It's been too long since I've done a top ten. I was just talking to a friend last week about my Reagan Dawn theory and we both agreed 1980 was a strange time in American popular culture. The 70s were dying but not dead, the dominant cultural forms of the 80s were still gestating. It's something that this top ten, coming amidst a time of economic turmoil, bears out. Now, on with the countdown.
10. Gary Numan, "Cars"
This here is the harbinger of what is to come. "Cars" still sounds great today, its New Wave synthy weirdness must have been pretty mind-blowing forty years ago. Early synth-pop still didn't sound so slick and automated. Numan used a live drummer instead of a drum machine, and fed his keyboards through guitar effects pedals. I miss that grody bleep-blorp sound.
Cross is often cited as one of the main casualties of the MTV New Wave invasion. As the story goes, a plain looking chubby guy could still be a hit maker in the days before image ruled pop music. Once videos were essential, that wouldn't fly anymore. I am not sure if I buy that, but I do know that his brand of smooth music was very much in vogue in the Reagan Dawn. Not for nothing, the backing vocals were courtesy of Michael McDonald, as parodied in this amazing SCTV sketch.
Linda Ronstadt understood that the mellow, mid-tempo California cocaine rock that ruled the second half of seventies was not built for the go-go eighties. This song has a tougher edge with a bigger beat, a sound that Quarterflash would soon perfect with the immortal "Harden My Heart."
7. The Brothers Johnson, "Stomp!"
It makes me so sad to know that this supremely funky style of music was about to go by the wayside in the 80s. Latin rhythms and funky string sections were going to go the way of polyester flared trousers.
This top ten shows that soft rock ruled the charts in 1980. And why not? The economy was crashing, gas was scarce, inflation was shooting up, and Americans were held hostage in Iran. Might as well unplug and sit back and listen to some smooth music by a band with the same name as a dessert.
I honestly had no clue that Dr Hook managed to score a hit in the 80s. This knowledge has shaken me. Like KISS with "I Was Made For Loving You" they were a rock band using disco to cash in and unwittingly making far better music than they did when they were playing it straight. This song is living proof that the seventies were not yet over in 1980.
Kim Carnes would conquer the charts the next year with "Bette Davis Eyes," the song I see as truly starting the 80s radio sound. At this stage she was known for collaborating with the late and dearly departed Kenny Rogers. Her cigarette-scarred voice was the perfect counterpoint to Rogers' baritone honey.
Was there ever a more appropriate name for a soft rock group than Air Supply? This is also the beginning of the 1980 pop culture invasion from the Antipodes.
If Numan was the prophet of the future, this is the sound of a rapidly disappearing past. Disco was NOT dead yet. This disco sound is more electronic and metronomic though. It would get made over as a synch song in 1987, by which time the pop culture world of 1980 was already unintelligible.
I recently finally saw American Gigolo, the film this song from. It plays over the opening credits of Richard Gere driving in Southern California and in that context the song sounded even better. It's the tale of a sex worker, a "call girl," yet I first heard it on the Chipmunks' Chipmunk Punk album. (I was just a little too young for pop music in 1980.) It has the thumping disco backbeat and a tempo made for cutting the rug, but also the herky-jerky New Wave nerves. No wonder this song was such a big hit in 1980. In a time of transition, it combined the pop music forms that were cresting along with those about to take over. It still sounds great today.
I'm tired and run down from this week but still in a mood to do some writing. I haven't done a top ten of mainstream rock songs, and so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It's also interesting to go to 1982, when what we think of as "classic rock" was entering its death spasms. MTV was a New Wave enterprise, and hair metal was just over the horizon. In the film Spinal Tap this was the year the band embarked on its disastrous tour, suddenly a relic. I can't resist narratives of decline, hence my side-interest in late antiquity and my need to observe my home country's current slide into oblivion. Now, on with the countdown!
This band is totally unknown to me. The beginning of the song actually slaps, reminding me of "Shakin'" by Eddie Money. After that it doesn't seem to go anywhere, though. Like a lot of mainstream rock music of the time, it lacks the aspirations of 70s rock music, and just kind of sits there. It has elements of power pop, but not enough.
I had never heard this song before. The drums are 80stastic and the guitar riff has overtones of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. I half expected Dio's voice to come in after the intro. This is a million miles away from the processed cheese that Cetera would take to the top of the charts later in the 80s, and also divorced from his band Chicago's jazzy sound. Very strange.
8. J. Geils Band, "Freeze Frame"
Unlike some other folks on the countdown, the J. Geils Band managed to retool their sound for the 80s. The bouncy beat and cheery keyboards are steeped in New Wave. The song's use at sporting events has ensured comfortable retirements for the band members.
There's a lot of Canadian artists on this countdown, but none more Canadian than the McKenzie Brothers. I am HUGE SCTV fan and so it made me so happy to see this gem on the countdown. And yes, I own the album on LP. I love that Geddy Lee lets his maple leaf flag fly, speaking in local dialect and being totally self-effacing. Musically this is just silly butt rock but I guess that's the point. SCTV's humor was usually pretty subtle and required knowledge to get the references. The whole Great White North bit was much less cerebral, and of course was the part of the shame to be the most famous.
Well folks, the smell of back bacon is still in the room for Bryan Adams. This song predates his mid-80s chart breakthrough. It does not have the hooks of a song like "Run To You" or "Summer of '69." The power-poppy sound is trying to establish relevance, but it just doesn't quite get off of the ground.
5. Aldo Nova, "Fantasy"
Believe it or not, Canada just bowled a turkey on this countdown. This would go down as Aldo Nova's biggest hit, and it translates some of the sound of early 80s metal through the filter of Toto-esque hard rock. The organ triplets behind the verses are very reminiscent of "Hold The Line." It's a trick producers of the time were keen to use, from Bon Jovi's "Runaway" to Starship's "Jane." I have to admit I am kind of a sucker for that sound. Also, this dude can shred.
The man who would go on to ruin Van Halen and become a tequila impresario made a lot of mediocre rock music in the early 80s. This song is part of a pattern in this early 80s mainstream music with its tepid approach and boring tone. Who actually went to record stores and bought this crap back in '82?
One could ask the same question of Prism. I am more interested in the fact that they hail from, you guessed it, Canada! This record is produced within an inch of its life and sounds like something you'd hear in a Toyota commercial. The guitars and drums borrow just enough from metal to not make this completely unlistenable.
2. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, "I Love Rock and Roll"
Finally we hit a true classic. I remember hearing this song for the first time as a kid and the HEAVYNESS of the guitar just smacked me upside the head. Combine that with Jett's perfect sneer, a handclappy beat and a singalong chorus and you've got yourself a helluva song. It still makes me stomp my feet all these years later.
Most of the "mainstream rock" acts of this era are pretty forgettable, but not Van Halen. I remember seeing an interview with bassist Michael Anthony, who described their sound as "Big Rock," drawing a contrast with both hard rock and heavy metal. What made early Van Halen great was that their sound was in fact pretty unique. They did not sound like the tired old bands imitating New Wave to be relevant, nor were they stuck in the boring hard rock rut. Their covers were always great because they could take that sound and wrap it around old songs and give them new life. This was a solid choice, since you could just picture David Lee Roth in real life pleading for attention from a pretty woman. Van Halen would crest in 1984, about the time that this kind of music was getting completely crowded out by the new pop.
