Today's AT40
Mar. 4th, 2007 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearIs from March 1985.
I'm a freshman in high school, 98 pound weakling, and complete wimp.
And a total geek. (yeah, some things haven't changed)
And I still hadn't quite gotten used to living in a new town.
Still, the music was cool.
So far, Hall & Oats's Some thing are better left unsaid (ok), Foreigner's I want to know what love is (sick of it then, sick of it now - dude, you were 35 years old. If you hadn't figured it out by then you were a lost cause), The Cars Why Can't I Have You (underrated, impressive, though if you hated the over-keyboard wash direction they went in, you hated this one - it took me a while to really *get* this one but today I love it), and Sade (I liked it, but not to any great degree).
---
Woah - David Bowie with Pat Metheny Group, This is Not America. How had I *never* heard this before, 'cause this is excellent!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eac why didn't you tell me 'bout this one? :) Geeze, I even *HAVE* this on CD (Best of Bowie 2cd) and hadn't heard it. Sure beats that overplayed cover of Dancing in the Streets from about the same time...
oh. oops. there was a scratch on the LP they used to mastered this broadcast. Yes, for those that don't know, these broadcasts were sent to the respective radio stations on vinyl LP, with the national-level commercials, from which a staffer would take it and insert into it local commercials and expand it out to fit the 4-hour timeslot on half-inch reel to reel, from which the local broadcast would come from.
Paul Rogers & Jimmy Page - the Firm. A few good ones from them, but Radioactive (at #31) wasn't one of them.
The Power Station's Some like it hot. Good rockin' dance tune (given that it has both rockers and dance-beat players), great for parties.
Yet more Foreigner (That was Yesterday). They really milked that album for all they could get. They used to have guitars in that band, right? They're being eaten up worse than Steve Howe in the second Asia album. I wonder if the late Mike Stone did this one, too...nope, it was (also the late) Alex Sadkin, the one who over-produced Duran Duran's Seven and the Ragged Tiger and Arcadia's So Red the Rose. Supposedly, Agent Provacateur was a "concept album", according to Wikipedia, though the concept is probably buried in the overplayed singles.
Billy Idol, you *really* missed your chance, 'cause here's Simple Minds doing the smash you were offered, Don't You Forget About Me. If you were a high school student in the mid 80s, this was your life, right? :)
yeah, i'm writing a lot more, 'cause this really is in that peak of 80s coolness, you know?
"One night in Bankok makes a hard man humble" was actually a dummy lyric for the hit from Chess provided by the Abba guys who wrote the music. When Tim Rice heard it in the tune, he loved the reference so much he kept it and built the rest of the song around it. Great song, but annoying in that it otherwise stylelistically has very little to do with the rest of the show. I have to thank Cami (now of the O'Dannys) for introducing me to the full cast album all those years ago; a few years later we would spend an afternoon singing our way through the whole show. My voice hurt for a week after that, 'cause Pity the Child was *just* out of my range...The scat flute player I *think* later went on to contribute to Mike Oldfield's Islands album. Today, Murray Head is still banned from entering Bankok by their government even though he had absolutely nothing to do with the song other than singing it.
"Then along comes a woman, and you know that it's right..." - Chicago in their transition from jazz-rock to soft-ballad hell, 'til Cetera left.
Purple Rain soundtrack - another one of those i like a lot more now than I did then, though I did have the 45 for When Doves Cry. Take Me With You, on the other hand, should have just been left behind, I think. Prince is good, but not perfect.
how to intro this next one? "never let a successful third album get in the way of milking one more single from your second", or "the order in which duran duran songs become hits bears no relation to the order in which they were recorded and released on their original albums"? Save A Prayer, by then a 3 year old song, hit the top 20. Technically the single was the live version from the Arena album, but AT40 is playing the original studio version.
#21 "Keeping the Faith" by Billy Joel: a bit of history, really, 'cause most of the references are lost on 80s-era kids. "A pocket full of Trojans and some Old Spice aftershave..." - a lyric I never really heard 'til now. DAMN did he get away with a lot with that one, 'cause that was in the middle of some churches decrying the "use a condom" ads on MTV. gee, 20 years later and nothing's changed... "ain't it wonderful to be alive when the rock'n'roll plays" - ok, that doesn't change either. :)
"Relax!" a song with legs in the popularity of things even though it peaked only up to #10. Continued to be an 80s party hit long after the 80s were over. I never really heard this 'til I was a junior, 2 years later, and didn't own my own copy 'til 89, so yeah, that's hanging around.
