September 13, 1986 Part Two

Before we begin to finish our 1986 business, let's take a quick look at this week's 70s list, from September 4, 1976.

Number 1 that week were The Bee Gees with "You Should Be Dancin'." The top half is full of stuff I've already covered, though I must admit, #17, Cliff Richard's "Devil Woman" has been stuck in my head lately for some reason...At #26, James Taylor advises us to "Shower the People." I would hope they'd be able to do that for themselves. Oh wait, shower them with love. That makes sense...Wait, Helen Reddy made a disco record? Apparently so, because there she is at #30 making a bid for dance club dominance with "I Can't Hear You No More." She does okay, but it's just not her style...Diana Ross had scored two #1s to date in '76 with "Theme from Mahogany and "Love Hangover." This week she's here at #32 with the funky, strutting "One Love in My Lifetime." It's good, but it didn't even come close to giving her the hat trick...Wow, I can almost hear the disdain in Casey's voice as he introduces the debut of "Disco Duck" at #34...And there Olivia again with "Don't Stop Believin'" at #39. It sounds nothing like the Journey song of the same name, and that's a good thing...But this week, my 70s Spotlight song is...

29 - "Street Singin'," Lady Flash
Lorraine Mazzola, Monica Burruss and Debra Byrd were a vocal trio whose primary gig was singing backup for Barry Manilow on record and on tour. But they did manage one hit of their own in the form of this tribute to the days of streetcorner a cappella groups. "When we were street singing," they say, "we were beauties in the night." It's a little too slick, perhaps, but it's a cool little curio. Oh, and if you recognize the name Debra Byrd, it's because she's spent the last decade as the head vocal coach on American Idol.

Okay, let's jump back ahead ten years and pick up where we left off yesterday.

20 - "Throwing it All Away," Genesis
19 - "Rumors," Timex Social Club
18 - "When I Think of You," Janet Jackson
17 - "Two of Hearts," Stacey Q
16 - "The Captain of Her Heart," Double

The second half begins with Genesis at the peak of their commercial powers. This, the second hit from the hugely successful Invisible Touch album, is a pretty standard Phil Collins ballad about how the woman leaving him is going to regret doing so. Doesn't do much for me.

The Timex Social Club were a soul/hip-hop group from Berkeley, California who managed just one hit, this plea for an end to gossip. They even ask the U.S. congress to impose the death penalty for those who would say things like "Hear that one about Michael? Some say 'he must be gay.'" Sounds a little harsh, but still, this is the best song I can think of off the top of my head from a band named for a watch.

Next is the little sister of a guy named Michael, who one might speculate was the subject of the above "Rumors" reference. Anyway, this sweetly funky number in which she declares to her significant other "All I think about is our love" would go on to be Janet Jackson's first #1, and once and for all establish her as more than the girl from the famous family who was on the last years of Good Times and played Willis' girlfriend on Diff'rent Strokes. Of course, now when we think of her, all we think about is her boob.

Stacey Lynn Swain spent her childhood performing at Disneyland and in a travelling circus. In the early 80s she was in a band called Q, then she went solo and took that letter as her stage surname. When this synth-drenched dance-pop confection hit the charts, she was 28, but her girlish voice made her sound much younger. Anyway, I-I-I-I-I, I need, I need never hear this song again.

Rounding out this group is the Swiss duo Double with their only American hit, a dark-sounding, piano-driven ballad about a woman who waits for the return of her true love. The singer sounds bored. I'm with him.

15 - "Man Size Love," Klymaxx
14 - "Papa Don't Preach," Madonna
13 - "Love Zone," Billy Ocean
12 - "Dreamtime," Daryl Hall
11 - "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)," Glass Tiger

This section starts with an all-female L.A. soul band who couldn't have spelled their name properly even if they'd wanted to, because that had already been taken by the people who brought us "Precious and Few." This synth-funk number is a simple plea for a male who can provide them with the right amount of affection. Does this song have anything to do with penis size? Honestly, I don't think so, and that's surprising.

Next is Madonna with the danceable melodrama in which she takes on the role of a pregnant teen looking for support and approval from her father, because she's made up her mind, she's keeping her baby. And marrying the guy who knocked her up. We never find out if she gets what she asks for. Like "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off," this was also used as a Long Distance Dedication, from a teenage mother from the Phillippines who actually did get her father's blessing for her choices. Well, at least real life provided closure.

Would you believe that Billy Ocean racked up a dozen U.S. Top 40 hits in his career? Including three #1s and two #2s? Well I didn't, but it's true. His entry here, a smooth midtempo ballad in which he promises to take his lady to a mystical realm where "together we can live and learn." only made it to #10. What a failure.

