Radio 2 gave a shortlist of about 70 "duets" from the 1980's to be voted on by listeners who had 5 votes each. Apparently you could vote for the same song 5 times if you wished to do so (why allow that?) or pick 5 different choices per person.

This was how they shook out and this is now available on BBC Sounds, not considered good enough for an on air broadcast though!

www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2025/bbc-radio-2...ate-80s-duet-results


Ultimate 80's duets Top 40.


1 The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York
2 Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure
3 Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers - Islands In The Stream
4 Aretha Franklin & George Michael - I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)
5 Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush - Don't Give Up
6 Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballe - Barcelona
7 Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes - (I've Had) The Time Of My Life
8 Pet Shop Boys & Dusty Springfield - What Have I Done To Deserve This
9 The Communards & Sarah Jane Morris - Don't Leave Me This Way
10 Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson - I Know Him So Well
11 Kylie Minogue & Jason Donovan - Especially For You
12 Meat Loaf & Cher - Dead Ringer For Love
13 David Bowie & Mick Jagger - Dancing In The Street
14 Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes - Up Where We Belong
15 Philip Bailey & Phil Collins - Easy Lover
16 Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin - Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves
17 Marc Almond & Gene Pitney - Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart
18 David Bowie & Bing Crosby - Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy
19 Barbra Streisand & Barry Gibb - Guilty
20 Lionel Richie & Diana Ross - Endless Love
21 Tears For Fears & Oleta Adams - Woman In Chains
22 UB40 & Chrissie Hynde - I Got You Babe
23 Bronski Beat & Marc Almond - I Feel Love / Johnny Remember Me
24 Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville - Don't Know Much
25 Bryan Adams & Tina Turner - It's Only Love
26 Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder - Ebony And Ivory
27 Prince & Sheena Easton - U Got The Look
28 Gary Moore & Phil Lynott - Out In The Fields
29 Patti Labelle & Michael McDonald - On My Own
30 Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin - Separate Lives
31 James Ingram & Michael McDonald - Yah Mo B There
32 Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson - Say Say Say
33 Roy Orbison & k.d. lang - Crying
34 Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
35 Billy Preston & Syreeta Wright - With You I'm Born Again
36 David Grant & Jaki Graham - Could It Be I'm Falling In Love
37 Cherrelle & Alexander O'Neal - Saturday Love
38 Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney - The Girl Is Mine
39 Al Green & Annie Lennox - Put A Little Love In Your Heart
40 Michael Jackson & Siedah Garrett - I Just Can't Stop Loving You




There are a couple of complete imposters on here. Since when is Communards Don't Leave Me This Way a duet? It was never billed on record at the time in the way they've done so here. It is NOT a duet just because there were additional female vocals. The same goes for Tears For Fears with one of their most obscure and dreary tracks. You can't even call Dead Ringer a duet really, it was a Meat Loaf only release. A duet is two credited artists complementing each other.

No4 yet at the time of its release I remember the George and Aretha song getting absolutely panned as very poor for two people of their calibre and I agreed with that.

Only No29 for Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald, On My Own, a duet heavily played to this day.

Laughably a great song and one of the biggest superstar duets of the decade and biggest duet hits, Say, Say, Say, can't even crack the top thirty on this list while more obscure and far more minor hits are much further up. Yet it was a UK No2 and US Christmas No1 for six weeks.

I still remember JK rating Fairytale Of New York very highly back in 1987 but not to me deserving top spot status. Pleased to see Queen and Bowie at No2 with Under Pressure but would have been a No1 contender for me without doubt. A truly organic masterpiece that happened by accident at the time they wrote and recorded it.

Can anyone think of any great duets overlooked? I can, James Ingram and Patti Austin, Baby Come To Me from 1983, a UK No11 and American No1.

You have reminded why I hate duets, but Don't Give Up is beautiful. I hated the Sinead and Willie cover.

Kenny Rogers did have some belters when he was in First Edition.