Animotion's Obsession. Yet another one who's recap plays on, say, VH-1 Classic, are far out of proportion to its original popularity, I think.
Ah, Careless Whisper again...well, we've already covered that recently, so moving on...
Only the Young, probably the only decent thing (besides Matt Modine hitting it big) to come out of the Vision Quest movie. Granted, Madonna had a hit from there, too (update, it just showed up 10+ spots later). and Linda Fiorentino was in it, but really most geeks didn't figure out who she was 'til Men in Black. :) Journey tell the story that they debuted the recording of this to a teenage fan dying of cancer.
Springsteen's "I'm on Fire". Don and Mike played this from the album, but at '45 instead of '33, calling it "Dolly Parton sings Springsteen's Hits". It worked, dammit. But that is, of course, the only memory of that song I'll ever have.
I wondered this back when the AT40s first started on XM while I was up at NYRF - was there an ex-Eagle that DIDN'T have a top-40 hit? Yeah, Walsh had a hard time, but he did get in there at least once. However, this mention comes as Frey is in there with The Heat is On, and Henley's "All She Wants To Do Is Dance" (featured in the film Real Genius, of all things) was on the way down.
Julian Lennon's Much Too Late For Goodbyes. Good singer. I wish the record industry had treated him with more respect. Of course, I can say that about most artists, I suppose.
Geeze. We are the World debuted in the top 100 at #21, and was in the top 5 the next week (this week). "Check your egos at the door." One Live Aid, Coming Up (in 4 months). ("Shouldn't that be you and I?")
Ah, the Material Girl gets her name into the top 5. We may all hate her attention-getting campaigns and personal re-inventions every 3 years, but on the other hand, if success through popularity is your only goal (you can't convince me she's ever been otherwise), being able to say you're still talked about after 25 years must count for something.
And the number one song, from No Jacket Required, is Phil Collins: One More Night!
("American Top Forty has been brought to you by SPAM luncheon meat. It just might surprise you.")
I'm a freshman in high school, 98 pound weakling, and complete wimp.
And a total geek. (yeah, some things haven't changed)
And I still hadn't quite gotten used to living in a new town.
Still, the music was cool.
So far, Hall & Oats's Some thing are better left unsaid (ok), Foreigner's I want to know what love is (sick of it then, sick of it now - dude, you were 35 years old. If you hadn't figured it out by then you were a lost cause), The Cars Why Can't I Have You (underrated, impressive, though if you hated the over-keyboard wash direction they went in, you hated this one - it took me a while to really *get* this one but today I love it), and Sade (I liked it, but not to any great degree).
---
Woah - David Bowie with Pat Metheny Group, This is Not America. How had I *never* heard this before, 'cause this is excellent!
eac why didn't you tell me 'bout this one? :) Geeze, I even *HAVE* this on CD (Best of Bowie 2cd) and hadn't heard it. Sure beats that overplayed cover of Dancing in the Streets from about the same time...oh. oops. there was a scratch on the LP they used to mastered this broadcast. Yes, for those that don't know, these broadcasts were sent to the respective radio stations on vinyl LP, with the national-level commercials, from which a staffer would take it and insert into it local commercials and expand it out to fit the 4-hour timeslot on half-inch reel to reel, from which the local broadcast would come from.
Paul Rogers & Jimmy Page - the Firm. A few good ones from them, but Radioactive (at #31) wasn't one of them.
The Power Station's Some like it hot. Good rockin' dance tune (given that it has both rockers and dance-beat players), great for parties.
Yet more Foreigner (That was Yesterday). They really milked that album for all they could get. They used to have guitars in that band, right? They're being eaten up worse than Steve Howe in the second Asia album. I wonder if the late Mike Stone did this one, too...nope, it was (also the late) Alex Sadkin, the one who over-produced Duran Duran's Seven and the Ragged Tiger and Arcadia's So Red the Rose. Supposedly, Agent Provacateur was a "concept album", according to Wikipedia, though the concept is probably buried in the overplayed singles.
Billy Idol, you *really* missed your chance, 'cause here's Simple Minds doing the smash you were offered, Don't You Forget About Me. If you were a high school student in the mid 80s, this was your life, right? :)
yeah, i'm writing a lot more, 'cause this really is in that peak of 80s coolness, you know?
