Tag: RFTS (Page 7 of 12)

Chart Week: March 26, 1983
Song: “I Know There’s Something Going On” – Frida
Chart Position: #13, 21st week on the chart. Peaked there for three weeks.

One great thing about The Number Ones series is how it has forced me to re-evaluate artists I soured on over the years. Phil Collins is a perfect example.

I forgot how many massive hits he had. Dude had seven number ones and six other top tens as a solo artist. At one point six out of eight singles topped the Hot 100. He added six more top tens and a number one with Genesis. He was a menace!

I probably forget about how big he was because, like Whitney Houston, many of his songs were Adult Contemporary schmaltz. But where Whitney elevated her songs with her once-in-a-generation voice and fashion model looks, Collins was a pasty, balding British guy with a passable but not terribly impressive voice. He didn’t force his music into the cultural memory through the genius of his overt talent.

After reading Tom Breihan’s write-ups of Collins’ early Number Ones, though, I’m finding a new appreciation for his work. I still mostly hate his ballads. But when I hear his more up-tempo tracks, I no longer switch away immediately, and am able to find enjoyment in them.

Although Collins’ voice may not have been as unforgettable as Whitney’s, he did make an indelible mark on ‘80s music. While working with Peter Gabriel on his former Genesis bandmate’s 1980 solo album, Collins, along with producer Steve Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgham, accidentally developed what came to be known as the “gated reverb” sound. I don’t do well with technical descriptions of music. The easiest way to understand gated reverb is to listen to “In the Air Tonight.” The epic drum break near the end of the track is the ultimate gated reverb moment. Collins continued to use that sound on many of the biggest songs of his career.

Included in that list are songs he produced for or appeared with other artists. “Easy Lover,” his duet with Earth, Wind, & Fire’s Phillip Bailey is one example. His drums on “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” are nearly as memorable as Bono’s line.[1]

And then there was this track. Somehow I didn’t remember until recently that Collins produced the biggest album of former ABBA member Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s solo career. The drums should have been a dead giveaway. There is no mistaking the classic Collins sound in those primordial beats that anchor the song. In a track that is all about discovering your partner is cheating, the drums are as impactful as any of Frida’s words. Something is going on, and some shit is about to go down.

It’s interesting (to me at least) that several of Collins’ biggest hits of the early 80s were about the end of his first marriage. I don’t know if there was any carry over, but I can’t help but think some of the power in his drumming for Frida came from his own romantic pain.

Oh, and this song is an absolute banger. Loved it when I was 12, and I still love it today.

Chart Week: February 16, 1980
Song: “Coward of the County” – Kenny Rogers
Chart Position: #3, 14th week on the chart. This was the song’s chart peak.

One of my complaints about the old American Top 40s that I listen to is that only a small selection of the total library of shows gets played. If you listen often enough, you’ll quickly hear repeats of the same shows. With something like 18 or 19 years of programs to choose from, that seems hard to do.

Last year I joined a Facebook group dedicated to classic American Top 40. Every month or so someone will ask the same question: why do we keep hearing the same shows over-and-over? One of the engineers who remastered the original recordings is a member of the group. He claims that every show Casey Kasem recorded has been remastered and turned over to whoever currently holds the rights to them. He is at a loss as to why such a small group of the original shows are replayed these days.

I realize this is an issue that probably only bothers an exceptionally small number of people. But for those of us who are super fans of the show, it is super annoying.

I mention that because, thanks to repeated airings of a few countdowns from early 1980, I’ve heard Kenny Rogers’ “Coward of the County” more in the last six months than I’ve heard in the last 40 years combined.

Which has led me to realize that some of the lyrics are…problematic?

I have strong memories of this song. This was when the radio in my room was AM-only, so the stations I listened to were playing the fuck out of every Kenny Rogers song. I clearly recalled it being about a dude, Tommy, who walks away any time he encounters a violent situation. This was because of his dad’s dying words to him: that “you don’t have to fight to be a man.” His dad died in prison. I guess he was in lockup for fighting someone, it’s not made clear.

