A (half) Century of Music

[LadyTevar]

Ok, Why did you not have U2 on the "supplemental"?

Also, I still don't understand the Kenny Rogers hate. His voice does have a deep vibrato, but (to me and other women) that adds emotion to the song. At least you like Dolly Parton.

I can't believe "Faithfully" never made the top 40. It was --Everywhere--, and all the girls knew the words by heart.
I owned "Total Eclipse" album, and could sing every last song on it. Prince's first album I had to listen to at a friend's house -- "Little Red Corvette" would have sent Mom spastic.

Gods, all these songs ... I knew them by heart, I hear the music as I read the title, and I realize that this was me in Jr. High. My school band played "Maniac" and "Africa". Four of my cousins became an acapella band singing Toto songs like "Africa" and "Rosanna". "Tonight I Celebrate My Love" was The Song to slow dance to.

Memories, tied to the sounds around us. As one comes into focus, it leads to another, and another. Havoc, thanks for a walk through my memories.

[General Havoc]

Ok, Why did you not have U2 on the "supplemental"?

Because New Years' Day is a terrible song. U2 was capable of so much better. When we get to their best work, they'll be there.

Also, I still don't understand the Kenny Rogers hate. His voice does have a deep vibrato, but (to me and other women) that adds emotion to the song. At least you like Dolly Parton.

The man just can't sing. He might have emotion to him, and plenty of people liked him, but I have a hard time getting over that fact. I'm no great Parton fan, but she could sing. Rogers couldn't.

I can't believe "Faithfully" never made the top 40. It was --Everywhere--, and all the girls knew the words by heart.
I owned "Total Eclipse" album, and could sing every last song on it. Prince's first album I had to listen to at a friend's house -- "Little Red Corvette" would have sent Mom spastic.

Gods, all these songs ... I knew them by heart, I hear the music as I read the title, and I realize that this was me in Jr. High. My school band played "Maniac" and "Africa". Four of my cousins became an acapella band singing Toto songs like "Africa" and "Rosanna". "Tonight I Celebrate My Love" was The Song to slow dance to.

Memories, tied to the sounds around us. As one comes into focus, it leads to another, and another. Havoc, thanks for a walk through my memories.

My pleasure, Tev. And there's more to come as we move through the 80s. I cannot imagine any year topping 1983 or even getting close to it, but we shall see...

[LadyTevar]

Of course it will get better. Bon Jovi is coming. :-D

[Avian Obscurities]

I am actually kind of shocked at how many random songs which I have independently developed a strong personal affinity toward over the years apparently come from the year of my birth.

Also Flashdance. ***ALWAYS FLASHDANCE!!!!!***

[General Havoc]

1984
Yearly GPA: 1.923





All anyone will see looking at the chart above is the instantaneous and precipitous collapse of the quality of music between 1983 and 84, and yet if this year were set down in any other decade, it would be one of the strongest offerings of all time. Not that everything is good this year, it represents a fairly major comedown after all, and most of that is due to the general "meh" quality of a lot of the music, but given the cavernous lows we have encountered (and will continue to encounter), this year does not deserve to be regarded with scorn. Call it a reversion to the mean if you must, but there's actually quite a bit worth listening to in here.



Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart
Number 1 song from January 21st-February 3rd, 1984 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
The first hit single of 1984 is also the first one whose video references George Orwell. I seriously doubt it'll be the last. This song is... okay I guess. I was never much of a Yes fan, or for that matter much of a Prog Rock fan, Pink Floyd excepted. I certainly didn't like them as much as Mystery Science Theater 3000 did, who turned this song into a running joke after their Warrior of the Lost World episode.



Culture Club - Karma Chameleon
Number 1 song from February 4th-24th, 1984 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I've never been a huge fan of Culture Club or Boy George, but Karma Chameleon is probably their best song, though I still only regard it as "pretty good". The song's just too lightweight for me to take it particularly seriously, and the kazoo solo (or whatever that is, doesn't help. Still, it's a decent little piece, one I've listened to more than once, and if you're into the lighter side of the New Wave, I'm sure it's a favorite of yours.



Van Halen - Jump
Number 1 song from February 25th-March 30th, 1984 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Ah, Jump, the song that broke up Van Halen. David Lee Roth hated this song and the concept that led to it, but as it was his only number 1 hit, I'm not sure how seriously to take that particular tidbit. To be honest, I'm not wildly fond of Jump either. Don't get me wrong, I love arena rock and synthpop both, but I don't think that the merger goes particularly well here (or for that matter elsewhere). The Eddie Van Halen guitar solo is awesome as always, and the song's chorus has a nice sound to it, but the song is just a bit too jumbled for my tastes. Not underestimating the influence of this song, and I certainly don't hate it, but... it's just nothing spectacular.



Kenny Loggins - Footloose
Number 1 song from March 31st-April 20th, 1984 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I tried to like this song, guys, I really did, but the base fact is that it's terrible, as is the movie it was derived from. Kenny Loggins would, of course, go on to do much of the Top Gun soundtrack, which was much better than this. This song meanwhile would be utterly forgotten until the inexplicable 2011 remake.



Phil Collins - Against All Odds (Take a Look at me now)
Number 1 song from April 21st-May 11th, 1984 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
I had no idea this song was from a movie, let alone a Jeff Bridges movie, but the song has long-since eclipsed its source in popularity. I've mentioned before that I'm an unabashed Phil Collins fan, and I don't mind admitting it even when he decides to get power ballad-y. The song isn't the best thing he ever did, but it's a strong mid-80s power piece, and I'm always fond of those.



Lionel Ritchie - Hello
Number 1 song from May 12th-25th, 1984 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Stalking is romantic, guys!

Yes, I know this is supposed to be about a hopeless lovelorn idiot, but that doesn't excuse a song this painfully boring. Only Ritchie's decent singing elevates this one above the dreaded F category, and I wish for nothing to do with it again.

Oh and the video's just terrible.



Deniece Williams - Let's Hear it for the Boy
Number 1 song from May 26th-June 8th, 1984 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I kind of want to like this song more than I actually do. It's got a decent up-tempo beat and feel to it, but it just doesn't pay off on any of its energy except as a fairly bog-standard dancepop song. Still, I don't dislike this song or anything, as it's certainly inoffensive if nothing more. Just a bit lightweight.



Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time
Number 1 song from June 9th-22nd, 1984 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Ah, Cyndi Lauper, another fixture of the 80s, whom I never quite figured out what to do with. On the whole I like her music, including this song, a strange, keyboard-synth new wave love song with a strange, ethereal sound to it, Lauper actually fought to have this song released as her second, not first single, so that she would not be typecast as a balladeer. I quite like this song, its sound, its feel, Lauper's singing, it's a fine piece, worthy of the recognition it got.



Duran Duran - The Reflex
Number 1 song from June 23rd-July 6th, 1984 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
One day, someone will explain to me the appeal of Duran Duran, and one of the great mysteries of life will finally be solved. I have cordially no use for either this band or this song, a melody-less dance-pop number that apes groups like Def Leppard or Bon Jovi without the rock chops to pull it off. Duran Duran were the N'Sync of the 80s, as far as I'm concerned, a vapid band of no real talent whose appeal simply mystifies me.



Prince - When Doves Cry
Number 1 song from July 7th-August 10th, 1984 (5 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
If I don't understand Duran Duran at all, Prince is an artist I understand only in part. A fantastic musician and composer, his work is, frankly, too damn eclectic and atonal for me. Even this, one of his finest works ever, is just sort of okay to me. I don't pretend this is some absolute measure of his overall quality, just what I take from the song itself.

Oh, and I am indeed sorry that I don't have a video for this one. For some reason, this seems to be the song that the RIAA drew a line under and there are simply NO versions of it available online.



Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters
Number 1 song from August 11th-31st, 1984 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Awww yeah. This song, Ray Parker Jr.s only noteable hit, is badass, attached as it is to a badass movie of the same name. Famously, Huey Lewis was the filmmakers' first choice to score this film, and when he turned them down, Parker was brought in, given about six minutes to make this song and wound up ripping off Lewis' I Want a New Drug, a decent song in its own right, but not as good as this version. Many lawsuits ensued. The song does kind of run out of ideas about two thirds of the way through, but it's still a hell of a thing, with a wonderful synthesized bass line and cameo appearances from basically every major comedy star of the mid-80s.



Tina Turner - What's Love Got to do with It
Number 1 song from September 1st-21st, 1984 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
This song is the reason you know who Tina Turner is, the lead single off her world-shattering Private Dancer album which resurrected her career and made her into the Queen of Rock and Roll. I'm a fan of Turner's, but this song's only... decent, I always thought. I prefer Private Dancer itself and a good number of other works, but this certainly isn't a BAD song, a simple little new-wave-inspired R&B number elevated by Turner's customarily strong vocals.

Interestingly, Turner was 44 when this song was released, making her the oldest female solo artist to ever have a number 1 hit.



John Waites - Missing You
Number 1 song from September 22nd-28th, 1984 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
I actually quite like Missing You, a song I had no idea of the provenance of. It's the sound of the damn thing, an excuse that I give for a lot of otherwise forgettable soft rock pieces. Unfortunately, I'm left without a whole lot else to say about the song, as neither it nor its author seems to have warranted a single anecdote from the internet at large.



Prince - Let's Go Crazy
Number 1 song from September 29th-October 12th, 1984 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
As Prince songs go, this one's actually not bad in my book. Mostly because it's a showcase for the oft-forgotten fact that Prince is a fantastic guitarist, and spends 90% of this song showing off. I wouldn't say I love the song or anything, but it's a decent number, and given that I've never been a big fan of Prince's eclectic experimentalism, I'll take this.



Stevie Wonder - I Just Called to say I Love You
Number 1 song from September October 13th-November 2nd, 1984 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: F
This song is awful, really awful, and while I was going to spare it for being inoffensive, one look at the video made me pissed off enough for this. It sounds like it was programmed out on a Casio in about five minutes, and the subject matter and concept is insipid in the extreme. Stevie's singing isn't godawful, but I just can't say anything positive about this mealy-mouthed piece of crap. Next!



Billy Ocean - Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)
Number 1 song from November 3rd-16th, 1984 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Caribbean Queen is a song I had forgotten about, a staple lite-rock piece from the mid-80s that honestly... wasn't as good as I remembered. It's just a bit too stripped down, for a song that sounds like it desperately needs some "oomph" behind it. That said, I don't dislike this song, and it won its singer, Billy Ocean, a Grammy Award for best R&B artist, the first Brit to do so. Billy Ocean would go on to get considerably better, to be honest, and we'll see him again.



Wham! - Wake me up Before you Go-Go
Number 1 song from November 17th-December 7th, 1984 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
The halcyon days of 1984, when we somehow all convinced ourselves that George Michael was straight. Wham was a profoundly stupid band, from their emo beginnings to their poppy undertakings in the mid-late 80s, but I really can't hate on them, even if I do think that George Michael was considerably better as a solo artist. This song, peppy and sugary as it is, is one I can't really hate, dance-pop new wave-y as it is. One can do far worse in this genre.



