today's AT40

February 1982.

I definitely know I heard this one back then, 'cause it was the time when I was following the pop charts rather intensely.  I'm 11, and only had my own radio (and thus was following the pop music scene) for about 2 months.

"Last Week" #3 Centerfold, #2 Waiting for a Girl Like You (would set a record for longest time at #2), and #1 I Can't Go For That by Hall And Oats.

Will the pop duo hold on for another week?  Believe it or not, I'm pretty sure I know the answer already.  No.  Centerfold and H&O will swap places around Foreigner.  And 2 months later, JGiles will swap 1 and 3 with I Love Rock and Roll, leaving Journey's Open Arms stuck in #2 for way too long as well.  The big hair power ballads didn't quite have that #1 draw yet.

Yeah, I remember this crap.

We'll see how well I remember in 3 hours.  See you then.  Meanwhile, It's Laundry Time!

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• Country (without being "crossover") was still big enough to make the charts regularly.  Ronnie Milsap's "Wouldn't have Missed It For the World" opens at #40, and I expect Eddie Rabbit's Step by Step (close - different song) and tracks from Juice Newton (called it - The Sweetest Thing @ #8) and Kenny Rogers  (called it - through the years in the 20s) somewhere along the way.  (update - Alabama showed up, guilty of cheesy country in the first degree).
  
• Oh geeze, ABBA are still around!
• I'll never quite understand the attraction to Cliff Richard's later work.  Sounds like he's suffered from "lame white singer syndrome" for far too long.
• PAC MAN FEVER!  Needless to say, aside from the Atari 2600 version, I totally sucked at that game.
• There are SOME bits of stupid 80s trivia I don't know...like I didn't know/remember that Loverboy were Canadians (British Columbia).
• In hindsight, I can now see MTV has being much broader in the early years vs what it was in the late 80s (before it invented reality tv and started to suck).  Videos from pop songs that were already done and gone and long off the pop radio (like Working for the Weekend) still got MTV airplay for months later.  It wasn't 'til like 1984 that there were enough current videos that they didn't need to reach into their back catalog.
• a LOT of cheesy ballads (they've just gone through 4 in a row, including Streisand and Sheena Easton).  Seems this was the point where rock hadn't really defined its 80s sound yet ("classic" rock being killed by punk), disco was dead, and the British New Wave (punk turned musical, with some technology thrown in) was still a year away from ruling the world.
• for that matter, a lot of things are on that are showing "adult contemporary" was the bulk of what was coming out at the time, like the Beach Boys remake of "Come Go with Me" and that "Key Largo" song.  I'm now pretty sure a Dan Fogleberg or Christopher Cross song awaits its playback today.
• I was close - Little River Band came up next.
• BINGO - 3 songs later, Fogelberg's Innocent Age. That guy really did just rewrite the same song 10 times over to make that album, didn't he?
  
• speaking of cheezy ballads, here's Open Arms on its way up to that #2 spot, and later on "Waitin' on a Friend" from the 'Stones.  I *really* hated that song, though I hated "Angie" (no offense mistressfetch ) more.  Seriously, its like the Stones trying to do Lou Reed.  But still, that's now about 8 cheesy ballads/slow songs in a row, interrupted only by a mellow Earth Wind and Fire track.
• make it *9* as Air Supply just showed up with their one attempt at a real "rock" song, Sweet Dreams.  sheesh.  I used to like this kind of stuff at the time, but now its just history.  Now *10* with Paul Davis's "Cool Night".
• THE STREAK IS BROKEN at number 10 with "Hooked on Classics".  Scary that I can now name almost every single piece in it.  Also scary how awful it sounds with that cheese "hooked" drumbeat.  Especially Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet.   Oh god this is awful.
• Ok, finally, upbeat music arrives - The Cars' Shake it Up, and ON-J's Physical.  Then the next ballad - Leather and Lace.  *sigh*  just a mellow week, isn't it.
• The "slide" was popular at this point in pop music history.  A slide is where the song reaches a point towards the end where it shifts keys up a step.  Rock songs avoid it, but pop songs lived by it back then, especially the ballads.
• Nope, I was wrong.  This was the week that Waiting for a Girl finally dropped to number 3 (after 10 weeks, longest not just at #2 but at ANY non #1 spot).  I Can't Go for That comes in at #2, so this week's number one is
• Centerfold, by the J. Giles Band.