Tag: RFTS (Page 10 of 12)

Chart Week: February 12, 1983
Song: “Down Under” – Men at Work
Chart Position: #1, 15th week on the chart. Spent four non-consecutive weeks at #1 in January and February.

If you’ve paid very close attention to my music posts over the years, you may recall that I kicked around a project in which I would find the best single weekly top 10 of the 1980s. A couple summers back I spent a few nights scrolling through top 10s and marking down my favorites as I watched Royals games. I still have that list but have never gotten around to diving into it.

This week would likely be on that list. It’s a monster, with some very 1980s outliers that bring it down.

At #10 was Phil Collins’ cover of “You Can’t Hurry Love,” which I have always loved, even when I grew to really dislike much of his music.

Number 9 was “Stray Cat Strut,” by The Stray Cats. A song I liked a lot back in the day, would be fine skipping over today, but can still acknowledge its place in 80s music history.

Number 8, “Rock the Casbah.” The peak of The Only Band That Matters’ biggest US hit.

Number 7, the first outlier: “You And I” by Eddie Rabbit and Crystal Gayle. Blech.

Number 6, “Maneater” by Hall and Oates. One of their biggest and best songs and a former #1.

At #5, Toto’s “Africa,” which slipped after spending one week at #1. Still a great song, even if you’re sick of Weezer’s version.

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band’s “Shame on the Moon” was at #4. Not his best, nor one I’m thrilled to hear.

Number 3, Marvin Gaye’s last hit, the legendary “Sexual Healing.”

At #2 was, RIP, James Ingram and Patti Austin’s lovely “Baby, Come To Me.” In a decade full of cheesy, duet ballads, this was one of the few truly great ones. It reached #1 a week later.

And then at #1 this week was “Down Under,” which spent three weeks at #1 the previous month, dropped behind “Africa” for a week, then reclaimed the top spot for one more week. Men at Work, and this song, seemed kitschy and silly at the time. But this song became one of the iconic songs of the decade.

So that’s a pretty good top 10, right? But it has me thinking I need to dive back into that list I made two summers ago. Because I know there are weeks better than this. In fact, many of those weeks came later in 1983, when Michael Jackson took over the charts.

One more thing…this is one of those shows I remember hearing back in 1983. How do I remember this one? Well, before playing “Down Under,” Casey shared a story of how their manager got CBS Australia to sign them. He put signs all over the CBS offices that said “Men At Work.” Fake constructions signs. Signs in hallways. He would glue phone receivers to their bases and slap a “Men at Work” sticker on them. That’s one of those details I’ve never forgotten, and I vividly remember sitting at our kitchen table on a (likely) cold early afternoon back in ’83 and hearing that anecdote for the first time.

I’m on nephew duty the next couple days so I’ll go ahead and post this late on a Sunday to kick off the week.

Chart Week: January 28, 1984 Song: “Let the Music Play” – Shannon Chart Position: #18, 12th week on the chart. Peaked at #8 the week of February 25. Reached #1 on the US Dance Club Songs chart.

It’s been over a month without a Reaching for the Stars entry. What better way to end that slump than by beginning 2019 the way we ended 2018: with the greatest pop music year of all time, 1984.

There were two songs that were hits in late 1983 and early 1984 that redefined dance music for the next decade or more. One of them is an classic that everyone remembers: Madonna’s “Holiday,” which was #16 on this week’s countdown. The other, I think, is less well-recalled by the average person. It doesn’t get played very often on 80s weekends or stations. And I’ll bet other than music geeks like me, it would require a lot of prodding and hints to get the average listener to remember it on their own.

That stone cold jam was Shannon’s “Let the Music Play.”

“LTMP” sounded like nothing else that was being made in the early ‘80s. It wasn’t an updated version of the ‘70s disco sound. It wasn’t some European sounding offshoot of New Wave or New Romantic music. No, it was this heavy yet sparkling sound that was utterly undeniable. Seriously, unless your soul is a cold lump of charcoal, you can’t help but shake your ass the moment the beat from this song hits your brain. It was urban and Latin, straight and gay, black and white, pop and soul all at once.

