Not Fade Away 1984: The Killing Moon, by Echo and the Bunnymen

And then, against the run of play, rock music reasserted itself.

It's not as if anyone seemed to be looking for it. In the early eighties, musicians were juiced by reggae and funk and soul and electronica. Indeed in 1984, if I remember rightly, everyone was talking about jazz (you can hear the echo of that in some of our other contenders). The term "rockist" was even a term of abuse in the music press during those years.

But some white boys will always want to play guitars. And in Dunfermline, in Dublin, and in Liverpool they were playing guitars that year.

Mike Scott of the Waterboys gave it a name, "the big music" and he wasn't the only one chasing it. U2, Big Country, The Alarm all were in pursuit (to varying degrees of success).

The Smiths tossed off How Soon is Now - and put it on a B side, showing that they could outmuscle anyone if they put their mind to it. But they had other concerns which we'll get to soon in this space.

Simple Minds even gave up the the cool blue European electronic model they'd established on New Gold Dream to pursue something John Peel described as "pomp rock".

As an aside you could argue that Scotland was never more central to pop culture than in 1984. From the electronic shimmer of Here Comes the Rain Again by the Eurythmics at the start of the year to the squall-and-squeal feedback of the Jesus and Mary Chain's debut single Upside Down, Scots were everywhere. Post-Postcard pop from Friends Again and Bourgie Bourgie, Glasgow romanticism from the Blue Nile, student dorm pop from adopted Scot Lloyd Cole (not a criticism; that's where I listened to it), strident electro gay anthems from Bronski Beat; all pop life was here.

It was U2 more than anyone else who set the pattern for the big music, sloughing off their scratchy attempts to be Joy Division to chase the epic, first on New Year's Day the year before and in 1984 with Pride (In the Name of Love), the archetypal U2 song, although, curiously, their 1984 album The Unforgettable Fire is more concerned with atmospherics and textures, which may be explained by the involvement of Brian Eno and may explain why it's one of the more ignored corners of their discography.

Still, the band's ambition was already clear. They were far more interested in being big than being cool. I'm not sure you could say the same of Echo and the Bunnymen. Maybe that's why I liked them more. I was at an age when cool mattered.

Led by Ian McCulloch, a man never short of a high opinion of himself, the Bunnymen fused their love of Bowie and the Doors while aiming for a Scouse psychedelia (not that there were many psychedelics at play in the early days at least, according to all accounts).

By 1984 they were at the height of their powers. On the album Ocean Rain they brought in an orchestra in and aimed for a mood of high Gothic romance. They achieved it too, most notably on the single The Killing Moon ("the most beautiful and best thing we had ever done," according to McCulloch).

They had the extra advantage over U2 that their lead singer was a looker - all skinny hips and big lips. Remember the girl I mentioned the other year? It was McCulloch's picture she had on her wall when I first met her. McCulloch described the album Ocean Rain as "kissing music".

The Killing Moon was the Bunnymen's peak. From bassist Les Pattinson's opening bars, it wears its romanticism on its (grey overcoated) sleeves. Guitarist Will Sergeant is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the Edge and yet he's more than his match here, while McCulloch plays the doomed lover via the doomy grandeur of his lyrics: "In starlit nights I saw you/ So cruelly you kissed me". This was the record McCulloch had been promising for years.

The Bunnymen rebooted Liverpool as a musical node. For a while the shadow of the Beatles didn't loom quite so large over the music scene (it would reassert itself 10 years later), while the Bunnymen, managed by Bill Drummond, played with the idea of stardom, doing tours of the Highlands and Islands, celebrating their provincial pride in events like the Crystal Day event and McCulloch played the gobby motormouth slagging all around him (and being slagged in return; see Pete Wylie's quote above).

He deliberately distanced the Bunnymen from the likes of U2 and Simple Minds, even if all of them aspired to the transcendent. "All I've got against Simple Minds and U2, who I quite like at times, is the embarrassment factor of climbing on PA stacks," he told Max Bell in The Face in 1984. "I've been known to go ninety on stage but I try not to look like a ponce. I prefer a non-acting performance because that seems more honest."

More than that, he was suspicious of Bono's desire to show people the way. "I think that rather than write Pied Piper music where people are supposed to follow or lead and go to this great congregation in the Hammersmith Odeon, our songs lead people more into themselves, more introspective," McCulloch once told Mat Snow.

"That is a big difference. All that positive attitude stuff implies that everything's all right with the individual. It's like, let's all go wherever the hell we're supposed to be going and they haven't even been within themselves. There's no self-analysis there at all. And that is true pomp when it doesn't even question anything let alone themselves."

Of course some people want to be led. In the summer of 1985 U2 took the stage at Wembley for Live Aid, played an extended version of Bad while Bono danced with a girl pulled from the crowd and established themselves as rock's chosen future.

Within a couple of years they'd be the biggest band in the world. The Bunnymen, meanwhile, were already sputtering out. McCulloch went solo in 1988 and a year later the band's drummer Pete De Freitas was killed in a motorbike accident.

Eventually they reformed, made some more records, played some decent gigs but 1984 was the moment they mattered most.

All along McCulloch said they were the best band in the world, but they didn't have the stomach to try to be the biggest. This was as close as they got, I suppose.

"I'm just waiting for the albums that sound like Ocean Rain," McCulloch once said. "But they couldn't write a song like 'The Killing Moon' in a million years..." He always had a high opinion of himself. On this occasion he might have been right.

Other Contenders

How Soon is Now, The Smiths

Breaking Point, Bourgie Bourgie

Somebody Else's Guy, Jocelyn Brown

Nelson Mandela, The Special A.K.A.

No Sell Out, Malcolm X

Ain't Nobody, Rufus and Chaka Khan

Love Wars, Womack & Womack

When Doves Cry, Prince

Im Nin' Alu, Ofra Haza

A Forest Fire, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want, The Smiths

You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), Dead or Alive

The Boys of Summer, Don Henley

Upside Down, The Jesus and Mary Chain

Honey at the Core, Friends Again

Tinsel Town in the Rain, The Blue Nile

A Pagan Place, The Waterboys

I Wanna Be Loved, Elvis Costello

Sensoria, Cabaret Voltaire

Small Town Boy, Bronski Beat

The Power of Love, Frankie Goes to Hollywood

I Bloodbrother Be, Shock Headed Peters

Venceremos (We Will Win), Working Week

Each and Every One, Everything but the Girl

Another Bridge, Everything But the Girl

Cruel, Prefab Sprout

Michael Caine, Madness

Soul Train, Swans Way

A Lover Sings, Billy Bragg

Keep On Keeping On, The Redskins

So, Central Rain, R.E.M.

The Paris Match, Style Council

The Unforgettable Fire, U2

Soul Train, Swansway

NME Single of the Year: Love Wars, Womack & Womack

John Peel's Festive 50 winner: How Soon is Now, The Smiths

And the best-selling single of 1984: Do They Know It's Christmas, Band Aid