Go West -- Call Me

 

A week ago, I contributed that article about Seishiro Kusunose's（楠瀬誠志郎）"Elevator Town" with that snazzy percussion lick and compared it to 80s pop duo Go West's "Call Me". Although "Elevator Town" was more of a contemporized Big Band tune, "Call Me", by this British band consisting of Peter Cox and Richard Drummie, was one incredibly catchy song that was released as a single in May 1985.

Well, I figure that since "Call Me" has been one of my absolute favourite songs of the 1980s, period, I just had to place it in a ROY article tonight. It's that percussion, Cox's voice and the synth work that first hooked me and the original single is fine enough but what landed me was the longer "The Indiscriminate Mix" with more of that snazzy percussion and the repeated two-note synth clarion call of CALL ME. I first heard it on one of the Toronto FM stations that played dance remixes all night on Saturday night, and after that, I had to track it down. Sadly I could never do that and strangely enough, I never heard it on the dance floor in the discos, but thanks to YouTube, I don't have to worry about that anymore.

Just to torture me, though, there was an afternoon show on one of the local channels here in which the host had a call-in session, so of course, she just had to use a part of "Call Me" as the theme song. However on a wider pop cultural level, this particular song got dusted off in the early 2000s as part of the soundtrack for the video game "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City". 

"Call Me" only hit as high as No. 91 on the RPM singles chart in Canada and No. 54 on the US Billboard chart's Top 100 Singles but it did quite a bit better on the Dance chart and it even broke into the Top 10 in Ireland. It was also included in Go West's self-titled album from 1985.

So, what was inhabiting the Top 3 on the Oricon singles chart for May 1985?

1. Koji Kikkawa -- Nikumaresouna NEW Face（にくまれそうなNEWフェイス）

2. Akina Nakamori -- Akai Tori Nigeta（赤い鳥逃げた）

3. Seiko Matsuda -- Boy no Kisetsu (ボーイの季節)