Anyway, some local toughs beat up Tommy’s girlfriend, he realizes that sometimes you, in fact, do have to fight to be a man, and he kicks their asses.

Keep in mind, I was eight years old when this song came out. So I was not mature enough to get what Kenny was saying when he described the attack on Tommy’s girlfriend as:

One day while he was working, the Gatlin boys came calling
They took turns at Becky, n’there was three of them

Holy shit! Did Kenny Rogers just casually describe three dudes gang raping a woman?!?!

Surely this caused a ruckus back in the day, right?

I did some digging – I checked Wikipedia – and turned out there was indeed a controversy surrounding the song. And it related to the lines I quoted above. However, the controversy was about who some people thought the lines were about rather than the act of sexual violence it described.

Apparently there were some folks who thought that the “Gatlin boys” of the song meant the country group The Gatlin Brothers. Larry Gatlin later claimed that he and the song’s co-writer, Roger Bowling, had a beef in the late ‘70s and this line may have been a result of that beef. However, Bowling’s co-writer, Billy Ed Wheeler, claimed he never knew of any conflict between the men and that Bowling never suggested the line was aimed at the Larry or his brothers. Rogers later claimed he would have pushed to change the lyric had he know it would ruffle any feathers.

THAT was the controversy. Not that the song was built around the gang rape of a woman and how that was the impetus for the coward of the county to finally grow a pair and take out the Gatlin boys in a locked bar one night. Which, depending on how you think about it, almost makes the rape a positive moment, since it forced a man to stand up for himself and his family.

Crazy how when young Black people sang about consensual sex between adults a few years later, people lost their damn minds. But when a middle-aged, white, country superstar sang about gang rape, it didn’t move the needle.

The song was so popular it turned into a very shitty TV movie in 1981. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube if you want. I recommend skipping that, though, and just watching the completely awesome fight scene that brings the story to a close. Kenny Rogers was even the star of the movie, and gave Tommy a big assist on the night he stood up for Becky.

Songs:
“Sweet Caroline” – Neil Diamond. Peaked at #4 the week of August 16, 1969
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” – John Denver. Peaked at #2 the week of August 28, 1971
“Smoky Mountain Rain” – Ronnie Milsap. Peaked at #24 for two weeks in February/March of 1981

A different kind of RFTS post today. Rather than breaking down a song (or songs) and its place on the Billboard chart, this is a story about one of my kids with a pop music connection.

Sunday M and I were eating breakfast before she left to go to work. In the background was an AT40 from 1981. While we ate our French toast, we heard Ronnie Milsap’s “Smoky Mountain Rain,” which, as I’ve shared before, is a jam.

I noticed a look on M’s face and was wondering if she would comment. There is pretty much zero country music ever played in our house, and while “Smoky Mountain Rain” fits into the country-pop sound that often hit the charts in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, it still stands out as a country track compared to what we usually listen to.

Finally she said, “This reminds me of “Country Roads.”

I chuckled a little and said, “How do you know ‘Country Roads?’”

“We sang it at CYO camp,” she responded.

I nodded, made sense.

After waiting a beat she continued, “It’s also one of those basic white people songs that everyone knows. You know, like ‘Sweet Caroline?’”

I about choked on my food as I laughed.

As my friend Stacey B said, she’s not wrong.

Chart Week: January 21, 1984
Song: “Undercover of the Night” – The Rolling Stones
Chart Position: #20, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 for two weeks in December and January.

This edition is more about how I listened to the song than the song itself. Although there will be some song trivia before we’re done.

1983 was a big year on my Classic Christmas Gifts post list. That was the Christmas I received, among other things, a Pioneer SK–111F boombox. Although that boombox only lasted a few years, it had a huge influence on my life.

For a few years some manufacturers included the shortwave radio bands on their boomboxes. I imagine 99% of kids who had one of these radios either totally ignored that feature or scanned through the shortwave bands once (likely accidentally), were thoroughly confused, and then ignored them.

