Musical Monday - Let's Dance by David Bowie

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: The week of May 21, 1983.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of May 21, 1983.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: April 9, 1983 to April 23, 1983.

Let's Dance became the number one song on the U.K. chart the same day that I turned fourteen. I was living in Nigeria, I had my first real girlfriend (Sandy, if you are out there reading this, I still remember that year fondly), and I knew I was there on borrowed time as I would have to leave the next year for boarding school because the American International School only went through the ninth grade.

I've said that one of the things that propelled Michael Jackson to the forefront of pop culture in the early 1980s was his music videos, but the reality is that pretty much every musician who remained successful through the decade jumped into the music video arena with gusto. Those that didn't found themselves consigned to being cultural afterthoughts.

David Bowie, noted rock chameleon, jumped headlong into the music video world, and Let's Dance is an example of this. The song itself is decent, but really there's not much to it. It has a memorable hook, a good bass line, and lyrics that are pretty banal. There's nothing really special about the song itself that makes it stand out from other hit pop songs. It seems odd to say about a song that reached the top spot on the Billboard, Cash Box, and U/K. Charts, but Let's Dance is pretty mediocre.

What made Let's Dance memorable was the music video, featuring two Australian aboriginal teenagers who show up in a collection of circumstances pitting them and their traditional way of life against the encroachment of white Australian culture and society. They dance at a bar while white patrons make fun of them They find red shoes in the wilderness and are suddenly able to dance. They end up working jobs in civilized society - he in a factory and she as a cleaning lady. They get sucked in by western capitalism and the culture of consumption before rejecting it and walking off into the outback.

The only trouble with the video is that it makes the viewer think the song is saying something more significant than it is. Highlighting the fact that Australian aborigines are not treated well by Australian society is notable, as are the elements of the video that critique the exploitative nature of the capitalist consumerist society that they live adjacent to, but there's not all that much in the song itself that connects to these themes. The video wants to be socially significant, but the song simply is not, and as a result, it simply isn't as powerful a statement as it thinks it is. In fact, it comes off as somewhat pretentious, which is a shame, but there's not really anything that can be done about that.

Previous Musical Monday: Beat It by Michael Jackson

Subsequent Musical Monday: Mr. Roboto by Styx

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Beat It by Michael Jackson

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

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

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Is There Something I Should Know? by Duran Duran

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: True by Spandau Ballet

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

David Bowie     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Fame by Irene Cara

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: July 17, 1982 through August 7, 1982.

Fame was the theme song for the 1980 movie Fame, and by July of 1982 it had already been available for almost two years. In 1980 the song won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Original Song, and had garnered Irene Cara two Grammy nominations for Best New Female Artist and Best New Pop Artist. Although it had not reached number one on the Billboard or Cash Box charts, it had still been a big hit. In 1980, Cara seemed poised to become the big star based on the success of this song and her performance in the movie as Coco Hernandez.

Fast forward two years later and this song reaches number one on the U.K. charts. Why? Basically, television. The success of the movie Fame led to the creation of the television show Fame, and the rerelease of the song Fame. Ironically, although several members of the movie cast became regulars on the television show, Cara was not one of them. Although the television show used the song Fame as its main title, the version used for the show was not sung by Cara. To sum up: This song became a hit to promote a show the singer was not on that used a version of it that the singer did not sing.

One of the recurring themes that has run through this project is the pronounced influence that movies and television have had upon the landscape of popular music, and this song reflects that reality on two axes. First it became a hit because ti was attached to a movie, then it became a hit again because it was attached to a television show. Of course, the song never would have become a hit without being an actually pretty good song powered by Cara's powerful and almost transcendent voice.

Previous Musical Monday: Happy Talk by Captain Sensible

Subsequent Musical Monday: Hurt So Good by John Cougar

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Happy Talk by Captain Sensible

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners and the Emerald Express

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

Irene Cara     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Happy Talk by Captain Sensible

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: July 3, 1982 through July 10, 1982.

Happy Talk is a song originally composed for the 1949 Broadway musical South Pacific by Rogers and Hammerstein. In the play, set during World War II, Bloody Mary uses the song to help her daughter Liat woo American Lieutenant Cable, overcoming Liat's inability to speak English and Cable's inability to speak Tonkin with the lyrics of a song about talking to each other.

With that background, this seems like an odd choice of a song to become a top hit in the U.K. in the early 1980s. After all, a song about a U.S. serviceman fighting the Japanese falling in love with a Polynesian girl who he cannot speak to or understand seems like something that wouldn't really resonate with the average person in the U.K. in 1982. I suppose it isn't that surprising that a Rogers and Hammerstein song became a pop hit - Jay and the Americans had a hit with Some Enchanted Evening in the 1960s.

