Musical Monday - I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: February 2, 1985 through February 9, 1985.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of February 2, 1985.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: January 19, 1985 through Fabruary 2, 1985.

This song is another example of an instance in which a band's most successful song is not, in my opinion, their best song. In fact, I Want to Know What Love Is isn't even Foreigner's best ballad - that would be Waiting for a Girl Like You. Of course, power ballads weren't what made Foreigner a great band. The real crime is that they had so many great songs like Cold as Ice, Double Vision, Hot Blooded, Urgent, and Juke Box Hero, but it was this treacly piece of pabulum that turned out to be their most successful hit.

This is a pattern that is repeated over and over again: There are rock bands that create fantastic song after fantastic song, but it is only when they produce some bland and boring fluff that they are truly rewarded. I don't blame Foreigner for putting out this puffball of a song, I blame popular culture for waiting until they did so to reward them with a number one hit.

I mean, seriously, not only is I Want to Know What Love Is not one of Foreigner's "A List" songs, it isn't even one of their "B List" songs. It's barely hanging on to their third tier by the skin of its teeth. It is barely album-filler quality. And this is what turned out to be their biggest hit? The world is just inexplicably stupid sometimes.

Previous Musical Monday: Like a Virgin by Madonna

Subsequent Musical Monday: I Know Him So Well by Elaine Paige and Barbra Dickson

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Like a Virgin by Madonna

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Careless Whisper by Wham!

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Like a Virgin by Madonna

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

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: I Know Him So Well by Elaine Paige and Barbra Dickson

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

Foreigner     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Like a Virgin by Madonna

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: December 22, 1984 through January 26, 1985.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: December 29, 1984 through January 26, 1985.

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

In September of 1984, Madonna jumped to the forefront of the pop culture landscape with this performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Though she had already had pop chart success with songs such as Borderline, Holiday, and Lucky Star, this single performance launched her into an entirely different category of stardom. In a singular instant, Madonna went from being "that pretty singer who puts out dance pop" to "the sultry Queen of Pop who is the most notoriously infamous performer of the day". Very few performers can mark the exact moment they went from pop star to pop icon, but Madonna can: It was this performance. And the twist is, the part that made it so very notorious was a spontaneous decision to cover up a lost shoe: When it fell off as she descended the cake, Madonna decided to dive to the floor in order to recover her wayward footgear. At that moment, an era was defined and a star was born.

Beyond making Madonna's career, this performance stands as one of the defining moments of the decade. When people think of the 1980s, this is probably one of the events that they think of. This performance was so stunning, so scandalous, and so unforgettable that it overshadowed everything else about the 1984 MTV VMA's. Madonna wasn't intended to be the headline of the night. She was only nominated for a single award (for best New Artist in a Video for her performance in the video for Borderline). The actual awards were dominated by Herbie Hancock's video for Rockit and Michael Jackson's Thriller. The Cars video for You Might Think won the award for Best Music Video. Madonna wasn't even the most notable female artists coming into the VMA's - that was Cyndi Lauper who was nominated for nine awards (and won one). The list of nominees is like a roll call of the powerhouses of the pop music scene: The Police, the Cars, Duran Duran, David Bowie, Van Halen, ZZ Top, and on and on.

And almost no one remembers anything about the 1984 MTV VMA's other than Madonna's performance. It simply swept across the pop culture landscape like a hurricane, altering everything in its past. It effectively destroyed every other story about the awards show, and made Madonna into the only thing people could talk about. The real kicker is that when Madonna stepped on stage that night, Like a Virgin had not even been released as a single or a music video. That wouldn't happen until early November. Even so, this performance set the entire music world on its heels. It seems almost ridiculous to say, but Madonna singing an unreleased single while spontaneously rolling on the floor to cover up a wardrobe mishap was like an earthquake that transformed the entire pop culture world forever.

Previous Musical Monday: Do They Know Its Christmas? by Band Aid

Subsequent Musical Monday: I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Out of Touch by Hall and Oates

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

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

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner

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

Madonna     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - The Wild Boys by Duran Duran

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: December 15, 1984 through December 22, 1984.

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

In 1984, Duran Duran was riding high. They were the darlings of MTV, having pushed out a series of catchy songs tied to slickly produced videos. More than just about any other musical act, Duran Duran had benefitted from the addition of the visual element to musical success, with their videos often being better than their actual music. It was at this point that Duran Duran did what so many musical groups had done before them: They decided to get artsy and experimental.