For me, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl is not a duet. A duet should be 2 individuals colaborating, not a group and a single artist. My favourites are Sylvian and Sakamoto with Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music and Mick Karn and Midge Ure with After a fashion, both top 40 hits, but far too uncommercial for this chart.

I think a lot of people are getting confused with duets and collaborations, IMHO.

Robbiex wrote:
For me, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl is not a duet. A duet should be 2 individuals colaborating, not a group and a single artist. My favourites are Sylvian and Sakamoto with Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music and Mick Karn and Midge Ure with After a fashion, both top 40 hits, but far too uncommercial for this chart.

I agree with you Robbie. When they decided to shortlist the selection for the public to then choose from, which is a form of vote fixing in itself isn't it, who in their right mind even thought to consider the Communards as a duet? It's just not and nobody has ever considered it such at any point.

I must admit, referencing your point about a group/solo artist combo, when I heard Bronski Beat & Marc Almond come along on the countdown I was rather taken aback by that, so actually Jimmy Somerville manages to have two contentious "duet" entries here, yet he did manage to have a bona fide 80's duet that they ignored right at the end of '89 with a track I quite liked at the time, Comment Te Dire Adieu which was billed on record as Jimmy Somerville with June Miles-Kingston which went to No14.

Another one I just remembered which wasn't even on the votable shortlist, back this week in 1988 entering the top 5 was Julio Iglesias & Stevie Wonder, My Love. At the time I actually thought that was going to go all the way and top the charts. Astonishingly it was Stevie's last ever top ten UK single entry with crooner Julio, a most unlikely pairing.

I never even liked the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl with that drunken drawl, and its not a duet.

I'm surprised Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush was so high at No. 4. It was that big of a hit. I think Paul MaCartney and Michael Jackson should have been higher with Say Say Say. It was a much bigger hit than Peter Gabriel. I suppose they have a fixed list at the bbc to make it easier to analyse the information with a computer, otherwise people would be making spelling errors and it wouldn't be able to distinguish between different spellings of the same artist.

What about Shakin Stevens and Bonnie Tyler with "Rockin Good Way". It was a big hit and the only all-welsh duet to hit the charts in the 80s.

Do Dollar and Mel and Kim count as duets, or duos. Because they form a single act?

What about Shakin Stevens and Bonnie Tyler with "Rockin Good Way". It was a big hit and the only all-welsh duet to hit the charts in the 80s

Oh, the nightmares, Robbie. I still have PTSD from seeing a low-budget video with Bonnie dressing like Don Johnson.

Mel & Kim and Dollar were duos; Dollar was not bad, it was their egos that got in the way, IMHO.

What about Midge Ure and Phil Lynott with Yellow Pearl (the totp theme tune), Also Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin with "It's my Party". It was a number one hit in 1981, although it was a cover version it should have been high in this chart. I think the reality of why Group/solo act collaborations are included is that there wouldn't be enough genuine duets to make a top 40.

Elton John and Alan Partridge perform Don't Go Breaking My Heart.

robbiex wrote:
What about Midge Ure and Phil Lynott with Yellow Pearl (the totp theme tune), Also Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin with "It's my Party". It was a number one hit in 1981, although it was a cover version it should have been high in this chart. I think the reality of why Group/solo act collaborations are included is that there wouldn't be enough genuine duets to make a top 40.


Good call on that one, but I guess because Dave Stewart was not a vocalist on that track and it was just Gaskin singing then despite the record billing it isn't really a duet in the sense we expect, likewise with the other hit he had earlier that same year with Colin Blunstone on their great cover of What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted, my favourite version of that song actually.

Your other point about Dollar is a great one. I'm a huge fan of the Trevor Horn produced hits of Dollar, and a firm favourite of mine for production values as well as the song and Thereze Bazar vocal is their huge hit from 1982 Give Me Back My Heart, which is most definitely a strong male/female duet to listen to even if they're billed together as Dollar on the record.

Who would have thought you could start picking away at the meaning of the word duet on tracks with such anomalies.

Shaky and Bonnie were on the duets shortlist offered up for a vote but didn't make the Top 40 cut. On BBC Sounds there was an additional show called Extras which played a few of those that missed the actual Top 30 they played on the main show, and Rockin' Good Way got an airing.