Seriously, this one of the greatest dance songs of all time. Its rhythms and studio techniques launched at least two new genres of music: freestyle and acid house. First and second wave hip hop largely adopted its percussion and production values as well. Yet, again, “Holiday” is the better remembered song. Don’t get me wrong; “Holiday” is a jam, too. But, god damn, “Let the Music Play” is a big, massive motherfucker of a song that has been holding dance, hip hop, and pop music up for 35 years now.

My easiest explanation for why it is forgotten is that is a classic one-hit wonder. Shannon had a long, successful, influential career, with five songs that hit the top three on the dance chart, three of which hit #1. For much of the mid–80s she was dance music in the US. But this was her only single that charted on the Billboard Top 40. Meanwhile Madonna took the momentum from “Holiday” and became one of the biggest artists in the history of music.

That’s ok. I haven’t forgotten Shannon. She will always get love from me and others who keep her biggest song close to our hearts. *** From doing some research on Shannon and this track, I learned that she doesn’t actually sing the words that give the song its title. Session vocalist and guitarist Jimi Tunnell sings that line and Shannon sings the response. That kind of blew my mind. *** A spot ahead of Shannon that week was Jump ’N’ The Saddle’s “The Curly Shuffle.” I’m pretty sure that song made me laugh when I was 12 but my 47-year-old ears find it pretty rough. *** Finally, at #15 that week was Hall & Oates’ “Say It Isn’t So,” arguably the best song of their career. In this week’s countdown Casey shared the story of where the phrase that lent the song its title came from: the apocryphal story of a young boy who asks Shoeless Joe Jackson to “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” after he was indicted in the the Black Sox scandal. I share this because I remember listening to Casey tell this story originally back in January 1984. And you know how I love when I can connect listening to a replay in the 21st Century with listening to the original show. If it was January 1984, I was probably sitting in my bean bag chair in our basement, playing Q*Bert or Pole Position on my Atari 2600 while listening to AT40 on my Panasonic boom box.

No, you’re weird…

Chart Week: December 22, 1984
Song: “The Belle of St. Mark” – Sheila E.
Chart Position: #34, 9th week on the chart. Peaked at #34 for three weeks over December and January.

One last 1984 countdown to close out the year. And, holy crap, what a countdown it was! The summer of ’84 gets all the glory, but this week was pretty spectacular, too. “Like A Virgin,” “Out of Touch,” “Cool It Now,” “We Belong,” and “I Feel For You” in the Top 10. “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Run to You,” “Born in the USA,” “Easy Lover,” “The Boys of Summer,” “Careless Whisper,” and “I Would Die 4 U” were all also in the Top 40. “Careless Whisper,” at #37, led a stellar group of debuts that also included “Sugar Walls,” “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” and “Smalltown Boy.”

God damn!

With all those monster songs, why do I pick this one?

A, because I’ve always loved it.
B, because anytime I hear it, I think of Christmas Break of that year.
C, it demonstrates how deep music was that year.

This is a great, great song. And I bet to a lot of folks it has been totally forgotten.

My memories of so many songs on this list go back to point B. I can distinctly remember listening to several of these songs at various points during my two-week break from school that year. I remember hearing “The Belle of St. Mark” on that stretch of I–435 just west of the Grandview Triangle, where there are those two big hills with the valley between them, while we were on our way to a family dinner at some Chinese place.

I know, I’m weird.

Christmas 1984 was a huge point in my life. There was a lot going on then, much of which I didn’t realize the significance of until I was older. It was also the last real Kid Christmas I had, before the gifts under the tree all transitioned to the practical and mature.

Several times I’ve tried to write something about the final weeks of 1984 and what they meant to my childhood. I’ve never been as successful as I’ve wanted to be. And I’ve never been sure if they are best shared through a blog post, or if they are a jumping off point for some kind of longer work. I hope someday I can find the correct path and method of getting them out of my head and onto some kind of text document.

For now, Sheila E. singing Prince’s words over his music – her percussion excepted, of course – will have to do.

Chart Week: November 15, 1986
Song: “Human” – The Human League
Chart Position: #2, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 the week of November 22.

I only got to listen to a few minutes of the local countdown two Sundays ago. I felt obligated, though, to write about it as that was the last old AT40 we will get here in Indy this year. The station that airs AT40 replays switched to Christmas music on Thanksgiving, and will be airing the special holiday editions of AT40 for the next month. Sure, I’ll still have the SiriusXM countdowns. But they are not the same as listening to Casey and the original countdowns.

