The best band in the world?*

I'm currently listening to the songs from the all-time Festive Fifty of 1982 and as it is actually made up of relatively few bands, I thought I'd look at the figures and see who were John Peel's listeners' favourite bands from back then. If you have seen the chart you will easily see that Joy Division must come out top. I added up the points depending on the chart positions like 1st place gets 50 points down to 1 point for 50th place and came up with this chart. The lists of numbers are the individual points and in brackets is the total. Of course, there were more bands than this but these are the most notable ones.

1. Joy Division - 49,48,47,44,39,28,25,13,10,3 (306)
2. New Order - 45,33,21 (99)
3. Sex Pistols - 50,26,14,7 (97)
4. The Clash - 41,32,11 (84)
5. Stiff Little Fingers - 35,22,20 (77)
6. The Jam - 40,34 (74)
7. Siouxsie & the Banshees- 36,12,9,6,5 (68)
8. The Undertones - 43,15 (58)
9. The Cure - 46
10. Bauhaus - 42
11. The Damned - 38,1 (39)
12. Dead Kennedys - 37
13. Killing Joke - 19,17 (36)

Amazingly, no-one even came close to JD and even though the Pistols got the number 1, their total was still less than New Order's. Siouxsie & the Banshees got the second most number of songs in the chart but only one was in the top 20.
I think that also looking at the kind of bands that made that Festive Fifty, it was a very dark time and the political and social situation in the UK then was really reflected in these generally bleak and angst-ridden songs.

As I was only 10 at the time of this chart, I have been unaware of some of the bands or songs in this chart. It was interesting to hear the song at number 49. I'd never heard of the artist or song before but I thought it interesting enough to share with you and it makes me think that maybe the band 'Air' have been inspired by it.

It is Laurie Anderson's "O Superman".

*pre-1983 anyway...