Tag: AT40 (Page 5 of 13)

Chart Week: July 22, 1978
Song: “Baker Street” – Gerry Rafferty
Chart Position: #2, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for six weeks.

I’ve been wanting to write about this song for ages, and everything finally lined up thanks to an AT40 I caught last week.

“Baker Street” is one of the greatest songs of its time. Or any time for that matter. It is an unforgettable, undeniable, unassailable piece of rock ’n’ roll art. I defy you to listen without cranking it up as loud as is acceptable for your location to revel in its glory.

Sadly, though, it was subject of one of the great screw-jobs in chart history. One that had a direct impact on what Casey Kasem said on two different American Top 40 broadcasts.

Scotsman Gerry Rafferty had six US Top 40 hits in his career; two with the band Stealers Wheel and four as a solo artist. “Baker Street” was, by far, the biggest of those hits. For five weeks in the summer of 1978 it sat at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, stuck behind what would become the #1 song of the entire year, Andy Gibb’s “Shadow Dancing.” However, in late July it looked like Rafferty would sneak past Gibb into the top spot.

In AT40 replays from the 1970s, Casey often gave clues about what the next number one song would be. I always assumed this was because in the ‘70s, AT40 lagged the actual data by a week or two, and he had an idea of what songs would shuffle into what spots in the coming weeks.

The week of July 22, 1978, Casey shared one of these hints in an interesting way. Before playing “Baker Street,” he read a question from a listener asking what country had the most artists with number one hits per capita. He answered Scotland, with four: The Bay City Rollers, The Average White Band, Donovan, and Lulu against a population of about five million. But, Casey suggested, maybe there was about to be a fifth.

When it came time to record the next week’s countdown, Casey indeed worked off a chart that listed “Baker Street” as the number one song in America. He laid down vocals confirming that fact. However, before the show could be mastered and distributed, the chart was adjusted keeping the top two songs as they had been for the previous five weeks. Casey re-recorded the final segment of his show to reflect this correction. A week later “Shadow Dancing” finally fell to number five…but “Baker Street” also fell four notches to number six.

What on earth happened? How can the Billboard numbers change after they’ve already been locked in for the American Top 40 deadline?

The urban legend, and one that seems to have a lot of legs, suggests that Andy Gibb’s management team was responsible. They met with representatives from Billboard to plan for the singer’s appearance on a Billboard-sponsored show. When Gibb’s agents learned that “Shadow Dancing” was about to fall out of the top spot, they strongly inferred that their client would not be making an appearance on the program if his song was no longer number one. Since Gibb was one of the hottest stars in the world at the moment, this sent Billboard scrambling to adjust the count and ensure Gibb’s performance.

Or so people say.

Whether true or not it is a fun theory to speculate about.

So, sure, Andy Gibb kept Gerry Rafferty from earning a number one hit on the Billboard chart. And that sucks. But I guarantee “Baker Street” gets played way more often now than “Shadow Dancing” does, and probably has every year since 1978.[1] So suck that, Andy Gibb (RIP).

By the way, since that question was asked of Casey, four more Scottish acts have topped the Hot 100: Rod Stewart, Sheena Easton, Lewis Capaldi, and Calvin Harris. I would imagine that means Scotland still has the most number one artists per capita of any country. Even with Gerry Rafferty getting screwed.[2]

There is also a controversy about who wrote the incendiary sax line that anchors the song. You can read all about that here. What blew my mind when I read this piece was that Hugh Burns, who plays the roaring guitar solo on “Baker Street,” also played on George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” another song that is built upon a monster sax riff. Crazy coincidence!

Oh, and if you don’t think this song is a 10, you can fuck right off.

(Worth noting that Tom Breihan wrote about “Baker Street” and the various stories behind it as a bonus track for The Number Ones during last year’s Stereogum fundraiser. You can read it here. He only gave it a nine. 🤷‍♂️)

Chart Week: June 20, 1981
Song: “Angel of the Morning” – Juice Newton
Chart Position: #38, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #4 for four weeks in May.

Juice Newton was a classic Right Artist at the Right Time success. Although she came up in the world of folk music, by the early 1980s she had slid into a country-rock hybrid that was well suited to the moment. As we’ve discussed before, there was that little window in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when many country artists were able to have mainstream, pop success. Think Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, The Oak Ridge Boys, and so on.

