Today's AT40
Aug. 19th, 2007 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearis August of 1982. Abracadbra was #3 "last week", #2 was Hurts So Good, and #1 was Eye of the Tiger... We can finally see the influence MTV was having, as all of these were major video hits well before the radio stations got them, though certainly Survivor had the Rocky film's popularity going for it, plus all the testosterone energy in it. Is it just me, or did Brian Baylock (ex- of the Rogues and Scottish Mayhem) look just like Survivor's lead singer?
I was heading into my 7th grade year, which was generally pretty uneventful. Oh, and after having lived with MTV for a month at my cousin's, I insisted we get cable and get my MTV at home!
anyways, we're in a rush to get the trim down and get the sawdust cleaned up and furniture in its place before 1) the inlaws arrive, and 2) it rains making it impossible to do anything outside where all the stuff is still out in a tent.
btw, this will be my last Sunday AT40 thingy for at least 3 months. most of you know why. :)
----
early hits are rather uneventful, including a track from Herb Albert. Elton John's Blue Eyes was rather unusual for him at the time.
ok, a little further in and things get more interesting with Rick Springfield's What Kind of Fool am I and Asia's Only Time Will Tell. I *almost* went to the Asia reunion show at the Birchmere last month but decided that $60 for a ticket was just a bit much.
Billy Idol's first hit, "Hot in the City Tonight" is SO totally against the post-punk angry-man image he would put up a couple of years later. As with Idol, not everything Hall and Oats did was gold - Your Imagination from Private Eyes is rather forgettable compared to the bigger hits on that album.
Genesis's Paperlate I didn't know actually got top40 attention in the US. I thought it was just an AOR hit.
----
I said it before and I'll say it again. "If the Love Fits, Wear it Baby". WHAT THE FUCK?
sheesh.
----
More hits driven by MTV airplay - Kim Wilde's Kids in America and Men at Work's future #1, Who Can It Be Now?
----
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faireraven and I both notice, at precisely the same time, that Gary U.S. Bonds's "Out of Work" and Springsteen's "Cover Me" could be overlaid on each other and nobody would notice anything wrong about it...
----
Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" (without the "Where did our love go" closer) - british minimalism in new wave, 'eh? Then Human League's Dont You Want Me (my first 45!) continues its fall from #1.
----
Paul McCartney's Take it Away. This one got a LOT of MTV airplay at the time. The video did have Ringo in it miming drums, but he wasn't actually on the song's real recording. A lot of "Wings" still in this. Guess he was getting it out of his system before really defining a new 80s sound with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, then later back to blues-rock with David Gilmour.
Now the Motels' Only the Lonely. Yesterday, "Suddenly Last Summer" (from their next album) was somewhat inescapable - I heard it on VH1-classic and 80s on 8.
Now in the top 10, CSN's one of many attempts to apologize to each other for being regular pains in the ass, Wasted on the Way. I liked Southern Cross better, but I was younger then.
The GoGo's Vacation. Most people have no memory of Cypress Gardens, where the stock footage of the performance-skiing was filmed.
now a string of hits i mentioned in earlier '82 countdowns that are now all in the top 10 - Toto, REO Speedwagon, Air Supply, Chicago...kinda a guy thing happening again.
----
Fleetwood Mac's Hold Me at #4. An ok song, an interesting surrealist video, but not my fav from that album. Generally, the album, "Mirage" (#1 album of the week), wasn't all that great except for Stevie's hits. Like Phil Collins, she hit a songwriting vein at the time that yielded great stuff for years and had a hard time decided what was and wasn't meant for the band to do vs what she should hold onto for her solo albums. Gypsy and Straight Back are Mac masterpieces, the former having (in my opinion) Buckingham's best guitar solo ever. Lindsey's stuff just wasn't as well done as his Tusk and Tango in the Night work would be.
and now, that AT40 rarity: #'s 3, 2, and 1, are unchanged from last week.
See you all in early November, after 9 weeks of MDRF (one being the MS Challenge Walk), the Foggy Bottom 30th Anniversary, and a certain Halloween party we'll actually be able to go to this year. Then I have to skip another week for CRF's Pirate Invasion, and after that, Revels rehearsals will probably be in full swing.