Given the songs that dominated the U.K. pop charts in the early 1980s, there seems to have been some sort of weird nostalgia craze running through the culture. It would still be some time before the 1980s found their own voice. I guess it could have been stranger. You've Got to Be Carefully Taught could have been the pop hit from South Pacific that hit the top of the U.K. charts in 1982.

Previous Musical Monday: I've Never Been to Me by Charlene

Subsequent Musical Monday: Fame by Irene Cara

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: I've Never Been to Me by Charlene

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Fame by Irene Cara

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

Captain Sensible     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - I've Never Been to Me by Charlene

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: The week of June 26, 1982.

If you think this song sounds like a soft-rock ballad from the 1970s, there is a reason for that: It is. I've Never Been to Me was originally released by Charlene in 1977, at which point it more or less flopped, barely breaking into the top 100 on the charts. The song was later rereleased in 1984, whereupon it hit number three in the U.S. and topped the charts in a couple other countries, including the U.K. This song became the first truly successful Motown single by a white female artist.

To a certain extent, this song is kind of insulting. The song posits a conversation between two women. One is a desperate wife and mother who wants to trade her life for the high-flying rock star life of the singer of the song. The singer then relates several of her life experiences and concludes that she has never been able to find self-fulfillment, concluding 'I've never been to me". The implication of the lyrics is that the housewife is somehow better off than the wealthy singer who has traveled the world and lived what can only be described as a fantasy life. This is the kind of condescending thing that rock stars sometimes do - bemoaning their difficult lives of wealth and privilege while pining for an "ordinary" life that is supposedly more fulfilling. Nothing actually keeps them from choosing the sort of "ordinary" life that they claim to yearn for, but they will still moan and whine about how good it would be if they had it.

I mean, everyone knows that their whining about wanting a "regular" life is just bullshit, but pop singers keep hypocritically trotting it out. The melody is nice though.

Previous Musical Monday: Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant

Subsequent Musical Monday: Happy Talk by Captain Sensible

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Happy Talk by Captain Sensible

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

Charlene     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Goody Two-Shoes by Adam Ant

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: June 12, 1982 through June 19, 1982.

I must admit that I never really got the appeal of Adam Ant. I still don't. This song has not given me any additional illumination of the subject.

Goody Two Shoes was Ant's most successful song in the United States, a kind of Elvis-like rockabilly tune that seems to want to say something biting and satirical but seems to just collapse into irrelevance due to its own sense of self-importance. I vaguely recall seeing this song performed when it was new, I believe it was part of an appearance Ant made on Solid Gold, and I recall thinking "this song is popular, there must be something here to like" and just not finding anything that grabbed me. I also recall that Ant basically vanished from the U.S. music scene shortly thereafter and so I didn't have to really care any more. And I still don't.

To put this in simple terms: Adam Ant and his music are a cultural artifact that I didn't get then and don't get now and don't really care enough to figure out.

Previous Musical Monday: House of Fun by Madness

Subsequent Musical Monday: I've Never Been to Me by Charlene

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: House of Fun by Madness

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: I've Never Been to Me by Charlene

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

Adam Ant     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - House of Fun by Madness

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: May 29, 1982 through April 3, 1982.

Madness had one hit in the U.S. This is not it. This was, however, their highest charting song in the U.K.

The late 1970s through the mid-1980s were the heyday of Ska music in Britain, and to be honest, to me all Ska bands sound like a bunch of guys just cosplaying a band. Madness, for example, sounds to me like a bunch of guys from the neighborhood went down to the local pawn shop and bought whatever instruments happened to be for sale. They then parceled out the instruments among themselves and declared themselves to be a band. I'm sure that's not the real story of the origin of Madness, but the almost ramshackle sound of their music and the chaotic nature their of presentation makes me think that it should have been.

Previous Musical Monday: A Little Peace by Nicole

Subsequent Musical Monday: Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: A Little Peace by Nicole

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant

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

Madness     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - A Little Peace by Nicole

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: May 15, 1982 through May 22, 1982.

Eurovision is a giant ramshackle song contest that produces a one-hit wonder pretty much every year, and 1982 was no different. This was Germany's entry that year, by Nicole. This was pretty much her only hit of any kind, which seems to be pretty typical for Eurovision song contest winners - they show up, win the contest with a song that charts in multiple participating countries, and then they more or less disappear until they are trotted out to sing their one hit at Eurovision nostalgia events.

As far as Eurovision song winners go, this slightly out of the ordinary, insofar as it is a non-English language winner. Most winners - even those by entries from non English-speaking countries - are performed in English, to ensure maximum appeal because English has become the second language of a large proportion of Europeans. It also isn't a supper flashy over-the-top gala production like many of the competitors. On the other hand, the theme of the song, a wish for world peace, is pretty much Eurovision voter bait.