Hall & Oates - Out of Touch
Number 1 song from December 8th-21st, 1984 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I didn't remember this song particularly positively, but upon re-listening it's actually not half-bad. This was Hall & Oates' last number 1 hit, and represents them in a nutshell, an atmospheric pop-rock/new wave piece that may not be tremendously substantial, but has its own sound and thing worth considering.

Incidentally, I'm never searching for an image by this song title's name again. The political cartoons associated with it are stupider than usual.



Madonna - Like a Virgin
Number 1 song from December 22nd, 1984-February 1st, 1985 (6 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Madonna, like Michael Jackson, was only going to be kept off these charts for so long, and this song, her first number 1 hit, is emblematic of most of her work, I find. It's hard to look on this song with fresh eyes, as it seems positively tame today yet touched off a firestorm when it came out as being filled with unbridled sexuality and so on. Honestly, even by the standards of the times, I don't really get it, but perhaps you had to have been there. I think the song's decent, if nothing more, air-headed and kind of inconsequential, but well-produced and sung. Madonna could do better. She could also do a whole lot worse...












Supplemental Songs

So if 1984's number 1 list was a disappointment relative to 83's, does that mean it was a weaker year for music? HELL NO. It's just that everything wound up on the supplemental list, and this year it's a long one, indeed the longest ever. Granted, this is just me pulling songs I love out and showing them off to you all, but it still showcases the incredible talent on offer this year. Agree or not, but this is what the year had to offer me. And what a bounty it was.



Bruce Springsteen - Dancing in the Dark
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 14


Havoc's Grade: B
I told you all that I was a huge fan of the Boss, and this is one of his first really great hits, in my mind, the first single off his epochal Born in the USA album, a rollicking synth-rock piece that may make little sense but has an instantaneously recognizable sound that I love. Supposedly Springsteen wrote this song after a bitter argument with his producer/manager Jon Landau, which is odd, as it's one of Springsteen's more upbeat numbers, with audience members being pulled on stage to dance during its performance at concerts. Whatever it is, I really enjoy Dancing in the Dark, one of many Springsteen numbers to come on these lists.



Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 15


Havoc's Grade: B
Cyndi Lauper's first, biggest, and probably best hit, was originally a 1979 Robert Hazard song about guys, flipped by Lauper into a song that I learned recently to my astonishment is regarded as a great feminist icon-piece. I never regarded it as such, but I do regard it as a prime classic from the mid-80s, with a video that could not possibly have been produced in any year but 1984 (co-starring Lou Albano of the Super Mario Brothers Supershow). I like this song to a degree that is honestly hopelessly embarrassing, but then that's the 80s in a nutshell. Whatever its credentials, this is a classic song, one I've always enjoyed, and it deserved every ounce of fame it accrued.



Nena - 99 Luftballons
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 28


Havoc's Grade: A
Inspired by a strange incident at a 1982 Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin, Nena's greatest song exists in German and English versions, but audiences, even in the US and UK, overwhelmingly preferred the German version, and so do I. The harsh tones of German go better with the strange, semi-deranged New German Wave pop sound for a song that could only be about a nuclear apocalypse. This song is simply awesome, and I adore it so, despite the fact that it's been co-opted by the luddite-wing of the Environmental movement. The song is one of the best pop-apocalypse songs, a genre that itself could largely only exist in the mid-80s and includes such other hits as Men Without Hats' 'Pop Goes the World'.



Elton John - I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 33


Havoc's Grade: A
This song might be Elton John's greatest work, an elaborate piano-and-harmonica piece featuring Stevie Wonder on the latter. I simply adore this song, its rich texture, its epochal sound, its deep, resonant blues undertones, everything about it. It's an ornate, glorious masterpiece, heavy in production without being over the top. Elton's known for his glam-rock credentials, but I always thought his work improved whenever he set the sparkles aside and just produced awesome music.



Corey Hart - Sunglasses at Night
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 36


Havoc's Grade: A
If anyone ever asks you to explain the 80s to them, this song (and video) will explain it all. One of the most emblematic songs of the mid-80s, this song is amazing and I do not care how many hipsters pretend otherwise. Listen to that Synth-arpeggio goddamnit, LISTEN TO IT, and then turn around and tell me about cheese and 80s overratedness. Seriously, I unironically love Sunglasses at Night, a sterling song from a sterling time, one that I can always groove to.



Billy Joel - Uptown Girl
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 39


Havoc's Grade: B
Billy Joel's always been a retro artist, irrespective of what era he's actually in, and there's no better proof than this song, in which he does Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons better than Vallie ever did. This song isn't some absolute classic, but it's a fun, upbeat, fifties-style number with absolutely perfect production and timing. One can do a whole lot worse than this.



Night Ranger - Sister Christian
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 40


Havoc's Grade: B
This is, admittedly a borderline case, as there are far better rock ballads out there from this year, but the song is just good enough to clear the hurdle, becoming the SEVENTH song on the supplemental list out of the billboard top 40 alone (even more impressive when you consider that 2/3 of that group were number 1 hits, and thus ineligible). Say what you will about 1984, it did not lack for good music. Supposedly this song was written about frontman Kelly Keagie's younger sister, who had grown up in his absence. I'm not a massive fan of Night Ranger overall, but credit is due where credit is due.



Huey Lewis & The News - The Heart of Rock & Roll
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 44


Havoc's Grade: B
I warned you about me and the News, right? How Rolling Stone declared that this was one of the ten worst songs of the decade is utterly beyond me. It may not rock as hard as some, but this is vintage News, classic Rock and Roll work of the sort that they were always the best at. I will hear no bullshit from effete music hipsters that this song sucks, because if you think this is the worst thing the 80s could do, then brother, you don't know this decade.

Incidentally, this song has a certain personal resonance for me, as it is, literally, the first song I remember hearing. I'm sure there were others, but this is the first one I remember as a distinct song. A babysitter put on the original vinal LP of the Sports album, and this was the first thing to come on. I remember being terrified of it at first, thanks to that heartbeat intro, but by the end of it, I was in love. Maybe it was simply my first exposure to rock music, or maybe I just always had bad taste, but while I've since gone on to admire other News songs more (and we'll get to those), this song has a special place in my heart and always will. I was a fan of this song and this band before I know that others existed. And I am a fan now.



Scandal - The Warrior
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 45


Havoc's Grade: A
I was not prepared for just how hard this song rocks. I remembered it vaguely as a kitsch song that got used in wrestling promos, but listen to it again. This song kicks ass, and I'm happy to proclaim it as one of the finest examples of mid-80s rock there is, and that's not something I hand out lightly. But this song is amazing, rocking like few things even in its era, a wonderful example of why this decade is so highly prized.



Elton John - Sad Songs (Say So Much)
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 54


Havoc's Grade: B
Not a huge song in its day or later, this is still one of Elton's many, MANY pop masterpieces, and I'm a big fan. This song's production is near-flawless, and showcases Elton's excellent pop skills. With one exception, every one of Elton's non-glam-insane hits are flat awesome, and for all the shit people have laid at his feet and mine for liking him, it's hard to argue with the skill of a song like this one.



Huey Lewis & The News - If This is It
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 64


Havoc's Grade: B
Christ this list is getting long...

Huey Lewis and the News hit it again, this time with a pared-down soul-harmony piece that I don't like as much as some of their stuff, but I do like, a lot. 1984 was the News' year, a year they dominated almost without reply. Obviously there was a lot more to this year, but Lewis was all over the place, and almost every one of his offerings was an amazing song. Rock on you crazy San Franciscan.



Quiet Riot - Cum on Feel the Noize
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 64


Havoc's Grade: B
One of the first real Glam Rock hits of the 80s, this cover of the 1973 Slade song sticks surprisingly close to the original, just pushing things up to the standard 80s tempo. I admit, this song didn't age as well as I was once confident it would, but it's still a very strong piece, albeit some find it rather non-descript. Still, my list, my picks, and Quiet Riot's only big hit is, for me, worthy of inclusion.



Peter Schilling - Major Tom (Coming Home)
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: 96


Havoc's Grade: B
Now this is a weird one. A strange euro-pop dance remix of the original Space Oddity by David Bowie that spiralled out of control into a new song in its own right, I honestly suspected that I had made this song up in my memory until I ran into it again. I wouldn't say it's genius, for one thing it sounds badly out of sync, but the sound of it is interesting enough to be worth a listen, and I can't pretend I don't like the thing.



Alphaville - Forever Young
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Speaking of weird New Wave Synthpop, here we have Alphaville's claim to fame, a song that has been covered so many times as to render it almost unrecognizable. Forever Young is, nevertheless, an evocative, soaring piece, one I can't quite get my head around no matter how many times I hear it, and I actually like it a great deal. The video for this was filmed in an insane asylum in England, which might well be a clue to the mindset that went into creating it.



Lee Greenwood - God Bless the U.S.A.
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: C
So... let me explain.

No, I don't think this is a particularly great song. Note the score above. It sounds like something I could throw together on a keyboard in about two hours, and the lyrics are saccharine enough to make a preacher blush. But I'm breaking my rule and including it on the supplemental list regardless, because of a very very personal affinity I have for it. I remember the exact moment I first heard the song, on a country radio station while sitting in my car in the Santa Ana Mountains overlooking Los Angeles, near dusk, on Friday, September 14th, 2001. As everyone is well aware, there had been something of an incident in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania three days before, and in the interim between that day and this one, I had had a series of escalating culture shocks reverberating on top of the one from Tuesday. I was confused, frightened, and facing what I considered the very real prospect of major assault as soon as I returned to the valley below. In two days, I'd had ordure thrown in my face and my possessions lit on fire because of a series of... shall we call them "disagreements" as to the meaning of the events of the past week. And turning randomly through the yet-unknown radio stations of LA, I came upon this song largely at random, having never heard it before, and... well to be perfectly honest, I had an emotional reaction. A very strong one. Stronger, I think, than most people, myself included, would be willing to speak of in polite company. I made a series of decisions, ones that ultimately didn't mean much, but which at the time were exceptionally unpopular, and resulted in, among other things, being shot at (BB gun, but still). And while I know, for certain, that this experience of mine pales in comparison to a lot of other people's, there comes a time when one begins to care less if one has the right to have experiences that are not mirrored by one's fellows.

So, for the sake of cordiality, if you hate this song because it's a musical pile of artificial sweetener, or because you were forced to listen to it a hundred thousand times for some reason, by all means say so. Nobody is obligated to like what I like, and I don't even like this song, really, at least not much. But if you can't stand the song because you're better than everyone who can, I suggest you find some other thread to read. Because my tolerance for trolling is expended. And I've literally been assaulted because of this song by people with far better claim to complain than any of you.