But until then, it's exchanging the top 40 of the 1980s with the top 40 of the 1530s! cya at faire...
I was heading into my 7th grade year, which was generally pretty uneventful. Oh, and after having lived with MTV for a month at my cousin's, I insisted we get cable and get my MTV at home!
anyways, we're in a rush to get the trim down and get the sawdust cleaned up and furniture in its place before 1) the inlaws arrive, and 2) it rains making it impossible to do anything outside where all the stuff is still out in a tent.
btw, this will be my last Sunday AT40 thingy for at least 3 months. most of you know why. :)
----
early hits are rather uneventful, including a track from Herb Albert. Elton John's Blue Eyes was rather unusual for him at the time.
ok, a little further in and things get more interesting with Rick Springfield's What Kind of Fool am I and Asia's Only Time Will Tell. I *almost* went to the Asia reunion show at the Birchmere last month but decided that $60 for a ticket was just a bit much.
Billy Idol's first hit, "Hot in the City Tonight" is SO totally against the post-punk angry-man image he would put up a couple of years later. As with Idol, not everything Hall and Oats did was gold - Your Imagination from Private Eyes is rather forgettable compared to the bigger hits on that album.
Genesis's Paperlate I didn't know actually got top40 attention in the US. I thought it was just an AOR hit.
----
I said it before and I'll say it again. "If the Love Fits, Wear it Baby". WHAT THE FUCK?
sheesh.
----
More hits driven by MTV airplay - Kim Wilde's Kids in America and Men at Work's future #1, Who Can It Be Now?
----
faireraven and I both notice, at precisely the same time, that Gary U.S. Bonds's "Out of Work" and Springsteen's "Cover Me" could be overlaid on each other and nobody would notice anything wrong about it...----
Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" (without the "Where did our love go" closer) - british minimalism in new wave, 'eh? Then Human League's Dont You Want Me (my first 45!) continues its fall from #1.
----
Paul McCartney's Take it Away. This one got a LOT of MTV airplay at the time. The video did have Ringo in it miming drums, but he wasn't actually on the song's real recording. A lot of "Wings" still in this. Guess he was getting it out of his system before really defining a new 80s sound with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, then later back to blues-rock with David Gilmour.
Now the Motels' Only the Lonely. Yesterday, "Suddenly Last Summer" (from their next album) was somewhat inescapable - I heard it on VH1-classic and 80s on 8.
Now in the top 10, CSN's one of many attempts to apologize to each other for being regular pains in the ass, Wasted on the Way. I liked Southern Cross better, but I was younger then.
The GoGo's Vacation. Most people have no memory of Cypress Gardens, where the stock footage of the performance-skiing was filmed.
now a string of hits i mentioned in earlier '82 countdowns that are now all in the top 10 - Toto, REO Speedwagon, Air Supply, Chicago...kinda a guy thing happening again.
----
Fleetwood Mac's Hold Me at #4. An ok song, an interesting surrealist video, but not my fav from that album. Generally, the album, "Mirage" (#1 album of the week), wasn't all that great except for Stevie's hits. Like Phil Collins, she hit a songwriting vein at the time that yielded great stuff for years and had a hard time decided what was and wasn't meant for the band to do vs what she should hold onto for her solo albums. Gypsy and Straight Back are Mac masterpieces, the former having (in my opinion) Buckingham's best guitar solo ever. Lindsey's stuff just wasn't as well done as his Tusk and Tango in the Night work would be.
and now, that AT40 rarity: #'s 3, 2, and 1, are unchanged from last week.
See you all in early November, after 9 weeks of MDRF (one being the MS Challenge Walk), the Foggy Bottom 30th Anniversary, and a certain Halloween party we'll actually be able to go to this year. Then I have to skip another week for CRF's Pirate Invasion, and after that, Revels rehearsals will probably be in full swing.
But until then, it's exchanging the top 40 of the 1980s with the top 40 of the 1530s! cya at faire...