What's this? Hall...without Oates? Yes, it's true. For a couple years during the latter half of the decade, they amicably went their separate ways. But while John was doing stuff like recording with the Canadian band The Parachute Club and not really impacting the charts, Daryl put out a solo album with the fantastically awful title Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine. That record produced two Top 40 singles, the first and biggest of which was this song about a woman who runs away from her problems through fantasy. It's an interesting song, with a big beat some rocking guitars, but also an elaborate string arrangement. It definitely sounds distinct from Hall and Oates, and quite frankly, I think I just might like it better than anything those two did together.

Finishing this fivesome are Newmarket, Ontario's Glass Tiger with this frothy bit of cheese-pop that just screams "80s" from the horns to the haircuts to those vocal interjections from Bryan Adams. On behalf of all of Canada, I apologize for exposing the world to this. I really do.

Never mind the bollocks, here's the Top Ten:

10 - "Baby Love," Regina
Brooklyn songstress Regina Richards scored her only hit with this dance-popper that sounds quite a bit like something Madonna might have recorded. And since it was co-written by Stephen Bray, one of the Material Girl's most frequent collaborators in the early part of her career, that's not surprising. But it's not exactly something that sticks in the mind.

9 - "Walk this Way," Run-D.M.C.
The Queens rap pioneers helped bridge the gap between hip-hop and rock with this cover of Aerosmith's 1975 teen lust anthem that featured contributions from the band's "Toxic Twins," Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Not only did this song give us the Aerosmith comeback of the late-80s, but one could also argue that it is to blame for the likes of, say, Limp Bizkit. But I won't hold that against them.

8 - "Words Get in the Way," Miami Sound Machine
This band of Cuban-Americans, fronted by singer Gloria Estefan, had broken through to the Anglo market with a couple of upbeat numbers when they put out this ballad about a failure to communicate. With Estefan demonstrating her way with tenderness, this became the group's first Top 5 single. Not a big fan, but this is pretty effective in its mission, and that's all you can ask for.

7 - "Sweet Freedom," Michael McDonald
The master of bland soul-pop scored another post-Doobies hit with this song from a Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines buddy cop comedy called Running Scared. Why anyone would ever go out of their way to listen to this song is beyond me. There's absolutely nothing to feel passionate about one way or the other.

6 - "Higher Love," Steve Winwood
This British veteran of The Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith, and Traffic hit his commercial peak as a solo artist in the latter half of the eighties, and this R&B- inflected track that called for some sort of divine intervention was the first of his two #1s. I never thought too much of it, especially when I thought the chorus went "Break me off high or low." But I can't be too hard on any song that has Chaka Khan on backing vocals.

5 - "Venus," Bananarama
This British girl group scored their only American #1 with this cover of the tribute to the Roman goddess of love that first topped the charts in 1970 for Holland's Shocking Blue. Of course, this song is now most closely associated with leg razors. What's your desire? Why, stubble-free gams, of course!

4 - "Friends and Lovers," Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson
Loring, an actress, singer and songwriter whose biggest musical achievement to this point had been co-writing the themes to Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life with ex-husband Alan Thicke, was starring on the soap Days of Our Lives when she teamed up with Anderson, best known for playing Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar both on stage and screen, for this drippy ballad about a friendship that loses its platonicness. Really, I can only explain this song's success by saying that soap actors singing seemed to work in the 80s. See also Jack Wagner, Michael Damian, and of course, Rick Springfield.

3 - "Stuck with You," Huey Lewis and the News
Lewis and his band of current events followed up that big Back to the Future song with this one about a relationship that in spite of its many challenges just won't die. And Huey's pleased about that. Bland and inoffensive, but that's what the people wanted from these guys.

2 - "Dancing on the Ceiling," Lionel Richie
The ex-Commodore introduced the follow-up to his mega-selling Can't Slow Down LP with its title track, a propulsive floor-filler about a party so vibrant, it defies gravity. It may be his best solo single. It holds up surprisingly well.

And a quarter-cetnury ago, the top tune in the U.S. of A. was...

1 - "Take My Breath Away (Love Theme from Top Gun)," Berlin
Coming into 1986, these Los Angeles New Wavers had scored a single Top 40 hit with 1984's "No More Words, but were probably more famous for a song that only reached #62, the controversial "Sex (I'm A...)." But then they were tapped by producer Giorgio Moroder to record this ballad for a Tom Cruise movie about Navy pilots, and suddenly, singer Terri Nunn's voice is all over ther radio, and her band have a Number One record. Then they were pretty much never heard from again. But as long as there is 80s nostalgia, this song will live on.

The NotCaseys this week were "Earth Angel" by New Edition, "Human" by The Human League, "Wild Wild Life" by Talking Heads, and "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel. Casey opened the show with the previous week's #1, "Venus," and played one non-current LDD, Anne Murray's "You Needed Me," dedicated by a guy who put his career ahead of his marriage to the wife he wants back.

And there's another one. With yet another to come.