Limahl - The Neverending Story
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Oh shut up. You were into this thing too when you were eight.



Scorpions - Rock You Like a Hurricane
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I had no idea that the Scorpions were a German group, but then it does make sense, as this is one of the earliest Industrial Rock tracks to make it semi-big. I'm not enthusiastically wild about this song, but it is a decent one, with solid rock credentials, and I'll be happy to take that after the last couple.



Rod Stewart - Some Guys Have All the Luck
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, that's right, I added a Rod Stewart song to my supplemental list. And you can't do anything about it! Honestly though, this is one of the best Rod Stewart songs I've ever heard, a plaintive lament of a perpetual loser (who can't dance, according to the video). And yet the thing is an infectious country-turned-synthpop piece, lightweight but fun and bubbly. I really do like this song, and while I understand why others might not, it's my lists guys.



Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
I'm giving it a B because of the extreme overplay, but We're Not Gonna Take It is an anthemic, rollicking song, awesome and justly famous. Dee Snyder supposedly wrote this song by taking the Christmas carol 'Oh Come All Ye Faithful' and "rocking it out". Honestly, I can hear it. This song and its slapstick video famously sparked the creation of Tipper Gore's "Parents Music Resource Center", thanks to its "shocking and depraved" lyrics and imagery. Another age, guys.



Dead or Alive - You Spin me Round (Like a Record)
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Lead singer Pete Burns (prior to his plastic surgery addiction), wrote this song by listening to and copying the chord structure of Ride of the Valkyries, making this the second-consecutive song to come from a completely unexpected classical antecedent. I don't really LOVE this song, but I do like it enough to warrant its inclusion, as it's a bit of pop ephemera from an era that was unique enough to produce it.



Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
1984 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: A
Hallelujah is one of the most haunting songs ever written, a chilling, somber, spiritual, sublime piece of music, one that I've never known what to do with except praise. It's a song that almost defies criticism and opinion, a theme of such complexity and richness as to touch the soul. The above video is not Leonard Cohen's version, but the 1994 version by Jeff Buckley, probably the most celebrated of all versions, but dozens of artists have taken on this classic song, and since I'm not going to be calling each of them out in turn as we come to them, let this one stand for all of them. Buckley drowned not long after producing this song, and it remains his most enduring work, but it was Cohen, back in 1984, a year of wonders, that started it all. And I think this song is the perfect place to finally let this legendary year of music rest.




Other noted songs from 1984:
Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me
Lionel Richie - Stuck on You
Madonna - Borderline
Eurythmics - Here Comes the Rain Again
Lionel Richie - Running with the Night
Pat Benetar - Love is a Battlefield
Mike Reno & Ann Wilson - Almost Paradise
The Pointer Sisters - I'm So Excited
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Billy Joel - The Longest Time
Billy Joel - Keeping the Faith
Steve Perry - Oh Sherrie
U2 - Pride (In the Name of Love)
Prince - Purple Rain
Billy Idol - Rebel Yell

[Avian Obscurities]

"Wow, they're really into Yes on this planet...."

[White Haven]

I saw that name, and I just knew who it was going to be, even before the avatar.

On a totally different note...c'mon, man, Sunglasses at Night without the JC Denton picture to back it up? For shame!

[Hotfoot]

What's worse is that he gives us a shoddy link for The Warrior. SKRONK!

[LadyTevar]

Once again, I'm lost in memories of playing my radio and hearing these songs for the first time. Madonna was shocking, she actually had the word "Virgin" on the air, in a song. Cue girls going around wearing bandanas, baggy tees, etc. Mom tried to keep me from it... didn't quite work.

Huey Lewis and Prince were the two extremes of high school fantasy. Huey was all angles and scruffy manliness. Prince somehow walked the line between androgyny and masculine. The first Bishi, if you want, since most kids had no clue what Manga/Anime was at the time.

It's so odd how '84 wavered -- music was bright, light, and bubbly, or it was dark and growly. It mixed upbeat tunes with gritty lyrics. You saw Virgins dance with a Lion, Prostitutes dance-fight a pimp, Ghosts haunting, and the very first appearance of Demi Moore dancing with Springsteen

[General Havoc]

I saw that name, and I just knew who it was going to be, even before the avatar.

On a totally different note...c'mon, man, Sunglasses at Night without the JC Denton picture to back it up? For shame!

Man, I had so many damn options there. If anything I should have used the Blues Brothers.

What's worse is that he gives us a shoddy link for The Warrior. SKRONK!

Crap. Fixed it.

[White Haven]

Fun story about The Warrior:

So back when I used to play WoW, I ran across a warrior named, unimaginatively, Thewarrior. This was an opportunity I could not give up, especially as my friend (maybe roommate? Don't really remember when this happened) was a huge 80s nut. So I called him over, and we spent the next several minutes going back and forth typing the song's lyrics into chat while standing right next to him. I'm not sure if he was AFK or just thought that if he ignored these two crazy people, we'd go away eventually. If the latter, well, he was right, but it was still hilarious, and we were laughing our asses off the whole time.

[General Havoc]

1985



Yearly GPA: 2.038

The immense spike of 1983 still skews results, and will for the rest of this experiment, but with 1985, we can see the generally high level that this decade had to offer, at least for a while. As the sixties represented a quantum leap from the fifties, so too do the eighties represent one from the seventies, boosting the average rating of the year up by a plainly visible amount. And while a lot of the songs on this list will embaress the hell out of me, as per usual, I stand by my continuously high evaluation of the mid-80s as perhaps the crowning achievement of popular music.



Foreigner - I Wanna Know What Love Is
Number 1 song from February 2nd-15th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
I... actually quite like this song. It's the sound of it, really that does it, the soft synthesizers, the soulful singing, the New Jersey Mass choir in the background. I used to listen to this song when I was very young, and I always found it soothing. I still do. I know it's a power ballad and a soft one at that, and I know that those are an acquired taste, but what can I say, I've managed to acquire it. You can do far worse in this year and this genre...



George Michael - Careless Whisper
Number 1 song from February 16th-March 8th, 1985 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
... you can for instance do Careless Whisper, a song I don't hate but that I've never gotten the obsessions over. George Michael's singing is fine, but the Saxophone solo is terribly out of place and overly loud, and the song just doesn't gel for me. It never rises above the level of okay, as far as I'm concerned, and the song has become something of a joke across culture and the internet. Nothing terribly shabby, but I'm not destined to remember this one fondly as the classic of the genre others seem to think it.



REO Speedwagon - Can't Fight this Feeling
Number 1 song from March 9th-29th, 1985 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Now this one's a real classic. Classic what, I'm not sure, but a classic something. REO Speedwagon was an underrated band in terms of balladeers, and this one, while not my favorite of theirs, is an excellent one, albeit too slow, I'm sure, for a number of people. I just like the sound of this song, an excuse you'll find me using an awful lot.



Phil Collins - One More Night
Number 1 song from March 20th-April 12th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
There's something to be said for soft rock being this soft, a silky-smooth, minimalist, almost ethereal piece. I'm not entirely sure if I like the result or not. The song sounds wonderfully atmospheric, but it also drags on for waaaaaay too long, and even my love of Collins can only take me so far. That said, there are much worse songs in the genre, even if you restrict yourself to the softer side of things. Take or leave.



USA for Africa - We Are the World
Number 1 song from April 13th-May 10th, 1985 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
The original and most infamous celebrity medley charity single is probably the best of all of them, but that isn't saying a hell of a lot. This song is terrible, a saccharine, repetitive, ugly piece of music that reeks of self-indulgence and hedonism. It was the 80s after all. And yet rather than repeat what everyone else says about this piece, it's worth noting the positives, specifically that this is probably the best-sounding crap song in the history of the world. Seriously, listen to this thing, and consider the lineup that was put together for it. Dozens of the finest musicians in the world, each at the height of their powers, all from the core of the finest period of popular music ever. No Supergroup or ensemble piece, none ever before or since or even into the future, NONE of them could ever equal the raw star and musical power of USA for Africa, the single greatest collection of musical talent since the days of the Bavarian Courts. We Are the World may be a bad song, but it represents a unique thing, and is worth remembering if only for that.

A fun note about this recording. Forty-five of the biggest music celebrities in the world attended this recording, plus one more who was invited and declined (Prince). Fifty more asked to come and were turned away. The participants were LITERALLY BEGGED to leave their egos at the door by legendary producer Quincy Jones, backed up by Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, who told the gathered musicians that if anyone ruined the takes with their own shit, the two of them would personally drive them home.



Madonna - Crazy for You
Number 1 song from May 11th-17th, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Theme song to the justly-forgotten 1985 coming-of-age film Vision Quest, Crazy for You is a song I've long thought I should like better than I do. Madonna sings it well, and the song is arranged nicely, but it's just a bit ephemeral for my tastes. This song established Madonna's credibility as a singer, above and beyond the image, so I suppose there's that, but it really is a song I start to forget about not long after it starts playing.



Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me)
Number 1 song from May 18th-24th, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
A weird, moody New Wave piece, Simple Minds' most famous song was cemented with its appearance in the John Hughes classic, The Breakfast Club. Honestly I think both it and the film it's from are overrated. Not that I hate either, mind you, but there's just nothing here for me, once the first minute or so is over. Just typical mid-80s weirdness without any of the strong musicianship that would normally be attached to it. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this song, ultimately, so I'll leave it to you all to figure out.



Wham! - Everything She Wants
Number 1 song from May 25th-June 7th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: F
If you're gonna make a song that lasts six goddamn minutes, have the common courtesy to give me something epic. Meatloaf, Queen, these are acts that I can take this sort of shit from, but Wham was simply not the kind of band to deliver something like this, and this leaden Synth-pop R&B number, out of tune and out of control, is correspondingly a pile of shit. Though this decade and this period is the core of my musical experience, I did not remember this song's existence at all, and there seems to be a good reason for that.



Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Number 1 song from June 8th-21st, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Tears for Fears was a bigger band than I remembered them being, and this is one of their better offerings, a classic New Wave piece that is, surprisingly enough, about exactly what it is reputed to be about. It's a soothing piece, as many New Wave pieces are, despite the subject matter, and is evocative of a time and place enough to be used as a setting-fixture in movies and games as varied as American Psycho and World in Conflict.

Incidentally, this song has a number of covers, most of which decided to play the dour, apocalyptic card. Doesn't work well.



Bryan Adams - Heaven
Number 1 song from June 22nd-July 5th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
So it shouldn't surprise anyone who's been following my litany of embarrassing revelations that I actually like Bryan Adams, and Heaven is one of his better pieces, a soaring power ballad derived from Journey's Faithfully, and using Journey's drummer as an emergency fill-in. The song kind of meanders and peters out by the end, but the initial couple minutes are excellent, and I can take a flawed song that sounds good any day over a polished one that doesn't. This would cement Adams' reputation as a balladeer, to varying effects over the next decade or so.



