The 100 Greatest Pop Singles of the 1980s (80-61)
Apr 26 '06 (Updated May 09 '06)
The Bottom Line In which the author's seen the difference and it's getting better all the time.
Casey's Coast-to-Coast...
100-81
And we're back with the second installment of The Greatest 100 Pop Singles of the 1980s. Put up your dukes, let's get down to it.
-80-
Song: Only You
Artist: Yaz
Album: Upstairs at Eric's
Debuted February 1983
Peaked #67
Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love...
Vince Clarke was the primary songwriter and mastermind behind Depeche Mode's (uncharacteristically chipper, in hindsight) debut album. When he abruptly left the group to form Yazoo (or Yaz, here in the U.S.) with singer Alison Moyet, many believed Depeche Mode was doomed. And his ability to crank out songs like this spare-but-oh-so-soulful bit of synthesized longing offers ample justification for those fears.
-79-
Song: Steppin' Out
Artist: Joe Jackson
Album: Night and Day
Debuted August 1982
Peaked #6
And in a yellow taxi turn to me and smile, 'we'll be there in just awhile'
If songs were objects, then this would be a big, shiny one - like a limousine, or a skyscraper, or some really fancy jewelry that Richard Gere borrowed to woo Julia Roberts with. I love the electro-bassline that pulses through the song, the elegant simplicity of the piano chords like we're at some chic party; and Jackson's story about making up after an argument with a fabulous night on the town.
-78-
Song: Voices Carry
Artist: 'Til Tuesday
Album: Voices Carry
Debuted April 1985
Peaked #8
In the dark, I like to read his mind...
In the 80s, there were lots of songs about child abuse, from Suzanne Vega's "Luka" to Pat Benatar's (unintentionally comical) "Hell is for Children"; but the whole spousal abuse angle was woefully under-represented. How the video for 'Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry" hasn't been adapted into a full-length Lifetime movie, I'll never know. I love the fact that this song speaks to emotional violence more than physical. That said, my favorite part of the song is when Aimee Mann goes all Burning Bed with us on those final ad-libs. He said! Shut up!
-77-
Song: (Keep Feeling) Fascination
Artist: Human League
Album: Fascination! (EP)
Debuted May 1983
Peaked #8
The forming of a new connection to study or to play...
This song was fascinating for so many reasons. I mean, what the hell is that synth doing. It's like a locust doing an impression of a saxophone, and it's the weirdest, randomest sounding melody; but even better are the verses, where its like a room full of people singing the song, and only one person can sing at a time, and they keep cutting each other off. It's actually kinda like dinner with my in-laws. Only a lot more fun - and only 4 minutes.
-76-
Song: Eye in the Sky
Artist: The Alan Parsons Project
Album: Eye in the Sky
Debuted July 1982
Peaked #3
Don't think sorry's easily said...
I swear to God, I've always imagined Eeyore singing this song. Ever since I first heard it as a little kid. The watery keyboards and creepy-sad-regretful guitar whines. At once it's sort of kiss-offish, but also really stalkerish. Am I the only one who gets the willies from Eric Woolfson's "maker of rules" God complex, or those little devil-angel voices in the sky singing in discordant harmonies "looking at youuuuuuuu". Then again, this song always pops into my head when I go into a Sam's Club and they've got so many surveillance cameras it's like they expect you to have stolen stuff before you've even entered the building.
-75-
Song: Shadows of the Night
Artist: Pat Benatar
Album: Get Nervous
Debuted October 1982
Peaked #13
You can let me down easy, but not tonight...
Again. The video makes the song. Pat Benatar wasn't the first to do this one. (That would be Rachel Sweet.) But she was the first one to defeat the Nazis while singing this song. It's one of her most powerful and dynamic vocal performances, but I love the guitar sound on this song too. It's messy and loud and at the end, it's like the siren from an ambulance. I love the urgency.
-74-
Song: Time (Clock of the Heart)
Artist: Culture Club
Album: Kissing to Be Clever (U.S. reissue)
Debuted April 1983
Peaked #2
This could be the best place yet, but you must overcome your fears...
This isn't Culture Club's most popular song (though it didn't do too shabby), nor their most notorious (you won't find a drag queen singing it in an Adam Sandler movie), but unlike many of the group's hits, this one transcends camp and actually comes across as genuinely regretful, but also sorta sweet and forgiving.
