Musical Monday - Lady by Kenny Rogers

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: November 15, 1980 through December 20, 1980.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: November 15, 1980 through November 29, 1980 and the week of December 20, 1980.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

I remember seeing an interview with Lionel Ritchie in which he recounted that when he initially presented the song Lady to Kenny Rogers as something that should be on the singer's album, he had not written any of the lyrics side from the initial instance of "Lady", followed by the melody. Apparently Rogers was so taken with it that he immediately agreed to record the song despite its very unfinished state. This story may not be entirely accurate, as Ritchie had apparently tried to get the Commodores to record the song before he offered it to Rogers - there are so many contradictory anecdotes in the music industry that the real story is often difficult to identify, and this may be one of those times. In any event, Rogers' decision to record the song turned out to be a good one, as it became the best selling single of his career and absolutely dominated the charts in late 1980. I remember that this song was inescapable - in the last couple months of 1980 you were going to hear it once or twice a day whether you wanted to or not. The song also launched Ritchie's career as a songwriter for other artists, as well as his own career as a solo artist.

I think one of the odd things about this song is just how narcissistic the lyrics are, especially for what is ostensibly a love song. The opening line has the singer telling the object of his affection what he is to her. Then the song segues into the singer telling his lady what she can do for him, and what he needs from her, and on and on. Time and again, the song focuses on the wants, needs, and actions of the singer, which makes it seem like a pretty one-sided kind of love story.

Previous Musical Monday: The Tide Is High by Blondie

Subsequent Musical Monday: Super Trouper by ABBA

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: (Just like) Starting Over by John Lennon

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Master Blaster (Jammin') by Stevie Wonder

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Kenny Rogers     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop December 28th - January 3rd: The First Indiction Began in 287 A.D.

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Did you get any books for Christmas? If so, name the titles.

I did not receive any books for Christmas this year. For the most part, people don't buy me books as gifts basically because my personal library is large enough that it is hard to get me a book that I would want that I don't already own. Instead I received gifts like a dice tray and matching dice bag. My daughter received a copy of Blueberries for Sal from her cousins.

I gave a couple of books as gifts. I got my son a copy of Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa for Christmas. I got my daughter a copy of Still Life with Tornado by A.S. King for her birthday, which wasn't actually a Christmas gift, but her birthday is in December so it is a gift I gave recently.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: Bill Gates Referred to the Intel 286 Chip as a "Brain Dead Chip"

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: 288 Is "Two Gross", Which Is Often Used as a Pun Among Math Nerds

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - The Tide Is High by Blondie

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: The week of January 31, 1981.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: January 31, 1981 through February 7, 1981.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: November 15, 1980 through November 22, 1980.

Even though Blondie was ostensibly a punk band, or more specifically a "New Wave" band, their range of hits was weirdly eclectic. Their previous big hit Call Me was a disco-influenced song, and now with The Tide Is High they hit the top of the charts with a reggae song. Blondie was one of the first big acts of the 1980s, turning out a string of hits mostly between 1979 and 1981, but their wide ranging musical style meant that they didn't really set the tone for the decade like some of the other early 1980s stars did. They were certainly an influence, but given the diversity of styles of their songs, almost any later song could be said to be influenced by Blondie, and as a result their influence is really hard to specifically identify.

Perhaps the most punk thing about this song is the weirdly surreal video that was made for it. While the song itself is a fairly standard issue reggae tune with fairly standard issue lyrics, the video is sheer lunacy, and I think this sort of juxtaposition is what allowed Blondie to have the kind of commercial success that they had. They were among the most successful bands to come out of the CBGB-based scene, and their ability to mix mainstream music with a punk sensibility seems to have been what set them apart from most of the other acts that originated there.

I note that although this song reached number one on all three of the charts that I track for the 1980s Project, it reached number one on them at different times - achieving the feat much earlier on the U.K. Chart than it did on the Billboard and Cash Box charts. My rule of thumb is to put a song on this list when it first reaches number one on one chart. As a result, this song appears here on the list even though it reached number one on the Billboard and Cash Box charts after several songs that will come up in the next few weeks.

Previous Musical Monday: Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

Subsequent Musical Monday: Lady by Kenny Rogers

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: (Just Like) Starting Over by John Lennon

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Celebration by Kool and the Gang

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: (Just Like) Starting Over by John Lennon

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Celebration by Kool and the Gang

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Super Trouper by ABBA

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Blondie     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop December 21st - December 27th: Bill Gates Referred to the Intel 286 Chip as a "Brain Dead Chip"

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Does your book club have a book exchange for the holidays or any other time during the year? If you don't belong to a book club, do you think that would be something fun to do?