I don’t really hear much country in this song, or most of Newton’s other early ‘80s hits. Here there is the slightest whine in the guitars, and just a hint of Smoky Mountain twang in her voice. In other songs (“Queen of Hearts,” for example) there is a loping bass line that recalls the earliest days of rock music, when country and pop shared a lot of DNA. To my ears, though, her songs come across as very mainstream, adult pop. If the record companies and radio stations hadn’t labeled her as a country artist, I never would have taken her for one.

Perhaps that explains her success. Her straight-forward sound brought in the pop audience, being cast as a country artist roped in those listeners. Combine them and an artist who had not produced a charting pop single before 1981 suddenly spun off four-straight Top 10’s, three more Top 40 singles, and three Adult Contemporary chart number ones (including this song).

In time Newton did drift towards more recognizably country music, and eventually landed seven country Top 10s and three number ones.

But in 1981, she was one of the hottest artists on the pop chart thanks to songs like this.

This may surprise you, but I think this song is fantastic. I hear common ground with late 1960s artists like the Righteous Brothers. Although her voice isn’t as soulful as Bill Medley’s, there’s a similar vibe in there. There’s a grandness to the music that sounds like those big, blue-eyed soul hits of a decade earlier.

That soulfulness gives the song an emotional honesty and vulnerability I’ve always liked a lot. You really feel Newton’s resignation that she has gotten herself into a relationship that has no good outcomes.

Newton’s delivery is nicely reserved right up until she finally cuts loose and wails “Bay-ay-ay-by…” and then takes the final chorus a level higher than the first two. Stretching out that final “Dar-ar-ling” for a full 10 seconds (before the producers double-track it and stretch it out another 20 seconds) is a perfect, dramatic closure.

I also love those melodramatic fills where the drums crash and the guitars chime, which build tension that doesn’t break until Newton’s climactic lines.

In some ways, this song reminds me of The Long Blondes’ terrific 2007 song “You Could Have Both.”[1] In each song a female singer is acknowledging that she is the other woman, but accepting that role and the heartbreak that comes with it. Newton isn’t begging her lover to stay, but rather a confirmation that their union meant something before they part.

I’m not a huge fan of any kind of country music, even that watered-down country pop that made the Top 40 in the early ‘80s. This song is the one exception. 8/10

By the way, I always love countdowns that fall on important dates. This one landed on my tenth birthday. It is probably for another post to talk about how several teammates from my YMCA baseball team and I huddled in our laundry room as tornado sirens blared…

Chart Week: May 24, 1980
Song: “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” – Pink Floyd
Chart Position: #17, 19th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 for four weeks in March/April.

Each week Casey would read letters from his listeners, generally either Long Distance Dedications or general music questions that his crack staff of researchers would answer. Occasionally he would get a letter regarding a song that was in the countdown.

In late May, 1980, Casey read a letter from a guidance counselor at a New York high school. In her letter, she quoted a few lines from Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2,” complaining that the song’s critique of the educational system was “a slap in the face to teachers everywhere.” She said that the song undermined the efforts of teachers by turning kids against them. “We need students on our side if we want to help them be successful. Kids should be happy to know that there are a lot of teachers out there who want to help them succeed.”

She continued by posing two questions. She wondered if Pink Floyd had bad experiences during their/his time in school. And she asked if they/he had visited a school recently. (I couldn’t tell if she thought Pink was a person or understood it to be a band.)

She closed by saying, “I hope you can find the answers to my questions.”

She poses some legitimate concerns here. But, to me, this is a hilarious example of an out-of-touch adult who gives pop culture far too much credit for determining how kids think and behave. I doubt that children around the world suddenly became dissatisfied with their educational experiences after hearing “ABITWP2” on the radio. Most kids dislike school plenty on their own.

I remember gleefully singing “We don’t need no education,” on the last day of third grade in Jackson, Missouri. I didn’t really know what it meant or where it came from. I just heard older kids singing it and decided to chant along with them. I was more excited about the coming days to explore my neighborhood, ride my bike, go to the pool, and not do anything school-related for three months than airing complaints about the quality of education I was receiving.

However, if you know anything about The Wall, you can’t help but laugh at this woman’s comments. OF COURSE Roger Waters had a bad educational experience! That, along with his father dying in World War II, were the two traumatic building blocks from his childhood that had massive impacts on the adult he became and the music he created.

