3 No. 1 Hits That Prove 1983 Was the Year of the Duet

Perhaps more than in any other decade, the 80s were kind to duets. Occasionally, they’d be the he/she, romantic type. In other cases, you’d get uptempo numbers featuring two of the biggest stars of the era.

Both of those types of songs are represented in this list. In 1983, these three duets spent a combined eight weeks on top of the charts.

“Baby, Come To Me” by Patti Austin & James Ingram

If you wanted a hit in the early 80s, it was a good idea to be somewhere inside the orbit of producer Quincy Jones. After all, you not only had access to Jones’ smarts. You also had access to his top-notch collaborators. That included Rod Temperton, the British songwriter who had helped craft some of Michael Jackson’s biggest smashes in that era. Temperton wrote “Baby, Come To Me” for Austin and Ingram. It’s a fine example of a duet that doesn’t overdo it in terms of the combined power of the vocalists. The pair of ace singers easily could have come out and emoted at full intensity right from the jump. Instead, they kept things at a low boil for the majority of the song. Once they do unleash in the middle eight before the final chorus, the moment is earned and memorable. The overall result is one of the best R&B slow jams of the decade.

“Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers

After dominating the 70s, The Bee Gees spent most of the 80s on the outside looking in at the Top 40. But that didn’t mean that their brilliant songwriting was completely absent from the US airwaves. Dionne Warwick scored a big comeback hit with “Heartbreaker” in 1982. A year later, “Islands In The Stream” went to the top of the pop charts. Not bad at all, since it was a pair of premier country artists at the helm. 1983 was still a point when country crossovers to the pop Top 40 were still realistic possibilities. Rogers and Parton showed off an easy-going chemistry on the song. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the pop smarts of the Brothers Gibb are all over the track. Interestingly enough, Barry, Robin, and Maurice originally wrote it with an R&B artist a la Diana Ross in mind. The song shows that the Gibbs easily could have made a career out of penning songs for other artists.

“Say Say Say” by Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson

The relationship between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson ended badly. But for a while there, it looked like they might churn out a hit duet once every couple of years just to keep the pop music world on their toes. First came “The Girl Is Mine”, a slight ballad that was actually chosen as the first single from Jackson’s record-breaking Thriller album, which says something about McCartney’s cachet. “Say Say Say” appeared on McCartney’s Pipes Of Peace album and came at a time when Macca had reestablished himself as a pop powerhouse with several hits from the Tug Of War album in 1982. McCartney wrote the song and put together the track. About the only thing that the two needed to decide was who was going to sing what. The song effortlessly combines the worlds of rock, pop, and R&B into one ebullient mix. On top of that, the video, with the two megastars hamming it up, was inescapable as well.

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