This compilation of Number One hits from the 1980s varies widely from a song from a movie like Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” to a “gimmick” song like the Bangles’s “Walk Like An Egyptian.” The hits display the tastes and buying habits of audiences from that era.
How many of these hits do you remember? Any favorite songs here? GRADE: B+
TRACK LIST:
| 1-1 | The J. Geils Band– | Centerfold |
| 1-2 | Billy Idol– | Mony Mony |
| 1-3 | Huey Lewis & The News– | The Power Of Love |
| 1-4 | Blondie– | The Tide Is High |
| 1-5 | Kim Carnes– | Bette Davis Eyes |
| 1-6 | Duran Duran– | The Reflex |
| 1-7 | Paula Abdul– | Straight Up |
| 1-8 | Simple Minds– | Don’t You (Forget About Me) |
| 1-9 | Culture Club– | Karma Chameleon |
| 1-10 | John Waite– | Missing You |
| 1-11 | Sheena Easton– | Morning Train (Nine To Five) |
| 1-12 | Poison (3)– | Every Rose Has Its Thorn |
| 2-1 | Rick Springfield– | Jessie’s Girl |
| 2-2 | Bonnie Tyler– | Total Eclipse Of The Heart |
| 2-3 | Toto– | Africa |
| 2-4 | Daryl Hall & John Oates– | Maneater |
| 2-5 | Mr. Mister– | Broken Wings |
| 2-6 | Starship (2)– | We Built This City |
| 2-7 | Bruce Hornsby And The Range– | The Way It Is |
| 2-8 | Paul Young– | Every Time You Go Away |
| 2-9 | Bangles– | Walk Like An Egyptian |
| 2-10 | Cheap Trick– | The Flame |
| 2-11 | Bad English– | When I See You Smile |
| 2-12 | Rick Astley– | Never Gonna Give You Up |
| 2-13 | Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam– | Head To Toe |
| 2-14 | Ray Parker Jr.– | Ghostbusters |
| 2-15 | Exposé– | Seasons Change |
| 2-16 | Mr. Mister– | Kyrie |
Pretty dismal collection. I like a couple. The Blondie, Simple minds. Hate a few-Ghostbusters, the Rick Astly, Huey Lewis, Poison. Most are just okay, I like J. Geils but not this song. I would give the cd a C.
Steve, looking back at the 1980s, it’s hard to believe these songs hit Number One. Times and musical tastes were different…
I know every song on this CD! Not all favorites, but I do like the ones by Blondie, Duran Duran, Culture Club, and Rick Astley. But why in the world would they include not one but two songs from Mr. Mister?? Perhaps a friend of theirs was curating the collection!
Deb, I was surprised that Mr. Mister not only had one Number One hit…but TWO!
Karma Chameleon was big. Where is Boy George nowadays?
Neeru, the last time I saw Boy George was on a TV interview where he was Under the Influence of some drug. Not a good look.
We are all products of our youth and our musical preferences reflect that. For me, the 50s and 60s were the pinnicle (ignoring such outliers as “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I’ve Got Love in My Tummy” and Lonnie Mack’s cover of “Does Your Chewing gum Lose It’s Flavor”). The 80s were a vast wasteland for me. I recognize few of the songs and even less of the artists. As far as I can tell, the only one worth its salt here is Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train.” Yes, I’m an old poot. So sue me. And get off my lawn!
Jerry, many people consider the 1980s a musical wasteland. I remember it as the Big Hair Decade.
A lot of good music came out of the 80’s. It just didn’t produce a lot of number one hits. U2, REM, New Order,. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Tom Waits all did good work in the 80″s.
Steve, but the groups and artists you mention are rarely included on the 80s compilation CDs. I guess it’s a question of money.
Dear Old Poot, it’s Lonnie Donegan who did the classic version of “Does Your Chewing Gum” etc.
I stand corrected, Jeff. In the name, not in being an old poot.
Not much here that I care about or would really want to hear again. If I ranked the music of the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties, the Eighties would be the weak link.
Michael, you and Jerry are on the same page as far as 1980s music is concerned.
I doubt Jerry is that much fonder of 90s Top Ten pop.
Maybe not great music, but lots of nostalgia value as songs that played endlessly on the DC-area Top 40 stations during my rush-hour commutes in the ’80s. I associate “Every Time You Go Away” with a Stephen King-type milieu. It played on a PA system at an off-season, hence spookily deserted, Bahamian beach resort that my brother in law and I visited during a weekend in Freeport (He’d bought plane and hotel reservations for him and his lady friend, she’d come down with a cold, he didn’t want to waste the money, and his sister (my wife) didn’t want to go. My daughters were early teens in the late ’80s, and between that and the rush-hour radio play, I heard a lot of music then. Many of these are still recycled endlessly on “the greatest hits of the ’80s, ’90s, and today” Clear Channel stations. Is it just me, or did Mister Mister, the Thompson Twins, Spandau Ballet, and A-Ha all sound much like the same group?
Fred, you are right on the money with the sound of Mr. Mister, the Thompson Twins, Spandau Ballet, and A-Ha. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…and record sales!
I know them all because this was the music my kids were listening. A CD from a decade later or two, I would know almost none.
