This Rhino Records compilation came out in 2000 under the VH-1 banner. For many of these groups and singers, their heyday was 20 years in the past by the time this CD hit the market. So this is a retro CD of semi-memorable bands and One-Hit Wonders.
Will we have a Cruel Summer this year? Banarama thinks we will. And, how about relationships? Soft Cell thinks about “Tainted Love.” And one of Cap’n Bob’s favorite groups–Bow Wow Wow–delivers their provocative message: “I Want Candy.”
Then there’s the epic “I Touch Myself” by Divinyls. They should have listened to The Waitresses’ “I Know What Boys Like.”
Do you know where these groups are now? Do you remember these songs? GRADE: B
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | Big Country– | In A Big Country | 3:55 |
| 2 | The Cars– | Good Times Roll | 3:47 |
| 3 | The Motels– | Only The Lonely | 3:17 |
| 4 | Squeeze (2)– | Pulling Mussels (From The Shell) | 3:59 |
| 5 | Mr. Mister– | Kyrie | 4:16 |
| 6 | Kim Carnes– | Bette Davis Eyes | 3:48 |
| 7 | The Alarm– | Sixty-Eight Guns | 3:18 |
| 8 | Divinyls– | I Touch Myself | 3:47 |
| 9 | The Beat (2)– | Save It For Later | 3:36 |
| 10 | Adam Ant– | Goody Two Shoes | 3:32 |
| 11 | Bananarama– | Cruel Summer | 3:34 |
| 12 | The Dream Academy– | Life In A Northern Town | 4:17 |
| 13 | The Hooters– | And We Danced | 3:51 |
| 14 | Soft Cell– | Tainted Love | 2:42 |
| 15 | Bow Wow Wow– | I Want Candy | 2:47 |
| 16 | The Waitresses– | I Know What Boys Like | 3:15 |
I like all of these songs. I listened to a lot of New Wave/Alternative music in the 1980s, and much of this music fits that category. Because of my alterna-girl interests during the Reagan era, I also know that most of these acts weren’t actually one-hit wonders and did release other songs (for example, my favorite song by Dream Academy, “The Love Parade”, or Bananarama’s “Robert DiNero’s Waiting”). A good compilation—I probably wouldn’t change the station if any of these songs were playing.
Deb, same here. I listened to these songs while I was driving Patrick and Katie around to their violin and flute lessons. Back then, Canadian radio stations played more New Wave/Alternative music than the U.S. stations so this music and more was readily available.
Like Deb, I find these songs listenable in the main, and some of the one-hit wonders were followed up with not=so-much hit numbers. Others, like The Cars, probably don’t belong on this compilation. Mostly though, these artists faded into obscurity, often only because music is a vicious business. Where are they now? I suspect some are asking, “Do you want fries with that?”
Jerry, in 1978, The Cars were named “Best New Artist” in the readers’ poll conducted by Rolling Stone. The band’s 1978 debut album, The Cars, sold six million copies and appeared on the Billboard 200 album chart for 139 weeks. The Cars had four Top 10 hits: “Shake It Up” (1981), “You Might Think” (1984), “Drive” (1984), and “Tonight She Comes” (1985). The band won Video of the Year for “You Might Think” at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. The Cars disbanded in 1988.
Do I know these? Basically, no, other than “Bette Davis Eyes,” “Tainted Love ” and “I Want Candy.”
And stay off my lawn.
Jeff, some of these songs are long forgotten. But sometimes Sirius/XM Radio plays a few of them.
I know some because they come from my kids’ listening era. I love Tainted Love, Bette Davis Eyes, Life in a Norther town.
Patti, Patrick and Katie grew up with these songs and I got to listen to them second-hand as I drove them around. The kids took turns changing the radio stations.
I know and like some of these. Betty Davis eyes was interesting as to what prompted it,
Maggie, I was surprised that Jackie DeShannon wrote “Bette David Eyes.” She wrote “What the World Needs Now Is Love” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” …quite different from “Bette Davis Eyes”!
She had the hit with What The World Needs Now Is Love, but it was written by Burt Bachrach & Hal David.
Jeff, true.
In my favorite podcast, A History of Rock & Roll in 500 Songs, DeShannon is quoted as saying that she wrote “Needles and Pins” (a big hit for, iirc, the Sesrchers) but that Sonny Bono just outright stole the credit from her.
Deb, Sonny Bono stole from Cher, too.
Bette.
Todd, you know WORDPRESS is up to its trickery…again!
I’ve heard of I Want Candy but not Bow-Wow-Wow! I can pass up any of this mediocre slop without hesitation!