Not me.

I explored them almost immediately and was intrigued, if unsure of what I had stumbled upon. After a family friend who knew a little about international radio gave me some pointers, I started scrolling through the bands more often. Listening to the Voice of America, BBC, Radio Moscow, Radio Havana Cuba, and others come at the same story from very different angles fascinated me. I eventually got a proper shortwave radio and continued listening to those frequencies for many years. [1]

For all the time I spent listening to those government-run stations that focused on news, current events, and general talk programs, there was another surprising station that was on my list of favorites.

WRNO was an FM rock station in New Orleans that also broadcast on shortwave. At the time it was one of the few private shortwave stations in the US, and the only one that didn’t broadcast primarily religious programming. WRNO played Top 40 pop and rock, thus the motto “The Rock of the World,” and also aired Saints football games and programs about the culture of the New Orleans area.[2]

Looking back, it’s strange that I devoted much time to listening to WRNO. The audio was generally bad, worse than even tuning to a local AM station. There was often interference from other stations, or lots of static and fading depending on atmospheric conditions. They didn’t play anything I couldn’t hear much easier and better on Q–104, ZZ–99, or KY–102 in Kansas City. I guess I thought it was cool that I was listening to the same songs at the same time as a kid on the other side of the world.

That’s where this song comes in. I did not like the Stones much as a kid. This song, though, had an unsettling, dangerous edge to it that caught my attention. Casey Kasem told me, at some point, that the song was about political strife in Central and South America.

That was the connecting point.

I wondered how listeners in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Argentina, or other Latin countries in the midst of political crisis would react to one of the biggest bands in the world singing about events they were experiencing first hand. Being idealistic, I liked to think this was inspiring people to throw off the yoke of the oppressor and claim their freedom. Granted, I was a little fuzzy on the details of the conflict in each country. And my politics were quite different at age 12/13 than they are today. But, still, I loved the idea of international radio and rock music playing some part in motivating people to fight for their freedom.

Crazily, while trying to find some images of WRNO to include in this post, I found this clip of a WRNO broadcast that features a few seconds from “Undercover of the Night.”

(There are other clips of WRNO broadcasts on YouTube if you have any interest in hearing more of what its transmissions sounded like.)

I thought I remembered something about this song being controversial. As I read up on it I learned (or re-learned) that it was the video that caused problems. MTV labeled it as too violent and at first refused to air it. After some negotiations and editing, MTV relented, but only played it after 9:00 pm. Watching it from the perspective of 2021 it’s kind of crazy to think that this video raised any red flags. I suppose there is a lot of gunplay. But it all seems cartoonish and no more serious than the fake mustache Mick Jagger wears.

When director Julien Temple offered his video treatment to the band, he was concerned with how they would react. Jagger and Keith Richards were in the midst of one of their more contentious periods. Temple had Richards’ character murdering Mick’s. He didn’t know if Mick would be ok with that, or if Keith could even be bothered to take part. But when the Glimmer Twins read his proposal, they were both thrilled and jumped in enthusiastically. I love that.

Chart Week: December 22, 1984
Song: “Bruce” – Rick Springfield
Chart Position: #33, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #27 for a week in January.

As artists move through their careers they often jump from one record company to another. This can lead to uncomfortable situations when the artists break through and their previous employers attempt to capitalize.

Rick Springfield was about as big of a second-tier pop star as there was in the early 1980s. He never quite reached the heights of the giants of the era: Hall & Oates, Prince, Madonna, or Michael Jackson. But he was a consistent hit-maker in the first half of the decade. After some minor hits in the 1970s, his ‘80s run began with the classic “Jesse’s Girl,” which hit #1 in 1981. Over the rest of the decade he had 14 more Top 40 hits and four Top 10’s, including the #2 “Don’t Talk to Strangers.” He sold out concerts. He had a major role on the wildly popular soap opera General Hospital. And he was one of the biggest male sex symbols of the era.