For years I’ve said this was one of the most important songs of the 1980s. Not because it was the best or biggest song of the decade. Rather because of who recorded it, the production team that helped them record it, the sound of the track, and the moment it arrived.

The Human League was one of the biggest artists of the British New Wave invasion of the early 80s, primarily on the strength of “Don’t You Want Me.” That 1981/82 smash is one of the biggest singles in British music history. It was a massive hit world-wide, hitting #1 in seven countries and peaking in the top five in seven other countries. In the US it was inescapable in the summer of ’82.

When the mid–80s rolled around, Human League was looking to adjust their sound. They hooked up with the Minneapolis production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who were fresh off their first big chart success with Janet Jackson’s Control. Jam and Lewis kept some elements of HL’s classic synth-pop sound, but relied far more on the sleek, processed Minneapolis Sound R&B that they would soon dominate the charts with.

The result was another monster hit for The Human League and confirmation that Jam and Lewis were A) more than a flash in the pan and B) could work with more than Black artists. This song was the transition point for music, not only in the 80s, but beyond as well. It was a white, British act singing modern, American R&B. In a few years the Billboard pop charts would be dominated by Jam and Lewis’ music, as well as by other artists and producers they influenced. That was the gateway for hip hop taking over the charts later in the 90s.

Today the charts are almost entirely made up of hip hop and hip hop adjacent tracks. All of that goes back to the fall of 1986, when The Human League shut the door on the movement that had brought them to prominence.

Chart Week: November 3, 1984
Song: “Penny Lover” – Lionel Richie
Chart Position: #18, 5th week on the chart. Peaked at #8 for two weeks in December.

Usually these entries are about great songs, forgotten songs, or just songs that have some kind of special meaning to me. This week is a little different: this song was selected purely for interesting trivia reasons.

I’ve always considered very late 1982 through mid–1985 the peak of 1980s music. New Wave was at its height. Pop was insanely strong. The hair metal that would dominate the back half of the decade was ascending. There were a handful of strong r&b artists that were hitting the charts consistently. It was also the period that contained the biggest albums of the decade: Thriller, Purple Rain, Born in the USA, and Like a Virgin to name a few that probably come to mind quickest to most people.

Even for a music trivia fiend like myself, if you asked me to expand that list, I bet it would take me awhile to get to Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down. Once I got there I would probably smack my forehead at listing it so low; it was massive at the time, spinning off five singles, each of which hit the top ten, and two #1 songs. It, not Purple Rain or Born in the USA won the grammy for best album. In time it sold over 10 million copies and is the 18th best-selling album of the decade.

Why isn’t it remembered as well as those other albums from that time? Likely because Lionel’s music leaned more to adult contemporary than any of the other albums of that era, and thus hasn’t aged as well. And while “All Night Long” still gets played a lot, you really don’t hear the other songs from the album played in high rotation on 80s stations, where you’re likely to hear a handful of songs from Springsteen, Jackson, or Prince’s biggest albums.

There were two tremendous pieces of trivia surrounding Can’t Slow Down this week in 1984. With “Penny Lover,” the album became the first ever to have a single on the charts continuously for over 52 weeks. From when “All Night Long” cracked the Top 40 in October 1983 until “Penny Lover” fell off the chart in January 1985, there was no week without at least one Lionel Richie song in the countdown. I guessed Thriller when Casey Kasem teased this going into a commercial break.

Outrageous, as Lionel would say.

Another piece of trivia: “Stuck on You” became the first song to ever hit all four major charts: it hit #3 on the Hot 100, #1 on the adult contemporary chart, #8 on the black singles chart, and even peaked at #24 on the country chart.

Chart Week: October 13, 1984
Song: “Strut” – Sheena Easton
Chart Position: #31, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 the week of November 24.

To me, at least, it seems like Sheena Easton’s career was longer than it actually was. She exploded onto the scene in 1981 with the world-wide smash “9 to 5 (Morning Train),” which went to #1 in four countries and was top 10 in four others. She followed that up later in ’81 with the theme song from For Your Eyes Only which hit #1 in three nations and was top ten in nine more. She hit the US top 10 again in 1983, singing with Kenny Rogers on “We’ve Got Tonight.” And there were a handful of minor hits that have been largely forgotten over the years.

