Musical Monday - What's Love Got to Do With It by Tina Turner

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: September 1, 1984 through September 15, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: August 25, 1984 through September 8, 1984.

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

Tina Turner reached the top of the charts for the first (and only) time at the age of 44. She had already lived an entire show business lifetime before this song came out - beginning in 1957 when she first started hitting the charts as part of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Her career had already peaked in the 1960s, petered out, and died before the end of the 1970s. By 1980, she was a former star. She was also estranged from Ike, who it turns out had been an abusive husband who had badly mistreated Tina for years. For most artists with Tina's career trajectory, the 1980s would have been an empty decade. She might have returned for the nostalgia circuit a decade or two later, but functionally, her career would have been over.

That's not what Tina did. Starting with the album Private Dancer, on which this song appears, she launched a second, even more successful career. Tina Turner was a bigger star after the age of 45 than she had ever been before the age of 45. Even though she was never able to fully replicate the success of What's Love Got to Do With It, she established herself as an act that could fill an arena for the rest of the 1980s and beyond. There were other artists who reivented themselves in the 1980s - Heart, David Bowie, even the Bee Gees - but none came from as far down as Tina did, and few reached similar heights.

Previous Musical Monday: Careless Whisper by George Michael

Subsequent Musical Monday: I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Ghostbusters by Ray Parker, Jr.

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Missing You by John Waite

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Ghostbusters by Ray Parker, Jr.

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Missing You by John Waite

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

Tina Turner     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Careless Whisper by George Michael

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: February 16, 1985 through March 2, 1985.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: February 16, 1985 through March 2, 1985.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: August 18, 1984 through September 1, 1984.

At the outset, I will admit that I didn't much like George Michael's music in the 1980s. I'll also go ahead and admit that I don't much like George Michael's music now. I can appreciate his talent, and the artistry, he just doesn't perform a style of music that appeals to me. That there is music that is immensely popular that I don't personally find particularly appealing should not be particularly surprising. I'd venture that pretty much everyone has some piece of popular culture that just doesn't appeal to them. George Michael (and Wham!) fall squarely into that category for me.

Disliking popular things other people like is perfectly okay. Being a dick about disliking popular things other people like is well, being a dick. I don't care for Michael's music, but if you like it, I hope you get a lot of joy from listening to this video.

One odd thing I noticed about this song is that it is often presented crediting George Michael as the artist. it is true that he sings the song, but it appeared on a Wham! album by Michael was a member of Wham!, so I wonder why the song is presented this way. This isn't universal - sometimes the song is presented crediting Wham! as the artist, which makes the mystery a little deeper. I don't know if this has any meaning, but it is quirky.

Previous Musical Monday: Ghostbusters by Ray Parker, Jr.

Subsequent Musical Monday: What's Love Got to Do With It by Tina Turner

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: I Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Easy Lover by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: I Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: I Just Called to Say I Love You 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

George Michael     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Ghostbusters by Ray Parker, Jr.

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: August 11, 1984 through August 25, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: August 11, 1984 through August 18, 1984.

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

Ghostbusters the movie was probably the first blockbuster comedy. Hit comedies always did reasonably well at the box office, but Ghostbusters pulled in nearly $300 million at the box office against a production budget of about $30 million, which was an entirely new level of success for the genre. For comparison, the most famous collaboration between Harold Ramis and Bill Murray prior to Ghostbusters was Stripes, which grossed $85 million at the box office - a profitable movie, but not nearly in the same stratosphere as Ghostbusters.

Ghostbusters the song was the main theme for the Ghostbusters movie. There is usually some synergy between the success of a movie and the success of a song, and in this case, the synergy worked to launch both to extreme success. This song was written well into the movie production process, after Reitman passed several clips of the movie along to Parker for him to use as inspiration. And this fact is where this story gets interesting.

When Reitman was filming Ghostbusters, he used the Huey Lewis song I Want a New Drug as placeholder music for some scenes, with the intent that it would be replaced by music tailored specifically to the movie before it was ready for release. These scenes ended up using Ray Parker's Ghostbusters song instead, which some people (including Lewis) noticed bore a lot of similarities to I Want a New Drug, resulting in a copyright lawsuit that was resolved via a confidential settlement agreement.

