11. Modern English – I Melt with You (1983)
Total Points – 329
Charts – 4
Top 40 – 1
Top 20 – 1
Top 10 – 1
Total Ranking – 1, 11, 37, 56, NR, NR
This is the 4th song to receive a #1 ranking by one of the seed lists. Originally, this British band from Colchester, Essex, England, started out producing their own records, but were eventually signed by John Peel of BBC Radio. Their first album in ’81, Mesh & Lace (a lyric that is prominent in this song) was heavily influenced by Joy Division. The follow up, After the Snow, which contains this single, was more keyboard oriented and was more often compared to Simple Minds or Duran Duran. The song wasn’t much of a hit in the UK, but after a long incubation period it finally got traction in the US, and climbed to #7 on the Mainstream Rock Chart, but it only managed to reach #78 on the Hot 100. Despite the lack of commercial success on the charts, this song is considered an absolute new wave classic that critics loved, Billboard commended the song as "classy", describing it as a "dreamy, acoustic-edged rocker”, and AllMusic has called it "one of the most enduring songs of the new wave era." If you’ve listened to the song recently and thought to yourself, that it didn’t sound exactly like you remember, there is good reason for that. First the song was rerecorded in 1990, and it actually charted again – in fact, it charted better in the Hot 100 the second time but only slightly better reaching #76. However, the 1990 version wasn’t as well liked by the critics, in fact the LA Times commented that it was “nearly identical [to the original], yet markedly inferior”, so you could be listening to the 1990 version. Also, the song has several different versions from when it was originally recorded. There is the album version, the single mix, and there is a later singles version that was mixed down to mono from its original stereo recording (which has rarely been available since it was originally released), and all 3 of these songs have some significant differences. Despite not doing much on the Billboard charts, this song was ranked at #39 on VH1s list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the 80s.