I don't belong to a book club. The closest thing to this kind of exchange that I have participated in is LibraryThing's annual "Santa Thing", which is more or less a randomized secret Santa book exchange that the website hosts. However, I have not participated in Santa Thing in the last several years, because I just haven't had the time or the energy to expend on it. I might participate in it again in some future year, but right now I just don't want to go to the effort of perusing a stranger's library trying to figure out what would make a good book to give them as a gift. I suppose I could have participated and half-assed the job, but that just doesn't strike me as being fair to the other participants. Maybe next year I'll have more time and the mental energy to commit to participating again. On the other hand, I might not. I just don't know one way or the other right now.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: There Are 285 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: The First Indiction Began in 287 A.D.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: October 25, 1980 through November 8, 1980.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: November 4, 1980 through November 8, 1980.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: October 25, 1980 through November 8, 1980.

Songs that reached number one on all three of the charts I track for the 1980s Project are few and far between. Woman in Love is only the third song to reach that mark in 1980, following Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) and Blondie's Call Me to that distinction. Needless to say, the song was a huge hit - in fact, this was the biggest hit of Streisand's career.

The note that makes the success of this song so very interesting is that it was written by Barry and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. As I have noted before, by 1980, disco was "dead" in the sense that anything that was labeled as or associated with "disco" was widely loathed and despised, but at the same time, things that were "disco-like" that didn't have the disco name attached to them seemed to be as popular as disco had ever been. By the time Woman in Love was released, there is no way that anything released by the Bee Gees would have been regarded with anything but widespread derision, and yet a song written by the Bee Gees managed to top the Billboard, Cash Box, and U.K. Charts. When one listens to the song, you can hear the similarities between it and Bee Gees hits like How Deep Is Your Love, More Than a Woman, and Too Much Heaven, but had the Bee Gees themselves released this song, it almost certainly would have flopped. Everyone, it seems, wanted to listen to music that sounded like the Bee Gees, just not music performed by the Bee Gees.

On a side note, Streisand apparently doesn't like this song much. Despite it being her most commercially successful single, she has performed it live only rarely, and has said that she doesn't agree with the message of the song. Perhaps the root of her distaste for the song is that it is a song about a woman declaring her perpetual love for someone that was written by two men. This is a woman's perspective as rendered from a male creator, and as a result it probably rings false to a lot of women, including Streisand.

Previous Musical Monday: Don't Stand So Close to Me by the Police

Subsequent Musical Monday: The Tide Is High by Blondie

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Lady by Kenny Rogers

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Lady by Kenny Rogers

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Don't Stand So Close to Me by the Police

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: The Tide Is High by Blondie

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Barbra Streisand     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop December 14th - December 20th: There Are 285 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Do you listen to music while you are writing your blog posts? If so, what genre of music do you listen to?

I listen to something pretty much whenever I am doing something on my computer. Usually I listen to music, which means I usually listen to music when I am writing blog posts. I will frequently simply pick an iTunes or YouTube playlist and set it playing, letting it run through whatever songs are on the list. This usually results in me writing accompanied by "nerd folk", by artists such as Jon Coulton, Paul & Storm, Sarah Donner, Molly Lewis, and the Doubleclicks, or nerdy rockfish music like the Blue Man Group or Five Year Mission. I also frequently end up listening to more mainstream performers like Jackson Browne, REM, or the Cranberries, or sometimes Judas Priest or Led Zeppelin. Other times I play the Brandenburg Concertos as writing music. Needless to say, my musical tastes are kind of eclectic.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: Vasili Grigorievich Zaitsev Served with the 284th Rifle Division in the Battle of Stalingrad

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Bill Gates Referred to the Intel 286 Chip as a "Brain Dead Chip"

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: October 4, 1980 through October 18, 1980.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: October 4, 1980 through October 25, 1980.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

I recently saw someone make the claim that the bass line from Fleetwood Mac's song The Chain is the most recognizable bass line in rock history. I think that is debatable, and I offer the bass line from this song as a competing alternative for the title of most recognizable bass line in rock history. After all, the bass line in The Chain doesn't really get going until deep into the song, whereas the bass line in Another One Bites the Dust smacks the listener in the face at the very outset of the song and never lets up. In many ways, the bass line in Another One Bites the Dust is the song, which makes sense given that the song was written by Queen's bassist John Deacon.