The Wild Boys was inspired by a 1971 novel by William S. Burroughs, and was the brainchild of Russell Mulcahy, a prominent music video director who had previous directed the videos for several of the band's songs, including the hits Hungry Like the Wolf and Rio. Mulcahy wanted to make a feature-length movie based on Burroughs' novel, and pitched the idea to Duran Duran with the idea they would do a song and he would direct the ensuing music video as a kind of preview of the hypothetical movie to be used as a teaser to entice movie studios to back the project. No movie was ever made, leaving this song and music video as the only extant artifact of the idea.

Indulging in arsty endeavors can either create a signature for a band - for example, Pink Floyd's concept album and related movie The Wall - or wreck a band - I'm looking at you Styx and Kilroy Was Here - but The Wild Boys seems to have had almost no real impact on Duran Duran's fortunes one way or another. The band was a glitzy pop sensation for a few years before The Wild Boys, and (notwithstanding some issues among the band members), they were a glitzy pop sensation for a few years afterwards. The band's fade from the limelight was more the result of their New Wave synth pop style going out of style than it was due to some career-ending experiment with quirky concept songs. perhaps the fact that The Wild Boys was just a single experimental song and video accounts for its apparent minimal impact on their ongoing success.

I will say that when the video was first released, I heard persistent rumors that the "original cut" had been so salacious and risqué that MTV refused to air it until several cuts had been made. This was always passed on by high school experts who would impart their knowledge with knowing looks. Unfortunately, I cannot find any evidence that this was actually the case. So much for the expertise of mid-1980s era high schoolers.

Previous Musical Monday: Out of Touch by Hall and Oates

Subsequent Musical Monday: Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: I Feel for You by Chaka Khan

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Like a Virgin by Madonna

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

Duran Duran     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - I Feel for You by Chaka Khan

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of December 8, 1984.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: November 10, 1984 through November 24, 1984.

This is another post about Prince. To be clear, Chaka Khan was (and is) an overwhelmingly powerful force in the rhythm and blues world. By 1984 she had carved a career that marked her as not only one of the top female vocalists in the genre, but one of the top female vocalists period. Between 1978 and 1983, she had hit the top of the R&B charts three times, but had not had a top hit overall. Thus, it is notable that it wasn't until she covered a Prince song that she managed to top out not only the Cash Box Top 100, but the U.K. Chart as well. This marked the start of a trend of artists covering Prince songs (or Prince simply writing songs for other artists to record) that turned into big hits. Given his own ability to turn songs into hits during the decade, it is hard to overstate how influential Prince was on the shape of music in the 1980s.

This version of I Feel for You was the first big hit that paired a singer with a rapper, featuring Melle Mel on the recording. So, for anyone who doesn't like this practice, you have Chaka Khan to blame. This arrangement also led to the kind of odd result of Khan not actually singing until almost a minute into the song. As noted before, Khan was a dominant force as a vocalist, and she was acting as a solo artist for this song, which makes sidelining her for the first quarter of the song seem like an odd choice. I guess it was the right choice though, given the result.

All that said, I didn't really like this song all that much when it was released. I was aware of some of Chaka Khan's other output, including I'm Every Woman and her collaboration with Rufus in Tell Me Something Good, and I thought they were far superior to this song. I still do. Just as with Steve Wonder and I Just Called to Say I Love You, Chaka Khan's biggest hit was, in my estimation, far from her best song.

Previous Musical Monday: Purple Rain by Prince

Subsequent Musical Monday: I Should Have Known Better by Jim Diamond

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The Wild Boys by Duran Duran

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Freedom by Wham!

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: I Should Have Known Better by Jim Diamond

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

Chaka Khan     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Purple Rain by Prince

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: November 10, 1984 through November 24, 1984.

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

The first thing to know about this video is that it is not a real concert. I mean, it is actually Prince, and he is actually performing before an audience, but this was filmed for the movie Purple Rain. Consequently, the dedication and the brief story Prince tells about the writing of the song may or may not be entirely accurate. The movie Purple Rain seems autobiographical, but it is a kind of enhanced reality that only sometimes matches up to the reality of Prince's life as an emerging artist in Minneapolis. In any event, the important part of this is the song itself, which is pretty much the quintessential Prince song.

Throughout his career, prince adopted the color purple as his signature look, leaning heavily into the "royal" nature fo his name. It seems natural then, that his signature song would reference the color in the title. This song, although not his biggest hit, became the song most identified with him. In a bit of history probably only really of interest to me, Prince stated that the origin of the title of the song was a line from the America song Ventura Highway, which means Prince was influenced by styles of music that I didn't entirely expect - although given his incredibly eclectic artistic output, I suppose I should not have been surprised.