Patti, same here. Patrick and Katie were just getting into pop music at the end of the 1980s. And, of course, MTV was on much of the time.
Surprisingly, I know most of them. I never got how a dancer like Paula Abdul who can;t sing at all had any hit records, let alone #1. If I had to pick a favorite it would be Bonnie Tyler, obviously. But I can stand some of the others. I still hear several today on the radio – Rick Springfield (who has made his one hit last a long time), Rick Astley (who keeps bringing it back), Blondie, etc. The Starship song is and always was an abomination. Corporate rock at its worst.
Jeff, you might recall the legal fracas Paula Abdul had over “Straight Up” when one of her “backup” singers claimed she sang the song, not Paula. But, the dancing video was played constantly on MTV and VH1.
Whenever I see one of these Best of Whatever Decade compilations I wonder if everyone has forgotten the Fifties. So much great music–Elvis, Orbison, Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and so many others I can’t recall right now. The Fifties might not equal the Sixties or Seventies, but it beats the hell out of any other decade since.
Michael, I’ll have to dig out a BEST OF THE 1950s CD soon!
Have to agree with the others re 80s music and I’m also a fan of the 50s and 60s.
Just remember a few of the songs.
The power of love and Bette Davis eyes.
The others were probably on German pop radio, but …
Wolf, I suspect the influence of MTV in the 1980s affected the music of that decade.
I don’t remember all of these (at least by name) but some I liked. Often I think the name of the song is different than the actual name.
The 60’s and 70’s were my favorite era for music
Maggie, much of the music I listen to is from the Sixties and Seventies. That’s the music I grew up with!
I would put on MTV for the odd hour or half-hour when I wasn’t watching something else, so I remember a lot of these. The one I still listen to with great pleasure is Africa, by Toto. My brother, who drummed in bands back then, said Africa was one of his favorite songs to play.
Jeff, TOTO–with some “replacements”–is touring. They’re coming to Buffalo on March 16, 2023.
1. This is not “The Music of the ’80s”. This is the music the compilers could afford that probably got a #1 designation on the corrupt charts (if less corrupt than bestselling book charts) devoted theoretically to sales, mixed in with whatever criteria the list-makers chose to factor in. Pretending this is The Music of the ’80s is to say that Jackie Susann’s YARGO was the literature of the ’80s. Sold Really Well. Likewise non-classics by Danielle Steel, THE TOMMYKNOCKERS, Tom Clancy, at al. Mot of this music was and remains disposable aural wallpaper…some of it better examples than others.
2. The Bangles were a brilliant band, and CBS resented them. Only cover-songs such as “Egyptian” were released as singles from their second CBS album. helping to keep down the money the band members would make from their publishing royalties. otherwise The video was a gimmick, the song was just a goof, albeit a very well-performed goof.
3. Late ’70s “Top 40” was That Much Worse. The Starship and Bonnie Tyler songs were awful throwbacks to that few years earlier, and the latter’s production was even worse, very much in the manner of Meat Loaf’s, which, since they shared a producer, isn’t too surprising.
4. Also on these charts, aside from those Steve cites, were the likes of Sade, the Police, Elvis Costello, Klymaxx, the Go-Go’s, Sonic Youth, Talking Heads, Metallica, less cute songs by Blondie (though I like “Tide”), Herbie Hancock, impressive new albums by the likes of Tina Turner, the Kinks and the Stones and the latest version of King Crimson, Public Enemy, Salt’n’Pepa, Whitney Houston (though, like Elvis Presley, she had more talent than taste or sense), Boogie Down Productions, occasional oddities such as Trio, and the development of all kinds of music not making the charts, such as such US punk bands as Husker Du and the Minutemen, to say nothing of the ferment of various kinds of music around DC in that decade, which I was around to enjoy. Hell, the likes of Eurythmics were fun and at times a bit more.
I don’ thing I’d trade the above for, say, the Royal Teens or Mountain or the Bee Gees (particularly not their turn of the ’80s mawkishness).
Mistyped that last line…turn of the ’70s mawkishness, including my lifelong default worst pop song, “I Started a Joke”…
And I managed to not mention the Pretenders. LEARNING TO CRAWL, their third album, by itself. Or bands such as the BusBoys, my first rock concert (I worked the door, security, on the UHawaii campus).
DC, as I’ve mentioned a few times over the years, was in the ’80s and ’90s was rife with innovators in bluegrass, punk rock and related “indy” rock, various forms of jazz, classical music, the folk/country/singer-songwriter nexus, not least famously Mary Chapin Carpenter, gospel, go-go music and Quiet Storm r&b, and hiphop, and ambient and related musics, such as that typified by Thievery Corporation. Coming from Hawaii, which had a smaller and more jam-band (and Hawaiian music, oddly enough) ferment, it was pretty heady.
Todd, Steve loves The Pretenders!
Todd, thanks for that analysis! I like the groups and singers Steve likes.
The Police and Sting’s solo career were definitely a mixed bag. Sumner’s musical instincts are vastly better, on balance, than his lyrics.
Todd, I’ve enjoyed a lot of Sting’s music.
A bit of the Bangles making their fourth, reunion album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkXLBN5ckR4
Todd, I always considered the Bangles underrated.