Phil Collins - Sussudio
Number 1 song from July 6th-12th, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Speaking of over-polished songs that don't sound that great, this song is not for me at all. Sussudio was a nonsense line Collins came up with because he thought it sounded good over drum machines, and the song definitely sounds like one that was put together for that reason. I'm a big fan of Collins' but this song is all wrong, too slick, too polished, too much drum machining (a strange choice for a guy who started out as a drummer). Collins sings the song well, I suppose, but its simply soulless in my mind, rambles on way too long, and has no real flavor to it.

Fun note: The pub in the music video at which Collins is performing was lent to him for the day by the young owner, a man named Richard Branson...



Duran Duran - A View to a Kill
Number 1 song from July 13th-26th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
A View to a Kill was a terrible movie, and this Duran Duran song is its perfect match. In all the long history of Bond themes, this is the only one to ever hit number one, such was the inexplicable pull of Duran Duran in the 80s. For someone who loves this decade so much, I really have no explanation for Duran Duran, a slick, overhyped band that never actually got around to making good music. Where their popularity came from is beyond me, but then that's true of many other bands. And admittedly, they did have ONE song I do quite like, but we won't get to that one until 1993...



Paul Young - Everytime You Go Away
Number 1 song from July 27th-August 2nd, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
"Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you!" Such at least was the lyric my young ears heard when this thing played over the radio. This cover of a Hall & Oates song was Young's only number one hit, and it's a decent one, I suppose. A bit overwrought of course, but the song has aged reasonably well, I think, and I'm a sucker for piano work in ballads. Call this a guilty (limited) pleasure.



Tears for Fears - Shout
Number 1 song from August 3rd-23rd, 1985 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Shout is actually a better song than I remember it being, mostly because I, like almost everyone else, only remember the chorus, but the song overall has a wonderful synthpop-industrial hybrid sound to it. Tears for Fears' signiature song, it was intended as a sort of Network-style renunciation of the civilized pressures of modern life and the worries of mid-80s nuclear war. I didn't remember this song fondly, but it's a complex, layered, and musically interesting piece. Well done, TFF.



Huey Lewis & The News - The Power of Love
Number 1 song from August 24th-September 6th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Probably Huey Lewis' most iconic song, Power of Love isn't my favorite News song, but it's still a damned fine piece, and only a reasonably uninspired verse structure keeps it from the vaunted A-rating. I long-felt that Huey Lewis represented old-school rock at its finest, gussied up with then-modern synthesizers and other such refinements, and Power of Love might be their most traditional piece in that vein. Not to sound too much like Patrick Bateman, but Huey Lewis is an awesome band, one that should be listened to more often in general, even if it is only for their most famous number.

Incidentally, the music video for this one was an extended, thriller-style affair involving Christopher Lloyd and the famous DeLorean. Music starts at 2:14 if you want to cut to it.



John Parr - St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)
Number 1 song from September 7th-20th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: A
Where the hell did this come from? I've seriously never heard of this song or singer before, but it's apparently the theme song to an early Brat Pack coming-of-age movie directed by Joel Schumacher of all people that I've never cared enough about to bother watching. And yet this song is... amazing. I doubt anyone agrees with me on this fact, but this song was practically genetically engineered to appeal to me. Driving drum and bass line, soaring power-rock chorus, synthesizer/rock guitar/saxophone crosswork, what the hell do you want from me? This song is awesome, and I don't care how much hipster wrath you want to vent on the film it was drawn from, that's irrelevant here. This is my decade and my music. Leave me what surprises remain to me from it.



Dire Straights - Money for Nothing
Number 1 song from September 21st-October 11th, 1985 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I'm not a fan of Dire Straights by any stretch, but this song gets a small boost from the weirdness of its premise alone. The song is an appliance-store worker complaining about the bands he sees making vast money on MTV and claiming that they're not working. Thus the entire song is a sarcastic trollface. I can respect that.

The video was groundbreaking and all that jazz, but the underlying song is just kinda... there. I don't hate it, but it doesn't elicit much. Still, one takes what one gets.



Ready for the World - Oh Sheila
Number 1 song from October 12th-18th, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Supposedly this song gets mistaken for being a Prince song, which I fully understand, as it's about as boring as his usual output. This absolutely and strictly generic funk song goes on FOREVER and has basically nothing to do as it goes. I have never heard of this song before. I probably never will again.



A-ha - Take on Me
Number 1 song from October 19th-25th, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: A
PIIIIIIIPE WREEEEEEEENCH FIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!

No, seriously, Take on Me is just as awesome as it ever was, overhype and hipsterism be damned. It's also one of the more unique offerings on the number 1 charts, as I've not heard a hell of a lot that reminds me of it. What really is there to say about this song? The synth-bridge is an instant classic, the video was daring and technologically wondrous, the high notes are damned impossible to sing, it's just a wonderful euro-synth-pop dance club number, and anyone who doesn't like this song even a little bit is an asshole.



Whitney Houston - Saving All My Love for You
Number 1 song from October 26th-November 1st, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I don't hate Whitney Houston. She's one of the finest singers to ever hit the pop charts, and there are a handful of songs of hers that I actually do like. But this cover of a 1978 Billy Davis Jr. song is not among them. I always kind of thought it sounded like Christmas music to be honest, a bland jazz and R&B number salvaged only slightly by Houston's incomparable talent. That's not enough to salvage the song, but there'll be others.



Stevie Wonder - Part Time Lover
Number 1 song from November 2nd-8th, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
Stevie Wonder's last number 1 hit is, ironically, one of his best. An infectious dance-pop synth-driven number, this song featured Luther Vandross, of all people, on backup sounds, and features a high-energy dance beat that always wins you points from me. I actually like this song an awful lot, and while I appreciate its flaws, it's miles better than most of the ubersaccharine garbage that Stevie Wonder was constantly throwing out for most of his career.



Jan Hammer - Miami Vice Theme
Number 1 song from November 9th-15th, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
The last instrumental song to hit the number 1 spot until 2013 (don't remind me of that one), the Miami Vice theme's presence on this list is inexplicable to me. Even by the standards of 80s themes, this one is just an electro-synth-pop mess. It sounds futuristic enough, but goes nowhere, and ends so abruptly, I thought my MP3 was cut off. Although in fairness, this does mean that since this is the last instrumental piece to hit number 1, whatever else I'm in store for, I will probably be spared Kenny G.



Starship - We Built This City
Number 1 song from November 16th-29th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: A
Yeah, that's right. A song declared the worst of the entire decade by VH1, Blender Magazine, and Rolling freaking Stone gets an A from me. Why? Because all of those people are douchebags and so is anyone who regards this song as the worst of anything. I understand, I suppose, why one might not love it, but I do, and I'll not take any crap for it. The song is well-crafted, driving, with a pounding pop-rock bass line with synthesizer support. Yes, it runs on a bit, but I honestly and truely love this song, and I've never understood what makes people declare it so contemptible. If you honestly think THIS is the worst thing the 80s put out, then brother, you are not ready for 1989...



Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin - Separate Lives
Number 1 song from November 30th-December 6th, 1985 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Talk about overwrought. This song is an endless, misery-wracked piece of ultra-slow Adult Contemporary mourning. Morose and slow-paced, this is a song I have no interest in repeating, nor in spending any more time describing. I'm sure there will be more like it, but this one I'll put to bed now.



Mr. Mister - Broken Wings
Number 1 song from December 7th-20th, 1985 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
This is a close one admittedly, but Broken Wings is ultimately so over-the-top and cheeseball that it's actually kind of cute. I don't love this song or even really like it, but it does have a unique sound, which is never something to be lightly cast aside. Supposedly Tupac was a big fan of this song, so go figure.



Lionel Richie - Say You, Say Me
Number 1 song from December 21st, 1985-January 17th, 1986 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I'm not exactly a Lionel Richie fan, but this is about as good as he ever got, a song that while still rather mealy-mouthed, does have a sense of grandeur to it. It's admittedly not much, and way too slow, but I'm grading somewhat on a curve here, and on pure sound, and if I want to be absolutely honest with myself, there's far worse things out there.






Supplemental Songs

I'm no stranger to ritually revealing all of my most embarrassing tastes on these lists, but this time round I may well wind up losing all credibility forever. '85 was host to a number of songs that I grew up with, and are probably objectively suck, but about which I'm simply incapable of being objective. Believe me, bad as this list was, it was nearly even worse, as there's a handful of songs on the also-ran list below that came dangerously close to making the cut. Count your blessings gents, and as you mock, bear in mind the songs YOU once listened to.


DeBarge - Rhythm of the Night
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 32


Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, yeah I know, sue me. Rhythm of the Night is just a fun number, hokey though it might be nowadays. You didn't hear a lot of Calypso on the radio then or now, after all, and the song just has a wonderful beach-party vibe to it amidst the power ballads and dour soft rock. Not that I hate either of those things, but there's room for some fun in the mid-80s too.



Pat Benetar - We Belong
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 39


Havoc's Grade: B
I gotta be honest, this song's here purely because of that bass line, something you didn't commonly hear in a Benetar song, not even when she was trying to be Joan Jett. I've always liked this one, not sure why, perhaps because it sounds like something from a Highlander film. Industrial-fantasy rock is something you're usually going to do well with when it comes to pleasing my tastes after all.



Corey Hart - Never Surrender
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 44


Havoc's Grade: A
Goddammit, I forgot this song existed.

So... back when I was about seven, this song was used as the theme to some third-tier kids' cartoon, which one I no longer remember, but in my mind, it got conflated with all of them, such that when I think back at the cartoons of my childhood, the GI Joes and Transformers and He Men and (slightly later) X-men, this is the song that comes to mind. In consequence, I like it a great deal, and appreciate that as always, one's mileage may vary. But this was practically the theme song to my first grade year. Think on your own childhoods and speak to me of YOUR impeccable tastes.



Survivor - The Search is Over
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 53


Havoc's Grade: B
Oh for God's sake...

Yes, yes, I know, a terrible adult alternative ballad. Screw you all, this one I like. I'm not even gonna defend it further.



Murray Head - One Night in Bangkok
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 54


Havoc's Grade: B
Even by the standards of the 80s, this is one of the weirder songs to ever grace the top 100. Composed for the West End musical Chess, this song was written by the people that brought you ABBA, which I can hear if I squint at it enough. I really don't know what to do with this song, never have, and yet I do like it as a fine example of mid-80s new wave strangeness.



Tina Turner - We Don't Need Another Hero
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 57


Havoc's Grade: B
Probably the best thing to come out of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, this song is a nicely understated New-wave-inspired rock-pop hybrid fused with elements from Prog rock, and even from other Aussie bands like Men at Work. It's not my favorite Turner song by any stretch, but it's a wonderfully-sounding post-apocalyptic theme that should see more use, despite the movie it's attached to.



