When you scroll through the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1985, you can feel TV, film and fall radio all colliding: Stevie’s sleek R&B groove, a TV-theme takeover, glossy arena pop, and a big screen power ballad closing the month. Five weeks, five #1s and very very ‘80s.
Stevie Wonder – “Part-Time Lover” (Week of Nov 2)
Stevie opens November with sleek, synth-pop R&B from album “In Square Circle” and he does it with friends. You can hear Luther Vandross firing off those ad-libs and background vocals with Syreeta Wright and Philip Bailey (Earth, Wind & Fire). Lyrically the song isn’t just about some on and off, part time friends it’s about a husband who’s cheating on his wife only to find out wife was cheating on him! This single made Stevie Wonder the first artist to hit No. 1 on four Billboard charts at once (Hot 100, R&B, Dance, and Adult Contemporary).
Jan Hammer – “Miami Vice Theme” (Week of Nov 9)
With Crockett and Tubbs on the cover did anyone care it was an instrumental? Evidently not because this instrumental hit No. 1 for the week of Nov 9th 1985! Composer-keyboardist Jan Hammer bottled the show’s neon-noir mood into 2:26 of drum machines and Fairlight sparkle. The single not only topped the Hot 100; it later snagged two Grammys (Best Instrumental Composition and Best Pop Instrumental Performance). It was the No. 1 TV soundtrack of 1985 and beyond, until 2006 when “High School Musical” surpassed it.
Starship – “We Built This City” (Weeks of Nov 16 & 23)
“Marconi plays the mamba” (who thought they said MACARONI growing up? lol) – belongs to Starship, not Jefferson Starship (it was actually the first single released as “Starship” after a legal battle over the original name when founder Paul Kantner left). With Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas out front, producer Peter Wolf giving an arena-size pop track and Bernie Taupin/Martin Page delivering a hook built for shout-along radio. The single was released in late August and had morphed into the No. 1 spot by Nov 16th and held on during the week of Nov 23. Love it or roast it, the track became a cultural lightning rod (still popping up on “best/worst” lists) and landed #14 on Billboard’s 1985 year-end Hot 100 and a November that belonged to that chorus.
Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin – “Separate Lives” (Week of Nov 30)
A hushed duet from the movie White Nights, “Separate Lives” is all silky edges with soft piano, airy synths and two voices keeping careful distance. Stephen Bishop wrote it (his own demo appears in the film) and the lyric draws a boundary more than it begs: you have no right to ask me how I feel. Produced by Arif Mardin with Hugh Padgham and Collins, it reached No. 1 on Nov 30, 1985 and earned an Oscar nomination but was beat out by Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me” which is also from White Knights.
November ’85 is bookended by ballads – Stevie’s sleek confession at the start and a whisper-quiet duet at the end. The real left turns live in the middle: an instrumental TV theme hitting No. 1 and an arena-size sing-along everyone still sings. Not quite whiplash just a month that eased in soft, got glossy and loud for a minute, then settled back to headphones-low.