April 24, 1982 Part Two

Nothing new on the 70s front this week, so it's straight back into '82.

20 - " I've Never Been to Me," Charlene
19 - "Goin' Down," Greg Guidry
18 - "Nobody Said it Was Easy," Le Roux
17 - "The Beatles Movie Medley," The Beatles
16 - "Find Another Fool," Quarterflash

We begin with Charlene Marilynn D'Angelo, a white singer who had signed to Motown in 1973 but was dropped after a couple unsuccessful albums.  By 1982, she had moved to London and was working in a candy store when a Florida DJ began playing one of her old singles, a 1976 recording that hit #97 on the charts, and that provoked a re-release that reached #3.  In this overwrought ballad, Charlene counsels a discontented wife and mother who wishes she'd explored the world before settling down.  Charlene (or at least the character she plays in the song) proceeds to tell the woman that she herself had lived that kind of wild, adventurous life (which included drinking on yachts, gambling in Monte Carlo, and being "undressed by kings.), and that it has left her alone and unfulfilled.  She then spells out in a breathless spoken-word passage that it is really the wife and mother who has the ideal life.  The whole thing is quite odd: regressive sexual politics sung in a sultry, come-hither coo.  It's a regular on "worst songs of all time" lists, and this week, it joins another excluive club: the Uneasy Riders.

St. Louis native Greg Guidry played in a band with future Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, and it shows on his only hit, a slick bit of soulless soul about love and stuff.  I don't remember this, and I definitely wasn't poorer without that memory.

Next is the only pop hit by Baton Rouge, Louisiana's Le Roux, a band named after an ingredient in gumbo.  This song is a soft-rock ballad about fame not being all it's cracked up to be.  Nothing much.  I was hoping for something much more interesting.

Then it's a pasted-together medley of seven songs from Beatles movies: "Magical Mystery Tour," "All You Need is Love," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," "I Should've Known Better, "A Hard Day's Night," "Ticket to Ride," and "Get Back."  No real art to it, just pieces of classic hits ran back to back to cash in on the medley trend started by Stars on 45.  Capitalism (or "Capitolism," given the record label responsible) at its finest.

Rounding out this section is the second hit from Portland, Oregon's Quarterflash.  It's a Benataresque hard rocker about giving up on Mr. Wrong.  Probably not as good as "Harden My Heart," but a solid follow-up.  Rindy Ross was a pretty decent rock singer.

15 - "Get Down on It," Kool and the Gang
14 - "Did it in a Minute," Daryl Hall and John Oates
13 - "Make a Move on Me, " Olivia Newton-John
12 - "(Oh) Pretty Woman," Van Halen
11 - "Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White-Winged Dove)," Stevie Nicks

This section is led off by yet another Kool and the Gang 80s hit.  This is a song that finds a nice happy medium between the harder funk of their early hits and the later, poppier stuff.  For it, I will get my back up off the wall.

Next is another hit by the H&O boys.  It's their typical pop-rock that seems to be about how love can strike quickly and unexpectedly, and not about being, heh heh, quick on the draw, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.  Not one of their better ones.

Olivia Newton-John followed up her huge success with "Physical" by continuing in that sexed-up vein, requesting that her beau "spare me all your charms and take me in your arms."  Not one of my ONJ faves, but I have to say, I like it better than "Physical."  It just seems less contrived.

Then it's Van Halen with their biggest hit to that point, a cover of Roy Orbison's 1964 signature hit.  The harder rock arrangement and David Lee Roth's growling vocal make it a worthwhile endeavor.  And apparently, none other than Kool and the Gang are opening for them on their current tour.  There's a bill I never thought I'd see.

Finishing off this fivesome is Stevie Nicks with her first true solo hit, a chugging rocker that's about love or lust or loss or getting older.  I can't really tell.  Oh well, we all know it's that guitar riff that sells it, which is of course why Destiny's Child borrowed it for their hit "Bootylicious."  No, Beyonce, I'm still not ready for that jelly.

Please remove your caps as we present the Top Ten.

