Musical Monday - The One That You Love by Air Supply

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: The week of July 25, 1981.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of July 18, 1981.

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

The thing I remember most about Air Supply is that my mother had their greatest hits album, and copied it onto a cassette tape that had Hooked on Classics on the reverse side. As a result, Air Supply occupies a space in my mind that is a cross between "Mom rock" and "classical music set to a disco beat". They were the near ubiquitous soundtrack to the middle-school dances I attended, at least until Foreigner came out with Waiting for a Girl Like You and drove Air Supply's songs out of the regular party rotation.

To a certain extent, Air Supply was Journey before Journey became Journey!, turning out ballad after ballad and dominating the charts with piles of syrupy love songs. On the other hand, Air Supply was almost a caricature of a band. I've seen attempts to parody them - most notably Paul & Storm's song Right Here With You, which is a riff on the video for All Out of Love and the video for this song.

To be blunt, I can't think of a way one could parody Air Supply more than they do themselves. The lead singer with his giant tiger head print shirt and Conway Twitty style perm. The other lead singer with his oh-so-very-earnest acoustic guitar, gold medallion, and shirt unbuttoned halfway down his torso. The soft focus slow-motion scenes of the pair of them cavorting with their girlfriends on a playground. It would simply be impossible to come up with anything more ridiculous than this video.

Previous Musical Monday: Ghost Town by the Specials

Subsequent Musical Monday: Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Stars on 45 Medley by Stars on 45

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Stars on 45 Medley by Stars on 45

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield

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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