Previous Musical Monday: Chariots of Fire by Vangelis

Subsequent Musical Monday: House of Fun by Madness

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: House of Fun by Madness

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

Nicole     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: May 15, 1982 through June 26, 1982.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: May 15, 1982 through June 19, 1982.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: April 24, 1982 through May 8, 1982.

Take two giants of the music industry and add a song that uses the black and white keys of a piano as a metaphor for racial harmony, and you get a titanic international hit that reached the top of every chart that I am tracking for the 1980s Project and several other music charts as well. For about two to three months in early 1982, this song was nigh-ubiquitous on the airwaves, dominating pop culture for that time period.

There is no denying that the song was a huge commercial success. Ebony and Ivory spent more time at the top of the charts than any of McCartney's other post-Beatles songs, and longer than any of his songs other than Hey Jude. It was ranked as the fourth largest hit of 1982 overall. This song spent more time at the top of the charts than any other Stevie Wonder song, and provided Wonder with a number one hit in a third consecutive decade.

This is also a kind of sappy, treacly, almost offensively simplistic song, and the reactions to it after the initial rush of enthusiasm reflect that fact. The video for the song beat the viewers across the head and shoulders with the metaphor, having McCartney and Wonder walking around on a giant set of piano keys. Just in case the viewers didn't get the message, McCartney is dressed in black and Wonder is dressed in white. Once people stepped back for a second, they noticed what a blunt force object the song actually was.

Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo had a famous Saturday Night Live spoof of this song in which they made fun of the adolescent metaphor for racial coexistence. Other people poked fun at the saccharine nature of the song in subsequent years. As time has gone by, the song has more or less faded from the forefront of popular consciousness, which is somewhat unusual for a song that flew so high on the charts when it was released. I can't remember the last time someone was talking about "great music from the 1980s" and thought to include Ebony and Ivory on the list. The lasting cultural footprint of this song is almost negligible, and that is remarkable.

Previous Musical Monday: My Camera Never Lies by Bucks Fizz

Subsequent Musical Monday: Chariots of Fire by Vangelis

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Chariots of Fire by Vangelis

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Don't You Want Me by the Human League

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Chariots of Fire by Vangelis

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Don't You Want Me by the Human League

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: My Camera Never Lies by Bucks Fizz

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: A Little Peace by Nicole

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

Paul McCartney     Stevie Wonder     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - My Camera Never Lies by Bucks Fizz

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: The week of April 17, 1982.

This is really a pretty terrible song. I never thought I could long for the days of listening to Making Your Mind Up or The Land of Make Believe, but the ABBA knock-off that is Bucks Fizz managed to accomplish this with this number one hit. I decided to include the U.K. chart in my review of the top hits of the 1980s because I remembered a lot of really good music from there that never really made it over to the U.S. I forgot that there was so much crappy pseudo-disco like this in the mix as well.

I guess the highlights of the decade wouldn't be highlights without the lowlights to serve as contrast. So this week is providing contrast.

Previous Musical Monday: That Girl by Stevie Wonder

Subsequent Musical Monday: Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Seven Tears by the Goombay Dance Band

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and 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

Bucks Fizz     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Musical Monday - Oh Julie by Shakin' Stevens

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: The week of January 30, 1982.

Elvis died in 1977. Looking at Shakin' Stevens' performances, I can only surmise that he almost immediately decided to try to fill the gap left by that loss. I'm not saying that he did it all that well, but it is clear that discount Elvis is what he was going for.

The interesting thing here is that this represents such a backward-looking take on music. This isn't just hearkening back to the days when Elvis was alive, this hearkens back to Elvis as he was in the 1950s, before he went off to Hollywood to star in a couple dozen terrible movies and become a parody of his former self playing in Vegas. This is an imitation of Elvis as he was when he was recording Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, and Jailhouse Rock.

The only real issue with being knock-off Elvis in the 1980s is that it is a fairly tame and toothless thing to aspire to. In the 1950s, when Elvis was turning out his big hits and making waves with his suggestive dancing, everything he was doing was risque often over the edge of what was considered acceptable. By 1982, the world had moved on, and this sort of act was staid and boring.

The other interesting element about Oh Julie is that the song is original to Shakin' Stevens, unlike his previous two top hits, both of which were remakes. I had originally thought that this was a remake of the Crescendos song Oh Julie, but that is decidedly not the case. Not only was Shakin' Stevens the first to record this song, he also wrote it, which I believe makes this unique among Shakin' Stevens' number one hits.

Previous Musical Monday: I Can't Go for That (No Can Do) by Hall and Oates

Subsequent Musical Monday: Centerfold by the J. Geils Band

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: The Land of Make Believe by Bucks Fizz

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Computer Love/The Model by Kraftwerk

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

Shakin' Stevens     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home