10 - "867-5309/Jenny," Tommy Tutone
These Califorina power-poppers had their second and biggest Top 40 hit with this ode to the custom of writing "For a good time, call..." on various walls, a practice that I'm sure began not long after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.  The singer of this song seems to think that calling the titular girl at the titular number will lead to some sort of lasting relationship.  As I understand it, that's not usually how it works.  Of course, this song led to many people dialing 867-5309 and asking for Jenny, causing much annoyance for those who had that number.  Of course, nowadays you have to dial the area code first, even if it's a local call.  Maybe that's why there aren't any songs like this these days.

9 - "'65 Love Affair," Paul Davis
This maestro of musical boredom had his highest-charting hit by applying his blandness to a tale of high school romance in the middle sixties. And no, I don't accept "dum-dum" as rhyming with "pom-poms."  It's just terrible all around.

8 - "Key Largo," Bertie Higgins
Bogie and Bacall were never this boring.  Bertie doesn't have to put his lips together to blow.  This song blows plenty.

7 - "Do You Believe in Love," Huey Lewis and the News
Huey and his boys had their first hit with a lyrically altered version of a 1979 song by a British group called Supercharge, written by future superproducer and ex Mr. Shania Twain "Mutt" Lange.  It's a somewhat catchy pop-rocker about finding romance.  They would have much better stuff later.

6 - "Ebony and Ivory," Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
The ex-Beatle teamed up with the Motown legend to asked why the races can't coexist as harmoniously as the black and white keys on a piano do.  More of a PSA set to music than a song, but not bad.  And it did inspire Eddie Murphy to team up with a young Joe Piscopo as Wonder and Frank Sinarta for a Saturday Night Live sketch in which they perform a song with lyrics like "You are black and I am white/Life's an Eskimo Pie, let's take a bite."  I enjoyed that very much.

5 - "Don't Talk to Strangers," Rick Springfield
The Aussie rocker/soap star scored his second-biggest American hit with this rock tune in which he offers the advice parents have been giving to children for decades.  But he's telling this not to a child, but his girlfriend.  And this counsel seems to go double for men who speak French.  Oh, Rick, no wonder you couldn't get Jessie's girl.  You're just too damn possessive.

4 - "Freeze-Frame," The J. Geils Band
The Boston party rockers followed up the #1 smash "Centerfold," with another song that desccribes a love affair with a lot of photography terms, throwing out terms like "test-strip," "zoom lens," and "darkroom."  It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it was catchy enough to become their second and final Top Ten.  It's okay.

3 - "Chariots of Fire," Vangelis
Greek keyboardist and composer Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou has written and performed a great deal of music over his career, but he remains best known for this, the main theme from the Oscar-winning film about British runners competing in the 1924 Olympics. I'm sure for most people, this conjures up images of men running on a beach.  For me, however, it brings back memories of Daryl Hall and John Oates competing in an egg-and-spoon race against Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara.

2 - "We Got the Beat," The Go-Gos
They most certainly did.  Again, I like "Head Over Heels" better, but I'd never turn this off in the middle.  Good good good.

And occupying the top spot on the music rankings 30 years ago was...

1 - "I Love Rock n' Roll," Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
The pioneering rock goddess and her band were in their sixth of seven weeks atop the pops with this immortal ode to jukebox-borne romance that was originally written and performed in 1975 by the British band Arrows.  Solid, glam-tinged rock and roll wonderfulness.

This week's NotCaseys were "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go" by Soft Cell, "Only the Lonely" by The Motels, "Heat of the Moment" by Asia, and "Hurts So Good," by John Cougar.  The show opened with the previous week's Top 3 (same songs, same order), and Casey also played two extras of his own, Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" (accompanied by the story of how the World Series-winning 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates adopted it as their theme song), and Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" (because it was Jimmy's biggest hit, and Casey thought that was important that week for some reason.  And there were two LDDs.  First, a young man dedicated The Beatles' "In My Life," to the people of Oxford, Mississippi, who he missed greatly after having moved to Mobile, Alabama.  And later, a woman dedicated "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb to the man she fell in love with when both were in the Army, and with whom she recently reconnected.

And now I return you to the present.  But I'll be picking you up again for another time trip soon.