Over the years, there were more than a few poetically appropriate events that occurred in conjunction with this song - when he performed as the Super Bowl halftime act, it began raining when he performed it, with the falling drops highlighting the purple lights that lit up the stadium, giving the entire performance an eerie vibe. This was also the last song prince performed live before he died, which seems so fitting that if it had been written into a fictional narrative people would have thought it too on the nose to believe.

Previous Musical Monday: Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) by Billy Ocean

Subsequent Musical Monday: I Feel for You by Chaka Khan

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!

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 - Let's Go Crazy by Prince

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: September 29, 1984 through October 6, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: September 29, 1984 through October 6, 1984.

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

Let's Go Crazy was the third big hit from Prince's Purple Rain album, which he made to accompany the movie of the same name that he starred in. All of the footage from this video is drawn from that movie, including the somehwat hilarious attempts to make Prince's puppet-band Morris Day and the Time into credible rivals for Prince in the fictional dance club that made up the heart of the movie. The footage also features a lot of Apollonia, who played Prince's girlfriend playing a character that shared her name so Prince could manufacture another band to promote: Apollonia 6 (which had previously been named Vanity 6 before the singer Vanity left that group).

Even though this song was pretty much the third-most popular song from this album, falling behind When Doves Cry and Purple Rain, it is my personal favorite. In large part, my affection for the song stems from the fact that Prince flashes his guitar skills in the closing segment of the song - I don't know if the quote is accurate, but supposedly when someone asked Eric Clapton how it felt to be the best guitarist in the world he responded with "I don't know, you'll have to ask Prince". I can't really claim to be qualified to make an assessment as to who the top dog in the axe-wielding department is, but Prince is definitely up there and shows it off here.

Previous Musical Monday: Missing You by John Waite

Subsequent Musical Monday: Freedom by Wham!

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

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder

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

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: 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

Prince     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Missing You by John Waite

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: The week of September 22, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: September 15, 1984 through September 22, 1984.

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

My most dominant memory of this song is the fact that my mother quoted it's chorus in some of her letters to me while I was away at school. At the time, I was at a boarding school in Virginia, while my parents lived in Lagos, Nigeria at the time. My mother was not happy about this arrangement, and I probably didn't make it any easier by being really terrible at writing letters in return. needless to say, she sent me many more letters than I sent her.

The thing about the song is that it is actually a break-up song about missing a lover who has left you while you pine for them to return to your side and desperately try to erase their memory, which makes my mother's use of it to express missing her son kind of weird. That said, as break-up songs go, this is one of the best ones ever made. Waite's lyrics express the combination of longing and self-deception that perfectly encapsulates the emotions of a bad break-up.

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

Subsequent Musical Monday: Let's Go Crazy by Prince

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

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Let's Go Crazy by Prince

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

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Let's Go Crazy 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

John Waite     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

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

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: October 20, 1984 through October 27, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: October 13, 1984 through November 3, 1984.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: September 8, 1984 through October 13, 1984.

If there is anything that demonstrates that success on the pop charts is mostly determined by the preferences of suburban moms, it is the fact that this song is Stevie Wonder's best-selling single. Wonder has had a long and prolific career, churning out musical masterpiece after musical masterpiece - Fingertips, Part II, Uptight (Everything's Alright), Superstition, Master Blaster (Jammin'), Sir Duke, and so many more. And yet, this milquetoast love ballad is the most successful song he ever wrote or recorded. To be clear, this isn't a bad song, it is just that compared to his greatest works, I Just Called to Say I Love You is just ordinary at best. It is, to be blunt, the epitome of Mom-pop.

This song was also on the soundtrack to The Woman in Red, which, once again, highlights the connection between pop music success and the movie industry. This song won an Academy Award as a result, although the movie - a mostly unfunny Gene Wilder vehicle featuring Kelly LeBrock and Gilda Radner - was simply not very good.

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

Subsequent Musical Monday: Missing You by John Waite

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Let's Go Crazy by Prince

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Caribbean Queen (No More Love On the Run) by Billy Ocean

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Let's Go Crazy by Prince

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Purple Rain by Prince

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Careless Whisper by George Michael

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Freedom by Wham!

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

Stevie Wonder     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

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

Musical Monday - Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: June 9, 1984 through June 16, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of June 9, 1984.

