-selling artist.
59. 1970 - Roberto Carlos - Jesus Cristo. The Brazilian singer's most widely covered song, from the album issued as Roberto Carlos 1970.
60. 1970-10-08 - Barbara: I gave up the civil service of song. The French chanteuse explains why she walked away from the Olympia and the system around it.
61. 1970-12-06 - Simone Signoret interviewed on Tete d'affiche. France Roche interviews Signoret on ORTF about her temperament and her life with Yves Montand.
62. 1971-01-20 - Marvin Gaye - What's Going On. Motown's official video for the 1971 single Berry Gordy tried to block, which became the label's turn towards social commentary.
63. 1971 - Roberto Carlos - Detalhes. The Roberto and Erasmo Carlos ballad that became a standard across Latin America.
64. 1971-11-04 - Johnny Hallyday sings Oh! Ma jolie Sarah before a live audience. Hallyday performs with his orchestra on French television at the height of his 1970s stadium era.
65. 1972 - Roberto Carlos - A Janela. A Roberto and Erasmo Carlos composition from the singer's Jovem Guarda-to-balladeer transition.
66. 1972 - Fela Kuti - Shakara. An early mature Afrobeat record, built on the extended vamp and call-and-response Fela made his signature.
67. 1972-07-18 - Ella Fitzgerald interviewed in Nice. A regional French news crew catches Fitzgerald in a cafe during her Riviera tour.
68. 1972-12-09 - Bill Withers interviewed by Pierre Lattes on Rockenstock. The soul singer talks about his songs, love and friendship on French television.
69. 1973-01-13 - Stevie Wonder performs Superstition on Soul Train. Wonder plays the Talking Book single on Don Cornelius's show as it climbed to number one.
70. 1973 - Stevie Wonder - Superstition, 1973. Archive performance footage from Wonder's Innervisions-era touring year, licensed from Reelin' In The Years.
71. 1973-09-10 - Dalida sings Je suis malade on Midi Trente. Dalida performs Serge Lama's song on French daytime television, presented by Joe Dassin and Daniele Gilbert.
72. 1974-01-23 - Stevie Wonder performs Superstition on Musikladen. Wonder plays Superstition for Radio Bremen's Musikladen during his January 1974 German visit.
73. 1974-02-09 - Jacques Brel: It's not normal to sing in front of people. Brel explains why he will not return to the music hall stage, with a clip of him singing La Biere.
74. 1974-04-06 - ABBA perform Waterloo at the Eurovision Song Contest. The Brighton Dome performance that won Eurovision and launched ABBA internationally.
75. 1974-04-11 - Dalida sings Il venait d'avoir 18 ans on Domino. Dalida performs the song that became her biggest European hit of the decade on French television.
76. 1974 - Kool and the Gang perform Jungle Boogie on Soul Train. The New Jersey band play their Wild and Peaceful hit on Soul Train.
77. 1974 - The Soul Train Line dances to War's Ballero. The show's signature two-line dance sequence, filmed during Soul Train's 1974 season.
78. 1974-12-14 - The Isley Brothers perform Summer Breeze on Soul Train. The expanded 3+3 lineup, with Ernie Isley on guitar, perform their Seals and Crofts reworking.
79. 1975-02-05 - The funeral of Umm Kulthum, Cairo, 1975 - AP Archive. Associated Press newsreel of the funeral that drew an estimated four million mourners onto the streets of Cairo, larger than Nasser's.
80. 1975-02-07 - Nico performs on The Old Grey Whistle Test. The former Velvet Underground singer performs solo with harmonium for the BBC.
81. 1975-06-06 - The Jack Bruce Band perform Spirit on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Bruce with Mick Taylor and Carla Bley on the BBC's serious rock programme.
82. 1975 - Robert Plant interviewed about Led Zeppelin on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Bob Harris interviews Plant at the Vorst Nationaal in Brussels during Led Zeppelin's 1975 European tour.
83. 1975 - Fairuz - Konna Netlaka. A Rahbani Brothers composition from the Lebanese singer's most productive period.
84. 1975-10-31 - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody. The 1975 promo film often cited as the first true music video, made to avoid a Top of the Pops mime.
85. 1976 - ABBA - Money, Money, Money. A cabaret-inflected single from Arrival, a number one across much of Europe.
86. 1976 - ABBA - Fernando. ABBA's best-selling single, originally written in Swedish for Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
87. 1976 - Fela Kuti - Zombie. Fela's attack on the Nigerian military, whose release provoked the army raid on his Kalakuta Republic.
88. 1976 - ABBA - Dancing Queen. ABBA's only US number one and the record that fixed Swedish pop as a permanent export industry.
89. 1977-03-26 - Johnny Hallyday sings La mort d'Ophelie on French television. Hallyday performs the song on ORTF-successor television during his mid-1970s reinvention.