Since no one knows the details of the settlement, it is difficult to say whether Parker actually lifted Lewis' work, or if the songs were similar because they needed to fit the same scenes and thus necessarily shared a lot of tempo and pacing requirements in common. Either way, Ghostbusters was Parker's biggest hit.

Previous Musical Monday: When Doves Cry by Prince

Subsequent Musical Monday: Careless Whisper by George Michael

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: When Doves Cry by Prince

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: What's Love Got to Do With It by Tina Turner

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: When Doves Cry by Prince

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: What's Love Got to Do With It by Tina Turner

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

Ray Parker, Jr.     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - When Doves Cry by Prince

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: July 7, 1984 through August 4, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: July 14, 1984 through August 4, 1984.

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

Prince's career can be divided into two parts. The first is everything that took place before the release of the Purple Rain album and movie of the same name. The second is everything that came after that. Before Purple Rain, Prince was a successful musician. After Purple Rain, Prince was an icon, launched into the company of the top tier performers in the world. I had been aware of Prince prior to Purple Rain, but he was the guy who had a couple of very successful almost novelty-ish songs like 1999 and Little Red Corvette. He was the sort of musician who could reliably turn out profitable albums and make a high-profile living with his music. After Purple Rain, Prince was the sort of performer who could sell out a giant arena in minutes. And When Doves Cry was the flagship song from Purple Rain.

In the early 1980s, I was kind of out of step with what was the dominant thrust of pop music. I wasn't much of a Michael Jackson fan, and I wasn't particularly enamored of the variety of acts trying to occupy the same post-disco dance friendly territory he had claimed. Although Prince was descended from the same musical heritage as Jackson and other similar artists, the Purple One took the musical style into an entirely different and refreshing direction. Where Jackson's performances were smooth and polished, with every note and movement refined to a high sheen, Prince's were raw and visceral, throbbing with barely contained sexual energy.

When Doves Cry is, in my estimation, one of Prince's best songs. Proving that he was one of the funkiest men around, he managed to produce this song, which is almost the epitome of funk, without a bass line, which is a pretty stunning accomplishment. The only thing I can say is that I, a decidedly non-funky teenager, was drawn into Prince's orbit by this song, which I distinctly remember dancing to with my girlfriend at the time and thinking the world couldn't get any better than that.

Previous Musical Monday: Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springstein

Subsequent Musical Monday: Ghostbusters by Ray Parker, Jr.

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springstein

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Ghostbusters by Ray Parker, Jr.

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The Reflex by Duran Duran

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Ghostbusters by Ray Parker, Jr.

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

Prince     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springstein

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: June 30, 1984 through July 7, 1984.

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

Dancing in the Dark is Springstein's most commercially successful song, reaching number one in more than one country and hitting the top ten in several more. The song also won Springstein a Grammy Award. Despite this, if I were making a list of Springstein's ten greatest songs, Dancing in the Dark would not be on it. Nor would it be on my list of his twenty greatest songs. Or even his thirty greatest songs. I suspect that I am not alone in this assessment. While Dancing in the Dark isn't a bad song, it just doesn't hit home the way Springstein's better songs do - I'd even rank several of the other songs on the Born in the U.S.A. album more highly than this one.

This fact seems to me to highlight one of the truths of pop music: The biggest hits scored by many artists are not their best songs. Dancing in the Dark was likely hugely successful because it has a danceable beat and lyrics that more or less don't get in the way of that (although they are kind of world-weary and mildly bitter). Unlike his better songs, Dancing in the Dark is mostly bland and inoffensive, providing what seems like a fun good time for the listener, a fact reflected in the happy and upbeat music video - although to be fair, Bruce's dancing in the video seems at times to be forced and awkward, as if he were trying to project a persona that doesn't quite fit him.

Now I'm going to go listen to The River and Downbound Train instead.

Previous Musical Monday: Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Subsequent Musical Monday: When Doves Cry by Prince

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The Reflex by Duran Duran

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: When Doves Cry by Prince

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

Bruce Springstein     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home