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

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was Lauper's first hit, and probably was her most comercially successful song, and was nominated for or won pretty much all of the awards, but the song I always associate with her is this one. The plaintive, melancholy mood of Time After Time is simply perfectly suited to Lauper's vocal delivery - when listening to the song it sounds like a confession taking place just before the singer breaks down in tears. The entire tenor of the song is both sad and hopeful at the same time.

Oddly, despite the fact that the lyrics of the song seem to suggest undying loyalty, the music video more or less shows a fractured relationship disintegrating into a final breakup. The overarching story is that Lauper's character is homesick and wants to return to her childhood home and care for her mother, but that's not incredibly well conveyed by the video (in fact, that portion completely escaped me until recently). But the sequences show Lauper's character and her seemingly contentious relationship with her boyfriend, played by Lauper's then real-life boyfriend and manager David Wolff. In the end, Lauper leaves Wolff behind, which is more or less what happened in real life, so the teras are not feigned.

Previous Musical Monday: Wake Me Up before You Go-Go by Wham!

Subsequent Musical Monday: Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denice Williams

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: The Reflex by Duran Duran

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denice Williams

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

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

Cyndi Lauper     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: November 17, 1984 through December 1, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: November 24, 1984 through December 1, 1984.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: June 2, 1984 through June 9, 1984.

Peppy dance beat? Check.

Mostly meaningless lyrics? Check.

Goofy dance moves? Check.

Big, brightly colored clothes? Check.
.
Ridiculously short shorts? Check.

Black light sequence? Check.

I am starting to think that between Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Duran Duran, Prince, and so on, 1984 may have been peak 1980s. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go is pretty much a prime example of the music and music videos of the era. Peppy, poppy, with performers in shirts shouting slogans in big letters who are also wearing brightly colored fingerless gloves, and just generally over the top, the song and video are more or less symbolic of the era. As Deadpool says in the movie Deadpool, Wham! earned their exclamation point.

Previous Musical Monday: Let's Hear it for the Boy by Denice Williams

Subsequent Musical Monday: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Caribbean Queen (No More Love On the Run) by Billy Ocean

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Out of Touch by Hall and Oates

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Purple Rain by Prince

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: I Feel for You by Chaka Khan

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: The Reflex by Duran Duran

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

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

Wham!     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denice Wiliiams

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: May 26, 1984 through June 2, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: May 26, 1984 through June 2, 1984.

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

There's not really a whole lot to say about Let's Hear It for the Boy. Like a lot of popular songs from the mid-1980s, it is basically an empty, almost meaningless song with a catchy hook and a danceable beat. The song appeared on the soundtrack for the movie Footloose, once again reinforcing the connection between filmed media and pop success, but other than that there is almost nothing memorable about it.

Previous Musical Monday: The Reflex by Duran Duran

Subsequent Musical Monday: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Hello by Lionel Richie

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Hello by Lionel Richie

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper

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

Denice Williams     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - The Reflex by Duran Duran

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: June 23, 1984 through June 30, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: June 16, 1984 through June 23, 1984.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: May 5, 1984 through May 26. 1984.

The Reflex is one of those iconic 1980s era songs that is emblematic of the era, and also highlights one of the worst things about music from that time period. The song is catchy and danceable, like pretty much everything else that Duran Duran produced. It is also complete nonsense, like pretty much everything else Duran Duran produced. This is kind of a running theme with a lot of popular music on he U.S. music charts in the mid-1980s - it is often upbeat and fun, but it is empty and meaningless. Duran Duran generally, and The Reflex specifically, is more or less the poster child for this phenomenon.

Previous Musical Monday: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins

Subsequent Musical Monday: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denice Williams

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper

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

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springstein

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Hello by Lionel Richie

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!

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

Duran Duran     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: April 21, 1984 through May 5, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: April 21, 1984 through May 5, 1984.

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

This is yet another song associated with a movie, in this case, the movie Against All Odds. Oddly, while most of the other movies that have appeared on this list have been considered fairly slight: Xanadu, Fame, and Flashdance are all regarded as pop culture fluff, and even the one with the most studio muscle behind it - Footloose - is kind of a goofy trashy movie, this movie was definitely intended to be taken seriously. It starred Jeff Bridges, a prominent actor who had already garnered two Academy Award nominations (and who would garner another one in the same year this movie was released for his performance in Starman). Appearing alongside Bridges was Rachel Ward, who was coming off of an award-winning performance in the critically acclaimed miniseries The Thorn Birds. Cast as the villain was James Woods, who had already had a notable career before he showed up in this movie. The movie was a remake, loosely based upon the 1947 film noir movie Out of the Past, considered one of the greatest examples of that genre. In a bit of stunt casting, the ingenue from Out of the Past was cast as Rachel Ward's mother.