Beatlemania was hitting America 55 years ago this month. It's been on my brain because my daughters are suddenly digging the Beatles, and I have been revisiting their early stuff for the first time in awhile. I thought it would be interesting to listen to that music in the context of what it emerged into. There are competing narratives about this. One is that pop music was super lame, then the Beatles came in and added a lot of excitement and pushed things in a totally new direction. The other, more recent revisionist take is that Beatlemania killed older ways of making music that were more heterodox than what came after. I am not sure where I stand on this, other than to say that I really love early 60s R&B (so did the Beatles), to the point where I don't buy the narrative about the Beatles filling a vacuum. Anyway, let's get on with the countdown!
This song is the kind of thing people think of when they consider the early 60s to be a musical wasteland. This is basically bargain-basement Lesley Gore, lacking her pathos with a far too cheery arrangement. I do like the weird organ sound, at least.
This is a fairly typical early 60s doo-wop style song, but it's got that weird flute behind it, which gives it a little something extra. There's also a member of the group jumping in with a deep bass voice on the chorus, which is something I loved about those records. The thing is, by the standards of the time I think this one is kind of weak and lacking in the punch of other doo-wop records. It has a kind of vague "beach" feel to it, which was certainly all the rage in those pre-Beatles years.
Speaking of beach music, here's a classic example of the genre. According to my dad this was one of the few 45s he and his brothers had growing up. It speaks of the glorification of California in 60s music and 60s culture more generally. The pull of that kind of music, which I heard a lot at home and on oldies radio as a kid, made my first visit to the Golden State truly special. The song itself has a great little organ line, but the vocals are tepid. This song would be properly covered by The Ramones, who gave it needed bite.
Man, this is just a straight-up ripoff of the Beach Boys. It's also an example of the car song, directly adjacent to surf music. When future societies look back on our catastrophic dependence on fossil fuels they will make songs like this the subjects of their cultural histories.
Like the Tams, here's another local soul music artist. The beat has a cool mambo flavor and the "um um um" chorus is pretty catchy. As much as I like music like this, it sounds pretty dry compared to what Motown was about to unleash.
Now this right here is a million miles from stuff like "It's My Party And I Can Cry If I Want To." An early pop music feminist message that Gore delivers with utter confidence. The strings and her voice are a perfect trebly combo for coming out of an AM radio on an old car. Just compare this to the Diane Renay song at number 10 for an example of how disposable teen music at the time could actually be interesting.
Again, near the top of the countdown we are in serious territory, and this time it's social class, not gender. This is a song sung by working class Jersey Italian guys aware that no matter what they say, love is not blind. It's particularly sad, since the singer is telling Dawn to leave him because their infatuation can't break down social barriers. It gets at something that has long saddened me, namely that growing up working class means internalizing the idea that you do not deserve to have what you want and that you need to learn to resign yourself to it. It's a survival strategy, obviously, but it eats at the soul. Maybe Dawn wanted to cross the tracks! The singer can't let her because he doesn't think he's worth it.
There is no song that better embodies Beatlemania than this one, which is the first Beatles song I can remember hearing. Is it cheesy? Yes. Is the "yeah yeah yeah" too simple? Yes. Is it pure pop sugar rush? You bet. And listening to the other songs on the countdown, I agree a little with the old narrative about the Beatles reviving a moribund popular music world. This song MOVES and PUSHES like the others on the countdown don't. Ringo's drums never sounded more powerful, the harmonies more chiming. Resistance is futile.
This is the song that broke the Beatles in America, and like "She Loves You" it has a kind of giddy abandon to it. It puts in song form that indescribable rush of young love, that feeling that some folks spend the rest of their life chasing. As a kid I thought they were saying "I get high" instead of "I can't hide," and so evidently too did Bob Dylan. It works better musically, because the song is describing that love high when you hold a crush's hand for the first time. Listening to this you can hear the harmonies that I think really put the Beatles over the top. When a group has great harmonies it is a kind of magic, and the Beatles paired those harmonies with some all-time melodies. The secret to their success is pretty simple.
It's been awhile since I've done a top ten, and I realized that I've never done an albums countdown. I chose 1982 because I tend to think of the winter of 1982 and the moment when the transition out of the 70s was being completed, especially in music. I think the albums on this list bear out my thesis. And now, on with the countdown!
10. The Cars, Shake It Up
The Cars are really the emblematic band for this moment in music history. They bridged the divide between the arena rock world and new wave, getting played both on the local rawk station and on MTV. The beat is all new wave nerves and the synths sound like they would be at home on a Human League record. This is not one of their stronger albums, it sort of sits between their early rocking high points and their pop takeover on Heartbeat City.
9. The Police, Ghost In The Machine
I've always loved the cover to this album, which speaks to a time when digital technology was new and cutting edge. My dad got a digital watch in 1982 that made all kinds of bleeps and bloops. I really thought we were living in the future. The album seems to reflect a certain fear of this new frontier, especially songs like "Spirits in the Material World" and Invisible Sun." The dark noises give way to a slight break in the clouds on "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," perhaps the best pure pop song the Police ever released.
8. Hall and Oates, Private Eyes
One shocking thing about this countdown is the lack of soul music. Hall and Oates are really the only vaguely soul music act in this top ten. In recent years Hall and Oates have had their reputations justifiably revived. Their music is long on craft with all kinds of subtle touches. "Private Eyes" might be one of their most straight-ahead hits, but "I Can't Go For That" has a sultry slink to it that sounded great coming out of the speakers of my parents' Chevy Malibu.
7. AC/DC, For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)
This album has got to rank among rock history's biggest disappointments. When AC/DC frontman Bon Scott died in the late 70s it seemed like the band was doomed. Then, in 1980, they dropped Back in Black, one of the top-selling albums of all time and a stone cold killer from top to bottom. As far as I am concerned, it's the only really good album the band was able to release after Scott's demise. This may have been a case of AC/DC's formula only yielding so much before the well ran dry. Where they were once supple, they are now flabby. Where they were once sly, they are now overblown.
6. Stevie Nicks, Bella Donna
Fleetwood Mac were THE definitive band of the late 1970s decadent cocaine malaise. It was only fitting that Stevie Nicks would go off on her own and have bigger hits outside of the band in a new decade with a New Objectivity driving culture, rather than the hair shaggy 70s aesthetic. In that respect it was perfect for her to team up with Tom Petty, who was a forward-looking rocker more in tune with the new wave than others. "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" is one of the great male-female duets of the decade. "Edge of Seventeen" has a high energy intensity lacking from her Fleetwood Mac tunes that's better suited to the new, go go decade.
5. Rolling Stones, Tattoo You
The last classic Stones record? Strange to say for an album made up of outtakes. It's kind of sad that the Stones have not managed to top it in the 37 years since. Their freshest stuff could not longer measure up to what they had tossed off in the 70s. There are some great songs on this album, and not just the hits. Of course, everyone mostly remembers "Start Me Up," one of their best all time songs and a real hip shaker. That kind of rhythm had all but disappeared from mainstream rock music by this point, and its absence has been a true loss. "Waiting On A Friend" is among their best ballads.
4. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hooked On Classics
OK, this one totally flummoxed me. I had no clue that an orchestral album hit the top ten in the 1980s. This is not a Mantovani record like the ones that charted back in the day, it's got an uptempo disco beat behind it. Strings had always been big in pop music, including in the aforementioned disco genre. The 80s would bring an end to that trend with the almighty synthesizer. While there's a touch of disco to this music, it sounds ideal for aerobics class, and thus very much of the new cultural turn.
3. Foreigner, 4
I have often thought of 1981-1982 as the last gasp of classic rock. Was MTV the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs? I am not sure, but cock rockers like Foreigner sounded increasingly out of step with the times. However, on this record Foreigner managed to hold onto relevance by incorporating the harder, straighter, less shaggy sounds of the new decade. "Urgent" has an eletro-groove, as well as an all-time sax solo by the great Junior Walker. In this era the saxophone was ubiquitous and even the arena acts couldn't exist. Thomas Dolby, who had yet to blind anyone with science, was on the synths.
2. Journey, Escape
Journey's Escape album might be the magnum opus of classic rock's early 80s swan song. (It's either that or Rush's Moving Pictures.) Journey maintained the bard rock bedrock of the late 70s with the slick pop sheen necessary for the Reagan years. The power ballad had announced its world conquering presence with REO Speedwagon's "Keep On Loving You," and Journey made it sweeter with "Open Arms." Add to that the beautifully moody "Who's Crying Now" and the hit "Still They Ride" and you've got a good record. When you factor in "Don't Stop Believing," one of the most blissful songs you can still hear on a classic rock station, you've got a stone cold classic. Play that song at midnight in a crowded bar and the punters will still belt it out.
1. J. Geils Band, Freeze Frame
Okay, now THIS makes me feel sentimental. "Centerfold" is the first pop song I remember hearing on the radio and loving. As a wee kindergartener I had no clue of its naughty nature. I could not get enough of the bouncy beat and catchy riff. The J Geils Band were a fun rock and roll band (as opposed to rock band), and so ideal for kids who liked to run around the basement with too much energy to spare. Like the other rock bands on the countdown, the group had adapted their sound in a more new wave direction, putting the keyboards front and center and the nervy beats beneath. While the sound (and album cover) is unmistakably of its time, put "Centerfold" or "Freeze Frame" on at a wedding and people will be on the dance floor.
I enjoyed doing alternative rock songs for my last top ten, so here it goes again. In November of 1993 I was a senior in high school. After years of being a mocked dork I was starting to figure things out. I had some fake Doc Martens boots from Payless Shoes and lots of flannel. A girl I had a crush on always told me she loved the boots. Was I too chickenshit to respond to this now in hindsight obvious expression of interest? Yes, yes I was. Now on with the countdown!
10. Smashing Pumpkins, "Today"
This was by far the poppiest, catchiest tune that the Pumpkins had managed to craft up to this point. This vaguely proggy grunge band had finally come up with something made for the charts. When I first brought Siamese Dream home from the local Musicland it stuck out to me as far less ambitious musically that the other songs on the album. Billy Corgan's guitar playing was far more reminiscent of classic rock than Cobain's, but the feebleness of his voice helped mask the throwback nature of the music.
9. The Breeders, "Cannonball"
A cassette tape of Last Splash lived in my car in the winter of 1993-1994. It's such a great album, bridging the indie-mainstream divide with some catchy songs and far out sounds. "Cannonball" had a catchy bass riff but was still pretty damn weird. That the video got major MTV airplay was a minor miracle. Back in those days I thought a renaissance of rock music was upon the land, unaware of the Bush-Silverchair-Creed onslaught about to happen.
8. Belly, "Gepetto"
"Feed The Tree" was one of the truly great alternative rock songs of the era, and "Gepetto" was the follow up. (Ironically, Tanya Donnelly had once been in The Breeders.) This song is not as good (few songs are), but its sound is so perfectly, ineffably 1993. I hear the bouncy rhythm and folky guitar with the languid vocals over it and a little tear comes to my eye. Back in 1993 I thought things were changing for the better in the world. The Reagan-Bush years were over, much more interesting music was hitting the mainstream, and the winds of change seemed to be blowing. It's hard for me to say when that feeling of optimism ended for me, but the Republican sweep of the election the next year was probably it.
7. Gin Blossoms, "Found Out About You"
The Gin Blossoms were one of those weird first wave of alternative bands. They came out of a local scene, and were not derivative of alternarock trends like the coming Bushes and Creeds. They sound much more influenced by REM. Of their hits, this minor key song with ringing guitars (both catnip to my ears) is my favorite. The band's story also contains a tragedy worthy of a downbeat 90s alternative song. Original guitarist and songwriter Doug Hopkins penned this song, along with other Gin Blossoms hits. He was kicked out of the band before they hit it big, and signed over his royalties for a pittance. He killed himself about a month after this countdown. Life is cruel.
6. Cracker, "Low"
I loved Cracker's first album, which is a sassy combination of alternative rock and rootsy, country-inflected songs. Bandleader Dave Lowery had pioneered this sound with Camper Van Beethoven, but now in the 1990s it was a sound that could actually hit the airwaves. This song, from their second album, had those great Southwestern guitars, but with a heavy dose of the kind of doom we couldn't get enough of in '93. Cracker was also one of the first acts to have a radio song with a hidden CD trick (remember those?) with "Eurotrash Girl."
5. James, "Laid"
James first came on my radar a year before this, when I heard "Born of Frustration," which sounded pretty unique. This song is another unlikely hit, full of pretty unambiguous sexual references. The band also wore dresses in the video and on the album cover, the kind of cheeky gender-bending common in the alternative rock world before the testosteronal Fred Durst types came in and ruined it. For a teenage boy who was failed at the traditional markers of masculinity of the Nebraska town he lived in, it seemed pretty liberating.
4. The Cranberries, "Linger"
Oh boy. You might find this song cheesy, but it usually makes me cry. It's such a beautiful confection, and the dearly departed Dolores O'Riordan's voice never sounded better. The chorus and her background voices on it is one of the most truly sublime moments in pop music. It's not just the song, either. When I was a senior in high school I would either go to Wendy's for lunch (yeah, I know) or go home and eat. I'd have a lunch of leftovers while watching MTV, and that year I kept seeing the video for this song. At this point I could taste the freedom and possibility of college that lay ahead for me, and "Linger" seemed to hit all of my desperately yearning emotions. I hear it today and I am transformed into that emotional teenager, so full of longing and naivete. RIP Dolores
3. Nirvana, "Heart Shaped Box"
In Utero is my favorite Nirvana album, the band firing on all cylinders with a gritty and more suitable production behind them than on their breakthrough. "Heart Shaped Box" is great for all kinds of reasons, but perhaps most for being a knock against Boomers and their "priceless advice." It's a generational anthem in the form of a dirge.