90. 1977 - Donna Summer - I Feel Love (official visual). The Moroder-Bellotte production presented with the estate's official animated visual.
91. 1977 - Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive. The Saturday Night Fever single that defined disco's commercial peak.
92. 1977 - Teresa Teng - The Moon Represents My Heart. Teng's 1977 recording of the song that became the most widely known Mandarin pop ballad ever written, sung across the Chinese-speaking world.
93. 1977 - David Bowie - Be My Wife. A single from Low, the first of the Berlin albums, with its deliberately blank promotional film.
94. 1977-09-23 - David Bowie - Heroes. Recorded at Hansa Studio by the Wall in Berlin with Brian Eno and Robert Fripp.
95. 1977-11-29 - Dalida sings Salma ya salama on Midi premiere. Dalida performs her Arabic-language hit, presented by Daniele Gilbert on French television.
96. 1978 - Kraftwerk - The Model. The Dusseldorf group's Die Mensch-Maschine track, which topped the UK chart when reissued four years later.
97. 1979 - Ian Dury and the Blockheads profiled on Nationwide. A BBC news-magazine profile of Dury on his rise with the Blockheads, his East End childhood and Stiff Records.
98. 1979 - Teresa Teng - Tian Mi Mi. Teng's adaptation of the Indonesian folk melody Dayung Sampan, the best-known Mandopop record ever made.
99. 1979 - Fairuz - Wahdon. A Ziad Rahbani composition for Fairuz, marking her shift toward jazz-inflected arrangements.
100. 1979-11-10 - Dalida sings Comme disait Mistinguett on French television. Dalida performs with six dancers in the full variety-show staging of her late-1970s act.
101. 1980 - Teresa Teng - Ni Zenme Shuo. A Mandarin hit that helped carry Teng's voice across the Chinese-speaking world.
102. 1980 - Maxell cassette commercial featuring Tatsuro Yamashita's Ride On Time. The television advertisement that carried Ride On Time to Japanese ubiquity and launched city pop into the mainstream.
103. 1981 - Teresa Teng sings Ni Zenme Shuo on TTV's Kun Zai Qian Shao. Teng performs for Taiwanese troops on Taiwan Television's forces programme.
104. 1981 - Teresa Teng's full Kun Zai Qian Shao concert for TTV. The complete Taiwan Television special in which Teng performed for frontline garrisons - a landmark of her career.
105. 1981-07-21 - Seiko Matsuda - Shiroi Parasol. Matsuda's fourth single, written by Takashi Matsumoto and Kazuo Zaitsu, from the peak of Japanese idol pop.
106. 1981-12-22 - Johnny Hallyday sings J'en ai marre on French television. Hallyday appears on a programme devoted to Julio Iglesias and performs J'en ai marre.
107. 1982 - Lemmy and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal on Riverside. Steve Blackwell interviews Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead for a BBC special on the NWOBHM.
108. 1982 - Australian television introduces the compact disc, 1982. ABC Science period report on the arrival of the CD, when players cost between $900 and $1800 in Australia.

…616 further moments continue the chronology here. Full text archive: /loreline-text/pop.md

725. 1982 - Anita Mui - Debt of Heart. Mui's debut hit, the theme to TVB's drama, composed by Joseph Koo with lyrics by James Wong.
726. 1982 - Anita Mui - Debt of Heart - the audio-only release. The studio recording that launched Cantopop's most versatile female star.
727. 1983-01-02 - Michael Jackson - Billie Jean. The Thriller single whose Steve Barron video broke MTV's colour barrier.
728. 1983-03-25 - Michael Jackson at Motown 25, 1983 - full footage. The televised Motown 25 special where Jackson performed Billie Jean and first did the moonwalk in public, the single performance most credited with his ascent to global superstardom.
729. 1983 - Wham! - Club Tropicana. The single and video that fixed Wham!'s early image, filmed at the Pikes hotel in Ibiza.
730. 1983 - Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want To Have Fun. Lauper's rewrite of Robert Hazard's song, from She's So Unusual.
731. 1983 - David Bowie challenges MTV over Black artists, 1983. Bowie presses VJ Mark Goodman on the channel's near-absence of videos by Black artists in this 1983 MTV interview.
732. 1983 - Anri - Windy Summer. Toshiki Kadomatsu's production for Anri, from the album Timely!! - a foundational city pop record.
733. 1983 - Anita Mui - Red Doubt. A Cantonese version of a Momoe Yamaguchi song, from Mui's early Capital Artists run.
734. 1983 - Anri - Remember Summer Days. Another Kadomatsu-written Timely!! track, later central to the city pop revival.