Here was the full votable shortlist;

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3ZF2hC...ur-ultimate-80s-duet

Like many things at the BBC nowadays, I think even with inoffensive pop listing things like this they bring a subtle agenda into it of some kind and bias. Two Prince & Sheena Easton songs for example, one of them totally forgettable and unmemorable and never a massive hit. Infact Sheena gets a third nomination with Kenny Rogers too on We've Got Tonite.

I think one of the most bizarre was Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne, Close My Eyes Forever. I've never heard of her, never heard of this track and it only just scraped the top fifty in 1989. Almost nobody knows it. Does anyone here? I'm not sure if the list was out before or just after Ozzy passed in July but that was way too obscure to be there on merit. Yet the one I mentioned by Stevie Wonder and Julio Iglesias which was massive was not even shortlisted!

I've just looked at this weeks latest Heritage Chart, and there's a duet at No1 from two people who each had hits in the 80's at one point, although one was mainly 70's and the other mostly 90's.

Current Heritage Chart No1 - Leo Sayer & Marcella Detroit, Soul Mining.

youtu.be/zi13m15HIXw?feature=shared

www.heritagechart.co.uk/chart-archive/week-264-fzwlr

Shame on you for not knowing Lita Ford!

Rich wrote:
robbiex wrote:
What about Midge Ure and Phil Lynott with Yellow Pearl (the totp theme tune), Also Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin with "It's my Party". It was a number one hit in 1981, although it was a cover version it should have been high in this chart. I think the reality of why Group/solo act collaborations are included is that there wouldn't be enough genuine duets to make a top 40.


Good call on that one, but I guess because Dave Stewart was not a vocalist on that track and it was just Gaskin singing then despite the record billing it isn't really a duet in the sense we expect, likewise with the other hit he had earlier that same year with Colin Blunstone on their great cover of What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted, my favourite version of that song actually.

Your other point about Dollar is a great one. I'm a huge fan of the Trevor Horn produced hits of Dollar, and a firm favourite of mine for production values as well as the song and Thereze Bazar vocal is their huge hit from 1982 Give Me Back My Heart, which is most definitely a strong male/female duet to listen to even if they're billed together as Dollar on the record.

Who would have thought you could start picking away at the meaning of the word duet on tracks with such anomalies.

Shaky and Bonnie were on the duets shortlist offered up for a vote but didn't make the Top 40 cut. On BBC Sounds there was an additional show called Extras which played a few of those that missed the actual Top 30 they played on the main show, and Rockin' Good Way got an airing.

Here was the full votable shortlist;

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3ZF2hC...ur-ultimate-80s-duet

Like many things at the BBC nowadays, I think even with inoffensive pop listing things like this they bring a subtle agenda into it of some kind and bias. Two Prince & Sheena Easton songs for example, one of them totally forgettable and unmemorable and never a massive hit. Infact Sheena gets a third nomination with Kenny Rogers too on We've Got Tonite.

I think one of the most bizarre was Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne, Close My Eyes Forever. I've never heard of her, never heard of this track and it only just scraped the top fifty in 1989. Almost nobody knows it. Does anyone here? I'm not sure if the list was out before or just after Ozzy passed in July but that was way too obscure to be there on merit. Yet the one I mentioned by Stevie Wonder and Julio Iglesias which was massive was not even shortlisted!

I understand your view on Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin. The duet should have both artists singing. Also with Ure/Lynott, it was mostly an instrumental with just the odd word here and there. I also love Dollar, I thought I was the only one.. Theresa Bazaar is a childhood sweetheart, and I love her breathy vocal. Their version of "I Wanna hold your hand" is lovely. Handheld in black and white, inspired ABC to use Trevor Horn on the Lexicon of Love.

I think my favourite genuine duet (discountty queen and bowie etc) would be Mick Jagger and David Bowie. It wouldn't be in my top 100 songs of the 80s, but then duets are not something i particularly like.