I must admit, at this point I thought I was too cool for Pearl Jam. Like a lot of dumb teenagers into indie music, I sneered at anything I considered "corporate." I'd actually bought their first album before it went big, but turned my back once the cool kids who wrote for the music magazines told me I should. Today I can see that "Daughter" is, as the kids say these days, a banger. In one of those weird happenings back when singles were things pressed on wax and sent to radio stations, the live B-side of "Yellow Ledbetter" ended up getting played all over alternative radio. They totally lift the guitar sound from Hendrix's "Little Wing," but you should always steal from the best.
The Lemonheads don't have the recognition of the other bands on this chart, but this was their big shining moment. They were part of the indie scene playing punk way back in the 1980s, but in the 90s took on a folkier, more pleasant sound. It was tailor made for the alternative explosion of the early to mid 1990s. Like "Gepetto" the sound of this song is pure 1993, those guitars just jangling all over the place. The mark of Big Star is all over this, as it was of so much music circa 1993-1994. Nostalgia is a disease, and this kind of music gives me the sickness like nothing else.
In the past I have only done top ten lists of Hot 100 singles, but I thought I'd do the alternative charts, since that's the music that mattered most to me in the 1990s. That and the fact that this music is such a relic of that time. In October of 1994 I was in my first semester of college, happy to be in a place where people actually liked the same music I did. And now, on with the countdown!
10. Veruca Salt, "Seether"
This song was still climbing the charts in October of 1994, before it became a big crossover hit. A simple, classic, hard hitting rocker. This song showed how many alternative bands were grounded in a punk aesthetic but had grown up listening to AC/DC. Veruca Salt got dissed for the hard rock-iness of their sound (which they fully embraced on their second album), but this one still holds up for sure.
9. Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Something's Always Wrong"
Here's a band that was definitely NOT grounded in the punk aesthetic. Like Counting Crows they combined a more heartland/roots rock vibe with the mopiness that dominated the 90s. As a melancholic person that combo suited me fine. There's a catchy folk guitar riff but this song does not have hooks as sharp as the band's bigger hits.
8. Live, "I Alone"
It is not cool to like Live anymore, but I will always have a soft spot for them. They like me came from a small rural town and like me did not give into big city cynicism. Throwing Copper had some great hard-edged songs with emotional heft, and this one fits the bill. Sure there's the usual "loud-quiet-loud" formula but it's executed better than most. Bonus points for a throwback video where the band vamps and makes faces at the camera.
7. Liz Phair, "Supernova"
Yes yes yes. Great alternarock tune with Liz at her absolute sultriest. It was kind of amazing to hear a song this blatantly carnal on the local alt-rock station. Alternative rock tended to be pretty sexless compared to traditional rock music, but Phair was a pathbreaking exception. I had such a massive crush on her, musically and otherwise. When I moved to Chicago in the late 90s I got to see her live and it was absolutely fantastic.
6. Offspring, "Self Esteem"
Well this is a bit of a contrast with its male self-pitying. The Offspring were such an unlikely success, a California punk band that had a massive chart busting album on an independent label (Epitaph) started by members of Bad Religion. In this song you can begin to hear the seeds of the future, when what was known as "alternative" became the same old macho butt rock with more distorted guitars and fewer solos.
5. Dinosaur Jr, "Feel The Pain"
No song takes me back to hanging out in my dorm room my freshman year of high school like this one. In a lot of ways 1994 was the absolute peak of alternative rock. Dinosaur Jr, an indie scene stalwart that had existed well below the surface for years all of sudden were getting significant MTV airplay. This song has some of my favorite J. Mascis guitar pyrotechnics, but what's more amazing is that a song with his broken voice on it got airplay. That was the magic of the year of our Lord 1994.
4. Nirvana, "About A Girl"
It is extremely difficult for me to hear Nirvana's Unplugged in New York without getting super emotional. Before the album got an official release my college debate coach had taped the episode off of TV and we played it on our long college debate road trips. Kurt Cobain's death had shaken me and playing this album on those dark nights crossing the prairie was like sitting shiva. This song came from Nirvana's pre-fame first album, and sounds even better acoustically. It's the first song of the set, and when those acoustic guitars churn it sets off something very deep inside of me. I once even started an aborted novel with that particular moment. The novel didn't go anywhere, and neither has the feeling this song gives me.
3. Stone Temple Pilots, "Interstate Love Song"
In the autumn of 1994 I professed to hate Stone Temple Pilots. In my new life as a college student I wanted everyone to know how deep and sophisticated and BETTER my musical tastes were. Having read too many rock critics I sneered at this band as a bunch of Johnny-come-latelys. And yes, they were not original but in time and with wisdom I could at least acknowledge that they were a decent rock band with a handful of bangin' singles. This is one of them. ("Big Bang Baby" is actually transcendent.)
2. The Cranberries, "Zombie"
With over twenty years of peace it is easy to forget how awful and bloody the Troubles were for Northern Ireland. The Cranberries, who had made their name with beautiful, ethereal singles, got hard and loud on this topical song. The sound is dated but the message is not. As Fela Kuti knew, "zombie" is a good metaphor for a person who commits violence unthinkingly. This is the kind of angry cry against hate we need more of today.
1. REM, "What's the Frequency Kenneth?"
I have commented before how REM's Monster is the 90s alternative rock album you'll always find multiple used copies of at record stores. It was a rocking, feedback-laden follow up to their two folky smashes, Out of Time and Automatic for the People. A lot of people bought on the strength of hits like this, then tossed it aside. I am a Monster apologist. A couple of songs near the end are weak, but there are some amazing tunes all over that album, and a drone-y, psychedelic sound that's pretty unique. This song is certainly on the weird side, with the title being a reference to a man attacking Dan Rather in the street and most of the lyrics being mumbled by Stipe in ways we hadn't heard since Fables of the Reconstruction. On this song in particular it was nice to hear Peter Buck cut loose on the guitar after years of mandolin-ing.
I feel the need to do another top ten. Every now and again I get obsessed with the pop music of the 1978-1981 period, which I call the Reagan Dawn. There were some amazing studio musicians back then laying down the tracks, right before the 80s and everything became computerized. This particular countdown is one chock full of smooth music played by real pros. Now on with the countdown!
In 1978 the Bee Gees bestrode the earth like a colossus. Andy Gibb was too young to have been in the band, but he had his own career in the late 70s with songs and production by big bro Barry. At that time every he touched turned into gold, until a massive backlash suddenly made the Bee Gees persona non grata in the 1980s. The Bee Gees themselves put out a lot of great records, but Andy Gibb's stuff is a lot spottier. This song is not much to write home about, and is certainly no "Shadow Dancing."
9. Walter Egan, "Magnet and Steel"
This is the song that sent me down the late 70s rabbit hole. I think it was made for hot, dog days August evenings. It's the perfect smooth song to play while sipping a cocktail by the pool with the bugs chirping. The background vocals have always entranced me, and I recently discovered they were by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, which makes sense. It has that slinky magic of the Fleetwood Mac songs of the era, with a touch of doo-wop.
8. Barry Manilow, "Copacabana"
I am not much of a Manilow fan but this is an insanely catchy tune. It's also an example of how disco brought in lots of Latin rhythms to pop music. This song is also strange in that it puts a story song into a disco context. Most disco songs are not meant to have you care about the lyrics, but hey, Barry writes the songs.
Listen to this song and snort up a pure, uncut rail of Yacht Rock. It is a shockingly indirect song for such a big hit, but the sound was perfect for the time.