The Wall’s narrative arc has its roots in Waters’ horrific years in the dour post-war British educational system. He wrote about how English teachers tried to drive the independence out of students and turn them into mindless, interchangeable drones who would fill their pre-determined roles in society upon graduation. Famously, this is depicted in the 1982 film version of The Wall by children marching along a corridor, falling into a vat, and spilling out of a meat grinder like fresh hamburger.

Had this guidance counselor shown some empathy and done a little research rather than just getting upset about a song on the radio, she might have learned the details of Waters’ childhood, about the society he grew up in, and realize the good work she was defending was exactly the kind of teaching he craved.

This is one of those songs that has carved out such a niche in pop culture that it can be difficult to rate. I would imagine every spring another group of students discovers it for the first time and begins singing it as they celebrate the end of their school year.

It is also difficult to separate this song from those around it on the album, and then from the visuals added in the movie. I, for example, never think of the single edit. Rather, I think of how the album/movie were structured, with the shriek of a bird of prey bridging the transition from “The Happiest Days of Their Lives” into “ABITWP2.” The radio version seems to lack important context without that lead-in. I remember a lot of classic rock stations in the ‘90s playing the entire, three-song sequence of “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1,” “The Happiest Days of Their Lives,” and “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.” That always feels right to me. (The video below is the single edit. You can watch the scene from the movie here.)

The song has a strident, near-disco beat that immediately grabs your attention. David Gilmour’s central guitar riff is also heavily indebted to disco, sounding not too far removed from something you might hear on a Bee Gees, Saturday Night Fever track. The lyrics and their delivery are ominous and suggest a darkness deeper than just complaining about school. Students from the Islington Green School provide an unforgettable delivery of the second chorus. And then Gilmour comes in with a bluesy solo before Waters shouts the famous “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?” line.

It is iconic, unforgettable, and the most culturally relevant Pink Floyd ever was or ever would be.

And yet it isn’t a 10.

There’s the matter of it being an element – a very important element, granted – of a larger piece of art.

The song is also…a lot. It is oppressive, as if that pressure Waters received from his teachers is settling onto your shoulders and physically pushing you down. The stomping beat feels like an approaching thunderstorm. There is never a moment of release for all that tension.

Bigger, though, is the song’s structure. It is two choruses, a guitar solo, and a spoken-word outro. It is awkward and a little unsettling. It’s fun to chant along to with the other shitheads at your bus stop, but it doesn’t scream pop hit to me, or sound like a song you would choose to play on repeat. It’s kind of amazing that this made it to number one given all the weirdness about it.

There is a 10 on The Wall, but it isn’t “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”. 7/10

(I tend to avoid writing about songs that hit number one. But the guidance counselor letter was too good to not share. I did not go back and read Tom Breihan’s Number Ones write up of this song until I had completed this piece. He gave it a 6/10.)

Oh, the 10 on The Wall?

(Or here for the movie version.)

Chart Week: May 5, 1979
Song: “Music Box Dancer” – Frank Mills
Chart Position: #3, 15th week on the chart. This was the song’s peak.

Songs like “Music Box Dancer,” complete outliers to everything else on the pop chart at the time, fascinate me. It makes no sense that this track spent over four months in the Hot 100 and climbed as high as number three. Even for the 1970’s, a decade loaded with bizarre records that landed in the top ten, it seems strange.

What else was on American Top 40 that week? The Disco era wasn’t officially over, but it was drawing its last breaths. Still there were at least twelve songs in this week’s countdown that could be categorized as Disco. The late 70’s were when what we eventually called Classic Rock reached its peak. There are at least six Classic Rock tracks amongst this week’s Top 40. The AM Radio Gold sound was fading like a bad radio signal, yet three artists that owed their success to that genre were in the countdown. There were two Beatles (Paul McCartney’s Wings and George Harrison) and two of the biggest artists of the New Wave era (Blondie and The Police).[1]

And then there was this, an instrumental track written to mimic the sound of a music box. It didn’t have a connection to a movie or TV show. Mills wasn’t famous for other things, bringing a built-in audience to his music. He wasn’t coming off a previous big hit. He wasn’t riding the wave of a departing fad or leading the charge of a new one. The track wasn’t part of a promotional campaign. This was about as random of a one-hit wonder as you can get.

And that’s what fascinates me. Somehow, in the midst of everything else that was being played on radio in 1979, this single triggered something in people that prompted them to call radio stations to request it and to walk into record stores to buy copies to play at home.