-73-
Song: Why You Treat Me So Bad
Artist: Club Nouveau
Album: Life, Love & Pain
Debuted May 1987
Peaked #39
Sorry that you say I hurt you, but you know you hurt me too...
The bulk of pop duets are boy girl love songs about how much we love each other and look at us, we're islands in the stream, etc.; but Club Nouveau's brilliant follow-up to their massive hit "Lean on Me" was quite the opposite. It's like eavesdropping on your best friends - you know, the ones who are always happy and laughing together, who make, like, the cutest couple ever - having this gigantic argument. On one hand, it appeals to our inner voyeur with its delicious sense of private drama; but it's also just really really sad - because you can tell that the guy really wants her back, but it's just too damn bad because she's already moved on. And now we have to figure out which one we're going to stay friends with.
The music on this is great to. A steady cloak and dagger synth hook, and desolate flute-like accents emphazing the loneliness and desperation of the situation (#9, blowin' my mind - sorry, wrong song). And strings. Strings! Strings all over the place. Gorgeous and epic, a little campy, a lot theatrical, and really damn sad.
-72-
Song: Come Go With Me
Artist: Expose
Album: Exposure
Debuted January 1987
Peaked #5
This night will last everlasting through the time...
Read that lyric again. And again. And once more. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? ESL, anyone? Anyone? Luckily, the song is as catchy as hell. The song is about finding time to escape the daily grind with your favorite hottie, but the song itself is the escape. So find your favorite hottie and blast it everlasting through the time.
-71-
Song: Original Sin
Artist: INXS
Album: The Swing
Debuted April 1984
Peaked #58
Dream on, white boy. Dream on, black girl. And wake up to a brand new day...
To find your dreams washed away. Among the many more signicant accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, it gave us a whole new sub-genre of pop song. That being the interracial romance number. There's the Stones' "Brown Sugar", and Hot Chocolate's (by way of the Stories) "Brother Louie", Everclear's "Heartspark Dollarsign". My personal favorite from the 80s, The Time's "Ice Cream Castle" is unfortunately ineligible for this list, but INXS's "Original Sin" hits the sweet spot too. There isn't a lot to the song, but its minimalism (and Michael Hutchence's unsympathetic vocal rendering) builds a sense of knowing tension.
-70-
Song: Time and Tide
Artist: Basia
Album: Time and Tide
Debuted July 1988
Peaked #26
Don't want to hurt anybody, but can't help loving you...
In my introduction to this list, I mentioned that I'd done away with a lot of my own personal "sacred cows" - pet songs that probably aren't the "greatest", but that I love like children. But a few snuck in, and this is definitely one of them. It was anachronistic even at the time of its release, alternately harkening back to the big band ballad days of the 40s and pointing towards Celine Dion's heavily accented cheesiness in the 90s. But damn, it's got chorus for miles, and there's no doubt that the Warsaw-native could sing. At the same time, she fairly begs for the Ana Gasteyer treatment.
-69-
Song: Buffalo Stance
Artist: Neneh Cherry
Album: Raw Like Sushi
Debuted April 1989
Peaked #3
Who's that gigolo on the street...
Okay, so this is as close to straight up hip hop as we get. Every time I hear this song, I just wanna be, y'know, down with Neneh Cherry. I wanna be one a' her peeps. I wanna kick it with Neneh Cherry. Be part a' her posse. Sucka. Don't you get fresh with me.
-68-
Song: Live to Tell
Artist: Madonna
Album: True Blue
Debuted April 1986
Peaked #1 (1 week)
A man can tell a thousand lies...
I'm not big on Madonna's balladry, but every now and then she comes up with something exceptionally good. "Live to Tell" has an operatic grandeur to it that suggested there was a depth to the "material girl" that was previously unimaginable. Til I heard this song, Madonna was little more than a novelty artist with a bazooka full of cold, empty ambition. Here she becomes a singer. And with her soul bruised, I could finally believe that she had one to start with.
-67-
Song: Cry
Artist: Godley & Creme
Album: The History Mix Vol. 1
Debuted July 1985
Peaked #16
You don't know how to play the game, and you cheat, and you lie - you don't even know how to say good-bye...