735. 1983-12-02 - Michael Jackson - Thriller. The fourteen-minute John Landis short film that turned the music video into a cultural event and helped make Thriller the best-selling album ever.
736. 1984-05-16 - Prince and the Revolution - When Doves Cry. The lead single from Purple Rain, recorded without a bass part.
737. 1984 - Wham! - Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. George Michael's Motown pastiche, the duo's first UK and US number one.
738. 1984 - Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time. Lauper's first American number one and a standard covered ever since.
739. 1984 - Wham! - Last Christmas. George Michael's self-produced Christmas single, one of the best-selling records in British chart history.
740. 1984 - Wham! perform Freedom on Top of the Pops. The duo play their third UK number one on the BBC chart show.
741. 1984 - Boy George interviewed by Terry Wogan. Culture Club's singer talks to Wogan about breaking America and about being Britain's most talked-about pop star.
742. 1984 - Wham! perform Freedom live on Wogan. A BBC chat-show performance during the Make It Big campaign.
743. 1984 - Cyndi Lauper - She Bop. A top-three hit whose subject matter put it on the PMRC's Filthy Fifteen list.
744. 1984 - Juan Gabriel - Besame. A ballad from the same 1984 album that made Juan Gabriel Mexico's dominant songwriter.
745. 1984 - Juan Gabriel - Querida. The Mexican singer-songwriter's biggest hit, which held number one in Mexico for a year.
746. 1984 - Freddie Mercury: 'A Musical Prostitute' - 1984 interview. A fifteen-minute 1984 interview on Queen Official's own channel in which Mercury talks candidly about performance, image and being written off by critics.
747. 1984 - Modern Talking - You're My Heart, You're My Soul. The 1984 German single that became the biggest Euro-disco export of the decade, selling in the tens of millions across Europe and Asia.
748. 1984 - Mariya Takeuchi - Plastic Love. The 1984 city-pop track that YouTube's recommendation algorithm turned into a global cult hit three decades later; this is the artist's official channel upload.
749. 1984 - Anita Mui - Like Flowing Water. Kitaro's melody with Cheng Kwok-kong's lyric, the theme to the film Homecoming.
750. 1984 - Madonna - Dress You Up. The fourth single from Like A Virgin, filmed live on the Virgin Tour.
751. 1984 - Alan Tam - City Love Song. A track from Tam's album The Root of Love, the record that made him Hong Kong's biggest male star.
752. 1984 - Lata Mangeshkar - Aisa Sama Na Hota (Zameen Aasman). R.D. Burman's composition with Anjaan's lyric, sung by Lata Mangeshkar for the film Zameen Aasmaan.
753. 1984-06-28 - Scritti Politti perform Absolute on Top of the Pops. Green Gartside's group play their Cupid and Psyche-era single on BBC television.
754. 1984-07-18 - Prince and the Revolution - Let's Go Crazy. The opening track of Purple Rain and Prince's second American number one.
755. 1984-10-04 - Top of the Pops, 4 October 1984. A full BBC chart show with Bronski Beat, The Cars, Culture Club and Giorgio Moroder with Philip Oakey.
756. 1984-11-20 - Prince performs I Would Die 4 U in Landover, Maryland. Official concert footage from the Purple Rain tour.
757. 1985-04-21 - Akina Nakamori performs Kinku on NHK's Let's Go Young. A restored NHK broadcast from the peak of Japanese idol pop, released officially by Warner Music Japan.
758. 1985-04-21 - Akina Nakamori performs Second Love on NHK's Let's Go Young. A second restored NHK performance from the same 1985 broadcast.
759. 1985-05-15 - Falco performs Rock Me Amadeus at the Wiener Festwochen. A live concert performance in Falco's home city during his peak year.
760. 1985-06-01 - Falco performs Rock Me Amadeus on Die aktuelle Schaubude. German television performance during the single's original chart run.
761. 1985-06-01 - Johnny Hallyday sings Le chanteur abandonne live on French television. Hallyday performs Michel Berger's song seated on a piano, live on air with his musicians.
762. 1985 - Teresa Teng - Airen. Teng's Japanese-language single, which topped the Japanese charts for weeks.
763. 1985 - Whitney Houston - How Will I Know. The Narada Michael Walden production that put Houston in heavy MTV rotation.
764. 1985 - The Madonna craze reported on London Plus. A BBC regional news report on young British women copying Madonna's style at the London Hippodrome.
765. 1985 - Morrissey shows the Oxford Road Show around Manchester. The Smiths' singer takes BBC cameras to the demolished site of his childhood home and his old schools.
766. 1985 - a-ha - Take On Me. The Norwegian trio's pencil-sketch rotoscope video, one of the defining images of MTV-era pop.
767. 1985 - Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls. Stephen Hague's re-recording of the Bobby Orlando original, a number one on both sides of the Atlantic.