All that success is even crazier when you learn that “Music Box Dancer” was never supposed to be a single.

Mills first recorded the song for a 1974 album. When Polydor Records released a new single from a later Mills album in1978, they slapped “MBD” on as a B-side. A DJ at Ottawa’s CFRA radio didn’t view the A-side as a potential hit, and flipped the record, thinking Polydor had made a labelling mistake and “MBD” was the intended single. He was wrong about the labelling, but he still liked the track. He added it to the CFRA’s playlist, and by late June, 1978 it was their number one song.

That success soon spread across Canada, which led to a US release. The American record sold one million copies. A LOT OF FREAKING PEOPLE LIKED THIS SONG.

I remember “Music Box Dancer” well. It might be the first song I ever heard on the radio that I knew sucked. I don’t know whether that was my own opinion, formed from hearing it splitting up songs I liked on the radio, or one I came to after hearing older kids suggest it was trash in school bus conversations. Still, I knew it was awful.

Four decades later it remains tough for me to evaluate because it still does not sound like a pop song. While Mills never had another hit single in the US, he had placed an album in the top 10 of the Easy Listening album chart before “MBD”’s run. This song should have stayed in that realm and never wandered into the Hot 100.

I don’t know whether his piano playing is inspired or insipid. I hate the cheesy-ass strings that accompany him. The beat has always seemed like something a person who knows nothing about modern pop music would come up with in at attempt to modernize a sleepy Easy Listening song for younger crowds. Credit to Mills for taking advantage of a moment when pop music was in flux. But the song still sucks. 2/10

Chart Week: April 26, 1980
Song: “Cars” – Gary Numan
Chart Position: #22, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 for three weeks in June.

It has always bothered me that Gary Numan never seemed impressed with the biggest song of his career, 1980’s “Cars.” I’ve read several stories in which he speaks of it dismissively. On the song’s Wikipedia page, he is quoted as calling it “a pretty average song.”

Pretty average song?!?!

Numan is one of the giants of electronic music, an artist who helped to create and popularize a sound that, when applied to pop music, dominated the early MTV era. He is still active and has always been focused on pushing the art form forward.

So, I guess based on that, maybe it makes sense that his only song that was ever a true pop hit might grate on him.

Although that is odd, because his stated goal when he began writing “Cars” was to craft a song that had could be a hit.

He set out to write a hit and did exactly that. Yet he gives it no love.

Artists are strange.

The song has its roots in a road rage incident. Numan once had an altercation with motorists in another car. When they jumped out and attempted to attack him, he locked his doors, pulled onto the sidewalk, and fled the scene. Afterward he realized that our mentalities shift when we get inside a car. The protection of the enclosed space and the power of the vehicle emboldens us to do things we would not otherwise attempt.

I could have, and maybe should have, written more about that, and how Numan’s music – which was often cold, brittle, and impersonal – was a metaphor for the adverse effects of technology on our lives. Spiritually, his music was a blueprint for Radiohead’s OK Computer, among other music that would drop decades later.

But I can’t get past the fact that he doesn’t think the track is any big deal. It was mind-blowing to eight-year-old me, sounding like it was from distant planet that was far more advanced than ours. While I think he meant the song’s layers of synthesizers and staccato drums to sound bleak and industrial, they combine to fill the room in a way that gives the song a sense of warmth. Even after listening to it for about 42 years now, it still sounds groundbreaking and unique.

A much younger me wasn’t the only person who loved it. “Cars” is a Mt. Rushmore song of electronic music, a foundational track of New Wave, and a cross-genre classic that remains vital today. 10/10

Chart Week: April 19, 1986
Song: “A Little Bit of Love (Is All It Takes)” – New Edition
Chart Position: #38, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #38 for two weeks.

Every teen pop group faces a dilemma as they get older: how do they maintain their audience as they, their fans, and their music matures?

New Edition was bumping into that issue when they recorded their third album, All For Love. The Boston group was the archetype for how an ‘80s Boy Band should operate, and much of the group was fine with sticking with that formula. But Bobby Brown chaffed at the idea of continuing on that path. He wanted to explore more adult themes. He believed he should be the featured singer on more tracks. And he thought the band should shed their clean-cut image. That tension boiled over in late 1985, as the band toured All For Love, when Brown was fired after continually disrupting their performances.

