Listening to the Billboard Top 100 Charts (1946 - Present)

When this version came on I thought there had been some mistake in my playlist, but as I am far from the only person to notice, the 1980's had a really deep interest in the late 50's/early 60's (Happy Days, Back to the Future, etc)
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Coming in at #95 in 1980 I feel this was disco's last gasp.

Michael Jackson is inevitably tied, in my mind at least, to the 1980's. Yes he produced stuff before and after that decade but I don't feel as if Michael Jackson was really MICHAEL JACKSON except in the 1980's. So this feels to me like the first "real" Michael Jackson song.

jrralls wrote:

Michael Jackson is inevitably tied, in my mind at least, to the 1980's. Yes he produced stuff before and after that decade but I don't feel as if Michael Jackson was really MICHAEL JACKSON except in the 1980's. So this feels to me like the first "real" Michael Jackson song.

*high five*

One of my favorite MJ songs. His vocal performance is insane. Sadly his other stuff gets played on the radio way more often, especially the so-so Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough.

The 1980's was a weird time for Japanese pop culture intrusions into America. On one hand it was when they got there first really big huge no denying it hits (Transformers, Nintendo) but there was also a backlash unlike any we have seen since. #allpopsongs

Yet another early 1960's song that most people would call a 1950's song remade in the early 1980's. It would be as if Imagine Dragons had a number #14 hit of "Macarena" and Kesha had a number 36 hit of "Ironic"

garion333 wrote:

Do any of us listen to easy listening stations? Probably not.

I know I do, anytime I'm in my dentist's waiting room.

The last 60's folk song to hit the big time?

"Perry is a huge Sopranos fan and feared his 1981 rock anthem would be remembered as the soundtrack to the death of James Gandolfini's character Tony Soprano - until Chase assured him that wouldn't be the case." - EXCEPT that's 100% what I think happened and it is impossible for me to hear this song without thinking, at least a little, about it being the song that Tony died to.

This comes in at #87 here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billbo... but I would have sworn it was higher. No real obvious pop culture legacy (a couple of tv shows/comericals/films but nothing huge) but it just seems to be such a fun happy 80's summer fun song that I'm surprised it barely broke the top 100.

I'm not very critical of my music and like a lot of the stuff that seems to pop up when a comedian/film/tv show needs someones taste in music to be "bad" but I loathed this song and it's one of the rare one's where I'm like, "How on Earth did that crack the top 100?"

#96 on the chart but holey crud does this (in my mind) have a much much larger pop presence than that. I think if a song conveys a specific feeling and emotion that many people go through ("working at work to get done with work" for instance) that it will live a lot longer than something that is conveyed by many many different songs ("I love you" - for instance).

In November of 1982 this was the number one song in the country and while we still have long slow soulful love songs today, my sense (and I'm far from a music expert) is that that genre never really hits the big time the way it used to. Accurate? #allpopsongs

I wonder what the first song about complaining about fame was? Looking on TV tropes http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph... the earliest song I could find looks to be by the Pink Floyd, but the theme must predate them.

Maybe. But I think these love songs are a staunch counterpoint:
Half of Adele's songs...

And this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8B...

And while on this topi, I absolutely cannot prevent getting misty eyed with this classic from the 80's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InyW...

This is the most desperate pop song I've heard so far. I get such a sense of yearning and needyness for... well that part is unclear to me. There are a couple of different interpretations out their (divine/relationship seems to be the most common) but I don't think it's that clear what the singer is desperate for. #allpopsongs

Deciphering Simon LeBon is a very tall order. He is a true poet and that is what makes him and Duran Duran so special.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2-N...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R30H...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEgs...

#7 on the US billboard chart in 1983 but I'm not sure I've never heard it before now. Seems to have gone down the memory hole but it feels like the type of 1980's song that would have stuck around if it had been attached in a memorable way to some classic scene in a 1980's movie. I'm pretty sure there is an alternate timeline out there were Molly Ringwald stares sadly out a window before making a decision to pack up her stuff and and get back together with Kevin Bacon all while this song blares in the background. In that timeline people think of this song in the same as they do, "Don't You Forget About Me."