Bryan Adams - Summer of '69
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 74


Havoc's Grade: B
To be honest, this song is so overplayed that I almost hate it, but it's overplayed for a reason, and I'm not curmudgeon enough to reject that. This is the only Bryan Adams song that it's "cool" to like, so I suppose it'll be a respite of some sort, but I do understand its popularity, an up-tempo rock song with a lovely guitar and bass backing, very clean and classic in its sound. Adams would go on to become an infamous balladeer, but this song remains the exception in most people's minds.



Katrina and the Waves - Walking on Sunshine
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 75


Havoc's Grade: B
Immortalized by High Fidelity, and sung by a band with a name that would become highly unfortunate in later context, Walking on Sunshine is just an infectiously fun song, like something the Beach Boys might have put out if they had been less uptight. Supposedly this song is one of the biggest royalty earners of all time, the crown jewel in monster-music-company EMI's catalog. So be it. I quite like this song and I don't know anybody who doesn't at least crack a smile when it comes on.



Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: 92


Havoc's Grade: B
One of Springsteen's crowning achievements, Born in the USA, Springsteen's signature Vietnam-vet ballad is a good song, but not a great one. It starts well enough but sort of just peters out by the end, with verses left to fester and linger, and a rock theme that just doesn't go anywhere. That said, the song is a very good one, but I do prefer other works by the Boss. Just my opinion.



Huey Lewis & The News - Walking on a Thin Line
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Now here's a song I bet most of you have never heard of. Walking on a Thin Line was about as serious as the News ever got, a bitter mediation on the plight of Vietnam veterans suffering from what we'd now call PTSD. The News were never super-convincing as a "serious" band, but I actually do quite like this song, with a good, solid rock backing to it and soulful singing as per the News' usual. Your mileage may vary, but I'll certainly take this song over a lot of its contemporaries.



A-ha - The Sun Always Shines on TV
1985 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
And speaking of songs none of you have ever heard of, did any of you know that A-ha had another hit song? Well they did, and it's actually pretty good, not the equal to their epochal smash Take On Me, but still a worthy song to consider in the annals of European New Wave. This song was supposedly recorded while the band was suffering from a terrible flu, but you can't hear it, not with the high production, operatic synthesizers, and soaring, almost ethereal arrangement. The video for this song takes place in a Gothic cathedral, and it sounds like that's precisely where it belongs.


Other noted songs from 1985:
Glenn Frey - The Heat is On
Glenn Frey - You Belong to the City
Chicago - You're the Inspiration
The Commodores - Nightshift
Whitney Houston - You Give Good Love
Don Henley - The Boys of Summer
Madonna - Material Girl
Tears for Fears - Head Over Heels
Sade - Smooth Operator
Cyndi Lauper - All Through the Night
Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days
Eurythmics - Would I Lie to You?
Paul McCartney - No More Lonely Nights
Bruce Springsteen - I'm on Fire
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Don Henley - All She Wants to do is Dance
Sting - Russians
Dire Straights - So Far Away
Dionne Warwick - That's What Friends are For
Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls

[White Haven]

While I condemn you for blaspheming against Dire Straights, I must concur with We Built This City. In fact, it's been established* that it continues to the forty-first millennium as an archaeomelody.

*totally not GW canon but fuck you

[LadyTevar]

Once again, so many songs that I knew, that I loved, that I would play air-guitar to as they played on the radio.
I argue your score for "Seperate Lives", as I still love the hell out of it. In fact, it may be a song that played better to Chicks than to the guys. Wham and Duran-Duran were Chick-bands, if you want to be honest. They got where they were because the Chicks loved their looks. One of my circle of friends was so head-over-heads with Simon of DuranDuran her bedroom was wall-papered with posters of him.

One Night in Bangkok topped the charts simply because it was so unique. Miami Vice Theme? Because the show was that popular. Glenn Fry made a lot of money selling his songs to the show. So did Collins.

[Hotfoot]

Well by now I'm used to the fact that I will forever be let down by your sad devotion to that ancient tradition of soft sht, but man you got some nerve fucking up another link after you disrespected Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior!

Breaking News! A-Ha is not Huey Lewis!



And yeah man, Dire Straights that low? Pffft. Go back to your terrible crooning. That's not work, that's songs about nothing and the notes for free.

[General Havoc]

Well by now I'm used to the fact that I will forever be let down by your sad devotion to that ancient tradition of soft sht, but man you got some nerve fucking up another link after you disrespected Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior!

Breaking News! A-Ha is not Huey Lewis!



And yeah man, Dire Straights that low? Pffft. Go back to your terrible crooning. That's not work, that's songs about nothing and the notes for free.

You know what, you wanna go make a thread with about seven thousand embedded links in it? Go right ahead and do that and THEN maybe you get to complain when I get my Youtube codes crossed...

*Grumble* Fixed, by the way.

And who knew I had this many Dire Straights fans following this thread? I just don't see the appeal of a song like that beyond kitsch, but as I've stated before, I'm a sound-over-content kind of guy when it comes to music. That the song was trollface incarnated I can respect (and I suspect this is why Hotfoot liked it), but it just sounds kinda placid. Not my thing really, though I don't hate it.

Oh, and Tev? I sort of assumed that much about Duran Duran (wham I suppose is just one of those things), but their music was simply bad. Not the last band to get popular despite that, I admit, but this is a retrospective on the songs alone, more or less.

[LadyTevar]

DuranDuran wasn't as BAD as you think. They had catchy tunes that hooked their target audience: Teenyboppers and Twenty-somethings.

[General Havoc]

I just... don't hear it. There's one Duran Duran song I do like, but it's a 90s piece, and the rest of it... I mean not all of it sucks, some of it reaches decent, but it's all ambling a-melodic weirdness. Yes, the 80s were full of weirdness, but still.

[rhoenix]

I just... don't hear it. There's one Duran Duran song I do like, but it's a 90s piece, and the rest of it... I mean not all of it sucks, some of it reaches decent, but it's all ambling a-melodic weirdness. Yes, the 80s were full of weirdness, but still.

The one and only Duran Duran song I actually like, let alone can stand, is one of their later works, Come Undone. I liked that one - but none of their other songs really grabbed me.

[LadyTevar]

*sigh* I'm just gonna call it a male/female thing, because the boys my age didn't get DuranDuran either.
I liked their songs because they had a good beat, you could dance to it, and they were easy to sing along with, ok?

[General Havoc]

I just... don't hear it. There's one Duran Duran song I do like, but it's a 90s piece, and the rest of it... I mean not all of it sucks, some of it reaches decent, but it's all ambling a-melodic weirdness. Yes, the 80s were full of weirdness, but still.

The one and only Duran Duran song I actually like, let alone can stand, is one of their later works, Come Undone. I liked that one - but none of their other songs really grabbed me.

That's actually also the one I point to as the one I like.

[rhoenix]

*sigh* I'm just gonna call it a male/female thing, because the boys my age didn't get DuranDuran either.
I liked their songs because they had a good beat, you could dance to it, and they were easy to sing along with, ok?

Hey, no judgement here - to each their own.

[General Havoc]

1986
Yearly GPA: 1.462




Nothing lasts forever guys, not even the 80s awesomeness, and by 1986, you can see it all falling apart. Not that there aren't bright spots this year, indeed one of my favorite songs ever hit number one in 1986, but the general run of things was very, very mediocre. I can't promise things are likely to get much better in the next year or two, but rather than lament things, we should simply be thankful that the awesome run of 80s supremacy lasted as long as it did, and then take what we can get from here on out.



Dionne and Friends - That's What Friends are For
Number 1 song from January 18th-February 14th, 1986 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
This song is crap. Well-made crap, admittedly, but crap nonetheless. Dionne Warwick was a marginally-talented singer who roped several far-more-talented singers to help her sing this mealy-mouthed piece of easy listening crap that sounds like it belongs somewhere on Sesame Street. Stevie Wonder, whom I erroneously claimed we had seen the last of on the charts, and Gladys Knight are both excellent singers, but Elton John, who usually also is, sounds horrible on this song, to the point where I thought he was two different people at one point, neither of them named Elton John. But ultimately the quality of the singing here is irrelevant, as this song sounds like it was designed for six year olds. I didn't like it even when I was six.



Whitney Houston - How Will I Know
Number 1 song from February 15th-28th, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Originally designed as a Janet Jackson song, How Will I know is actually pretty good. Not great, but it's a decent mid-late 80s dance-pop number that definitely sounds like something Janet Jackson or Paula Abdul might have done. Whitney was a better singer than either of them, and elevates the material a bit, though not enough to make me love it. Still, no complaints.



Mr. Mister - Kyrie
Number 1 song from March 1st-14th, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I always assumed that Kyrie was supposed to be a girl's name, having never really listened to this song. To my surprise, the song's chorus explicitly calls out "Kyrie Eléison", which should be familiar to any of you with a Catholic background. It's a Greek prayer that means "Lord, have mercy", used in liturgies since the sixth century. That's right, the entire song Kyrie is a prayer. This song is Christian Rock.

Yes, I'm being somewhat facetious. The song isn't actually Christian Rock any more than Stairway to Heaven is, but what it is is surprisingly decent. It harmonizes well, it has a good solid bass beat, it doesn't ramble on forever or overstate its message. Whatever you regard it as, there's neither a shortage of nor a problem with rock music that has spiritual themes necessarily. We just tend to lump the most anvillicious of it into the dreaded Christian Rock brand so that we can mock. It's not a great song, and I ultimately came down on a C rather than a B, but it's actually all right, and I didn't know Mister Mister had this in them.



Starship - Sara
Number 1 song from March 15th-21st, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I forgot this song existed, and I wish I hadn't remembered. Sara is a noodling, boring track that wanders around aimlessly like a drunk recovering from a three-day bender. It's not that the song sounds awful, it's that it's godawfully boring. This, I assume, is what most of you people hear every time I praise a softer song on these lists, and in fact, I dislike this song so much that halfway through it I simply stopped it and listened to "We Built This City" again.



Heart - These Dreams
Number 1 song from March 22nd-28th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
Originally designed as a Stevie Nix song (she rejected it), this song's strange ethereal style was put together after the fact, when Heart singer Nancy Wilson came down with a rasping cold and could not sing the intended Power Ballad style that it was written for. When the song became a hit, the producers asked Wilson if she wouldn't mind getting sick again to replicate the effect on future songs.

I do like this song, soft though it might be, as ethereal synthesizers are always a plus in my book. I'm certain nobody else likes it, but then by now that shouldn't be surprising.



Falco - Rock Me Amadeus
Number 1 song from March 29th-April 18th, 1986 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
One of the weirdest songs that even the 80s records, Rock Me Amadeus, Falco's biggest hit, is awesome. Yes, it makes no damn sense, not even in German, but as a German New Wave classic, that much isn't required. Supposedly based on the movie Amadeus, this song has one of the more memorable music videos of its period, one so strange that a literal music video seems entirely beside the point. This is a classic. Don't hate.

