Tag: RFTS (Page 10 of 12)

Our Internet was out almost all day yesterday, so my web time was greatly reduced. Fortunately I had some notes pulled together for this post, which I was able to hammer out between other activities.

Chart Week: April 26, 1986
Song: “West End Girls” – Pet Shop Boys
Chart Position: #3, 7th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 the week of May 10.

What is 80s music? Sounds and fads ebb and flow over a ten year period. They didn’t magically start fresh on January 1, 1980, continue unabated for ten years, and then come to a screeching halt on December 31, 1989 clearing the way for the ‘90s. Quintessentially 1980s music covers a wide range of genres. Do you put Blondie and Soft Cell and Michael Jackson and Van Halen and Lionel Richie and Guns ’n Roses all in the same bucket? Maybe in terms of airplay – at the time – but what made ‘80s music so great was how big the tent was and how many sounds it pulled in.

While I think the greatest stretch of music in the ‘80s came from mid–1983 through mid–1985, I would expand that a little to say when I think of ’80s music I most think of what arrived between early 1982 and the summer of 1986.

So this week’s countdown was one of the last, great runs before music and my tastes began to change. The top 20 was filled with songs that I would label as absolute classics. Level 42’s “Something About You” at 20; OMD’s “If You Leave” at 18; the magnificent “Tender Love” by Force MD’s at 17; INXS’s monster “What You Need” at 11; Janet Jackson’s first big hit, “What Have You Done For Me Lately” at 8; The Bangles singing the Prince-penned “Manic Monday” at 4; Robert Palmer with “Addicted to Love” at 2; [1] and Prince’s “Kiss” at #1.

A bunch of legendary songs. It sure seems like more than three of these should have hit #1 but I guess they were keeping each other out of the top spot.

“West End Girls” has always stood out to me. I’m still not completely sure what it is about. Is it ripping on girls from the West End of London? Ripping on men who chase those women? Celebrating one or the other? Does it have something to do with class tensions in the UK in the Thatcher era? Or is it a more subtle take on the themes Bronski Beat explored in “Smalltown Boy,” about the perils of being openly gay in Britain in the ‘80s?

I could probably make compelling arguments for any of those, and it speaks to the song’s genius that a pop track is open to so many interpretations.

But what the song has always been about for me is sound and mood. It all comes from that intro, 40 seconds of pure genius. The slow fade up, the noises that could be the trains of the Underground, a street sweeper, or the surf on the shore. The sweeping synths that are simultaneously lush and stark. The icy taps on the high hat. Then the single beat before an unforgettable bass line comes in to snap the song into place.

BOM-BOM-BOM Budum-budum.

The rest of the song is great, but you could put those first 40 seconds on a loop and I would listen to it forever.

My love of this song is partially because of how I was listening to music at this point in my life. I went through a phase that spring when, at night when I could pull it in, I listened to Chicago’s WLS, 890 AM a lot.[2] When I was younger that was the station my parents switched over to at night to hear newer music than what our local stations offered. And it was our soundtrack when we took overnight trips across Kansas out to my grandparents’ homes. I guess I was feeling nostalgic that spring and wanted to hear the same songs that Q–104 and ZZ–99 in Kansas City were playing in a slightly different order and with a far worse signal.

There was something about hearing “West End Girls” in mono with static crashes that added to its mood. Maybe it was the line, “From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station,” that made it seem proper to hear the song via a more distant signal. Neil Tennant’s lines sounded like a strange transmission from across the globe that I happened to stumble across in my search through the wavelengths.

Chart Week: April 20, 1985
Song: “We Are the World” – USA for Africa
Chart Position: #1, 5th week on the chart. Spent four weeks at #1.

Ah, the 1980s celebrity/cause single. It seems like there were tons of these but a check of Wikipedia shows there really weren’t that many original songs written for this or that benefit. I guess it’s because so many came in a pretty tight window that they seemed so prevalent.

