Musical Monday - Kiss On My List by Hall and Oates

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: April 11, 1981 through April 25, 1981.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of April 11, 1981.

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

Kiss On My List was the first big hit for Hall and Oates in the 1980s. It wasn't their first big hit overall - they had had a number one hit in the mid-1970s with Rich Girl, but their career had foundered for a half decade until their breakout in 1981 with this song. This was the first of a string of hits by the duo that served to set the tone for popular music over the first half of the 1980s.

Hall and Oates weren't the first identifiably "1980s rock stars" - that distinction probably belongs to Blondie, but they were the first group to establish a "1980s sound". While Blondie's output was eclectic, ranging from punk to disco to new wave to rap, Hall and Oates helped define what direction music would go in the post-disco post-punk era with a smooth and soulful urban almost jazz-influenced sound conducive to a laid back kind of cool that involved wearing animal print suits and skinny ties.

That said, in 1981 it certainly didn't seem like this would be the band that set the tone for music for the next couple of years. Popular music in 1981 was a chaotic swirl of indecision as the music from the 1970s, most notably disco and punk, fell from favor and was replaced by a mélange of styles that were going in a thousand different directions. That Hall and Oates would win the battle for a place at the helm of pop music was not a foregone conclusion in 1981, but it is what happened, strange as it may seem.

Previous Musical Monday: This Ole House by Shakin' Stevens

Subsequent Musical Monday: Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Rapture by Blondie

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Morning Train (Nine to Five) by Sheena Easton

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Rapture by Blondie

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Morning Train (Nine to Five) by Sheena Easton

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

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