In this initial stage of her career, she struck the image of a sweet, wholesome girl from Scotland. Whether it was a concerted effort to push her songs higher up the charts, or just maturity and confidence, in the mid–80s she made a dramatic change in her image. She showed more skin. Her videos were sexy. And she recorded one of the most notorious songs of the decade with Prince.

But “Strut” is the song I remember most fondly from that second phase of her career. It is big, bold, brassy, sassy, and a ton of fun. Where “Sugar Walls” was pornographic, “Strut” is simply about self belief. If 1981 Easton was the ingenue, bright-eyed and reserved, 1984 Easton was a grown-ass woman who was totally in charge of her life.

It’s a pretty good song, but if it came in any other year I would likely have pushed it aside in my memory banks for other songs. Coming in the greatest year in pop music history, though, means it will always have a little boost above other random 80s songs.

Ironically the week I heard this countdown I came across an old Miami Vice episode on local TV. Which got me digging through the list of MV episodes. I had forgotten that Easton had a brief guest run on the show as a pop star that Sonny Crockett was assigned to protect. As these things go, they fell in love, married, and she was eventually murdered by a rival of Crockett.

I couldn’t recall if Easton and Don Johnson had a relationship outside of the show. A quick check suggests they did not; her time on the show coincided with Johnson’s relationship with Barbra Streisand and Easton may have still been involved with Prince at the time. I did find that Easton has been married four times, never longer than 18 months. I find that random and wacky.

Chart Week: October 7, 1978
Song: “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” – Kenny Loggins (with Stevie Nicks)
Chart Position: #10, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for two weeks in November.

Controversy! A countdown from the 1970s?!?!?! SiriusXM rebroadcasts original ‘70s AT40 countdowns on its 70s on 7 channel. Unlike their updated version of 1980s countdowns on 80s on 8, which are aired several times from Friday until Tuesday of each week, the 1970s AT40s were normally aired just once on Saturdays, which made it tough to catch them. Recently they began playing them a second time on Sunday mornings. Which is kind of my magic time if I’m in the car. I can listen to the two countdowns airing on Sirius plus the original 1980s AT40. Let me tell you, my family loves it when they’re stuck with me and I’m bouncing between three countdowns at once!¹¹

Anyway, I caught this song a couple weeks ago. And I wondered, why is it not remembered more fondly, replayed more often, and a bigger part of our culture? It’s a freaking brilliant pop song, built on a near-disco bass line, that was perfectly crafted for singing with friends out of key and at the top of your lungs. When Kenny shouts out “Day by day, we can see…” buildings shake and begin to crumble, evil takes a pause and gets weak in the knees, and all that is good in the world pulses just a little bit stronger.

My only guess is that the song may have lent itself to interpretations that weren’t exactly family-friendly. “I know forever we’ll be doing it,” could be awkward to sing along with the kids in the family truckster. And, as I read the lyrics, it’s basically about enjoying the afterglow of good sex.

“Mom, what does it mean when love glows on you every night?”

Might the title lend itself to a naughtier interpretation? Specifically, why is the word friends in quotes? This was the late 70s; was seeing someone and calling them “friend” a signal that it was time to kick on the hot tub, lay out the bearskin rugs, and get down to make some little sweet love?

Still, why isn’t this a bachelorette party, karaoke staple? We should be sick of drunk 20-somethings belting this out with their friends at bars. Perhaps I should be thankful it never got that kind of attention, and I can still appreciate its greatness.

A couple song notes: Loggins wrote this with Melissa Manchester, but sang it with Stevie. Both Loggins and Manchester have said they’d like to record a version together, but in 40+ years have never gotten around to it. Manchester did record a version with Arnold McCuller in 1979, but never released it as a single.

Although Nicks is credited on the album as singing with Loggins, her name was left off of the single, which made this Loggins’ first true solo hit. In fact, if you throw out all the movie soundtrack songs he became most famous for in the 1980s, this was the biggest solo hit of his career.[1] He would never again crack the top 10 without benefit of a song being attached to a soundtrack.

Finally, Loggins’ Nightwatch album also featured a song he wrote with Michael McDonald, “What a Fool Believes.” I did not know that wasn’t a Doobies original.
I listened to Loggins’ version and, as you might expect, it’s not nearly as good as the Doobies’ classic.