That split was painful but worked out fine for all. Brown became one of the biggest stars in pop music on his second solo album, 1988’s Don’t Be Cruel. And New Edition made one of the greatest R&B albums of all-time after adding Johnny Gill.[1]

I was thinking less about the band’s arc and more about how my peer group was changing in 1986 when I heard this song last weekend.

The changes among my friends had become apparent a few months earlier, in the first week of ninth grade. Our English class got an assignment to write and present an essay about something that we loved. I will never forget when the biggest guy in our grade, who always wore black and was super into heavy metal, stood up and shared his passionate work about the history of English New Wavers Duran Duran. Or rather I remember all the guys in class staring at each other with jaws agape, the 1985 version of “WTF???”

Turns out homie got a girlfriend over the summer. She was into Duran Duran. So, to paraphrase Jules Winfield, turns out he was into Duran Duran, too. Like crazy into them. This was a dude who, three months earlier, was the go-to if you had questions about any heavy metal artist, no matter how obscure. Yet here he was carrying on about a bunch of Brits who wore makeup and linen suits and played updated disco music.[2]

In the spring of 1986 I ran into this phenomenon again, although in a less striking way.

A different classmate started talking up the latest New Edition album. This seemed strange to me, as anytime I would go to his house, we always got into his older brother’s album collection, playing AC/DC, Queen, Triumph, Rush, Kiss, and other loud rock bands. I couldn’t remember any R&B or soul ever being played in his house, or of him expressing interest in such acts. Something had changed.

Turns out, again, it was a girl. He was hanging out with some cutie who liked New Edition. He knew I listened to more “Black” music than anyone else in our friend group, so started telling me how good the album was. He especially loved “School,” NE’s goofy, rapped, stay-in-school anthem. I guarantee his older brother thought any kind of rap was the lowest form of music and probably would have kicked his ass if he knew his little brother was listening to it. This kid was blowing my mind!

Right around this time “A Little Bit of Love (Is All It Takes)” was getting a fair amount of airplay. I know I had it on my running mix tape at some point that spring.[3] When my mom’s April Columbia House catalog came, I was thrilled to see All For Love listed. I had her order the cassette, and soon it was my daily, after-school soundtrack.

Anyway, things were changing, as they do with teenagers. New Edition and Bobby Brown were on their way to adult stardom. A couple of my friends had their first girlfriends. And I had a building block for my late ‘80s/early ‘90s Modern Black Music obsession. Plus fuel for a blog post 36 years later.

While much of All For Love is the standard, cotton candy pop that made NE famous, you can hear the stirrings of where they were headed in this song. It is slightly more mature in that it’s universal rather than clearly about some crush in your homeroom class. The harmonies on the chorus are really good. While Ralph Tresvant’s voice never got super deep, it does has more depth to it here than on songs like “Candy Girl” and “Cool It Now.” The production, though, is still pretty cheesy, certainly no where near the immaculate sound Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis crafted for Heart Break. While it doesn’t reach the highs the classics from Heart Break did, “A Little Bit of Love (Is All It Takes)” does seem like the link between the first phase and second phases of New Edition’s career. 7/10

Chart Week: February 16, 1980
Song: “We Don’t Talk Anymore” – Cliff Richard
Chart Position: #32, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for two weeks in January.

I’m guessing most, if not all, of my readers have no memory of Cliff Richard.

That’s kind of crazy, because he was one of the most popular singers in the world for a long, long time. He’s sold over 250 million records around the world in his prolific career. In the UK he had 14 number ones and a staggering 69 top 10 hits; only Elvis and the Beatles sold more records in Richard’s homeland.[1] While his success was more modest in the US, Richard still racked up nine Top 40 hits here.

He spread out his American success pretty efficiently. As Casey noted in this countdown, Richard was the first artist to hit the US Top 40 in the 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s. That came via one Top 40 hit in both the ‘50s and ’60s, two in the ‘70s – including this track which first hit in late 1979 – and then five more in 1980 and 1981 before he basically disappeared from American radio.[2]

While his highest charting track in the US was 1975’s “Devil Woman,” which hit #6, this was his biggest international hit. It cracked the top ten on pretty much every pop chart around the world, and hit #1 in at least nine counties.[3]

I’ve always loved it, from way back when I (likely) first heard it on KJAS in Jackson, MO. It has a groovy bass line. The synthesizers have a proto-New Wave quality to them. The chorus is catchy-as-hell. It’s hard not to get swept away by the track’s pleasant bounce.