768. 1985 - Teresa Teng sings Tsugunai at NHK Hall. Teng performs her Japanese-language hit at NHK Hall in Tokyo.
769. 1985 - Madonna - Into The Groove. Written for Desperately Seeking Susan, the record that made Madonna a dance-floor institution.
770. 1985 - Whitney Houston - Saving All My Love For You. Houston's first American number one, from her debut album for Arista.
771. 1985 - Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine - Conga. The 1985 single that took Cuban rhythm into American pop radio and made Estefan the first great Latin crossover star of the modern era.
772. 1985 - Madonna - Crazy For You. A ballad recorded for the film Vision Quest, and Madonna's second American number one.
773. 1985 - Falco - Rock Me Amadeus. The Austrian rapper-singer's Mozart record, the only German-language single to top the US chart.
774. 1985-06-29 - Modern Talking perform You Can Win If You Want at Rockpop Music Hall. German television performance of the duo's second number one.
775. 1985-07-13 - Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody at Live Aid. Queen's set at Live Aid, Wembley Stadium, 13 July 1985, widely cited as the greatest live rock performance ever televised. Official Live Aid channel upload.
776. 1985-07-13 - Queen: Radio Ga Ga at Live Aid. The moment 72,000 people at Wembley clapped in unison above their heads during Queen's Live Aid set on 13 July 1985.
777. 1985-07-13 - Live Aid 1985: the broadcast continues, part six. Another restored hour of the 13 July 1985 Live Aid transmission, one of the largest satellite link-ups ever attempted at the time.
778. 1985-07-13 - Queen - We Are The Champions at Live Aid. Queen close their Live Aid set in front of 72,000 people at Wembley.
779. 1985-07-13 - Queen - Hammer To Fall at Live Aid. Part of the twenty-minute Wembley set widely regarded as the greatest live rock performance.
780. 1985-07-13 - Freddie Mercury and Brian May - Is This The World We Created? at Live Aid. Mercury and May return to the Wembley stage for an acoustic coda to the Live Aid finale.
781. 1985-07-13 - Live Aid 1985: the Wembley broadcast, part three. An hour of the original Live Aid broadcast, restored and released by the official channel for the concert's 40th anniversary in 2025.
782. 1985-09-19 - PMRC Senate Hearing: Snider, Zappa and Denver Testify. Footage of the 19 September 1985 US Senate Commerce Committee hearing on record labelling, at which Dee Snider, Frank Zappa and John Denver argued against the PMRC's proposed warning stickers.
783. 1985-09-19 - Frank Zappa testifies at the PMRC Senate hearing on rock lyrics. Zappa's testimony against the PMRC's proposed lyric-labelling scheme at the 1985 Senate hearing.
784. 1985-09-19 - Dee Snider testifies against record labelling at the PMRC hearing. Full testimony from the 19 September 1985 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on record labelling, which produced the Parental Advisory sticker.
785. 1985-11-28 - Modern Talking perform Cheri Cheri Lady at the Goldene Europa awards. An awards-show performance broadcast on German television.
786. 1986-02-05 - Prince and the Revolution - Kiss. The 1986 single, stripped to guitar and drum machine, that showed how far Prince would strip pop down and still top the chart.
787. 1986-04-03 - Falco performs Rock Me Amadeus on Top of the Pops. Falco plays the BBC chart show as Rock Me Amadeus topped the UK chart.
788. 1986 - Anri - All Of You. An Anri composition with Yumi Yoshimoto's lyric, from her mid-1980s run.
789. 1986 - Modern Talking - Brother Louie. The duo's biggest international hit and a defining Euro-disco record.
790. 1986 - Seiko Matsuda - Ruriiro no Chikyuu. Sony Music Japan's official video for the 1986 song by the singer who defined the 1980s Japanese idol era.
791. 1986-12-06 - Pet Shop Boys perform Suburbia on Peters Pop-Show. The duo play a Please-era hit on ZDF's cult German chart show.
792. 1986-12-26 - Serge Gainsbourg clashes with Guy Beart on Apostrophes. Bernard Pivot presents a book on Gainsbourg; the exchange with Guy Beart over whether song is a minor art became notorious.
793. 1987 - Pet Shop Boys - It's A Sin. The Derek Jarman-directed video, the first of several collaborations between the band and the film-maker.
794. 1987 - Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me). The lead single from Whitney, a number one in more than a dozen countries.
795. 1987 - Meet the goths, reported on London Plus. BBC reporter Antonia Higgs investigates the goth subculture in a London graveyard.
796. 1987-08-15 - Colonel Tom Parker interviewed on ABC Nightline, 1987. Rare on-camera interview with Elvis's manager, originally broadcast 15 August 1987.

Full text archive: /loreline-text/pop.md