Hmmm, the video does not want to embed, so please just follow this link.

Chart Week: September 27, 1986
Song: “Heartbeat” – Don Johnson
Chart Position: #14, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for two weeks in October.

The history of pop music is riddled with vanity projects by actors, comedians, athletes, and others in the public eye who decided to leverage their fame in other mediums in an attempt to get a hit record. The 1980s in general, and 1986 in particular, were thick with these songs. Early ’86 brought us Eddie Murphy’s album. Bruce Willis recorded his The Return of Bruno album in ’86, although it was not released until early 1987. Eddie’s music was ok; he could clearly carry a tune but, as I recall, there was nothing special about his voice or his songs. He came across as being careful, offering fairly generic music that could get airplay on both white and black stations. There was always a sense that if Eddie really wanted to throw down, he could have done something so much better than this.

Willis’ album was also rather generic. His sound was exactly what you would expect: that of a guy who, after a couple drinks grabs the mic and leads a band and gets away with it because he has the most charisma in the room and his voice isn’t great but it’s not terrible either so, hey, let the guy sing a couple songs…

Smack in the middle, in the late summer of ’86, came Don Johnson’s Heartbeat album, fronted by this title track. I’ll hear this song once or twice a year and always laugh. I laugh at 15-year-old me, because, as I was into all things Don Johnson at the time, I loved this track. I laugh at America, because we bought this shit up, pushing the record to #5 and snatching up half a million copies of the album. I laugh at the lyrics, which are pretty terrible:

I don´t care what you say
You can give it away
Your money don´t mean much to me
I´ve been out on my own
Going to go it alone now
Cause that´s the way it´s got to be

I laugh at the track’s production, which has every element of bad, mid–80s pop rock in it.

And I laugh most at Johnson’s vocal efforts, especially on the song’s verses, where it sounds like he came straight off the Miami Vice set and started reciting lyrics as he would lines on the show. And now, after doing some research, I laugh at what Johnson said about the album upon its release.

“I didn’t want it to sound like something that other people designed and I just stopped by for a few minutes to do the vocals. And I made it clear to Walter that I would walk away from it if I didn’t think it was credible. I was prepared every step of the way to throw it away and walk away."

That’s some beautiful, first-class bullshit there.

But here’s the thing…his vocals on the chorus are pretty solid. I mean, there’s not much to work with lyrically. But he throws himself into those words and shouts them out much better than you would expect him to. He’s no Springsteen, Bryan Adams, or Kenny Loggins for sure. It’s not totally terrible, though. Which, I suppose, makes the song a success.

The song’s video was perfect for the era, too. Just look at Don prowling around the stage in his silk shirt! That’s Dweezil Goddamn Zappa playing some kick-ass, cheeseball guitar! The headless bass is beautiful. And if you have an actor singing, you have to throw in some segments from a “mini-film” that don’t really make sense but make grandma and grandpa say, “Oh, yes, I remember this young man. He’s on that Miami Vice program. Isn’t he married to that actress, Melanie something-or-other?”

Oh, and holy shit!: Don Johnson was not the first to record this song. Helen Fucking Reddy first recorded it in 1983. That’s right, Don Johnson decided to cover the lady who sang “I Am Woman,” “Delta Dawn,” and “Angie Baby,” all of which went to #1 in the early 70s. I’m not sure how that all came about but it’s more than a little insane.

Chart Week: September 7, 1985
Songs: “We Don’t Need Another Hero” – Tina Turner
“Power of Love” – Huey Lewis & The News
“St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” – John Pass
Chart Positions: Numbers three through one.

This edition is a little meta. It’s not about the songs I’ve selected, or even the original countdown. Rather, it’s a celebration of my love of all things countdown and ‘80s music trivia related. I’ve been waiting for this one for awhile!

This week, I ask you not to jump into your time machines and set a course for 1985, but rather 2002. Turns out this countdown was the first legacy American Top 40 I ever heard.

Labor Day weekend of 2002 S and I along with three other couples headed up to Ames, IA to watch a college football game and have a little fun. Much fun was indeed had.

On our drive back to Kansas City on Sunday morning, S was suffering a little. As we approached Des Moines, she demanded that I find a place that had Diet Coke and greasy breakfast food as quick as possible. Which, in 2002, was kind of easier said than done, as we didn’t have smartphones with updated maps that could show us quickly where the nearest Shoney’s or Bob Evans was.