When I was a kid, I mostly paid attention to the chorus and thought it was about a couple that were still together but had grown apart. Thus, I assumed was Richard singing about the realization that a relationship had changed. Maybe the couple was still traveling in the same direction, but they were doing so on different paths.

As I got older, I realized the entire song is more about him bemoaning the loss of a love that came about because of the choice of his lover.

Even with those two different views of the song, I’ve never completely understood what the title line means, “It’s so funny, how we don’t talk anymore.” I can’t decide if it’s a sarcastic statement, an incredulous statement, or a “Huh, that’s kind of weird,” statement.

I don’t think it helps that the song sounds so damn happy. Can Richard really be singing about heartbreak when the song makes you smile and want to bounce around?

I’m probably overanalyzing a song that was meant to be more pleasing to the ear than profound.

Besides, I’ve always been a melody-first guy, and this song is loaded with melody. Which is more than enough to make up for any lyrical inconsistencies or questions. This is pop music in its purest, most pleasing form. If Leo Sayer got a 7, this has to be an 8/10.

I will again share two videos for this track, because, as with Kansas, they are both amazing. The first is the official video, which for some strange reason was the sixth video aired on MTV. It is certainly something.

I’ll follow that up with a lip-synced performance from November 10, 1979 on the (West) German show Starparade. His outfit! His moves! The spinning with the camera! And the absolute stones to stand there, holding his index finger in the air over the intro as he prepares to sing. It’s as if he’s saying, “Yes, this is my song and it is number one!” For some reason I imagine him saying that with a German accent since he was on a German show, which makes it even more fun.

Chart Week: February 5, 1977
Song: “Carry On Wayward Son” – Kansas
Chart Position: #36, 7th week on the chart, debut week on Top 40. Peaked at #11 for two weeks in April.

The world is a much smaller place today than when my generation was growing up. Thanks to cable/satellite TV, the Internet, and social media networks, trends spread to the hinterlands almost as soon as they pop up in the cultural centers of the world. Hell, the next dumb-but-invasive, week-long TikTok trend is as likely to come from an unknown person in the middle of nowhere as an influencer in New York or LA.

But when we were kids, things moved to the center much slower. Punk, Rap and Hip Hop, New Wave, and other new sounds got their American starts on the coasts and gradually trickled into the Midwest and South.

Because of this, bands from the flyover states had to battle preconceived notions held by not only the listening public, but also by record labels.

Take Kansas, for example. They were from Topeka. Their music fit squarely into the progressive, arena rock sound that was big in the mid/late 1970s. But because of where they were from, people struggled to believe they should be categorized with bands like Boston, Styx, and Journey.

As Casey related in this countdown, when people heard the name “Kansas,” they expected a “Bluegrass band that wore overalls and chewed on a piece of straw.”

As a native Kansan, this offends me. Bluegrass was Appalachian music, made by and for Hillbillys. Kansas is not Hillbilly territory; its flatlands are the home of dirt farming Hicks. These are important distinctions.

Kansas’ label wasn’t immune to these harmful stereotypes. Kirshner Records tried to push the band as an “All-American, Bicentennial band,” according to Casey. I’m not really sure what that meant. Maybe closer to the Beach Boys than Led Zeppelin? I’m not sure you can get more American than this song, though, which sounds like it should be played in a big, 100% steel car made in Michigan that gets about 10 miles per gallon with the windows cranked down and the 8-track player cranked up.

Anyway, Kansas overcame that awful prejudice and were one of the biggest bands in the world for a brief spell. While this was not their biggest hit – “Dust In The Wind” peaked at #6 – it is their most enduring. Twice in the 1990s “Carry On Wayward Son” ended a calendar year as the most-played song on US classic rock stations. I hear it pretty regularly on SiriusXM, and if my daughters are in the car with me, I get a lot of eye rolls when I turn the volume up and start playing drums or keyboards on the steering wheel.

I do that because this is a kick ass song. Everything about it is amazing.

It has a perfect blend of vocals. In each verse, Steve Walsh sounds like he’s singing a ballad. But on the chorus, when Robby Steinhardt joins him, they transform it into a howling rocker. Walsh absolutely soars on the big notes. He’s not quite Brad Delp, but he’d certainly Delp-adjacent. He could fucking sing, and he sings the absolute hell out of this song.