A Taste of Honey is often trotted out at Grammy time, just to remind folks that they were once given the Best New Artist Award. It's a good reminder that the Grammys have always been trash. HOWEVER, this song is a highlight of the disco era. The bass is classic busy disco bass, just walking all over the damn place. Disco completed the pioneering efforts of funk and reggae to liberate the bass as an instrument, and for that, I salute it.
This right here is the Mount Olympus of cock rock. Mainstream hard rock was self-parodying itself to Spinal Tap levels by 1978, and this song is proof. Mick Jones as always lays down a killer, catchy riff, and Lou Gramm sings like he's got his testicles in his throat. Foreigner were the ultimate avatar of mainstream rock in the late 70s, which was competent, faceless, and corporate.
4. The Rolling Stones, "Miss You"
For decades years now Stones fans have been saying their new albums are "their best since Some Girls" in an effort to convince themselves that they didn't waste thirteen bucks at Best Buy on Voodoo Lounge. That album is the benchmark because of songs like "Miss You." The Stones have always kept the roll in rock and roll, and on this song they actually went full disco with the bass and drums. Sugar Blue's harmonica also gives the song a unique sound, Mississippi by way of Studio 54. Forty years later the Stones have had some hits and misses, but no new songs this good.
3. Donna Summer, "Last Dance"
I will always love this song, since it was (by our request) the last song played at our wedding. Donna Summer has got to be one of the most important and best-selling musical artists with the least amount of critical recognition. I blame the opprobrium heaped onto disco, as well as producer Giorgio Moroder getting credit for everything. When this song starts to take off after the soft opening she really gives it wings. RIP
2. Frankie Valli, "Grease"
Jersey boy Frankie Valli had been one of the great pop stars of the pre-Beatles 60s, but had an improbable comeback in the 70s with songs like "Oh What A Night" and "Grease." The lime green suit and fly collar combo in the video clip is almost as 70s as the lite disco accompaniment. More importantly, the song was written by Barry Gibb, whose golden touch extended beyond the Bee Gees in the late 70s. It is kind of amazing how certain songwriters and producers can just nail down the sound of a particular time, then get pushed aside so soon afterward.
1. The Commodores, "Three Times A Lady"
The Commodores had once been a preposterously funky band. (Just listen to "Machine Gun" and "Brick House.") Then, at some point Lionel Richie sold his funk soul to the pop music devil. I know some people like him, but his love songs are unbearably schmaltzy, including this one. The turning away of funk for pop stardom was the ultimate Reagan Dawn move.
Growing up in Nebraska, late May meant the end of the school year. (Here in the Northeast I've still got another month.) I have very clear memories of the end of the school year when I was in third grade, since it had been a crummy year and I was ready to be done with it. One of my third grade teachers was a martinet who made us eat all of our food before we could leave the lunchroom. I also got all As on my spelling tests, but she only gave me Bs for the course on my report card. Summer meant getting out from under her thumb. It was also a time when the big studio production sound of the 1980s was in full flower. Now on with the countdown!
This is a very Brit-heavy top ten. Jones is one of the great forgotten pop stars of the 80s, scoring a bunch of hits. Unfortunately for him, his sound was so clued into the times that it aged very poorly. This song's chorus still gets me, though. I hear it and I am immediately transformed to hanging out at the public pool in the summer of '85, when the PA played the local hits station all summer long.
9. Power Station, "Some Like It Hot"
Power Station were THE supergroup of the 80s, including members of Duran Duran and Robert Palmer. "Some Like It Hot" takes the big bang sound of the 80s to its furthest limits. Palmer has the salacious sweat to give this number some extra sizzle with the crack rhythm section of Chic's Tony Thompson and Duran's John Taylor behind him. I imagine this song was huge in the clubs in '85.
Another Brit! Billy Ocean had a huge raft of hits in the mid-1980s. This one cuts against type as a syrupy ballad. Usually his songs had a big happy sound ("When The Going Gets Tough" etc.) or a slightly dark, rain slicked streets feel ("Caribbean Queen"). The structure and melody sound straight out of the late 70s, it's a very unlikely 80s hit.
7. Murray Head, "One Night In Bangkok"
That's right, yet another Brit, performing a song from a musical co-written by Bjorn and Benny from ABBA. Nowadays the Orientalism of the lyrics bugs me, but at the time I loved this song. It has a kind of thumping, sleazy beat to it that was unlike most stuff on radio. Back then I had no clue about the musical and its commentary on the Cold War, or what a "massage parlor" was. Flute solo!
Madonna's image and presentation were revolutionary but her music has always been kinda boring and derivative. This song was hardly innovative, but was a straight up ballad, as opposed to the dancier stuff that she put on the charts. It's also the first single where I really feel like she learned to use her voice well.
And now back to the Brits! This song has a funky, skanky feel from the 70s, but a sultry sax tailor-made for the 80s. Sade really gives this song the subtle interpretation that it requires. I was getting into Bond movies when this song came out, and I always pictured the "smooth operator" to be a Bond-like character.
How much did we love synthesizers in the 80s? So much that a synthesizer instrumental made the top ten, baby. Nine year old me LOVED this song. It was freakin' ubiquitous back then, from wedding dances to the radio to the background of the hold screen for the local cable access TV station.
The production is peak 80s but this song still holds up. Tears for Fears were in many ways the absolute tail end of New Wave, and figured out how to blend those sensibilities with the demands of the mid-80s pop world. (And they were, of course, British.) Their lyrics were deeper than the run of the mill top 40 stuff, but the choruses were still catchy.
2. Simple Minds, "Don't You (Forget About Me)"
More Brits, by way of Scotland. Due to its inclusion in The Breakfast Club, this song has become a metonym for the 1980s. It has the exuberance of youth and that teenage feeling of emotional friction. While the production is total 80s, it still holds up because lead singer Jim Kerr puts some real feeling into and the music itself has some of that gusto in it.
1. Wham! "Everything She Wants"
This one kinda scared 9 year old me. This talk of "you're having my baby" confused and frightened me. Did people who weren't married have babies? (I was a very innocent child, which would soon lead to plenty of taunting.) Needless to say, more Brits! This song is very 80s in its tale of personal ruthlessness. Some people want to use you, some people want to be used by you.
It's been too long since I've done a Billboard Top Ten on here. As the seasons change I find myself listening to lots of smooth music from the 1970s. It just seems to fit spring so well, and the height of 70s smoothness was probably sometime in 1978, which is the reason for me picking that year. As you'll see, this is during disco's dominance. Now, on to the countdown!
Jefferson Airplane were perhaps the quintessential band of the 1960s counterculture. It is only appropriate then that they put out progressively less edgy music under the moniker Jefferson Starship in the 1970s. This song is light, but it is not smooth. In fact, it just isn't all that good. I'm kinda surprised it made the top ten.
9. "Dust In The Wind" by Kansas
This is what happens when a heavy rock band makes a song intended to be played at high school graduations. I will confess to you, dear reader, that there was a time when I found this song to be profound. I was a death obsessed teenager, so any pop song that spoke of life's ephemeral nature was always popular with me.
It is my considered opinion that Clapton is a great supporting player in a band context, and pretty boring as a solo artist. He is a dead-eyed technician with great ability but little artistic inspiration. Hence, the Yarbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, and Derek and the Dominoes are far superior that anything he ever did alone. Speaking of collaborations, however, this song is livened up by Dolly Parton on background vocals.
7. "You're The One That I Want" by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
Hoo boy. This song has been played to death at wedding dances, which has eclipsed the fact that the two singers were perhaps the two most quintessential male and female stars of their day. Travolta had multiple Zeitgeist defining performances, and Newton-John ruled the charts. This is a song that has so thoroughly become musical wallpaper that I can't really say much more about it.
Johnny Mathis was on the charts in the late 70s? Honestly I had no clue. I also never knew Deniece Williams for anything other than "Let's Hear It For The Boy." The accompaniment has the lush Philly soul sound, like something off of a Lou Rawls record. This song must've sounded something like a throwback even in 1978. At the height of disco it was an old school soul ballad. I have to admit, I really like it, but for some reason it's one of those top ten hits that did not live on in memory or oldies radio.
5. With A Little Luck" by Wings
Well, this was at the point in time that Paul McCartney could get on the charts with anything that had his name on it. I will say that London Town is an underrated album that's a nice and smooth record for a beautiful spring day such as this. This is perhaps the weakest song on it, though. This is the height of his schmaltziness, which he thankfully turned away from on records like Back to the Egg and McCartney II.
Now this right here is smooooooooooth. Roberta Flack was just killing it with the ballads in the 70s, and this one also has some wonderful synth sounds. Donny Hathaway is, of course, excellent as always. The male-female duet seems to have been big in '78, and is something that is a kind of a lost pop music art.
This song might be the proof that the 70s were running out of gas by this point. "Can't Smile Without You" sounds like bargain basement Carpenters. The Carpenters would have sung the shit out of this, at least. Manilow's deficiencies are on full display here.
2. "If I Can't Have You" by Yvonne Elliman
Okay, stop the presses! This song is one of my favorite one hit wonders. It's got the slamming disco sound, but also those airy synths. Barry Gibb (who wrote it) was at the absolute height of his powers, to the point that he could give a little-known Broadway singer a massive worldwide hit. Plus, Elliman gives this song about romantic despair the appropriate emotion. Who hasn't felt this kind of sentiment after having their heart broken?
1. "Night Fever" by the Bee Gees
At this point the Bee Gees, that 60s baroque pop brother act from Australia, were the absolute biggest musical phenomenon in the world. The backlash would be swift, and growing up in the 80s NOTHING was considered lamer than disco and the Bee Gees. But you know what? They put out some great disco records. This one might be my favorite, mostly because Barry Gibb's trademark falsetto is just out of control here.
As I have said before, I have a very powerful seasonal memory when it comes to music. When the weather turns a certain why I will remember times in the past just like it, and often the music I was listening to then. Today for some reason reminds me of the winter of 1989, when I was a seventh grader. In that spirit, I thought I would look at what was on the charts then. Now, on with the countdown!
I had totally forgotten about this song. That's probably because its New Jack Swing groove sounds like a lot of hit songs from the era. I remember the music of the late 80s being a kind of nadir, but here is a taste of the decade to come, when R&B especially got a lot better. At the time I really liked this sound, I have to say.
9. Annie Lennox and Al Green, "Put A Little Love In Your Heart"
I remember liking this song a lot, but I was young and ignorant and had no clue 1. Who Annie Lennox and Al Green were and 2. That this was a cover version. At this time I was really digging sixties soul music because of a copy of the Big Chill soundtrack a friend had dubbed for me onto a blank cassette. While the sound of this song is totally 80s-ified with shimmering synths and gated snares, enough of its classic sixties melody survived for me to glom on to.
8. Boys Club, "I Remember Holding You"
Here's a song that has NOT stood the test of time. It's a George Michael rip filtered through an 80s production machine with maybe the last appearance of Sultry Sax at the top of the charts. The backing sounds like something out of the Muzak they used to play at the dentist. Awful.
This song in some ways marks the end of the King of Pop's dominance of the 80s. It's also so obviously superior to everything else on the chart so far. It's a tough, hard-edged groove with a slightly sinister minor-key feel. It's in the same mode as "Bille Jean," in that last respect. Believe it or not, this is where the song peaked on the charts. Unfortunately it also has drums that are over-amplified and wooden, which seemed to be a requirement in late 80s pop.
Oh my God, a song with an actual backbeat! This song has a kind of New Wave bounce to it that sounds much more appropriate for 1982 than 1989, although the same awful production techniques are slathered over everything. It's not a great song by any means, but I'll take a well-crafted, bouncy rocker any time.
I didn't like Def Leppard then, I don't like them now. Speaking of 80s production techniques, their music on their Hysteria album, which was EVERYWHERE in my hometown sounded like heavy metal Kraftwerk without the human charm. We needed grunge so bad in 1989.
4. Taylor Dayne, "Don't Rush Me"
Taylor Dayne is an artist who had a ton of hit records in the weird interzone of the Reagan Dusk and the early days of the 90s. She was never a star like Madonna or Whitney Houston, but kept churning out chart toppers. The musical backing is very standard and unadventurous, but her voice has this tough, husky quality that I have always liked.
God I hate this band so much. Is there a band that represents the cultural bankruptcy of the late 80s better than Poison? They were the kings of processed cheese metal, but then expected us to take them seriously on this ballad. At the time I guess I liked the melody, though. I have a very clear memory of this song from the time. It's a dark, cold winter morning in shop class, and the teacher would let us listen to Sunny 108, which played mostly "softer" hits, and this was pretty much the only song that came on that morning that kids my age actually liked. When "Smells Like Teen Spirit" dropped I thought this garbage had been consigned to the dustbin of history, but all the people I grew up with who had terrible musical taste now turn out to get a nostalgia high by paying to see Bret Michaels in concert.
2. Phil Collins, "Two Hearts"
Nostalgia for sixties soul wasn't just about covers like "Put A Little Love In Your Heart." Phil Collins, the most inexplicable idol of the 80s, penned the lyrics, but the music was courtesy of Motown super-producers Holland-Dozier-Holland. Here they employ the same formula they used with the Supremes and Four Tops. The 80s production washes it clean of any grit, and Collins is far too reverential in his approach. He, like a lot of other people on this chart, was approaching the end of his relevance, and he didn't even know it.
1. Bobby Brown, "My Prerogative"
Here's the song that taught me the meaning of the word prerogative. It's got that New Jack Swing, but touches of early 80s Rick James electrofunk. It's a groover, built on a totally insistent riff that carried it to the tippy top of the charts. I am not sure who exactly is keeping Bobby Brown down that he has to insist on his prerogative, but it's still a banger nonetheless. Brown would also be a victim of the changing musical landscape of the nineties, and his last hit records would come a mere three years later, in 1992.
I've been spending a lot of late nights looking up old 80s music videos, and have found peak 80s to be in the 1984-1986 sweet spot. At this point the funk of the 70s had been completely erased, and Reagan's "morning in America" schtick was at its most popular. The top ten chart from this week in 1985 is just about as 80s as it gets. On with the countdown!
10. Tears for Fears, "Head Over Heels"
By 1985 the post-punk British explosion and all that new wave jazz had evolved (or devolved, depending on your perspective) into a group like Tears for Fears. Their music was very poppy, but still personal and lyrically more deep than the average top 40 fare. (That's probably the reason it made it onto the Donnie Darko soundtrack.) At the time I really liked it.
9. Sting, "Fortress Around Your Heart"
This is another song I really dug back in '85. People forget what a big deal Sting was at this point, his name iconic as the other one-name-wonders Madonna and Prince. His solo music was not even as close to being as good as The Police, but this song had a little magic in it. The grayscale video and vibe of the song reflected the renewed 80s Cold War situation. It's better than anything else Sting would manage in his solo career.
8. Mick Jagger and David Bowie, "Dancing In The Street"
Ohhhhhh boy. This song and video has now become shorthand for lameness. It was a song put together for charity, so I can't be too critical, but man, this is a classic case of being too big to be told no. The 80s butt rock behind this track is as obviously tacky as the color of Mick's shirt and the print of whatever the hell Bowie is wearing. At this point Bowie's momentum from "Let's Dance" had crashed and Jagger was inexplicably feuding with Keef and trying to pass himself off as a solo artist. If you ever want to show anyone how bad the 80s could be, just show them this.
7. Dire Straits, "Money For Nothing"
Here's a song in that genre new to the 80s: songs that became megahits due to their videos. Gather 'round, kiddos, and I will tell you of a time when the sub-screen saver animation of this video was a revelation to us oldsters. The song and video were so meta because they were also commentaries on the ubiquity of MTV. The use of the awful word "faggot" in this song, even in a satirical context makes it difficult to listen to these days. That word was still flung around with ubiquity back then, so much so that on the playground I had no clue that it was a very specific slur. As bad as shit is nowadays, I would never want to go back to 1985.
6. John Mellencamp, "Lonely Ol' Night"
Back in my rural Nebraska homeland growing up there was a holy trinity of contemporary rock music: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and John Mellencamp. The latter's rural Midwestern origins oozed through his music and really resonated with me. Even his minor hits got saturation airplay on local radio. This was one of my favorites, since it captured the feeling of being in a small town with no action and trying to find that spark of human connection.
5. Jan Hammer, "Miami Vice Theme"
Oh God did I love this song and this show. It was on Saturday night, so I could stay up late enough and watch it. It just made me feel so mature and cool just to be associated with it. The show also had one of the great all time opening credits sequences, which makes Miami look like the hippest place on earth, at least in 1985. The show and synthesizers were so cool in 1985 that its theme could make the top ten. Funny how what we thought was the future is now such an obvious relic of the past.
4. Ready For The World, "Oh Sheila"
I had totally forgotten about this song. The drum and synth sound is pure Prince. I even had to look up if this group was produced by him, but nope. It's a pretty clear version of "drive it like you stole it," but I think it still works.
3. Stevie Wonder, "Part-Time Lover"
This one is sultry and bouncy like a Hall and Oates song. It's a weird kind of thing where the man who originated the sound is imitating the people who imitated him. It's a decent pop song, but pretty lame compared to what Wonder was doing in the 70s. At least he's not embarrassing himself a la Jagger and Bowie.
2. Whitney Houston, "Saving All My Love For You"
I know it's not popular to say this, but Whitney Houston was one of the great wasted talents in musical history. She had an amazing voice, and would often use it in thrillingly creative and surprising ways. It was a shame that her voice was paired with consistently boring, insipid songs and arrangements. If only she had come up in the 60s and 70s, and not in the 80s, which was a dark decade for the poppier side of soul music.
1. a-ha, "Take On Me"
Oh boy, here it is. This right here just might be the most 80sed thing that ever 80sed. The keyboard hook alone makes this a true relic of its time. How in the hell did a Norwegian synth pop band hit the top of the charts? By making perhaps the most bitchin' emotional roller coaster of a video yet seen. Once MTV could take a band like a-ha to the top of the charts the mighty M was truly king. How long did that reign last? It's hard to say, but it as long as it did, it never captured the zeitgeist quite like in did in 1985.
I tend to think of 1986 as peak 80s. It's the year that Top Gun game out, the most 80s movie of the 80s. It's before the stock market fall of 1987 and the ensuing savings and loan crisis and Iran-Contra Affair threw some cold water on the triumphalism of Reaganism. It also saw some songs that we still hear today. And now, on with the countdown!
10. The Bangles, "Manic Monday"
Written by Prince, and it sounds like it. (That's a good thing.) The Bangles keep his patented bounce, but add a bit of their own flavor to it. From this song to Garfield, we really liked to complain about Mondays in the 80s, didn't we? There's just enough of an edge of melancholy to keep this song from being kitsch.
9. Phil Collins, "Take Me Home"
I'll admit it, I really like this song. I've talked at length about Phil Collins on this blog, because he is such an odd artifact of his time. A short, aging drummer with a receeding hairline who someone managed to make it big in the music video era. His best music, like this song, contains a surprising emotional heft. My understanding is that this is a song about someone in a mental hospital who is desperate to go home again. Collins is pretty good at bringing that tragic longing across.
8. The Outfield, "Your Love"
By this time in the 80s the rock music that made it this high on the charts was by fossils like the Stones (more on them later) or pop metal or, as in this case, a kind of sleek, corporate rock. It's actually a gross song about a guy who is going to cheat on his lady with someone much younger. "You know I like my girls just a little bit older/ I just want to use your love tonight." It's catchy and those chiming guitars sound great, but it's all background for maximum skeeviness.
7. Whitney Houston, "The Greatest Love Of All"
This was originally recorded by George Benson in the late 1970s. Here it gets the fully 80s pop R&B treatment, but with strings rather than synths. It's a shame that a singer as gifted as Whitney Houston was always singing songs with such insipid lyrics and treacly backing.
6. Janet Jackson, "What Have You Done For Me Lately"
Surprisingly, this is the first song on the countdown with that classic, in your face mid-80s production anchored by a gated snare sound and metronomic beats. This song introduced the new, tough Janet Jackson that would reach her apotheosis on her next single, "Nasty." It's a mode that really suited her, and the songs from it hold up pretty well despite the production. 5. Rolling Stones, "Harlem Shuffle"
At this point the Stones were completely adrift and almost broke apart. The production is ridiculously 80s, and Jagger's clowning is even more garish. The song is a classic R&B cover, the type of thing they used to do a lot on their early records, except those songs were actually good.
4. Van Halen, "Why Can't This Be Love"
This once great band, which had given hard rock a necessary shot in the arm when they burst forth in the late 1970s, and made of the great mainstream rock albums of the 80s with 1984 are now fully ensconced in their tepid Van Haggar mode. The Red Rocker lacks David Lee Roth's impishness, and Eddie Van Halen's guitar seems almost completely tamed.
3. Prince and the Revolution, "Kiss"
This song was a staple at the grad student parties I went to in the early 2000s. Much funkier than the other stuff on the charts, you just can't help shaking it when this song comes on. Prince's falsetto is also an interesting choice, giving his lyrics less of a leering connotation. As usual, when viewed in context of the other songs on the charts his hits sound that much more fresh and innovative.