Anyway, we procured some caffeine, eggs, potatoes, and cheese and continued our journey. I decided to slide through the FM dial to see what interesting music I could find. Suddenly I heard Casey Kasem’s voice, in prime, mid–80s form. What was this, some bizarre portal back to the radio of my youth? Or just a station in the middle of Iowa playing 17-year-old radio shows? I got very excited.

Leading into the commercial break before the final four songs of the week, Casey offered a teaser that the top three songs all came from movie soundtracks. Here was the challenge I needed to keep me energized on the road! I quickly thought back to the summer of 1985 and what movies were out then. Back to the Future was the first to come to mind. Hmm, what else was out then that had big songs? I was pretty sure St. Elmo’s Fire had been released by then, but wasn’t 100% sure it had been out long enough for a song from its soundtrack to reach the top three.

At this point, S noticed I was being very quiet and had an intense look on my face while I drove.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I paused a moment or two, then laughed and said, “I got it! Back to the Future, St. Elmo’s Fire, and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you hear? The top three songs on this countdown are all from movie soundtracks! Those are the three movies and the songs are “Power of Love,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero!” I was giddy, grinning and bouncing in my seat, eager for the commercial break to end so I could see if I was right or wrong.

S stared at me for several moments. We had been engaged for a little over four months. If you asked her today, and she was being honest, I bet should would admit that she was reconsidering spending the rest of her life with me at that moment.

When AT40 returned, Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway of Love” checked in at number four. Tension was high, at least with me. I think S was snoozing again in her seat. Sure enough, Tina Turner, Huey Lewis & The News, and John Parr rounded out the top of the countdown. I pumped my fist and looked at S, who rolled her eyes, adjusted in her seat, and tried to go back to sleep.

Brilliance is so often unappreciated.

Again, this was 2002. Had it been a decade later, I likely would have texted my fellow brothers and sisters in music to let them know of my discovery and memory, as I knew they would give this moment the reverence it deserved.

Over the next few years I’d hear an old AT40 here and there, usually while traveling. In the mid–00s a station here in Indy began carrying them briefly. The shows disappeared for a few years before I found them again right around the time L was born, on the station that continues to play them to this day. I’ve spent countless lazy Sunday mornings walking around the house with a tiny radio tuned to 105.7 so I can follow as Casey counts them down.

And S still rolls her eyes at me.

Also worth noting, this was a big week at the bottom of the charts. The following songs debuted on the Hot 100: “Part-Time Lover,” Stevie Wonder; “Miami Vice Theme,” Jan Hammer; and “We Built This City,” Starship. All three songs hit #1 later in the year. Two of them are really shitty. The best new song of the week, though, was Scritti Politti’s “Perfect Way.” Sadly it only peaked at #11.

Oh, and you will hear more about this week’s countdown on Friday…

Chart Week: August 18, 1984
Song: “We’re Not Gonna Take It” – Twisted Sister
Chart Position: #39, 4th week on the chart. Peaked at #21 for two weeks in September.

In between contractor visits last week, which have caused a move of my computer gear onto the dining room table temporarily, I was trying to hack together a post about a chart from 1981. But I couldn’t quite find the right song or angle. Luckily this weekend’s SiriusXM countdown was from 1984, which is a sure way to beating my AT40 writer’s block!

This song…man, what a song! From that glorious summer of ’84 was this big, bad beast of a tune, driven by that classic opening drum line. Its chart run juiced no doubt by one of the greatest videos of all time. Remember when videos were fun like this? One that after watching for the first time, you couldn’t wait to tell all your friends about it, and then to see it again? It might not have been high art, but to 13-year-old me, it rivaled any painting by one of the masters.

One of my favorite memories of this song is one of my mom’s friends trying to remember the name of the band. She didn’t know the song, the video, but had heard the name somewhere. She spat it out at one gathering or another, “Then there’s that horrid band, Dirty Mother, or whatever they are called.”

I rolled in fits of laughter after that one. I corrected her, but I’m not sure I improved her image of me in the process.

Also worth noting how fickle the video age was. This song fought its way to #21 in late September, then fell exactly that many spots and clean out of the countdown in one week. But to a generation of once-dumbass boys, it is legendary.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?”
“I wanna rock!”