I'd long had The History Mix Vol. 1 on vinyl, and for the longest time, I'd always just assumed that the copy I bought was warped - and sure I was disappointed, but I moved on. But then I bought The Very Best of 10cc, which includes this song (Kevin Godley and Lol Creme had been members of the 70s art-pop ensemble, most famous for "I'm Not In Love", before embarking on a duo career in 1979), and I realized my vinyl wasn't warped at all.
-66-
Song: I Melt With You
Artist: Modern English
Album: After the Snow
Debuted April 1983
Peaked #78
Never really knowing it was only mesh and lace...
This was my first ever modern rock song. The now defunct WRKR in Milwaukee was (one of) the radio station(s) of my youth, and one Sunday night while I was sitting in my room, reading a road atlas or something, at 7:00, quite unannounced, a dj called the Squid took over for a show called "Meltdown" - a show focused on everything new and cool (what we would eventually call "alternative") in pop and rock. It was here that I first heard Midnight Oil, Paul Young, Echo & the Bunnymen, and the Cure (not to mention Freur, Peter Godwin, and 999), and the first song he ever played was Modern English's "I Melt With You". The show didn't last very long, but it totally opened my eyes and ears to lots of great musical possibilities.
What's cool about "I Melt With You"? Well, in 1994, my aunt got married, and the band they hired to play their reception was one of the those down home sorts of bands that play songs like "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Working for the Weekend" and, y'know, "Hold On Loosely". But then, they did "I Melt With You", and you could tell they totally loved it. And so did we.
-65-
Song: Every Little Thing She Does is Magic
Artist: The Police
Album: Ghost in the Machine
Debuted September 1981
Peaked #3
Do I have to tell the story of a thousand rainy days since we first me...
Girls who hog umbrellas are mean. But we love them anyway, especially when they make Sting spaz out like he does here. And is that not the coolest piano in, like, the whole entire world?
-64-
Song: Loverboy
Artist: Billy Ocean
Album: Suddenly
Debuted December 1984
Peaked #2
Cuz I get this feeling feeling from nobody else, gotta have your tenderness all to myself...
The other night, VH-1 Classic was playing the video for this song, which inexplicably features a cast of life-size Star Wars action figure knock-offs in a crowded bar; with the part of Billy Ocean's title character being played by some skeletal horse-face thing - totally ugly. Stewart hates the video, but I always thought it was hilarious in that non-sequitur sorta way. I mean, really. Why?
But the song it super cool, featuring one of Ocean's best, most urgent vocal performances (urgency is a big thing for me) - look at the lyrics and it's all 'yeah yeah yeah' - but when Ocean sings it, his insistence is totally unambiguous. He wants to be your lover, dammit. Do you really think you can get away with refusing him?
-63-
Song: Life in a Northern Town
Artist: The Dream Academy
Album: The Dream Academy
Debuted November 1985
Peaked #7
He sat on the stony ground, and he took a cigarette out, and everyone else came down to listen...
Even though I knew they were British, I always felt like they knew where Paddock Lake was, and what it felt like to live there, like at some point, the three of them had trudged the same February slush as I had - because this song had that same cold anticipation of winter, the same sense of living in an uneventful time and place with people who still listened to Beatles records and always talked about Viet Nam.
-62-
Song: It's My Life
Artist: Talk Talk
Album: It's My Life
Debuted March 1984
Peaked #31
If I could buy my reasoning, I'd pay to lose...
One of the things that drew me to this song was Mark Hollis's crabbiness in the video; but I love his thick, papery voice and his weird enunciations which made ordinary words sound both more foreign and more meaningful.
-61-
Song: In My House
Artist: Mary Jane Girls
Album: Only Four You
Debuted March 1985
Peaked #7
Here's the key to unlock the door...
Rick James takes the riff from Shocking Blue's (more woman empowering) "Venus" and turns it into a shockingly blue bit of female self-subjugation. Though it reads a little creepy given the charges Rick James (bitch) was convicted of in the 90s, the song fairly oozes with sexual allure and just a dash of bondage - I mean, they're giving this guy the key to their house and basically saying, anytime you want it, you got it - it's all good and it's all yours. It's supersleaze, supersleaze, supersleazy; but that's kinda why I like it.
Back with more, after these messages.
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