Oh, incidentally, for some reason, this song has a LOT of Metal covers out there, most of them German Industrial or Power Metal. And you know what? Some of them are pretty good.



Prince and the Revolution - Kiss
Number 1 song from April 19th-May 2nd, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I apologize guys, but Prince's songs are simply impossible to find online, be it on Youtube or somewhere else, and so you'll have to make do with my word on this one. Kiss is a... decent song insofar as Prince goes. I don't really love it, but it's put together reasonably well, and Prince's arrangements and production have never been in question. It's just not the sort of thing I appreciate, and Prince was never gonna be my sort of artist, no matter what name he went by.



Robert Palmer - Addicted to Love
Number 1 song from May 3rd-9th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I'm torn about this song. It's got everything that I normally like, but it's just not that good. Not that it's BAD or anything, but I get no emotional charge from this song. It sounds like someone's trying to be ZZ Top without any of the personality. Maybe someone else gets something more from this song, but I'll pass.



Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
Number 1 song from May 10th-16th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I do like the Pet Shop Boys, but beyond a nice atmosphere, there just isn't much to this song. I don't precisely dislike it, hip hop influence or not, but there isn't a lot here beneath the sound and artifice. As always, that's not enough to get me to pan the song, as the atmosphere is, to an extent the point. But it's still not something I'm going to be throwing on with any regularity.



Whitney Houston - The Greatest Love of All
Number 1 song from May 17th-June 6th, 1986 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
Whitney Houston was a fantastic singer. Not even her critics will deny that. And yet my appreciation for her music was always limited by this sort of thing. This song, originally written in 1977 for a Muhammed Ali biopic, this song starts off decently, but collapses into middling boredom by the first chorus. I've defended many a bad song by saying that I like the sound of it. Well I don't like the sound of this one. Go figure.



Madonna - Live to Tell
Number 1 song from June 7th-13th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
This isn't a great song, but it's a decent one, mostly because Madonna sings it well and because I like minor chords and funk guitars. This was supposedly written as a theme song to Madonna's then-husband Sean Penn's movie At Close Range, after much screaming and yelling between Paramount and the songwriter. It's decent as Madonna goes, if not much more.



Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald - On My Own
Number 1 song from June 14th-July 4th, 1986 (3 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Decent singing is about the best I can say about this soft rock borefest. I think I'm on solid ground when I say that I don't hate soft rock, but even I have limits, and this song easily exceeds them. This is almost the textbook definition of a D song, a song that's not bad enough to truly loathe, but has no qualities I can point to to justify awarding any more points.



Billy Ocean - There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)
Number 1 song from July 5th-11th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Billy Ocean sings the hell out of this song, and that alone keeps it out of the D-range, as the song otherwise is utterly forgettable, a basic Soul/R&B number that could be any one of a hundred other Adult Contemporary ballads. Still, Ocean does sing it extremely well.



Simply Red - Holding Back the Years
Number 1 song from July 12th-18th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
One of the most boring songs ever written, Holding Back the Years avoids the dreaded F only by virtue of being atmospheric, or at least slightly so. This song was supposedly written about the singer's mother, who abandoned him at 3. I don't hear it. The song can put small children to sleep, and there's not much more to be said.



Genesis - Invisible Touch
Number 1 song from July 19th-25th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
This song tries, and it has many of the right elements, but for once, the lyrics let this one down, with forced rhyme schemes and chorus lines that just fit awkwardly, and the thing never breaks out the way it seems to want to. It's not a bad song, certainly, but even my appreciation of Phil Collins doesn't salvage this one fully.



Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer
Number 1 song from July 26th-August 1st, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
One of the most influential music videos in history attached to one of the more mundane songs of the decade, go figure. Sledgehammer is a strange song, and the video for it is even stranger, but I can't say I really like it all that much, as I think the hoopla over the visuals overshadows the music, which is what we're here for.



Peter Cetera - Glory of Love
Number 1 song from August 2nd-15th, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Glory of Love is one of the most hated songs of the decade and I will be goddamned if I can figure out why. No it's not great, not by any stretch, but it's hardly worthy of such hideous invective. I don't have the raging hate for Peter Cetera that some do, but he was certainly capable of worse than this (as we'll no doubt come to see). This song, Cetera's first solo effort after leaving Chicago, was off the soundtrack to Karate Kid II, not exactly the song I'd have picked, but contrary to some opinions, it does not ruin the movie it's in. Find another target, guys. There'll be plenty to pick from as we go.



Madonna - Papa Don't Preach
Number 1 song from August 16th-29th, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
No, I don't hate this song, but it's as bland as they come, and I don't particularly care that the subject matter is shocking if the music isn't interesting. For the five of you who don't know, this is a song about teenage pregnancy and abortion. Fair enough. But I'm here to rate music, not social commentary, and this song just isn't well done, and even Madonna's singing sounds flat. Where all the critical acclaim that this song garnered comes from, I just don't know.



Steve Winwood - Higher Love
Number 1 song from August 30th-September 5th, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
Higher Love is an example of a genre I call "Electro-Gospel", which is a fancy way of describing the more soulful side of singer-songwriter fare, complete with modern instrumentation and arrangements, and usually infused with the overt gospel roots behind soul music, blue-eyed or otherwise. Higher Love is admittedly not one of its higher-profile entrants, but it's a very good song, with backing vocals by Chaka Khan (who seems to have provided backing vocals for half of the 80s). While the song does ramble a bit, it's got a very strong choral structure and sound, and I quite like it, as I do much of the Electro-Gospel canon.



Bananarama - Venus
Number 1 song from September 6th-12th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: F
Venus was never a good song, not back in 1969 when Shocking Blue first wrote it, but it was a shade better than this crap. Where the hellish abomination called Bananarama came from, I don't even want to know, but they sound like the older, less-talented sisters of the Spice Girls, set down a decade and a half early. I have no use whatsoever for this song or this band, and the less I hear about them the better. This is the sort of shit that gave European EDM a bad name.



Berlin - Take my Breath Away
Number 1 song from September 13th-19th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Take My Breath away has a very memorable sound, but that's about all I can give it. This is easily the worst song off the otherwise awesome Top Gun soundtrack, an overwrought Synthpop ballad that I simply find boring, no matter how hard Terri Nunn tries to wring pathos out of the lyrics. It's just too generic even for my tastes, guys. There's far better to be had from that movie.



Huey Lewis & The News - Stuck With You
Number 1 song from September 20th-October 10th, 1986 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I love Huey Lewis, but that's no excuse for this song, the slowest and least interesting song that the News ever produced, as far as I'm concerned. Huey's strengths were never balladeering, and while he's not awful here, the song just isn't interesting enough to warrant much of a listen.



Janet Jackson - When I Think of You
Number 1 song from October 11th-24th, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I'm not a Janet Jackson fan, if only because I can't distinguish her from Paula Abdul no matter what I do. This song is a good example of my issues with her, as it's generic crooning without much in the way of melody or charm. I can't really think of anything else to say about this song, which is a pretty good indication that it has earned its score.



Cyndi Lauper - True Colors
Number 1 song from October 25th-November 7th, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I actually expected to like this song more than I did, so well did I remember it, but it turns out I had crossed the Phil Collins cover of this song in my mind with this one, which is simply so simpering and soft that even I can't stand it. I like Cyndi Lauper, but this arrangement is all wrong, both for her and the song, and I kind of wish I could hear the piano ballad it was originally supposed to be.



Boston - Amanda
Number 1 song from November 8th-21st, 1986 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: D
I have nothing against Power Ballads, I think I've established that by now, but this one is simply not very good. That the same band who created More than a Feeling could produce this is inexplicable, as I have effectively no use for this mealy-mouthed song, a power ballad that omits the power, which is the only reason such songs work at all. Not for me at all.



Human League - Human
Number 1 song from November 22nd-28th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
The inventively-named Human, is one of those songs you never really think about as having been written at all. It's definitely one of the softer entries in the ranks of British Techno-pop. I do like the sound of this song, admittedly, but all that listening to it proved is that it's better as a thirty-second commercial jingle for automobile insurance than it is as a love song. It noodles about, it refuses to get to any kind of point, and just sort of rambles on until it's done.



Bon Jovi - You Give Love a Bad Name
Number 1 song from November 29th-December 5th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
Year mired in soft-rock and awful-sounding cheese? Bon Jovi to the rescue! The first single off the famous Slippery When Wet album, this isn't Bon Jovi's best song, nor the best song of that album, but boy oh boy is it welcome. This is a piece of Hair Metal history, a gorgeous, thundering song, one that hits all the right notes as it blows everything around it away. It does just kinda end, but this song is still amazing, and while I was beginning to despair utterly for this year, fortunately Metal rushed in to rescue us all.



Peter Cetera and Amy Grant - The Next Time I Fall in Love
Number 1 song from December 6th-12th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
So you know how I mentioned that Peter Cetera was capable of far worse than Glory of Love? Well this is what I meant. Next Time I Fall in Love is a really bad song, meandering and simpering and stupid in all the ways I don't like. The first twenty seconds are marginally interesting enough for me to give it something other than the dreaded F, but believe me, it was a close one. Cetera's strange voice was suited for ballads and soaring harmonies, not this kind of rambling boredom.



Bruce Hornsby & The Range - The Way it Is
Number 1 song from December 13th-19th, 1986 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: A
The Way It Is isn't just a great song, it's one of my favorite songs of all time, possibly the greatest singer-songwriter ballad in history, not that that's an easy claim to make. I don't know what it is, Hornsby's authoritative singing, the piano-and-synthesizer harmonies, the driving beat and bass, something in this song just gels for me in a way I'm not equipped to describe. I'm sure some of you find it boring or too soft or whatever, but to me this song is sublime, and I can't speak highly of it enough.

Incidentally, Sean Hannity used to use this song as the theme to his show, until Bruce Hornsby himself started calling on him to stop in less than polite terms. Hannity apparently managed to misinterpret the lyrics that discuss segregation, homelessness, welfare, and social inequality as being an endorsement of his politics. Go figure.



The Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian
Number 1 song from December 20th, 1986-January 16th, 1987 (4 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I often wonder how this song plays in Egypt, if it even does, but one way or another this song is fun, stupid fun of course, but fun nonetheless. I can't regard it as a great song or anything, but it's a decent enough little Pop Rock number. Given everything else that happened this year, this hardly the worst thing the year could end with.







Supplemental Songs

So if 1986's number 1s were lackluster, what might we find in the supplemental lists to console ourselves?


Eddie Money - Take Me Home Tonight
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: 59


Havoc's Grade: B
Eddie Money was basically always a joke, but I can't help liking this song. It's so over-the-top in all the right ways for the decade, that it's simply fun. There's not much else to say about it really, it's a decent pop-rock song from a year that produced few.