Bob, these songs are pure nostalgia!
Some of these still play frequently on the local “80s, 90s, and today” station. Heard “Tainted Love” yesterday.
Fred, “Tainted Love” has some staying power!
The original “Tainted Love” better than the Soft Cell cover hit, with the “beep fart” (as I tagged it at the time) synthesizer track.
Gloria Jones in the ’60s: “Tainted Love” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9obvlVPJBEg
“American artist Gloria Jones made the first recording of “Tainted Love” in 1964. Glen Campbell played lead guitar.” Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tainted_Love#:~:text=%22Tainted%20Love%22%20is%20a%20song,by%20Gloria%20Jones%20in%201964.
The 1975 re-recording was technologically/recorded better, but her performance a bit less good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypoYDCGFodE
Todd, thanks for the links!
I recall the notable majority of them, and few of these bands were in the One Hit category (I never worried too much about hits vs. other tracks as they were often as rigged as Bono credits might be). But most of these were getting a lot of radio/video play in my late teens and early twenties as well. For that matter, only in a few cases are these their biggest hits…cheaper for the packager that way.
Just sticking with rock/nearby for the minute, my favorite actively recording bands and more indifivialized artists (with less formalized band associations) in the ’80s would run to the Go-Go’s, the Bnagles (in both cases my preferring their “harder”/less poppy work…the Go-Go’s got more so, the Bangles les then back again, as they rode the charts, and the industry didn’t want women playing too “hard”), Jawbox, the latter-day King Crimson (liked the earlier KC, but liked the stripped-down funkier latter-day version better), Husker Du, Sade Adu, Sting/Sumner’s post-Police work as well as the Police, Gil Scott-Heron’s later work (even if his best was released in the ’70s), the Roches (almost likewise), Smart Went Crazy, Anita Baker, Patrice Rushen, Chaka Khan, Angelique Kidjo (as well as later recordings of her prime inspiration, Miriam Makeba), Whitney Houston…hell, the Kinks, having their best years since the ’60s in the ’80s.
Todd, I drove Patrick and Katie around A LOT in the 1980s. My car radio was always on and I heard a lot of Eighties music. Also the effect of MTV on music was tremendous! We had MTV on in our house many hours each day.
I was a bit too old/picky for most of MTV by the time my family had access to it. The Windward Oahu cable monopoly though 1983 didn’t choose to carry it, as I recall, and I had no cable nor personal TV in my UH dorm. so till I moved back in with my folks in Northern VA, where they relocated, and started in VA schools, I rarely saw it, as opposed to video hours and such on NBC or TBS ot USA when there was some attraction.
Todd, MTV in the 1980s was a phenomenal crazy. My kids loved it. My students loved it. But MTV burned out in the 1990s. The same happened to VH-1.
My favorite MTV series was the intelligent animated sitcom DARIA…my favorite VH1 series was Ben Sidran’s music and interview series NEW VISIONS, the major importation of jazz as well as jazz-friendly rock on that station, and almost as good as NBC’s SUNDAY NIGHT, in the second season NIGHT MUSIC, in that way.
Of course, both of those were in the ’90s…
Todd, MTV and VH-1 faded fast in the Nineties.
Bnagles are the bagels served at B’nai Btith breakfast meetings, I think. (WP corrections seldom work in my favor.)
Argh. Brith!
Todd, now you know what I have to deal with every day with the antics of the WORDPRESS spell checker!
These all hail from the last era of AM radio that I could stomach and I recognize pretty much everything here from the Detroit stations, while our Canadian FM station was playing the better album-oriented stuff. I certainly could tolerate everything here if a store or restaurant was playing it in the background, though. Most of these artists were flashes in the pan although I have a soft spot for The Waitresses and their ability to keep recording essentially the same song while keeping it catchy and The English Beat (or The Beat if you read the British music mags back in the day) did record one absolutely brilliant, timeless album.
Weirdly enough I woke up from a dream this morning that I was hanging out with Big Country and their three-wheel ATVs while they were shooting their one big music video. My doctor told me the Ativan would give me strange dreams…
Byron, you get strange dreams with Ativan, I get strange dreams with Hydrocodone.
I’ve avoided codeine since a prescription dose led to unpleasant and extremely repetitive nightmares. My bad-sensitivity to opiates apparently runs on myfather’s side of the family…no junkiedom, not the worst fate (well, perhaps to caffeine, but not quite…).
Todd, when a get a really, really bad cough my doctor will prescribe a codeine cough medicine. Strange dreams follow…