Bohemian Rhapsody is generally regarded as Queen's musical masterpiece, and rightly so, but Another One Bites the Dust is, I think, the band's most notable song. It isn't the most definitely "Queen" song, as it is kind of out of the ordinary for the band, but I think it is at or near the top of the list of responses one would get if you asked a bunch of people to name a Queen song. I might be biased in this regard, as Another One Bites the Dust was the first Queen song that I recognized as actually being a Queen song. I may have heard other Queen songs prior to the moment I identified this song with the band, but I didn't mentally connect them with Queen. On the other hand, Another One Bites the Dust was Queen's most commercially successful song, so I think my assertion concerning its place in the Queen canon is supportable.

Oddly, despite it being so prominent in their repertoire, this is probably one of the most "unQueen" songs that the band ever released as a single. Queen was prone to lavish, over-the-top songs, full of big sweeping drama like Bohemian Rhapsody, or Somebody to Love, or goofy, silly songs like Bicycle or Flash. Another One Bites the Dust is stripped down - it consists of little more than the bass line, a very dry drum beat, and Freddie Mercury snapping out lyrics in an almost clipped and staccato manner. The sharp contrast between this song and the rest of Queen's career output is almost breathtaking, and yet, Another One Bites the Dust is brilliant and somehow immediately recognizable as being Queen. Perhaps it is a testament to the greatness of Queen that this is so.

Previous Musical Monday: Don't Stand So Close to Me by the Police

Subsequent Musical Monday: Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Upside Down by Diana Ross

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Upside Down by Diana Ross

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Queen     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop December 7th - December 13th: Vasili Grigorievich Zaitsev Served with the 284th Rifle Division in the Battle of Stalingrad

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Do you tend to visit the same blogs each week but also try to look for new blogs?

I have a handful of blogs that I tend to visit, although it probably isn't as regularly as each week. I would like to explore and visit more blogs, but the hard truth is that I barely have enough time to post things on this blog, let alone spend time perusing through a bunch of blogs looking for something new. I really wish I had the time to be able to spend more time looking through blogs, but I just don't, and given that I just moved (and as a result, am currently living in a forest of boxes and likely will be for the next several months), my personal time crunch has only gotten worse and won't get better for a while.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: The Romans Defeated the Etruscans in the Battle of Lake Vadimo in 283 B.C.

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: There Are 285 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Don't Stand So Close to Me by the Police

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: September 27, 1980 through October 18, 1980.

The Police make their first appearance at the top of the charts in the 1980s with a skeevy song about an affair between a teacher and his teenage student. Even that description kind of sells the skeeviness of the song short, because the lyrics lay the blame for the affair upon the teenager's infatuation with the teacher, essentially shifting the responsibility away from the adult and onto the child. This was not the last time that the Police topped the charts with a song that had creepy lyrics, which I didn't really think about at the time, but kind of makes the band seem kind of skeevy in retrospect.

I want to be clear, this song was kind of skeevy at the time it was released, and has only become more so as time has gone by and incidents of inappropriate relationships between teachers and underage students have peppered the news. The only real difference was that in the 1980s you could get away with doing a kind of "wink, wink, nudge nudge" excuse for this sort of material, whereas now this sort of sexual predation is taken more seriously - probably not a seriously as it really should be, but more seriously. This cultural shift is also what has made some classic movies kind of creepy now - the statutory rape storyline in Animal House was once just silly fun, but now seems gross, the rape by deception storyline in Revenge of the Nerds and the rape of an unconscious woman in Sixteen Candles were once seen as almost "romantic", but now seem pretty vile. The world changes, and in this case, I think it has changed for the better.

Previous Musical Monday: Feels Like I'm in Love by Kelly Marie

Subsequent Musical Monday: Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Feels Like I'm in Love by Kelly Marie

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

The Police     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop November 30th - December 6th: The Romans Defeated the Etruscans in the Battle of Lake Vadimo in 283 B.C.

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: If you could travel back in time to purchase the first printing of a specific novel, what book would that be?

I think that I would go back in time to be able to get a first printing of The Lord of the Rings, because it is one of the few books I would want that had a first printing that would be reasonably valuable.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: 282 Is the Smallest Multidigit Palindrome Sandwiched Between Two Twin Primes

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Vasili Grigorievich Zaitsev Served with the 284^th Rifle Division in the Battle of Stalingrad

Book Blogger Hop     Home