2. Pet Shop Boys, "West End Girls"
I loved this song when it came out and I still love it. The sound is so wonderfully moody, I want to live inside of it. It's one of the few examples of the edgier music of the day actually hitting the mainstream. I will still put this on my headphones and strut languidly up Broadway on my way to work.
1. Robert Palmer, "Addicted To Love"
Hoo boy, this is the mid-80s personified, from the sleek as sleek production to the arty misogyny of the video to the love as cocaine metaphor of the lyrics. The riff is simple and repetitive, but former soulster Palmer gives it just enough grunt and sweat to make it acceptably down and dirty, the top 40 equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey, if you will.
You may have noticed that a lot of my top tens have come from the very early 80s. That's partly because of nostalgia, since that was the period when I first became aware of popular culture. It's also because of a recent fascination I have with that period, which I like to call "Reagan Dawn." After the 60s and 70s there was a real transvaluation of values going on in that period (which I date from 1979 through 1981), creating the new neo-liberal order that has pretty much been dominant since my early childhood. This countdown comes two months after Reagan took the White House, and the shape of the 80s is becoming very apparent, even if vestiges of the 70s are clinging on. So now, on with the countdown! 10. Barbara Steisand and Barry Gibb, "What Kind Of Fool"
Speaking of vestiges of the 70s....Barry Gibb and his disco mane are still going strong as Reagan's America is dawning, although without his brothers. People forget that during the late 70s and early 80s Barry Gibb was a world conquering songwriter and producer. This song is soft rock at its most languid, more sugary than a Peep sandwich. By 1981 the survivors of the 60s wanted to mellow out, but without a trace of the stems and seeds of even milquetoast acts like Crosby, Stills, and Nash. The Me Decade of the the 70s began the inward retreat, the greed of the Reagan years would complete it.
Hall and Oates are very much the emblematic artists of the Reagan Dawn. Their music bridges the gap between the decades, maintaining a 70s groove but definitely locked into 80s pop modes. By 1984, when Reagan had his landslide, they went all in on the 80s with big gated snare drums and metronomic beats as on hits like "Out Of Touch." I much prefer them at this moment. This song is super catchy, and it also has one of Hall's most affecting vocal performances. It still has soul, which would be drained out of Top 40 music in the decade to come. 8. Grover Washington Jr. (with Bill Withers) "Just The Two Of Us"
Smooth jazz was a perfect genre of music for the Reagan Dawn. The tumult of the sixties over, this was a million miles away from Coltrane or Bitches Brew. Now I am a big fan of both Bill Withers and the saxophone, so this song isn't all bad. Withers gives it his always wonderfully warm and intimate vocal style, but the whole thing is just so light and lacking in any kind of immediacy. It's not jazz so much as relaxation music, ideally suited for shopping malls and dentists offices.
7. Dolly Parton, "9 To 5"
This is a fantastic song from a timely movie. Parton sings it with her country affectations, but the backing is decidedly pop, even soul, rather than country. She way she sings "pour myself a cup of ambition" is just perfect. The song and the film it comes from reflect the growing number of women in the workforce, as well as their marginalized position. Of course, in typical 80s fashion the focus is on individual struggle, rather than collective action. Before I get too "woke" I will say that unlike a lot of music on this countdown, "9 to 5" holds up really well. 6. Neil Diamond, "Hello Again"
In the early 1980s, the Jewish Elvis reached his apotheosis with The Jazz Singer. The soundtrack album was his biggest hit, but the movie is wretched as all hell, including Diamond in blackface in an entirely unneeded call back to the Al Jolson original. I like Neil Diamond's early stuff a great deal, but by this point he was just getting cheesy. On an early tune like "Solitary Man" you believe his lonesomeness, but not on this overwrought number. The Reagan Dawn period was the last gasp of relevance for a lot of artists from the 60s and 70s, Diamond included. 5. Don McLean, "Crying"
Speaking of last gasps, I had no clue that the author of "American Pie" scored another top ten hit, much less one a decade after his signature tune. It's a cover of the Roy Orbison song, perhaps his most impressively operatic. ( I LOVE Orbison, but that's a conversation from another time.) This is an okay cover I guess, but doesn't add anything or offer any kind of interesting take on the original. I've detected a lot of schmaltz on this countdown so far, a musical mode I have theorized coincides with periods of political reaction.
4. REO Speedwagon, "Keep On Loving You"
REO Speedwagon managed to craft the first truly great power ballad with this song, and it made them huge after a decade of woodshedding. They started in the early 70s doing Camaro rock that was a mix of Humble Pie and Deep Purple, but never had a hit album until they popped up their sound a bit in the late 70s with tunes like "Roll With The Changes" and "Time For Me To Fly." This song is a truly brilliant example of fire and ice, Kevin Cronin's lover's lament running smack into Gary Richrath's soaring, shredding guitar solo. (He was one of the most underrated guitarists of his generation.) This was a song that you could both slow dance and pump your fist to. It's a song that launched a thousand fumblings in the back seats of cars in high school parking lots across the nation. I don't think any other power ballad ever managed to top it.
Coincidentally, "Lady" by Styx could lay claim to being the first power ballad (though it was not nearly a hit on the scale of "Keep On Loving You.") "Best Of Times" comes from the Paradise Theater concept album, one that spoke to a sense of decline in the midst of the shock of deindustrialization. (Remember, Styx are working class guys from the South Side of Chicago.) Styx started off doing an amalgam of hard rock and prog, but this time Dennis DeYoung's songs were getting more theatrical and ballady. This isn't a great song in my book, but the chorus is a nice pop sugar rush and Tommy Shaw and James "JY" Young can play a mean guitar. At the same time, I'm skeptical of the nostalgia undergirding this song, as it fed into the "Let's Make America Great Again" slogan of the Reagan campaign. 2. John Lennon, "Woman"
Lennon was murdered a month after Reagan's election, which I think may have put the death of the 60s in even higher relief. Double Fantasy had a lot of solid songs on it, including "Watching The Wheels," which is one of the great commentaries on middle age to ever hit the charts. "Woman" isn't bad but is, dare I say, schmaltzy. I have the feeling that 1966 Lennon would've mocked this song if he'd heard it. But hey, I do like the sentiment in this sentimental song, and I even believe it.
1. Blondie, "Rapture"
With the number one song, we have the ultimate example on the countdown of the decades being bridged. The backing is disco funky, all mirror balls and mirrors with lines of cocaine on them. However, Debbie Harry attempts a "rap" in the middle of song. It sounds pretty lame by today's standards, but was one of the first examples of rapping on a big hit. When I hear this song I hear New York at the turn of the decade, a city full of grime and crime in the 70s, but also home to amazing music and art. It was about to be swept away by a wave of big money, AIDS, and gentrification. Fitting with the time, Debbie Harry's singing never sounded more decadent, a kind of Weimar moment in a sense. Blondie had eight top 40 hits in America, all in the period between 1979 and 1982, making them perhaps the quintessential Reagan Dawn band. Their arch knowingness, New York sophistication, and genre-bending fit the mood of growing cynicism and general exhaustion, but once the Reagan years' day-glo dreams of shining cities on the hill took shape, there was no place for a band like Blondie.