Let’s get this out of the way quick: “We Are the World” is a bad song. It is trite, patronizing, and kind of boring. To be fair that is the case with many of these songs. They were written, recorded, and produced very quickly. They were designed to cram a bunch of recognizable performers into them rather than for those artists’ particular talents. They are generally repetitive and simplistic. And even if we greeted the songs warmly at first listen, man did they have a way of getting on your nerves quickly.

The two obvious “Yeah Buts” to all of that are “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and “Sun City.” The first is set apart because it has become a Christmas classic, troublesome lyrics or not, and because it sounds like what British pop music sounded like at the time. I think if it wasn’t a Christmas song it too would have faded into obscurity, but I bet we would regard it better than “We Are the World” because of its sound. Regardless, it’s the biggest charity single ever because it’s been played four weeks a year for nearly 35 years now.

“Sun City,” on the other hand, is a pretty good song that happens to be a charity song. Little Stephen saw where music was going and understood that his message would be both better received and get wider coverage if he pulled in hip hop artists. Back in my iTunes days I had the song in my library and would listen to it a couple times a year.

“We Are the World” does fit its time well. It’s a big, glitzy, Hollywood production of a song, which perfectly sums up the US recording industry in 1985. What bugs me the most about it now is how it has no sound. Or, rather, it sounds like a bad Lionel Richie song. Since Lionel co-wrote it with Michael Jackson, that makes sense. While Lionel’s solo music always had a sound, that sound wasn’t revolutionary, genre-defining, or really all that unforgettable. Using the worst of his agreeable blandness and turn into an epic, all star, repeating song was destined to make folks hate it.

But my point today wasn’t really to critique the song like that.[1] Nope, my intention is do something that has been done before but which I was inspired to do after hearing the song this New Year’s Eve night while listening to the Top 100 hits of 1985: critique each solo singer on “We Are the World.” There will be no comments about folks who just showed up and sang with the group. If you didn’t have a line of your own, you don’t make the cut. Sorry Sheila E., Lindsey Buckingham, and assorted Jackson siblings, among others. Each artist will be rated on a 1–5 scale, with five being highest. So here we go!

Lionel Richie, appropriately gets us started. He was a pro, and kicks off the song with a professional take. It is right in his pocket: clean, smooth and safe. Yet somehow also forgettable. Score: 3
Stevie Wonder: Man, you have to give Lionel some props for, despite being the song’s co-author, only taking a quick line and then handing over to Stevie Fucking Wonder. That shows a lot of humility. And this was just hours after he tried to make the word “Outrageous!” a thing while he hosted the American Music Awards. Anyway, Stevie’s lines are just a tease, because he’s coming back for more later. Score: Incomplete
Paul Simon: Here’s how crazy these songs were. Paul Simon is one of the greatest song writers in the history of American music. In 1985 his cultural relevance had faded a bit, although he would begin recording his final massive contribution to American records, Graceland, six months later. He gets nine words and drifts across them without making an impression. Grade: 2.5.
Simon passed to Kenny Rogers, who gets just eight words to himself. Kenny had some pipes, man. He was kind of the country Michael McDonald: a white dude with some serious soul in his voice, great hair, and a beard. Kenny also looks very happy to be here, unlike some other folks. Grade: 3.5.
James Ingram makes a very brief appearance but will be back, so his line gets an incomplete.
Next is Tina Turner, coming off the biggest year of her career, and one of the greatest stories in American pop music history. But her line does not match her voice. She needs to be able to stretch out a little bit, to get the growl going, and have a chance to make us feel it. None of that is here. But it’s not her fault. Grade: 2.
Tina passes to Billy Joel, who also gets a lame line. But his voice is much better suited to it. Grade: 3.

Quick Intermission: Man, am I grading too hard? All 2’s and 3’s? I wonder if it will get better as we get deeper into the song.

Michael Jackson comes in to sing the chorus for the first time, solo. I remember getting chills the first time I heard his line. 1985 me was all like, “Here we go!” But it’s another tease, as Mike passes to Diana Ross, who was still one of his mentors and great friends, before they close with a quick duet. Grade: 3.
Diana Ross is a bit of a cross of Tina Turner and Kenny Rogers. Her lines don’t let her really get into it, but like Kenny she still makes it work. Plus she does a little fist pump after she and Michael finish their lines together. Grade: 3.5.
Dionne Warwick is next. Dionne would go on to have a massive charity single of her own later in the year, “That’s What Friends Are For,” with Elton John and Stevie Wonder. That was a cover, though, so I put it in a completely different class of song. I wonder why she was on this song. This should have been a Pointer Sister. Grade: 2.
If Kenny Rogers was pop-country, Willie Nelson was the old school, real country representative. And he does just fine, doing Willie things. Grade: 3.
Al Jarreau. What the fuck? Did he take Prince’s place, since Prince famously refused to attend? Or did he just show up and Lionel, Michael, and Quincy were all like, “Oh, shit, Al is here! Where can we slide him in?” Grade: 1.
Fortunately, Bruce Springsteen was there to save us. He’s kind of the Bono of the song: the guy who really throws down and everyone has been making fun of ever since. Because Bruce was INTO IT, MAN. Grade: 4.
Onto Kenny Loggins. Why was he invited? Did they think it was a movie soundtrack or something? Grade: 2.

Quick Intermission #2: Ok, things have been pretty mediocre so far. Only Springsteen has garnered a four or above so far. Whether by intent or because the folks later in the song had to wait longer to record their lines, we are about to hit the song’s high point.

Steve Perry gets that stretch started. And he just fucking nails it. It’s like the final line of the last verse on a massive Journey power ballad. He’s singing so the kids in Peoria, Chattanooga, Spokane, and Buffalo can hear him. Grade: 5.
Poor Daryl Hall has to follow Steve up. Which is kind of fucked up. Daryl was a bigger star than Perry in 1985. He’s a bigger star now. And he does perfectly fine on his lines. But somehow they seem like a letdown. Grade: 4.
Michael comes back for a few more quick lines as you can feel the song climbing further. In retrospect they could have easily made this a Michael Jackson-fueled machine. But it was genius to show some restraint and just offer a little bit of The King of Pop. The Jacksons would kind of use the same strategy on their album later that year! Grade: 4.
When it comes to unlikely baton passes, Michael to Huey Lewis is right up there. But you know what? My man crushed it. Grade: 4.5.
We’re nearly three minutes into the song when Cindi Lauper gets her chance. And she says, “Fuck it, I’m making this bitch mine.” She takes the song, slaps it around, makes it confess to her, then makes sweet love to it, and turns her lines into the biggest and most memorable of the entire joint. Grade: 5+.
Kim Carnes was up next. She had one of the biggest hits of the 1980s with “Bette Davis Eyes.” But she is just a distraction because Cindi and Huey join her at the end of her section, with Cindi blowing her away with a “YEAH YEAH YEAHHHHH!” Was Cindi showboating? Maybe. But she was trying to feed some kids in Africa. Grade: 2.

We finally hit our first, big group chorus. The lines that are stuck in your head forever. Ugh.

I was never a Bob Dylan fan. But it’s kind of cool he showed up. He does Bob Dylan things here, which will be overrated by his legion of fans, and underrated by people that never dug him. Grade: 3.

Big chorus number two. Double ugh.

Here we hit the only part of the song that can be called genius . Mike, Li, and Q throw in just a touch of the African American gospel experience to give the song a little extra weight but without turning into a “Black” song. Because that might have offended some people.

Ray Charles gets the first run, and even though he was 98 years old, he knocks it out of the park. Just a tremendous performance. Grade: 5.

Finally, the song closes with two quick duets. First are Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen, singing back and forth to each other. Both show why they are Hall of Famers and music legends, arriving in full character and throwing themselves completely into their lines. It’s also fascinating to hear the Boss’ voice harken back to his younger days. I hear more “Hungry Heart” than anything off of Born in the USA here. Grades: 5 for both.
Ray comes back in to close things out with James Ingram. Ingram was a favorite of Quincy Jones, likely explaining why he got this plum assignment. He is more than capable of playing catch with Ray, singing his lungs out and giving us the “Ya Mo B There” double fist pump on each syllable. Ray will not let the young fella steal his thunder, though, and closes the song with a big “WHOOOOOO-HOOO! Good God!” Grades: 5’s.

Happy Easter everybody!

Chart Week: February 25, 1978
Song: “How Deep Is Your Love” – Bee Gees
Chart Position: #10, 23rd week on the chart. Peaked at #1 for three weeks in December 1977 and January 1978.

The most amazing chart stretch of my life was the Bee Gee’s run in the late ‘70s. They absolutely owned the charts thanks largely to the monster that was the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

The soundtrack, which sold over 45 millions copies and spent over six months at #1 on the album chart, featured seven #1 singles – although three of those topped the charts before the album was released.¹ The Gibb brothers wrote eight of the double album’s 18 tracks, and those were the most successful of the original songs on the soundtrack.

Disco may have died a fiery death soon after the peak of Bee Gee’s fever, but their success in 1978 was never repeated in the pre-streaming era.

This week’s chart was a perfect example of how hot the Gibbs were in that moment.

“How Deep Is Your Love” is just an amazing song. Seriously, put headphones on, crank it up, and disappear inside of it. The layered vocals on the chorus are absolutely brilliant.

This week was its 15th week in the top ten. Which, according to Casey, was a new record. It would spend one more week in the top 10 before finally dipping outside after a full four months there. Three of those ten weeks it topped the charts. It wasn’t until April, seven months after its release, that it finally slipped outside the Top 40.

Two spots higher at #8, the next SNF single, “Night Fever,” had jumped into the top ten in just it’s fourth week on the chart. It would spend 13 weeks in the top 10, eight at #1.

At #5 was the Gibb-penned song “Emotion” by Samantha Sang. It would spend 10 weeks in the top 10.

At #2 was little brother Andy Gibb with “(Love Is) Thicker Than Water.” Co-written by Barry Gibb, it would spend 11 weeks in the top 10, two in the top spot.

And at #1 four the fourth-straight week was the iconic “Stayin’ Alive.” It would also spend 11 weeks in the top ten.

Oh, and way down at #29 was Yvonne Elliman, six weeks into her chart run with “If I Can’t Have You,” which would also peak at #1 and last for 20 weeks in the top 40. Again, a song written and produced by the Gibb brothers.

It was just a ridiculous run. Sure, eventually the Bee Gees, Saturday Night Fever, and the entire disco movement became a joke. But there’s no denying what an immense accomplishment it was to dominate the charts the way they did in early 1978. And now that we’re well past 40 years since the disco era died, it’s safe for us to admit that most of these songs are pretty great, with or without the context of the pop culture moment they were a part of.

An aside too long for a footnote: “How Deep Is Your Love” also did America the great service of breaking the 10 week stranglehold on the #1 spot Debbie Boone had with “You Light Up My Life.” Man, people can shit on disco all they want, but it was better than that travesty of a song. I remember taking a car trip from southeast Missouri to Kansas City that fall,² a trip that back in the day of 55 MPH speed limits took about eight hours. I swear we heard “You Light Up My Life” 8000 times on that trip. The ‘70s, man…

Chart Week: March 1, 1986
Song: “Beat’s So Lonely” – Charlie Sexton
Chart Position: #26, 12th week on the chart. Peaked at #17 for three weeks in March/April.

One-hit-wonders come in all size, shapes, sounds, and types. Charlie Sexton may be one of the cruelest examples of a OHW.

Sexton was a bit of a musical prodigy, trained in his preteens by legendary bluesman W.C. Clark. Soon after he was performing with bands and recording his own music. When he was 16 he recorded his first album, Pictures for Pleasure, which earned attention for his combination of Texas blues and Bowie-esque New Wave. The video for “Beat’s So Lonely” got sucked into the MTV hype machine based on Sexton’s good looks. It wasn’t a massive hit but did spend nearly five months on the charts.

After that, Charlie never hit the Billboard Top 40 again. He recorded more music on his own. He opened for David Bowie in 1987. But eventually he transitioned away from the life of a solo artist. He wrote music for movies and even had cameos in a few films. He formed a band with Stevie Ray Vaughn’s old partners. And he has been a long-time member of Bob Dylan’s touring band.

Really not a bad career. I bet he’s had a pretty steady paycheck for his entire adult life. Yet, to much of the music masses, he’s either forgotten or mocked because he only had one radio hit in the MTV era.

I wonder which is worse: to do what Sexton did by scoring a hit immediately and then never reaching those heights again, or to be like, say, Michael Sembello, another man who was a musical prodigy (he joined Stevie Wonder’s studio band when he was just 17) but had to work for years before his only hit, Flashdance’s “Maniac”? That’s probably not a fair comparison since “Maniac” is an iconic song of its era that still gets plenty of airplay, while “Beat’s So Lonely” is only remembered by us music geeks who delight in the esoteric.

I guess the important thing is to have the hit.

By the way, this is one of those songs I think the Music Gods wanted me to write about. Last week’s local and SiriusXM countdowns were both from 1986, and I heard this song a total of four times between Saturday morning and Monday afternoon. It was already in my Spotify library so I hear it a few times a year, but to hear it that often in such a short time was odd.

One of those times L was in the car with me and heard Mark Goodman talking about how Sexton recorded this song when he was just 16. When the song started and she heard his voice, she said, “HE WAS ONLY 16? HE DOESN’T SOUND 16!”

Nope, he did not.

Chart Week: November 6, 1976
Song: “The Rubberband Man” – The Spinners
Chart Position: #15, 9th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for three weeks in December.

As promised, our first journey into the 1970s. This is the perfect jam to make that deeper run into the chart history.

As I’ve said many times in the past, my parents listened to a lot of soul, R&B, urban, or Black music, whatever you want to call it. Within their record collection were albums from both mainstream artists like Stevie Wonder and The Commodores and more traditional soul outfits like The Spinners. So I go way back with these cats. It’s obvious why they were in my parents’ stack of albums: they simply made great songs.

I always had a special affinity for this song. My five-year-old mind took the song rather literally and imagined a cartoon character made from a rubber band. He was a totally 70s dude, big cheesy smile on his face, wearing some funky shoes, bouncing around town fighting crime, going on adventures, making kids happy, or whatever. To me this song wasn’t much different than songs like “Kung Fu Fighting” or “Disco Duck,” which was #2 on this week’s chart.

Turns out the song was originally called “The Fat Man” and was written by Thom Bell in an attempt to give his son, who was overweight, a boost of self-confidence. Man, the 70s were a weird time. Someone, I don’t know if it was Bell or one of the Spinners, realized a better title might be in order and somehow they landed on The Rubberband Man. That probably made Bell’s son feel better than a song with the word fat in the title.

Fast forward a few years, probably to the spring of 1981. I was watching the NBC pregame show for the college basketball game of the week and they ran a feature on Tulsa’s Paul Pressey, who had been given the nickname “Rubberband Man” because of his dunking prowess. The piece featured clips of some of his best dunks over the song from which he earned his name.

Spinners song + cool nickname + generic 1980s dunks = very excited (almost) 10-year-old me! Paul Pressey was probably my sixth favorite basketball player on the planet that spring, behind Magic, Kareem, Darnell Valentine, Tony Guy, and Phil Ford. Which was kind of weird because I’ll guarantee you in our no-cable-having days I never saw Pressey play other than in that 2–3 minute NBC feature.

I remember being so inspired that I sat down and drew my version of the Rubberband Man, which came from those mental images I had put together five years earlier. I drew a long, twisted rubber band with a wink on his face, floppy basketball socks and Converse high tops, reaching for the rim to throw down a dunk. I was not a very artistic kid, but I guarantee this was the greatest picture I ever drew. I’m bummed I didn’t save it so I could prove it.

Anyway, great song, fun memories. And this video? Holy shit!

(BTW, I wondered if I had ever written about this before. [Turns out I had]. But I’m not not posting this, so if your memory is good enough to remember a post from almost 10 years ago, my apologies for wasting your time.)

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.