Phil Collins - Take Me Home
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: 88


Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah yeah, Havoc likes a soft rock song, he's lame, blah blah blah. I already admitted to liking Phil Collins, and this is one of the reasons why. I like this song a good deal, a pulsating, rhythmic, arena anthem. And lest anyone laugh at me for this, Cleveland rappers Bone Thugz N Harmony clearly thought the same, as they produced a collaborative hip hop version of the song with Collins himself in 2003. We may even see it when we get there. It's not like 2003 produced much else...



Europe - The Final Countdown
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: A
The Final Countdown is a song it's become fashionable to hate on in recent years, but I have no patience for hipster bullshit. Written as nothing more than an opening number for Europe's live tours, the decision to release this song as a single was probably the best decision lead singer Joey Tempest (yes) ever had. This song is simply over-the-top awesome, built around what is almost certainly the best synthesizer riff in all of rock. Do not front, you all know you love this song.



Paul Simon - Call Me Al
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
Supposedly, Simon got the name of this song from a friend of his who was forever calling him by the wrong name. This is, to me, Paul Simon's best solo work, a weird little world-music-inspired Pop song involving an African choir, recorders, and a rambling set of stories about Simon's trip to Africa. Oh and saxophones. Many saxophones. Handle it.



Cheap Trick - Mighty Wings
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
One of the many, many good songs off the Top Gun soundtrack, Mighty Wings flopped like a wounded duck on release, but I've always appreciated it. Cheap Trick were one of the weirder Power Pop bands of the late 80s, and they more or less tried to disown this song, but they can't get away from me that easily. I quite like Mighty Wings, if only for the sense of grandeur it manages to evoke through its pop-metal chords



Kenny Loggins - Playin' With the Boys
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: B
This was a borderline case, admittedly, but I couldn't ultimately leave one of the gayest songs in human history off the list entirely. Not that this is it's only virtue, for Playin' With the Boys is actually quite a good song, if you like Kenny Loggins' style of pop-rock that is. High-energy, well produced, and catchy, it's yet another good song off one of the better movie soundtracks ever.

Apologies for the video, incidentally. There was no better version on offer that I could find.



Harold Faltermayer & Steve Stevens - Top Gun Anthem
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A


Havoc's Grade: A
THIS one however, is not borderline at all. Top Gun's guitar-and-harpsichord anthem is my favorite purely instrumental piece of the 20th century, a gorgeous piece of instrumental work, almost the platonic form of 80s rock. This song is so awesome that I can't speak particularly coherently about it, and its victory in the 1987 Grammys for best instrumental pop song was one of the few times the RIAA unequivocally got it right. I absolutely love this song, a rousing, orchestral anthem equal to anything produced by John Williams or Basil Poledouris, unquestionably one of the greatest movie themes of all time.



Other noted songs from 1986:
Eddie Murphy - Party All The Time
Whitney Houston - The Greatest Love of All
Lionel Richie - Dancing on the Ceiling
Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone (Iconic, I know, but it's fourth-best on the album at the highest.)
Miami Sound Machine - Words Get In The Way
The Bangles - Manic Monday
Sade - The Sweetest Taboo
Jermaine Stewart - We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off
James Brown - Living in America
John Cougar Mellancamp - R.O.C.K. in the USA
John Cougar Mellancamp - Small Town
Baltimora - Tarzan Boy
Run DMC - Walk This Way
Metallica - Master of Puppets

[Hotfoot]

That's right, New Jersey to the rescue.

You're WELCOME.

By the way, apparently according to some digging I did on the matter, Bruce Hornsby actually tried to not to make a stink about the whole thing, but it blew up anyway.

Oh, hey there Rap and Heavy Metal, good to finally see you on the list. You two play nice now, you hear?

[General Havoc]

1987
Yearly GPA: 2.327





Now this I did not expect. 1987 is a fairly infamous year in terms of music, and I fully expected everything to collapse this year as the 80s finally ran out of steam. Quite the opposite happened, as new bands in new genres appeared to produce good, sometimes excellent music, including several stone classics that are among the best songs ever recorded. And so when I totaled all the scores up, 1987, to my surprise, was the second best year we've so-far seen, second only to the towering and irreproduceable achievement that was 1983. So set your preconceptions of the late 80s aside, and bask in the following:



Gregory Abbott - Shake You Down
Number 1 song from January 17th-23rd, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Classic R&B this ain't. Abbott's weak voice has been commented on at length regarding this, his only number 1 hit, but the song is simply a noodling waste of time. I have no idea how this thing got this big, even in 1987.



Billy Vera & The Beaters - At This Moment
Number 1 song from January 24th-February 6th, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I can't hate this song, despite the fact that so many others seem to be able to. There's just an earnestness to it, between the blues sound and the soulful singing. This version of the song is actually the 1986 re-release, which is the one that charted number 1, though the song itself is five years older than that, and featured prominently on Family Ties.



Madonna - Open Your Heart
Number 1 song from February 7th-13th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Originally written for Cyndi Lauper of all people, Open Your Heart is a song I'm of two minds on, as I do quite like the chorus, and yet it doesn't have a whole hell of a lot, musically, to do with the rest of the song. As always, this song and its video produced scandal and controversy, as it featured Madonna "shockingly" dressed up like a stripper (heaven forbid!), but I'm concerned more with the song, which is a decent one, but a bit disjointed for my taste.



Bon Jovi - Livin' on a Prayer
Number 1 song from February 14th-March 13th, 1987 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: A
Bon Jovi's Magnum Opus, Living on a Prayer isn't just a great song, it's one of the finest pure rock songs of all time, certainly one of the finest of the 80s. What can I say about this song that hasn't already been said? It's probably the pinnacle of Hair Metal for me (though there's a song next year that competes for this title), a soaring, anthemic work, with impossible vocals and a solid bass line. This song is roundly regarded as a high water mark for Rock music, featuring over and over in retrospectives and lists of that sort. It even managed to hit the Billboard charts once more in 2013 after a viral video reminded everyone of just how badass it is.



Huey Lewis - Jacob's Ladder
Number 1 song from March 14th-20th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
News fan though I am, I've literally never even heard of this song. Apparently it was written by Bruce Hornsby back in '86, but given to Lewis after Hornsby thought that his style might suit it better. I don't know that I agree, but then I'm not sure there's any version of this song that I would like. An allusion like Jacob's Ladder demands something weighty, biblical, epic, and Lewis, much as I like him, was never very good at that sort of thing The song sounds like the theme song to a sitcom, and that's not, in this case, a complement.



Club Nouveau - Lean on Me
Number 1 song from March 21st-April 3rd, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Ah, 80s hip-hop. A more innocent time for the genre, before Public Enemy and Dre and the rest of Gangsta rap summarily executed every other form of hip hop, exiling it from the charts, more or less forever. Admittedly, this song isn't pure hip hop, for the charts weren't prepared to support that yet, but is instead an example of something called "New Jack Swing", a term I promise you I did not make up. To be perfectly honest, I actually quite like this rendition of Lean on Me, not as much as the original version of course, and it does run on way too long, but the idea of R&B vocals over dance-hip-hop beats worked for more songs than this, and the underlying song is a strong one.



Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
Number 1 song from April 4th-17th, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
And I thought We Built This City was a contentious song. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us was so reviled in its day that the Head Coach of the Montreal Canadiens, who used this song as his team's anthem during a successful Stanley Cup campaign, got his house burned down by irate hockey fans who loathed the song. And this was in Canada!

Well you know what? Fuck those guys and all of you haters with them. As with Starship's previous entry on this particular experiment, this song is actually better than its reputation has made it sound, though obviously not as good as the previous one. Nevertheless, I enjoy this song more than I probably should, and eagerly await the "clever" responses you all have with your shockingly unique opinions about how I like crap and this song really sucks.



George Michael & Aretha Franklin - I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)
Number 1 song from April 18th-May 1st, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Aretha's last number one is actually not as bad a song as I remembered it being. That's not to say it's great, my appreciation for Aretha being what it is, but it's a reasonable Adult Contemporary R&B Pop number for its era. Nothing fantastic, but nothing awful either.



Cutting Crew - I Just Died in Your Arms
Number 1 song from May 2nd-15th, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Cutting Crew's one and only hit is... okay. Honestly I'm surprised I don't like this song better, but perhaps the hook just never quite caught me or something. There's nothing really wrong with it, it's just a fairly generic new wave/pop rock song that emulates older, better songs without quite getting them right. Not my favorite thing ever, but certainly not BAD.



U2 - With or Without You
Number 1 song from May 15th-June 5th, 1987 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: A
Though they'd been around since 1976, U2 was never a big success in the US until the 1987 release of the Joshua Tree album. Going into the recording of that album, the various band-members of U2 were concerned that they had run out of ideas, and even considered dissolving the band and going their separate ways. In their desperation to produce something new, however good or bad, Bono and the Edge cobbled together a song out of various ideas they had, one which merely turned out to be one of the greatest songs of all time.

With or Without You is a sublime, transcendent song, an almost platonic exercise in controlled buildup and musical progression. Cored around Edge's Infinite Guitar, one of only three ever constructed, this song was the product of the very first time he or anyone had ever played such an instrument, and combined with a keyboard arpeggio of the gods, a vocal downshift from Bono, and a relentlessly tight arrangement, the result is almost divine. With or Without you is an absolute masterpiece. Anyone who doesn't like it is simply wrong.



Kim Wilde - You Keep Me Hangin' On
Number 1 song from June 6th-12th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
Here we have another example of a Supremes song (we met it back in 1966), whose cover by someone else is considerably better than the original. Not that this is a small category, but this one hit number 1. I admit, the song isn't amazing, but it's a strong C nevertheless, and I do think it's worth a listen, unlike the original.



Atlantic Starr - Always
Number 1 song from June 13th-19th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
I've amassed a reputation in these lists for giving undue praise to songs that do not deserve it, particularly ones I grew up with. I understand that I have something of a bias, but in my own defense, Always is a song I literally used as a lullaby when I was about five, and yet it is unquestionably a terrible song, not so terrible to merit the F, but without virtue and merit enough to warrant another listen.



Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam - Head to Toe
Number 1 song from June 20th-26th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Head to Toe is a famously bad song, one I've heard best described as "a bad Paula Abdul impression". This song is basically useless, a bad attempt to marry Motown with Latin Hip Hop that winds up sounding like neither, nor like anything else worth listening to. I don't care for Paula Abdul in general, much less her imitators. Pass.



Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Number 1 song from June 27th-July 10th, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
I'm a sucker for ridiculously elaborate, high-energy dance-pop like this, as anyone who knows me can attest, and this is one of the more extreme examples thereof. Cross that with Whitney's famously-potent singing voice and I'm perfectly happy. The critics who criticized this song as basically being her last hit redux and crossed with Cyndi Lauper had a point, but I don't really care if a song is derivative, just if it's good. I promised you that I would find a way to praise Whitney Houston, and I suspect this won't be the only occasion I have to do so.