By many measures, he was a bigger star than Bruce Springsteen.

Until the Boss broke through with Born in the USA in 1984, Springsteen had been more of a critical darling than commercial star. Sure, he had a wildly devoted following and sold out arenas. But his songs were never mainstays on the pop charts the way Springfield’s were. Only 1980’s “Hungry Heart,” which peaked at #5, made a real dent in the public consciousness.

Born in the USA changed that. “Dancing in the Dark” made it to #2 and began a run of eight-straight top 10 hits over the next two years. Bruce added two more top tens from the Tunnel of Love album before the decade was over. Springsteen became one of the biggest acts in music, a spot he’s maintained for over 30 years despite massive changes in the music industry.

With Springsteen’s success came an effort by record companies to push artists similar to him. John Cougar Mellencamp and Bryan Adams were touted as Springsteen-like. John Cafferty sounded a whole hell of a lot like Bruce, and in 1984 catapulted from the clubs of Rhode Island to the pop charts. Billy Vera and the Beaters got some run for their Springsteen-light vibe.

Rick Springfield didn’t sound a thing like Bruce Springsteen. But apparently some folks got their names confused. Which kind of makes sense. They were born a month apart, struggled through the ‘70s before breaking through in the ‘80s, both had dark hair, and both had last names that began with ‘Spring…’.

This had apparently been a problem dating to before the men became stars. For his 1978 album Beautiful Feelings, Springfield recorded this track, a humorous account of getting confused for another young singer. A woman calls out “Bruce” name during sex with Rick. An autograph seeker tells him he loved “Born to Run.” It’s light-hearted, fun, and weightless. I don’t think Springfield was trying to piggyback on Springsteen’s success, since there wasn’t much to piggyback on at that point. It was just him sharing a funny story of life as a struggling artist.

With Springsteen’s ascension in 1984, Springfield’s former label, Mercury Records, pounced. They held the rights to Beautiful Feelings. Without any input or involvement from Springfield, Mercury re-recorded the music for the album, slapped his original vocals over these new tracks, and re-released Beautiful Feelings with “Bruce” as its lead single.

It worked. Kind of. Despite the combined Springfield/Springsteen mojo, it could only climb to #27. The album could only make it as high as 78 on the Billboard 100 album chart.

I can’t find any comments from Springfield related to the song or album. I would bet he wasn’t thrilled. His Hard to Hold album, released by RCA, was still on the charts, spawning three top 20 singles. A fourth single did not quite reach the Top 40, but its lack of success may be more because it was a B-side than because “Bruce” was taking away airplay and sales.

I was also unable to dig up any comments from Springsteen. I’m guessing he realized the song was from a different time and totally harmless.

I wonder if Bruce and Rick ever talked about the song, and swapped stories from those early days when they were both trying to carve out identities for themselves.

This video features the original backing music tracks. Below is a Spotify link to the 1984 single version.

Chart Week: December 3, 1983
Song: “Love Is A Battlefield” – Pat Benatar
Chart Position: #6, 11th week on the chart. Peaked at #5 the week of December 10.

There’s no great story behind the song this week.

Nope, this entry is simply an excuse to share one of the iconic videos of the 1980s.

Pat Benatar enlisted director Bob Giraldi to help mold the images for her final single of 1983. That was a wise choice as Giraldi was just a few months removed from directing Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video. Pat was no Michael, but there are some common elements, notably the little dance battle in the final third of “Battlefield.”

This video was also notable for being the first to ever include dialogue. That seems like a small note, but by the summer of 1984 sprinkling a few seconds of spoke word into your video was almost the norm.

Benatar had better songs, and one that most people think of first when they think of her. But with “Love Is a Battlefield,” she staked a claim for having one of the most important and memorable videos of the era.

Chart Week: October 27, 1984
Song: “Purple Rain” – Prince & The Revolution
Chart Position: #4, 4th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for two weeks in November.

(This ended up being a big coincidence, but not a bad choice for the 50th entry in this series!)

One of my favorite things about listening to old AT40’s is when they cause me to pour through old charts to examine the movement of various songs. I’m fascinated equally by songs that rocketed up the charts quickly, songs that hung around for months and months and months, and songs that had a brief moment on the charts before disappearing. It’s not just the trivia surrounding those songs I enjoy, but also thinking back to that time and remembering how (sometimes if) those songs penetrated the culture of the moment.

“Purple Rain” is a great example of a song with a chart history that gets my mental music memory neurons firing.

“Purple Rain” was the third single Prince released from the Purple Rain soundtrack. By then he was pretty much king of the world. Both “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy” had topped the charts. Purple Rain was, briefly, the number one movie in the country, in a summer that was loaded with great movies. And the Purple Rain soundtrack had been the number one album for months.

It seemed like a sure thing that “Purple Rain” would also reach number one and serve as a cherry on the top of a magnificent year for Prince.

Nothing about the song’s chart rise put that into question. In four quick weeks it was already at #4. It was just a matter of time, right?

The song moved up to #3 its fifth week on the chart, sitting behind “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” and “Caribbean Queen.” All three songs held those spots the following week.

The week of November 17, “Purple Rain” climbed one more spot to #2. But it was leapfrogged by the song that ended up blocking it from #1. “Purple Rain” remained at #2 for two weeks before it began a rapid descent. By the last chart of the year, covering the week of December 22, “Purple Rain” had slipped from the Top 40 to #54.

The song that kept it from topping the Billboard Hot 100? Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” which held the top spot for three weeks. I hated that song when it came out. There was something in its bouncy optimism that seemed fake and forced to me. Perhaps because we were getting into the deep fall, when the sunlight disappears and we start to come to terms with spending months inside “Purple Rain” seemed much more appropriate to the moment.

While I came to eventually like some of Wham’s songs, I still hate that one. The crime of keeping “Purple Rain,” one of the greatest songs ever, out of the top slot is one that can not be forgiven.

There was never an official video for “Purple Rain.” I wonder if that affected its chart success in some, small way? Here is Prince and the Revolution’s performance in Syracuse, NY on March 30, 1985.

Chart Week: October 23, 1982
Song: “Steppin’ Out” – Joe Jackson
Chart Position: #32, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #6 for three weeks in December.

I’ve written many times about how my parents influenced the music I have listened to. I’ve also mentioned how my grandparents always had the radio tuned to the local station, which between farm reports and news/weather bulletins, played the most generic blend of Top 40 pop possible. But they aren’t the only relatives who deserve credit.

My dad’s youngest brother helped me transition from the music of others to the music of me.

Uncle D is just 10 years older than me. As much as I enjoyed visiting my grandparents, those visits were always better when he was also around. That meant I could flip through his record collection and discover bands I had never heard of, or listen to deep cuts from bands I only knew the radio singles of. Or we would hop into his Monte Carlo and crank the radio up while cruising around Great Bend, KS. He introduced me to AC/DC, Boston, Pablo Cruise, Loverboy, Journey, and countless others[1] We would sit outside the Dairy Queen eating ice cream and I would ask him questions about what bands he had seen in concert and what it was like to go to a show. He and his college roommate were both aspiring radio DJs, so when they got together I would listen to their stories of getting to pick the music that was broadcast across central Kansas.[2]

1982 was when I was beginning to develop my own tastes in music. It helped that this was in the heart of the years when my mom worked multiple jobs, so my evenings were often spent alone, picking whatever radio station I wanted to jam out to. I kept a blank cassette in the stereo, queued up and ready to record when a song I liked came on. I was always sure to catch Q–104’s top four at 9:00 show to hear the most requested songs of the day so I could discuss them on the bus the next morning with my fellow music geeks.

The year was full of weird, new sounds, and I wasn’t sure what to think about all of them. “Steppin’ Out”’s insistent bass line and piano jabs got into my head, but the song sounded very different from the Human League, Soft Cell, or Flock of Seagulls, other bands I discovered in 1982. It wasn’t your standard New Wave song, but it also didn’t sound like something my mom would have any interest in. It was kind of jazzy. It didn’t have a chorus that wormed its way into your head and never left. Was that a xylophone in the instrumental break in the last minute? And Joe looked more like someone who would be managing the Laundromat we went to once a week than the youthful artists that were forcing New Wave into the pop charts.

However odd its various elements were, the song’s sense of liberation and adventure struck a chord with a kid who was locked alone inside the house five nights a week.

Right around the weekend of October 23, 1982, my uncle and his fiancé took me to some haunted houses in the West Bottoms area of Kansas City. It was my first-ever trip to a haunted house and I was both terrified and delighted. I have a vivid memory of “Steppin’ Out” coming on at some point and my uncle twisting the volume knob up. He started bopping his head to the beat and asked me, “Isn’t this a great song?” His approval gave me the permission to fall in love with this track despite its strangeness. I still turn the volume up a couple notches any time I hear it.

I texted my uncle Sunday to see if he recalled helping me to step out on the town that night 38 years ago. He did. And he remembered teaching me some cheesy dance he and his roommates did anytime “Steppin’ Out” came on, which no doubt annoyed and embarrassed his fiancé. It wouldn’t surprise me if he busted out that awkward dance Sunday evening to see if it still annoyed his wife of 34 years.[3]

Chart Week: September 16, 1989
Song: “Friends” – Jody Watley with Eric B & Rakim
Chart Position: #33, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #9 the week of August 26.

For some reason I’ve struggled with this entry. I’ve been working on it for two weeks but can never seem to find the right tone. I’m setting a timer for 30 minutes and when that’s up, you get what I’ve got.

Jody Watley accomplished a lot in her career. Soul Train dancer. Member of the seminal dance-pop-soul act Shalamar. One of only two American artists who were a part of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” A stellar solo run that featured two #2 singles – including her first-ever solo song – and four other top 10 singles. She was a fashion icon and one of the most influential female Black artists of her generation.

And one of her songs featured the greatest guest rap ever.

“Friends” is a good enough song on its own. Its bouncy rhythm and bright horns disguise lyrics that cut the cold realities of the world: friends will let you down. It was also an essential part of my summer between high school and college.

But Watley made a decision to open her song to another artists. That decision is what made the song really shine.

Guest raps in pop songs were just coming into vogue in 1989. They were often brief, sometimes had almost no direct connection to the main lyrics of the song, and for years were often not included on the official single release. You might have to go buy the single to get the B-side version that featured the rapper. The popularity of Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” and “On Our Own,” on which he dropped rap verses, showed that you could combine the two forms and still have a pop hit.

Watley saw that and fought her record company to not just allow her to include a rapper on “Friends,” but to give him and his DJ more freedom than any had received before.

There was no better rapper in the 1980s than Rakim. Period, point blank. His lyrics and vocal style revolutionized hip hop and has had, arguably, a greater impact through to the rappers of today than any other rapper of his era. By breaking out of the standard, expected framework that most ‘80s rappers worked within, he opened the doors for dozens of different styles. That, in turn, made hip hop an even more potent force, ensuring there was variety to keep the genre from becoming stale.

According to Watley Rakim was, at first, reluctant to join her. She loved his work, though, and was persistent until he and Eric B came around to joining her. The freedom she offered the duo turned their guest spot into an unforgettable performance.

The song begins following the standard format. Watley takes the first two verses and choruses. Right where the guest rap normal falls, Rakim comes in. But instead just a few bars where he gets in-and-out, it suddenly becomes an Eric B and Rakim track. He rolls on for a full 35 seconds before turning it over to Watley for another chorus. Then Eric B gets his turn, scratching out a 30-second solo. Finally, Rakim drops the bomb, another 35-second verse.

What the hell was this? A pop singer letting a rapper and DJ dominate her song? Unprecedented, that’s what it was. Today it seems quaint, since hip hop has utterly taken over pop music and the singers now guest on the rappers’ tracks. But in 1989? Whew…it was something else!

What makes Rakim’s presence great isn’t just the amount of time he got to rap. Beyond that there was the fact he clearly took it seriously. He didn’t just collect a check and manufacture some weak rhymes he could tag onto Watley’s song, or pull something leftover from his notebooks that wasn’t good enough for his albums. Nope, he treated it like his song. The lyrics are fantastic. His delivery is locked in. As Big Daddy Kane might have said, there wasn’t any half steppin’ in Rakim’s performance.

Watley claims that “Friends” was the first track to ever feature a guest rapper to crack the Billboard top 10. I can’t confirm that – sadly all the “best guest rapper” articles I found are about rappers joining other rappers – but it seems right.

Watley would have only one more top ten hit after “Friends.” Eric B and Rakim put out two more albums, but neither matched the heights of their first two. Just before the end of the 1980s, just before they began to fade, they joined forces at the perfect moment to pave the way for what was to come.

Chart Week: August 14, 1982
Song: “Someday, Someway” – Marshall Crenshaw
Chart Position: #40, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #36 for two weeks in August/September.

Some one-hit wonders are easy to explain. There are the accidental hits, songs by unknown artists that get tied to popular movies or TV shows. There are novelty hits that piggyback on some cultural fad and ride its popularity to chart success. And there are the dozens and dozens of artists who capitalize on some musical trend – disco, new wave, etc. – to earn their brief moment of glory.

Others defy explanation, at least to me. These are the artists who make great, timeless music that should seemingly appeal across genres and audiences but can never leverage that brilliance into sustained popularity. To me, Marshall Crenshaw is the ultimate example of these artists.

Crenshaw has been making magical pop music for nearly 40 years now. The ultimate example is “Someday, Someway,” which just barely cracked the Top 40 for a few weeks in the summer of 1982. To me, this is one of the most perfect pop-rock songs ever made. It’s simple and to the point, without a wasted second, yet is also intelligent and extraordinarily well-crafted. That little hint of rockabilly harkens to rock ’n’ roll’s earliest days. It is one of those songs that when I hear it, I want to listen to it again and again.

Crenshaw released at least two more singles that, while not as perfect as “Someday, Someway,” should have still made noise on the charts. “Cynical Girl,” also off his debut, self-titled album, did not hit at all. 1983’s “Whenever You’re On My Mind,” a song so good it makes me dizzy when I listen to it, peaked at #103.

Perhaps that pop perfection is why Crenshaw was not more successful. His music had no rough edges, it wasn’t confrontational, it didn’t cause the listener any distress. It didn’t rail against injustice. It was completely unoffensive music that you can play, feel good while listening to, but can also easily slip into the background. Unless you really lock in and focus on it, you can miss the easy brilliance that filled his songs.

Marshall reminds me a little of one of my all-time favorite artists, Neil Finn. Both were/are absolute geniuses at crafting pop songs that had a touch of rock and a touch of college/indie/alternative to balance their mainstream base.

A lot of folks have no idea who Neil Finn is, but if you mention Crowded House, they will nod their heads. Mention Marshall Crenshaw to most people my age and you’ll get blank stares. The difference is that Crowded House had one massive, unforgettable song that was followed by several minor hits. Crenshaw never had that one big hit, and unless you’ve dug into his albums, you likely have never heard anything beyond “Someday, Someway.”

I would say it is a travesty that Crenshaw didn’t have more pop chart success. Truth is, though, he’s had a pretty good career. He got his start playing John Lennon’s role in Beatlemania.[1] He’s been in movies, including playing his hero Buddy Holly in La Bamba. He’s written music for films, hosted a radio show, has been a guest vocalist for the Smithereens since Pat DiNizio’s death, and still puts out the occasional album and performs a few dozen concerts every year. Not a bad career, to be sure. But it feels like he could have been bigger had the listening public been more open to the music he released in the early ‘80s