Opening with an a cappella chorus then going straight into a breakdown and guitar solo was brilliant, and very prog-rock. Including solos by two different guitarists plus an organ solo also screams 1970s. It doesn’t quite have the “movement” feel that, say, Boston’s “Foreplay/Longtime” has, but the distinct sections give the song a majesty that sets it aside from standard radio fare.[1] Those parts keep pushing and pushing and pushing until the sudden wind down and closing riff. Every element makes you want to sing along while playing the air instrument of your choice.

The lyrics are pretty great, too. Guitarist Kerry Livgren wrote them as a note of encouragement to himself as he drifted in his search for a spiritual home. They are exactly how I would expect someone of his age, in that time, to speak about their journey. I always think of the people my parents hung out with in their grad school/post-graduate years when we lived in small college towns. While some of the lyrics seem overtly religious, they are never preachy nor pretentious. It never sounds like a Christian rock song – Livgren did not intend it to be – so even if that kind of thing normally grates on you, I can’t imagine this song would bother you.[2] Above any spiritual references, it is a song about never letting obstacles keep you from your goals. Or Ad astra per aspera, as some might say.

Not all the songs that were big hits in the late 1970s arena rock era hold up well. This one does. 10/10

I’ll include two videos for the song. First, the official video, so you get the entire song in all its glory. And can check out some of the looks the band rocked. Second is their magnificent 1978 Canada Jam performance. There is A LOT going on in that video.

Chart Week: January 26, 1985
Song: “Do What You Do” – Jermaine Jackson
Chart Position: #19, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 the week of January 5.

How do you define a single? That dilemma has long frustrated people who track the popularity of music. Over the years Billboard magazine has used a variety of definitions for how to classify individual songs on its different charts. In the current, streaming age, for example, just about every track can be considered a single the moment an album is released. In the past, the definition was much more stringent when separating singles from album tracks.

This Jermaine Jackson song opens a door for us to look at how singles were categorized in the 1980s.

There’s nothing all that special about “Do What You Do.” It was the second biggest pop single of Jermaine’s solo career, and spent three weeks atop the Adult Contemporary chart. I guess that made it special to him.

What is more interesting is this track’s B-side, “Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’ (Too Good to Be True),” a duet with brother Michael. When Casey mentioned that was the B-side for “Do What You Do” on a January 1985 countdown, I was confused: I remembered hearing it a lot on the radio in the summer of 1984.

My mind was not playing tricks on me. “Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’ (Too Good to Be True)” was indeed a pretty big radio hit in June 1984. But thanks to a conflict between the brothers’ record companies and Billboard rules, it never registered on the country’s biggest pop chart.

Michael was signed to Epic Records, Jermaine to Arista. While Michael was cleared to record the track for his brother’s album, the labels were unable to reach an agreement on how to share credit for it as a single pressing. So Epic blocked it. I would imagine this pissed off a lot of people at Arista, who were likely thrilled at the prospect of poaching a little of Michael’s magic. However, radio DJ’s across the country still inserted the track into playlists, knowing their listeners were clamoring for new MJ material. They played the hell out of it, in fact.

At the time, Billboard did not include songs on the Hot 100 that had not been released as official singles. When an album track or B-side began getting heavy airplay, labels had to scramble to press it as a single if they wanted to get Hot 100 recognition.[1]

There were still ways to track “TMIND(TGTBT)”’s popularity. Radio and Records magazine published its own singles chart that was based exclusively on radio airplay. On that chart, the Jackson brothers hit #6 in June 1984. And Billboard had a Hot Dance Club Play chart that tracked, well, what dance clubs were playing. Only in the hot dance clubs, obviously. “TMIND(TGTBT)” was #1 there for three weeks.

Despite that commercial success, if you pull up old Billboard Hot 100 charts or listen to old AT40’s, it’s as if it never existed. Crazy.

I’m not a big fan of “Do What You Do.” It’s a sleepy, saccharine, soulless, and totally generic mid–80s ballad. It’s made worse by Jermaine’s vocals, which sound mailed-in. I wonder if he was going for something along the lines of Michael’s “She’s Out of My Life.” The problem is that as sappy as that song was, Michael’s emotion was completely genuine, ending with him breaking down as he sang the closing lines. I don’t sense any real heartbreak in Jermaine’s delivery. I think it would have sounded better if someone like Peabo Bryson or Freddie Jackson had sang it. 3/10

As for the B-side, I know I dug it when I was a kid, and I enjoyed listening to it a few times this week. It definitely leans way into the sound Quincy Jones and Michael created for Thriller. Replacement-level Thriller, to be fair, but the sound is still there. Even today, hearing those pseudo-Thriller vibes gets me pumped. That’s probably just memories of being excited to hear new Michael Jackson music a few months after the final Thriller single fell off the charts. It doesn’t hurt that the best part of the song is when Michael sings. He just has so much more personality and urgency in his voice than Jermaine does. I also hear a little New Wave influence; something about the synthesizers reminds me of The Fixx. 7/10

Chart Week: January 12, 1985
Song: “The Boys of Summer” – Don Henley
Chart Position: #16, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #5 the week of February 9.

You might wonder why I spend a few hours each week listening to re-broadcasts of a 40-ish year-old radio show that features songs I can listen to literally whenever I want. The biggest reason is for the times I hear a piece of music trivia that had eluded me all of these years. For example, this story behind Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.”

Until last week, I did not know that Mike Campbell, certified genius guitar player and Tom Petty’s sidekick in The Heartbreakers, wrote “The Boys of Summer.”

Campbell was messing around with a LinnDrum machine in 1983 when he came upon a rhythm he liked. He added synthesizers and guitar and quickly recorded a demo that he presented to Petty and producer Jimmy Iovine. Petty was underwhelmed, thinking it didn’t fit the sound he wanted for his next album. Iovine said it sounded like jazz, which seems like a savage diss to me. Still, the producer suggested Campbell reach out to another client, Don Henley, who was working on his second solo album.

Campbell tweaked the chorus, called Henley, and played the demo for him. The next day the former Eagle called back with lyrics he wrote while driving around. Henley’s most famous line, about seeing a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, was based on a real moment. He had seen a Cadillac Seville, which he viewed as the “status symbol of the right-wing, upper-middle-class, American bourgeoisie,” with a Grateful Dead sticker slapped on its bumper. He viewed that as a symbol of how his generation had sold out. (Henley has always held strong opinions on pretty much everything.)

Originally they planned on Henley singing over Campbell’s demo. However, after adding overdubs and mixing the song, they realized Henley’s voice would sound better in a slightly different key. Which meant Campbell would have to scrap his demo and re-record the entire song. Although that was a pain, it was a wise choice. As he laid down the new version, he improvised a simple solo over the song’s outro. That solo isn’t complex or showy in any way, but it is the perfect final statement.

A few months later, as “The Boys of Summer” turned into a hit, Campbell and Petty were in the studio working on the Southern Accents album. They had just wrapped up recording “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” and took a cassette of the session out to a car to listen to it. When Campbell flipped the radio on, “The Boys of Summer” was playing.

Petty chuckled and said, “You know, you were really lucky with that one. I wish I would have had the presence of mind not to let it get away.”

That seems a little too cutesy for me, but it’s a story Campbell has told many times. I’m sure Petty thought it was a great song. But I’m also confident that he stuck with his initial impression: it didn’t sound like a Heartbreakers track to him.

As for my rating, it is hard to ignore nearly 40 years of history with this song. The moment it comes on, when I hear Campbell’s first guitar notes and that opening synth line, I instantly think about the past. There is a wistful, universal feel to the song. We are all always looking back in one way or another. Campbell and Henley perfectly captured that urge. The hazy synths mimic the haziness of our memories. There are little touches, both musically and lyrically, that speak to how memories pop up and grab us when we least expect them. And I’ve always loved the urgency in Henley’s voice.

Although a thoroughly middle-of-the-road song, it sounds a lot less dated than the other Dad Rock that rose in the late ‘80s. We might not have The War on Drugs if not for this song, and the album it came from, Building the Perfect Beast.

It won a Grammy for Best Male Vocal Performance and was selected as the Video of the Year at the 1985 MTV VMA’s. Those were legit wins. This is a classic.

D’s Grade: 9/10

One spot above “The Boys of Summer” was Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” You would be correct if I you guessed that I skip it any time I hear a January 1985 countdown. I suppose that’s one way the current charts are better than the old ones: rather than linger for a few weeks after the holidays, the classic Christmas songs that now crack the Top 10 each December disappear with our trees and decorations.

Good news for my readers who enjoy these posts: After my normal, end-of-the-year lull, I suddenly have a bunch of these stacked up for the next month or so.