Musical Monday - True by Spandau Ballet

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: April 30, 1983 through May 21, 1983.

One of the dominant musical styles of the early 1980s was a kind of smooth jazzy music that grew out of the relatively brief New Wave movement. Spandau Ballet's True was more or less the apotheosis of this style of music. The song is a magnificent example of the kind of music that dominated the early 1980s.

In 1983, I hated this song. It was exactly the wrong style of music for my tastes and I loathed the song. I have mellowed a bit on it, but True was not one of my favorites back then, and it isn't a song that I intentionally go back to when I'm feeling nostalgic now.

Previous Musical Monday: Mr. Roboto by Styx

Subsequent Musical Monday: Candy Girl by New Edition

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Candy Girl by New Edition

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

Spandau Ballet     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Mr. Roboto by Styx

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of April 30, 1983.

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

Mr. Roboto was the signature song of Kilroy Was Here, the concept album that destroyed Styx. The brain child of Dennis DeYoung, Kilroy Was Here told the story of Kilroy, the last rock star in a dystopian future in which rock music has been banned by the Majority for Musical Morality led by Dr. Everett Righteous. Kilroy has been imprisoned for his music, and as part of the story, he uses one of the Japanese-manufactured guard robots assigned to his prison to fashion a disguise and escape. This song details Kilroy's escape from imprisonment, which is the reason for the refrain "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto": He's thanking the robots for their unwitting assistance in his escape.

Despite the fact that the album debuted at #10 on the charts, and produced two top ten hits (this song and Don't Let It End), the tour supporting the album was a financial disaster for the band. DeYoung envisioned the tour as essentially musical theater featuring a lot of dialogue and other interstitial material connecting the songs. The band booked into smaller musical theaters for this, bringing with them a fairly expensive stage production, and they consequently hemorrhaged money. They then moved to arena shows, and tried to do a modified version of the musical theater routine, but it didn't match well with the venues, and despite the rest of the band pushing to discard the art theater routine, DeYoung was insistent that they continue.

This all came to a head at a music festival when (according to Tommy Shaw) DeYoung wanted the group to forge ahead with long acting sequences in front of what was, by the time they reached the stage, a restless and increasingly hostile crowd. Shaw walked off the stage in the middle of the show. The band disintegrated by the end of the tour. The live album that resulted from the tour was released after the band had already broken up for good.

In a very real sense, this song and the album it was on were not only the swan song for Styx, they were the nails in their coffin. The really annoying thing about this is that as interesting an idea a concept album that presents a science-fictional dystopian future is, the album itself is one of Styx's weaker efforts. Most of their previous albums were notably better, with better songs, than Kilroy Was Here. But it was this one that ended their run and destroyed the band.

Previous Musical Monday: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent Musical Monday: True by Spandau Ballet

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Beat It by Michael Jackson

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

Styx     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Love of a Lifetime by FireHouse

A few days ago, a friend and I were talking about power ballads, and got into a small debate over exactly what constitutes a power ballad. For those who didn't grow up in the 1980s, power ballads are, at the most basic level, songs released by rock bands that are intended to be romantic and sweet, but still have enough amplified electric guitars to remind everyone that the band members really are rockers at heart. Virtually every hair metal band from Mötley Crüe to Poison to Europe released at least one power ballad. Although there were some exceptions, there was something of a pattern established by a lot of bands in which they released a high-energy rockin' song first, presumably to establish their "metal" bona fides, and then a power ballad so they could sell a lot of albums and pack stadiums full of women.

I was poking around this past weekend, and I believe that this song is the Platonic Ideal of a power ballad. It is a sweet, treacly love song with some edgy guitars thrown in. The band is a pretty typical 1980s hair metal band - it looks like about eighteen cans of Aqua-Net were used in the making of this video. The only thing they are lacking are color coordinated leather outfits akin to those Warrant wears in their video for the song Heaven. What really tops the cake here is that the video has a perfect visual representation of what a power ballad is starting at 0:39 where Bill Leverty appears playing an acoustic guitar that is on a stand while wearing an electric guitar so it will be ready for when the song transforms from the "ballad" portion of the song to the "power" part.

Previous Musical Monday: The Easter Song by Paul & Storm

Subsequent Musical Monday: Please Don't Go by KC and the Sunshine Band

FireHouse     Musical Monday     Home