Part of the reason I'm listening to all the Billboard top 100 songs is because I'm just not that musically knowledgeable and I like to explore aspects of art and culture that I'm unfamiliar with. So any statements I make are from a highly limited knowledge base. Listening to this song it occurred to me that I can think of multiple big hit songs where the point and main thrust of the song is talking about interracial romance (Ebony and Ivory #8 in 1982, Stevie Wonder Gotta Have You/Jungle Fever #92 in 1991, I Believe #8 in 1995) but that these are not recent songs. Doing some googling it looks (again, highly limited knowledge base) there might not be any songs that are primarily about interracial romance in the last 20 years to the same degree those listed above are. Am I in error? Can you think of any?

fangblackbone wrote:

Maybe. But I think these love songs are a staunch counterpoint:
Half of Adele's songs...

And this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8B...

Interesting, thanks. Huge holes in my music knowledge because I've never heard that song and I'm not sure I could name a single Adele song (although I'm aware of her existence on some level).

I have very broad musical tastes and cannot personally carry a tun in a bucket and frequently can't recognize off-key singing in others as well. AND I get that the past is a foreign country, but how HOW did this reach #6 in 1983? The singing sounds horrible to me and the beat and musical instruments sounds like I'm hearing a garage band of really enthusiastic 13 year olds trying their best in the local talent show.

No idea this song was from 1983. Zero. I was vaguely aware of it but in my mind it was a "recent" song. Apparently I don't have that good a grasp of the state of reggae; shocking I know. In my defense, further quick googling makes it _appear_ to me as if we've only had three reggae songs become big mainstream hits in the 21st century - [ Shaggy - "It Wasn't Me" (2000) Sean Paul - "Temperature" (2006) Magic! - "Rude" (2014) ]

I have fond memories of Come Dancing. It's got a fun hook and tells a nice story filled with nostalgia. The vocals are like what was coming from England at the time (Madness, Dexys Midnight Runners, The Vapors).

But, as for how it reached #6 in 1983, the answer is definitely MTV. Having just launched, there were only a handful of music videos available to play. This was one of them, and was on heavy rotation.

there might not be any songs that are primarily about interracial romance in the last 20 years to the same degree those listed above are. Am I in error? Can you think of any?

Off the top of my head there are way more songs about the "pluses" of infidelity. You down with OPP... maybe a sign of the times?

A couple of things come to mind with the Kinks "Come Dancin":
Its nostalgic. It tells a story. It has a hummable hook (the steel drum after the chorus). So it would be easy to catch on when played a million times a day on MTV.
There are a lot of "hits" like that in the heyday of MTV's music days. Some good like most of Depeche Mode's rise and some bad like "Money for Nothing" and "Come Dancin". (Aint Nothing Gonna Breaka My Stride)

edit: and I realize I just said similar things to Tscott...

Also re: "Pass the Dutchie"
There was a wave of reggae (and ska thanks to Madness, the Police and Oingo Boingo) throughout the 80's. My much maligned UB40 rose to their height during that decade. Musical Youth seemed to tap into that and the "New Edition" boy band craze. Though I feel like they were more originators and weren't created as a response to those movements. The only predecessor(s) I can think of is the Jackson 5, the Monkeys and the Partridge Family.

fangblackbone wrote:
there might not be any songs that are primarily about interracial romance in the last 20 years to the same degree those listed above are. Am I in error? Can you think of any?

Off the top of my head there are way more songs about the "pluses" of infidelity. You down with OPP... maybe a sign of the times?
.

But in what way? Interracial marriages are more common in absolute terms than in the 80's and 90's and open resistance to them has shrunk dramatically (whites only approved of black-white marriages in the 30's percentile in the 1980's vs in the high 80's percentile for today), but IR is still uncommon in proportionate terms (that is, if there weren't some barrier to them they would be happening at a rate of roughly 400% more than they are today for white people - https://priceonomics.com/why-is-inte... ) . It seems like there should be at least a couple songs about the topic that hit it big but they are curiously absent.

This feels like it's a song written in the 2010's for an 80's period film that is trying too hard to sound like an 80's song.

Casey had me listen to this about 6 times in a row. It's not a bad song, but by the 5th time it starts to get a little be warring.

I've never heard of this before and doing a quick youtube search I've come up with a general rule I think will be handy; If some version of a song doesn't have 1 million plus hits on youtube it should be considered as a forgotten song. Fair?

There is definitely something to be said about writing a song for a very particular niche. Need for a film about two lovers falling in love? You've got 35% of all songs ever written to choose from. Want a song in a film to show off a character's scrumptious legs? You've got this song or....?