"One night in Bankok makes a hard man humble" was actually a dummy lyric for the hit from Chess provided by the Abba guys who wrote the music. When Tim Rice heard it in the tune, he loved the reference so much he kept it and built the rest of the song around it. Great song, but annoying in that it otherwise stylelistically has very little to do with the rest of the show. I have to thank Cami (now of the O'Dannys) for introducing me to the full cast album all those years ago; a few years later we would spend an afternoon singing our way through the whole show. My voice hurt for a week after that, 'cause Pity the Child was *just* out of my range...The scat flute player I *think* later went on to contribute to Mike Oldfield's Islands album. Today, Murray Head is still banned from entering Bankok by their government even though he had absolutely nothing to do with the song other than singing it.
"Then along comes a woman, and you know that it's right..." - Chicago in their transition from jazz-rock to soft-ballad hell, 'til Cetera left.
Purple Rain soundtrack - another one of those i like a lot more now than I did then, though I did have the 45 for When Doves Cry. Take Me With You, on the other hand, should have just been left behind, I think. Prince is good, but not perfect.
how to intro this next one? "never let a successful third album get in the way of milking one more single from your second", or "the order in which duran duran songs become hits bears no relation to the order in which they were recorded and released on their original albums"? Save A Prayer, by then a 3 year old song, hit the top 20. Technically the single was the live version from the Arena album, but AT40 is playing the original studio version.
#21 "Keeping the Faith" by Billy Joel: a bit of history, really, 'cause most of the references are lost on 80s-era kids. "A pocket full of Trojans and some Old Spice aftershave..." - a lyric I never really heard 'til now. DAMN did he get away with a lot with that one, 'cause that was in the middle of some churches decrying the "use a condom" ads on MTV. gee, 20 years later and nothing's changed... "ain't it wonderful to be alive when the rock'n'roll plays" - ok, that doesn't change either. :)
"Relax!" a song with legs in the popularity of things even though it peaked only up to #10. Continued to be an 80s party hit long after the 80s were over. I never really heard this 'til I was a junior, 2 years later, and didn't own my own copy 'til 89, so yeah, that's hanging around.
Animotion's Obsession. Yet another one who's recap plays on, say, VH-1 Classic, are far out of proportion to its original popularity, I think.
Ah, Careless Whisper again...well, we've already covered that recently, so moving on...
Only the Young, probably the only decent thing (besides Matt Modine hitting it big) to come out of the Vision Quest movie. Granted, Madonna had a hit from there, too (update, it just showed up 10+ spots later). and Linda Fiorentino was in it, but really most geeks didn't figure out who she was 'til Men in Black. :) Journey tell the story that they debuted the recording of this to a teenage fan dying of cancer.
Springsteen's "I'm on Fire". Don and Mike played this from the album, but at '45 instead of '33, calling it "Dolly Parton sings Springsteen's Hits". It worked, dammit. But that is, of course, the only memory of that song I'll ever have.
I wondered this back when the AT40s first started on XM while I was up at NYRF - was there an ex-Eagle that DIDN'T have a top-40 hit? Yeah, Walsh had a hard time, but he did get in there at least once. However, this mention comes as Frey is in there with The Heat is On, and Henley's "All She Wants To Do Is Dance" (featured in the film Real Genius, of all things) was on the way down.
Julian Lennon's Much Too Late For Goodbyes. Good singer. I wish the record industry had treated him with more respect. Of course, I can say that about most artists, I suppose.
Geeze. We are the World debuted in the top 100 at #21, and was in the top 5 the next week (this week). "Check your egos at the door." One Live Aid, Coming Up (in 4 months). ("Shouldn't that be you and I?")
Ah, the Material Girl gets her name into the top 5. We may all hate her attention-getting campaigns and personal re-inventions every 3 years, but on the other hand, if success through popularity is your only goal (you can't convince me she's ever been otherwise), being able to say you're still talked about after 25 years must count for something.
And the number one song, from No Jacket Required, is Phil Collins: One More Night!
("American Top Forty has been brought to you by SPAM luncheon meat. It just might surprise you.")
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-04 06:58 pm (UTC)I had no idea that Billy Idol had been offered Don't You Forget About Me. I'd love to have heard him do that.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-04 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-04 07:07 pm (UTC)Still, without Simple Minds doing it, they might not have gotten the attention of Big Country producer Steve Lillywhite, who gave "Once Upon a Time" an incredible Celtic edge that i adore.