First of all, I'd like to correct a mistake from last week. "Another One Bites the Dust" was in fact Queen's second American Number One, after "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." Sorry about that.
And now, back to 25 years ago. I was 15. In a week, the first story about what would be known as the "Iran-Contra affair" would appear in a Lebanese magazine. And here's what American ears that had yet to hear the name "Oliver North" were listening to:
40 - "Point of No Return," Nu Shooz
39 - "Love Walks In," Van Halen
38 - "Freedom Overspill," Steve Winwood
37 - "Everybody Have Fun Tonight," Wang Chung
36 - "To Be a Lover," Billy Idol
35 - "Hip to be Square," Huey Lewis and the News
34 - "Dreamtime," Daryl Hall
33 - "Missionary Man," Eurythmics
32 - "Earth Angel," New Edition
31 - "Somebody's Out There," Triumph
I'll start this week by just skimming through the four songs in this group that were in our last 1986 chart. Nu Shooz are still here, and this song is still not "I Can't Wait" so who cares? Van Hagar show off the power ballad side no one wanted to see. And the Daryl Hall and Eurythmics tracks are still great.
The rest divide nicely into British and North American sections. First, the Brits. I'm not sure exactly what a "Freedom Overspill" is, and I'm not sure Steve Winwood knows either. Apparently, it involves horn-heavy pop-rock and "coffee and tears the whole night through." Okay. Wang Chung, a band that once claimed their name was Chinese for "perfect pitch," then later said they named themselves after the sound of a guitar, had their biggest hit with this peppy song of celebration in which the band dubiously decided to use their name as a verb in the chorus. I'm not sure if I want to "wang chung" tonight, or on any night for that matter, but apparently, Frasier Crane did after hearing this on the way to his bachelor party. And Billy Idol is here with a synthabilly (yes, I made that word up) cover of a 1968 William Bell R&B hit about neglecting one's significant other in favor of work and other concerns. Oh Billy, will you ever learn?
We close this bunch with two American acts and one from the Great White North. Huey Lewis and the News are here with their bouncy ode to cutting one's hair, wearing suits, and eating healthy. The song came off as lame to me then, and time has not changed my opinion. And for the record, I have neither read nor seen the movie version of American Psycho. Boston vocal group New Edition were given their name by someone who decided they were the "new edition" of the Jackson 5. They weren't, but they had a few hits, including this cover of a Penguins/Crew Cuts doo-wop classic. It's too slick to measure up to the Penguins' definitive version, but it's all right. And it was the only Top 40 hit they had as a quartet, in between the firing of Bobby Brown and the hiring of Johnny Gill. And while Toronto's Triumph will always be #2 on Canada's proggy-power-trio depth chart, they did have two U.S. Top 40 hits compared to Rush's one. And the biggest of those is their entry this week, a big rock anthem about searching for one's destiny. It's not a great song by any means, but there are times and places when this is something one wants to hear and sing along to.
30 - "The Way it Is," Bruce Hornsby and the Range
29 - "Jumpin' Jack Flash," Aretha Franklin
28 - "Friends and Lovers," Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson
27 - "Love Will Conquer All," Lionel Richie
26 - "In Your Eyes," Peter Gabriel
25 - "Emotion in Motion," Ric Ocasek
24 - "I am by Your Side," Corey Hart
23 - "The Next Time I Fall," Peter Cetera with Amy Grant
22 - "I'll be Over You," Toto
21 - "Stuck with You," Huey Lewis and the News
I'll start this section with the two "and the" bands that bookend it. Virginian Bruce Hornsby and his band had their first and biggest hit with this future #1, a piano-driven pop-rocker about racism. It couches its message in a catchy tune, which is always effective. And Huey and co. are here again with a song about how great it is to be "stuck" with someone. I'm sure he meant well, but I still think whoever this was written for was just a bit annoyed with the way he put things.
I'm just going to give Aretha her own section, if that's all right. On this cover of the Rolling Stones classic, she's backed up by none other than Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood themselves, and this slower, bluesier version is much more awesome than I remembered. Aretha kills it. Oh, and you might remember that this was recorded for the Whoopi Goldberg movie of the same name. I don't think I ever saw it, but I do remember the commercials, especially the part when Whoopi's in a phone booth being dragged by a truck and telling someone on the other end of the line "I'm a little black woman in a big silver box!"
We've got two duets in this bunch. I didn't need to hear Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson's sapfest again, but it was worth it to hear Casey talk about Gloria's previous successes co-writing sitcom themes with then-husband Alan Thicke. He even played a bit of Gloria singing the Facts of Live theme. That was a fun little cheese break. And Peter Cetera, one of my least favorite male singers, teams up with Christian star Amy Grant, whose voice I've always found warm and inviting, on this big ballad in which they promise each other that their next relationship will be with each other. I don't think they ever got around to it in real life, which is just as well. As far as I'm concerned, Vince Gill > Peter Cetera. In every imaginable way.
We finish with four solo men, and their little dog, too. Lionel Richie followed up "Dancing on the Ceiling" with this midtempo ballad about, well, the title says it all, doesn't it. In his introduction, Casey says "We should have sent (Lionel) to Iceland," referring to the recent Reykjavik summit in which Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev failed to reach an agreement on a nuclear arms reduction treaty. Yes, Casey. Lionel's experience recording "Say You, Say Me" for the Soviet-set movie White Nights would have made all the difference. Nah, just kidding, Case. I got ya. Peter Gabriel is here with the song that three years later would come blasting out of John Cusack's boombox in his last-ditch attempt to win back Ione Skye in Say Anything Solid song, and I enjoyed being introduced to Youssou N'Dour. Lead Car Ric Ocasek had his only solo hit with this spacey ballad about a woman he wants to hold on to because she's his "magical potion." I assume he was singing about Paulina Porizkova. She must really like this kind of thing, because I don't think she married Ric for his looks or his money. Canada's Corey Hart introduced Fields of Fire, the followup to his platinum Boy in the Box LP, with this drippy ballad about how he will always be there for you. It's not a great song, and he wasn't that convincing as rebellious oil field worker in the video, either. And Toto show up with this terrible, terrible ballad about how they'll stop pining for their ex "as soon as forever is through." Good lord did they suck at this point. And this was just a year after they did my favorite song of theirs, "Stranger in Town."
Tomorrow: a cheater gets caught, another one confesses, and romance overall gets kind of a negative reputation.
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