Despite all of that, I suspect that far fewer people continue to watch this movie than watch Flashdance or Fame or any of the other movies that have thus far had musical hits on this list. Lots of people are familiar with Footloose, especially the final dance scene. Lots of people know routines from Flashdance, especially, once again, the final dance. A fair number of people are familiar with iconic scenes from Fame. But I figure very few people would be able to even give a rough synopsis of the plot to Against All Odds without looking it up first. That isn't to say that Against All Odds is a bad movie - it is well acted and has a fundamentally strong story. It just hasn't had the staying power in popular culture that the other "lesser" movies that had his songs associated with them have had.

Previous Musical Monday: Footloose by Kenny Loggins

Subsequent Musical Monday: The Reflex by Duran Duran

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Footloose by Kenny Loggins

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Hello by Lionel Richie

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Footloose by Kenny Loggins

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Hello by Lionel Richie

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

Phil Collins     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Footloose by Kenny Loggins

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: March 31, 1984 through April 14, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: March 31, 1984 through April 14, 1984.

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

Throughout this series, I've commented on how much interaction there is between large studio movies and the music charts, and Footloose is another example of this phenomenon. As the title track to the movie of the same name, Footloose followed in the footsteps of Flashdance and Fame, which were also early 1980s era movies about kids and dancing. A generous person might put Xanadu into that same category, but Xanadu seems to have been an artifact of an earlier roller-disco-oriented era.

The big difference between Footloose and its spiritual predecessors Flashdance and Fame is that it was following the success of the earlier movies (and songs), and the studio seems to have put a lot more resources into this movie. Whereas the first two movies featured mostly little known or even unknown actors, and their music was performed by mostly unknown singers, Footloose featured veteran actors John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest in significant roles. Kevin Bacon was an up-and-coming actor coming off an award-winning performance in Forty Deuce and critical acclaim in Diner. Lori Singer was coming off of a two year run as a cast regular in the television adaptation of Fame. In short, this cast was full of actors who had much more substantial resumes than those who populated Flashdance or Fame.
The song itself was also sung by someone with a bigger resume than the earlier movies. Kenny Loggins spent the first half of the 1970s as half of the hit making duo Loggins and Messina, charting top twenty Billboard hits like Your Momma Don't Dance and Thinking of You. Picking him to write and perform the theme song for the movie wasn't quite like selecting a first round draft pick to do the job, but he was still an industry veteran with an extensive resume. It is also notable that the movie soundtrack also included songs by Bonnie Tyler, Sammy Hagar, and a duet by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Anne Wilson of Heart. The movie producers weren't leaving anything to chance with this one.

In the end, this all worked out. Footloose grossed eighty million dollars at the box office against a production budget of eight million. Bacon went on to appear in dozens of movies. This song was nominated for an Academy Award, and Loggins continued to push out hits, including one other notable movie theme song later in the 1980s.

Previous Musical Monday: Hello by Lionel Richie

Subsequent Musical Monday: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Jump by Van Halen

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins

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 Loggins     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Hello by Lionel Richie

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: May 12, 1984 through May 19, 1984.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: May 12, 1984 through May 19, 1984.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: March 24, 1984 through April 28, 1984.

Lionel Richie was the master of Dad pop in the 1980s. Hello is pretty much Dad pop distilled to its purest essence. A soft-rock ballad in which the singer pines for a woman he has apparently never directly spoken with, this song's narrator is pathetic in ways that would not be equaled until James Blunt's You're Beautiful. After leaving the Commodores, Richie more or less settled into producing commercially successful albeit mostly forgettable songs for the entire decade.

The thing about this song is that while the song is bland and fairly boring, the video is creepy as hell. Apparently, Richie decided to not only be the king of Dad pop, but also the king of Dad stalking. The entire video depicts Riche as a teacher who is apparently smitten with an attractive blind student in his class. He spends the entire video silently stalking her, looming creepily behind her in several scenes, calling her house in the middle of the night, and generally behaving like the villain in the first half of a horror movie. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that the blind student has sculpted a bust of Richie that somehow looks a little bit like him. This video is genuinely weird and off-putting. It certainly made me reevaluate Richie's character given that he didn't look at this concept and say "no way in hell".

Previous Musical Monday: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper

Subsequent Musical Monday: Footloose by Kenny Loggins

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denice Williams

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denice Williams

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: 99 Luftballoons by Nena

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: The Reflex by Duran Duran

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

Lionel Richie     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home