July 23, 1988 Part One

This week we go back to 1988.  Earlier in this week, the Democratic Party officially nominated Michael Dukakis as its presidential contender.  Yeah, you know him, Olympia's brother.  This was also one of Casey's last AT40 shows.  And as that era ended, these were the songs that were popular:

40 - "In Your Soul," Corey Hart
39 - "I'll Always Love You," Taylor Dayne
38 - "I Know You're Out There Somewhere," The Moody Blues
37 - "I Should Be So Lucky," Kylie Minogue
36 - "Perfect World," Huey Lewis and the News
35 - "When It's Love," Van Halen
34 - "Sweet Child o' Mine," Guns n' Roses
33 - "I Still Believe," Brenda K. Starr
32 - "Simply Irresistible," Robert Palmer
31 - "The Valley Road," Bruce Hornsby and the Range

We'll start with the male solo singers.  Corey Hart picked up his last American hit of the 80s (and second-last overall) with an okay pop-rocker about perserverance and holding on to your dreams and all that stuff.  I like it more than most of his bigger hits.  Actually, I probably only have "Sunglasses at Night" ahead of it.  And Robert Palmer had his last U.S. Top Ten with this rocker about a woman who can be described thusly:  "She's so fine, there's no telling where the money went."  Hire an accountant next time, Bob.

Solo women are next up.  Taylor Dayne cracked the Top Five for the first time with this adoring, fawning ballad.  I find her slow songs as boring as her dance tracks.  Really, what did people hear in any of her stuff?  I'm baffled.  Australian Kylie Minogue converted her stardom from the Down Under soap opera Neighbours (a hit in both her native land and in the U.K.) into a recording career, and her first American hit was this bubbly dance-pop concoction about unrequited romantic feelings, written and produced by the Stock, Aitken, Waterman team that had just given Rick Astley two U.S. Number Ones.  This wasn't quite as successful in the States, but it's better than the Astley pair combined.  As for Kylie, she'd follow up with the Top 10 cover of "The Loco-Motion," then pretty much disappear from Stateside airwaves for fourteen years until returning with the mighty "Can't Get You Out of My Head."  Ironically, that will probably be stuck in my head for the next hour or so.  And Brenda K. Starr returns from last time, still believing, but still not convincing me.

There are three bands here this week whose entries this week I am classifying as "soft rock."  England's Moody Blues had their last Top 40 with this blandanna about searching for a lost love.  It makes "Your Wildest Dreams" sound like Norwegian black metal.  Awful.  Huey Lewis and company had their last Top Five hit with this ska-and-reggae influenced track about how even if perfection is unattainable, we still strive for it in our lives.  One of their more interesting hits, if not one of the most catchy.  And Bruce Hornsby and his band are back from May with their piano-pop tale of ilicit affairs and cover-ups among the rural rich.  I'm not the biggest Hornsby fan, but I give him credit for getting on the radio multiple times with songs containing non-traditional pop lyrical themes.

We close with some hard rock.  Van Halen had their second and last Top Five of the Hagar years with this mediocre power ballad.  "Nothing's missing," Sammy sings.  Uh, yes there was, and you know very well what that was.  And more than a year after their Appetite for Destruction album debute, Guns n' Roses finally made their Top 40 debut with this now-familiar love-rocker.  You know it:  that distinctive opening riff, Axl's nasally whine, Slash's showy solo, and the "Where do we go?" part that starts off quiet but builds to a fantastic climax of metallic goodness.  Of course it's a classic.  And of course Axl would become a megalomaniac so convinced of his own genius that he fired the rest of the band and took over a decade to make an album no one remembers.  That's rock n' roll, folks.

30 - "Dirty Diana," Michael Jackson
29 - "Make it Real," The Jets
28 - "Rag Doll," Aerosmith
27 - "Fast Car," Tracy Chapman
26 - "Love Will Save the Day," Whitney Houston
25 - "Nothin' but a Good Time," Poison
24 - "Love Changes (Everything)," Climie Fisher
23 - "Foolish Beat," Debbie Gibson
22 - "The Twist," The Fat Boys with Chubby Checker
21 - "Monkey," George Michael

Again, we begin with two solo men.  Michael Jackson is back from last time with his tale of a groupie who wants him, no matter if he likes it or not.  And it definitely seemed that he was in the "not" category.  And George Michael had his fourth #1 from Faith with this electro-funk number that I think is about dealing with a lover's addiction.  Whatever.  For some reason, I don't find this to be one of his stronger hits.  Not enough of a showcase for his voice, maybe?

Also like last time, we have two groups who play hard rock, and three others that, well, don't.  First among the latter are those Wolfgramm siblings with their final Top 40, a ballad about wanting to give a relationship one more shot.  Just another lite-soul slow song, interchangeable with many others.  The British duo of Simon Climie and Rob Fisher had their only American hit with this above-average lite-rocker about the transformative power of romance.  It sounded all right on the radio, and what more can you ask for?  And having hit the pop charts by teaming up with an oldies act on a "cover" of a 60s hit the previous year, rappers The Fat Boys went back to that well, subbing out The Beach Boys and "Wipe Out" for Chubby Checker and his dance-craze smash.  I didn't like their first attempt at this hybrid, but this one was much, much worse.

Now we go to the hard stuff.  Aerosmith are here with what in my opinion was the best hit of their comeback to that point, a fun litlle boogie-rocker over which Steven Tyler screams out some raunchy-sounding nonsense.  This is what they did best.  I'm not sure they should still be doing it, but they've got a new album coming out later this year, so my vote apparently doesn't count.  And hair-metal all-stars Poison are here with their signature song, a basic-but-effective ode to R&R after a hard week of work.  Did it matter that Poison's "work week" at the time included recording songs, shooting videos, playing arenas, and making sure their groupie database was kept up to date?  Of course not.

We finish off the first half by looking at the solo women.  Cleveland-born folk singer Tracy Chapman burst onto the scene with this tale of a woman fantasizing about escaping from her life as a convenience-store clerk living in a homeless shelter with a n'er-do-well boyfriend.  It still holds up as an effective document of desperation.  Whitney Houston is here with the song that broke her string of consecutive Number Ones (it only hit #9.  What a bomb.).  It's an unabashed dance track about the power of love to help you get through the hard times.  It's been said before, but it always bears repeating.  Probably my favorite of her 80s hits, contrarian that I am.  And Debbie Gibson returns from May with the breakup ballad that became her first #1.  Best thing she ever did.

Tomorrow: a song gets a second life after a quarter-century, another song launches an entertainment dynasty, and a third goes a little overboard on the sweetener.