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Monday, July 4, 2022

Musical Monday - The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood


#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.
#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: The week of December 8, 1984.

The song The Power of Love is kind of tangentially a Christian themed song. The video that accompanies the song explicitly tries to connect it to the Nativity story in what was clearly a gambit to try to score a Christmas day hit for the band (Christmas day hits are, or at least were, apparently a big deal in the U.K.). One thing I have always thought odd about the story is kind of highlighted here - God could arrange for shepherds to get a visitation from an angel and for wise men from distant lands to show up bearing kingly gifts (gifts of a nature that should have ensured that Jesus' family would be quite wealthy), but could not coordinate events in such a way that Jesus could be born somewhere other than a stable.

In any event, the song is okay, but kind of mediocre and Frankie Goes to Hollywood joins dozens of other bands that are one hit wonders in the United States but have multiple number ones in other countries. More to the point, this song didn't really land the way the band clearly wanted it to, and has been overwhelmed in the public consciousness by the song that followed it on the U.K. charts.

Previous Musical Monday: I Should Have Known Better by Jim Diamond
Subsequent Musical Monday: Out of Touch by Hall and Oates

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: I Should Have Known Better by Jim Diamond
Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

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