Supposedly this song was originally written as a country ballad for Olivia Newton-John. That's not something I have an easy time picturing...



Heart - Alone
Number 1 song from July 11th-31st, 1987 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
Free tip: Never search for this song's title on Google image-search.

A piano-heavy power ballad that escalates into a soaring metal guitar chorus would normally be right up my alley, but Alone just... never quite takes off. Perhaps it's the sheer complexity, as the song is regarded as very difficult to perform properly, or perhaps it just doesn't gel right for me personally. While I don't hate it though, it just isn't much worth listening to from my perspective.



Bob Seger - Shakedown
Number 1 song from August 1st-7th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Bob Seger's strengths were not here, whatever you want to call this place. Shakedown, off the Beverley Hills Cop II soundtrack, is just not interesting enough to justify its existence, in my mind at least. Though I will say this, Little Richard's grammy rendition was a lot better.



U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Number 1 song from August 8th-21st, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
The Edge once described this song as "Eye of the Tiger played by a Reggae band", which is a weird enough image that I felt I had to include it. This gospel-inspired rock piece is a fine song, if not the equal to the other two triumphs of the Joshua Tree album (one of which we've dealt with, and one of which we will), then it's only a small step down from them. My relationship with U2 waxed and waned over the years, but this was the first song of theirs I ever heard, and I instantly decided the group was one I wanted to hear more of. And overall, despite much of the crap that happened in the late 90s and 2000s, I'm glad I have.



Madonna - Who's That Girl?
Number 1 song from August 22nd-28th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Recorded in a single day to help Madonna's film of the same name, this song was regarded as derivative drivel even at the time, and it remains it today. I have basically nothing else to say about this song except it sucks.



Los Lobos - La Bamba
Number 1 song from August 29th-September 18th, 1987 (3 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: B
La Bamba, as I've been on record stating before, is a stone classic song, a fantastic piece of rock lore, and while I prefer Richie Vallens' version over this one, it's still got the special "it" factor that made me like the original. This song was off the La Bamba soundtrack, a film from 1987 starring Lou Diamond Phillips as Vallens, and managed to complete the circle as it were. By hitting number one, this song gave Richie Vallens a posthumous number 1 hit (the original La Bamba pre-dated the charts), making him the final victim of the Day the Music Died to achieve this milestone.



Michael Jackson and Siedah Garrett - I Just Can't Stop Loving You
Number 1 song from September 19th-25th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
Michael Jackson sings an adult contemporary ballad duet with a backing R&B singer. Not that there's anything wrong with backing vocalists, believe me, but the problem here is that Jackson was a belter, a guy who was at his best when singing at full force, as on things like Smooth Criminal, Billie Jean, or Beat It. His voice is simply wrong for this kind of song, and does nothing to elevate it, bordering on sounding creepy, though that may be the pedophile revelations talking.



Whitney Houston - Didn't We Almost Have it All
Number 1 song from September 26th-October 9th, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
This was kind of a big year for Whitney Houston, in case you hadn't noticed. This song, a pretty standard Adult Alternative ballad, is really nothing special whatsoever, but goddamnit, Whitney's voice was so freaking good back then that I just can't toss it aside. I don't like this song at all, but Whitney was clear as a bell here (and for the rest of her career). And that's worth something.

Supposedly this song was about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Randal Cunningham. Who would have thought?



Whitesnake - Here I Go Again
Number 1 song from October 10th-16th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
Originally released in 1982, this song hit number one on the more famous re-release, one which changed the line "Like a hobo I was born to walk alone" to "Like a drifter" because singer David Cloverdale was afraid people would hear "homo". This song's a good bit of classic-rock-inspired 80s lore, the best thing Whitesnake would ever do.



Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam - Lost in Emotion
Number 1 song from October 17th-23rd, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: D
An intentional throwback to Motown, and particularly to the works of Mary Welles, this song shows well enough what the limits of Lisa Lisa were, in that she's managed to capture my ambivalence towards the second tier of Motown's work without capturing the actual salient points, soulful singing or tight musicianship. This song isn't awful, but it has nothing to actually recommend it.



Michael Jackson - Bad
Number 1 song from October 24th-November 6th, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I'm of two minds on Bad, which is not, in my mind, one of Michael's best works, though a decent enough song in its own right. It does have the full force power that Michael was best at, but it just doesn't blend as well as his Thriller material did. Michael's best work was early in his career, with a couple of exceptions that we will encounter as time goes on.



Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
Number 1 song from November 7th-20th, 1987 (2 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
A cover of the 1967 hit by Tommy James and the Shondelles (we met them in the 1966 and 69 lists). Tiffany supposedly loathed the song, regarding it as anachronistic bubblegum crap (which it was), but convinced to give it a shot, synthpopped the hell out of it. It works, sort of, turning the song into something at least decent enough, though the lyrical boredom still shines through, even if the backing music is a bit more interesting.



Billy Idol - Mony Mony
Number 1 song from November 21st-27th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
In one of the weirder coincidences of the charts, this song was ALSO a cover of a Tommy James and the Shondelles song, in this case the psychedelic garage rock number from 1969. I prefer Idol's version, though both of them are just "okay". Weirdly, the Idol version of this song somehow birthed the tradition during live concerts of the audience screaming obscene lyrics in the pauses in the first couple verses. Idol claims he has no idea where that came from.



Bill Medley & Jenifer Warners - I've Had the Time of my Life
Number 1 song from November 28th-December 4th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: C
I'll be honest. This song gets a passing grade solely because Bill Medley is awesome. There is otherwise nothing interesting about this song for me, a laborious duet-ballad from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. It's not even the best song off the movie score, but much is forgiven thanks to Bill Medley's impossible badassery. Take what you will from this song, what I take is that Medley never got the respect he deserved.



Belinda Carlisle - Heaven is a Place on Earth
Number 1 song from December 5th-11th, 1987 (1 week)


Havoc's Grade: B
I'm sort of torn on this one. Heaven is a Place on Earth is an infamously cheesy light rock/adult contemporary pop rock ballad, one that became Carlisle's signiature song, complete with a title and chorus that could have come from a Christian Rock album. And yet... honestly it's not that bad. Harden the edges up a little bit and change the subject matter, and I could hear Joan Jett or especially Cindy Crawford singing this. It's a borderline case, but at risk of embarrassment, I have to admit I quite like this song, as a staple of late-80s cheese. Sue me.



George Michael - Faith
Number 1 song from December 12th, 1987-January 8th, 1988 (4 weeks)


Havoc's Grade: C
I swear to you, people thought George Michael was straight. Honestly.

Faith is a decent song, if nothing more, a minimalist, stripped down, almost acoustic little number incorporating Bo Diddly beats and bluegrass guitars. I do kinda like it for what it is, and it would go on to become one of George Michael's most successful solo pieces. Still, it's nothing to stop and drop things over.

The covers however... well I don't know what's worse, that Limp Bizkit's cover managed to make Fred Durst even more annoying, or that the Alvin & the Chipmunks cover actually watered down the lyrics. No wonder George Michael reportedly "hates the covers, and hates the people who made them."

Me too, George. Me too.




Supplemental Songs

Some years are great because all their great songs happen to hit number 1. Was 1987 among them, or are there diamonds left off the charts still? Let's find out.


Chris De Burgh - Lady in Red
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: 21


Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah yeah yeah yeah, worst song of the 80s, terrible, annoying, simpering and schmatlzy, I get it already. Rolling Stone calls this the worst non-novelty song of all time. Well too bad. I think this song is beautiful, crisp and soft and genuine. I'm sure if I heard it a hundred thousand times I'd hate it too, but I don't give a shit who wants to laugh at the softer side of my tastes. Surely by now that much is apparent.



Chicago - Will You Still Love Me
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: 50


Havoc's Grade: B
A classic late-80s Power Ballad from the band that would not die, this song was off Chicago's EIGHTEENTH album. Those who loathe Chicago will not approve of this selection, but I like power ballads, the more absurd the better, and this one goes onto my list for virtue of all the proper rock-and-melodrama notes that these songs produced.



Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: 74


Havoc's Grade: B
Not Bon Jovi's most famous song, but Wanted Dead or Alive is a fine piece of slower Hard Rock, theme to an endless assortment of westerns and reality TV shows since being written. Supposedly this was written about the similarities between gunslingers of the old west and touring rock musicians. I suppose you'd have to be there.



Beastie Boys - (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (to Party)
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: 98


Havoc's Grade: B
I was never the biggest Beastie Boys fan, as goofball rap-rock just was never my thing, but it's hard to argue against this song, an anthemic call for rebellion and partying. I don't adore this song, but it's a very solid one, that deserves all the recognition it (eventually) received.



REM - It's the End of the World As We Know it (And I Feel Fine)
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: DNQ


Havoc's Grade: B
As is customary with REM, It's the End of the World contains lyrics no human being on Earth can understand and damn few can even recite. And yet I feel fine about this pick, as this song is quintessential REM-style Alternative Rock awesomeness, just a fun romp of a semi-apocalyptic song. REM would never get much more coherent, but this was merely the beginning for them.



U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name
1986 Billboard Top 100 position: DNQ


Havoc's Grade: A
This was U2's year, in retrospect. The Joshua Tree's first three singles were all masterpieces, two of which hit number one, and one of which did not. And yet there's a case to be made that this one, the odd-song-out, was the best of them all. I don't necessarily share that opinion (I'm a With or Without You fan to the core), but Where the Streets Have No Name is a rocking, thunderous song, whose video was shot by surprise in the middle of Los Angeles in front of a gathered crowd of random onlookers. I really really like this song, one of the best pieces of U2's early work, a band that damn near made 1987.



Other noted songs from 1987:
Wang Chung - Everybody Have Fun Tonight
Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram - Somewhere Out There
Genesis - Land of Confusion
The Jets - You Got it All
Genesis - In Too Deep
Huey Lewis & The News - Hip to be Square
Kenny G - Songbird
Europe - Carrie
Madonna - La Isla Bonita
Genesis - Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Bruce Hornsby & The Range - Mandolin Rain
Gloria Estefan & The Miami Sound Machine - Rhythm is Gonna Get You
Glenn Medeiros - Nothing's Gonna Change my Love for You
Bruce Willis - Respect Yourself
Lionel Richie - Ballerina Girl
Huey Lewis & The News - Doin' it all for my Baby
Pseudo Echo - Funkytown
Dan Hill & Vonda Shepard - Can't We Try
Aerosmith - Dude (Looks Like a Lady)
Sandra - Everlasting Love
Smokey Robinson - Just to See Her
REM - The One I Love
Echo & The Bunnymen - People Are Strange
Aerosmith - Rag Doll
Mel & Kim - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle