Today's AT40
Nov. 4th, 2007 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearsorry I've not been commenting but I've been reading through all of the local election flyers and online sites trying to be the responsible citizen and cast a vote with an education behind it, and damn there's a lot of bullshit out there...
Anyways, it's November 11, 1986 [update - i might have misread that, as here in 2008, they're calling on this time as Nov 15th]. Early through my junior year, and pretty deep into my extreme hatred of "The Scarlet Letter" and most of the rest of the b.s. thrown at me in my American lit class. Aside from that, I generally liked my junior year, much of the free time spent in "Zork"-land on my atari 800 after having been deeply entrenched in adventures after seeing Goonies.
Rock mostly dominated the charts at the time, with hits by 'Til Tuesday, Bangles (Walk like an Egyptian), Duran Duran's Notorious, Steve Winwood, Billy Idol, the late Robert Palmer, and others. Many were doing follow-up to their bigger summer hits (Palmer's Addicted to Love is now succeeded by I didn't mean to turn you on).
And now, I need get outside and mow the lawn for the last time, so I can't keep commenting. Sorry...
--
Back from the outside and into the top 10 with some of the pop songs of the era like Next Time I Fall (Peter Cetera's only other post-Chicago hit) and Cameo's Word Up. Can't say I cared for either of them, but prior to them was Heuy Lewis's Hip to Be Square.
Now at #5, Eddie Money w/ Ronnie Spector doing Take Me Home Tonight. Interesting video but we could have done without the fake sax-playing. Why video directors insist on having singers fake playing instruments they've never touched before I'll never know.
Giving Love a Bad Name, the insanely overplayed Bon Jovi hit that defined what the late 80s hard-rock sound would be, taking that role away from metalheads Motley Crue (while the still MIA Def Leppard were in the studio plotting to take over the world in ways that Bon Jovi couldn't possibly imagine). Now at #4.
Madonna's True Blue at #3. Back then (I might have written about this before), MTV had a "make a video for this song" contest that would become the official American video, even though she'd already made a video for the European market. What came out was an ok color-corrected 8mm meant to look like a girl dancing to an old 45, but not good enough to last forever. VH-1 Classic has only shown the European version. I wonder how that kind of contest would be different today given modern computer and home video processing equipment.
Boston's Amanda at #2 (falling from #1). I did like the fact that Boston was back in the charts in general that year, along with Kansas's return, but I didn't care for the song all that much. By then I was a bit sick of the rock ballad scene.
And coming in as the new #1...The Human League's slow pop ballad, Human.
Interestingly enough, the Human League has been on Showtime recently, along with ABC, in a documentary about the early "British New Wave" synth sound and how it developed not out of London (where Punk started and was still king) but Sheffield, along with a little side commentary about how Def Leppard were completely in the other direction of all that, restoring blues-based rock to a position of respect.
Anyways, it's November 11, 1986 [update - i might have misread that, as here in 2008, they're calling on this time as Nov 15th]. Early through my junior year, and pretty deep into my extreme hatred of "The Scarlet Letter" and most of the rest of the b.s. thrown at me in my American lit class. Aside from that, I generally liked my junior year, much of the free time spent in "Zork"-land on my atari 800 after having been deeply entrenched in adventures after seeing Goonies.
Rock mostly dominated the charts at the time, with hits by 'Til Tuesday, Bangles (Walk like an Egyptian), Duran Duran's Notorious, Steve Winwood, Billy Idol, the late Robert Palmer, and others. Many were doing follow-up to their bigger summer hits (Palmer's Addicted to Love is now succeeded by I didn't mean to turn you on).
And now, I need get outside and mow the lawn for the last time, so I can't keep commenting. Sorry...
--
Back from the outside and into the top 10 with some of the pop songs of the era like Next Time I Fall (Peter Cetera's only other post-Chicago hit) and Cameo's Word Up. Can't say I cared for either of them, but prior to them was Heuy Lewis's Hip to Be Square.
Now at #5, Eddie Money w/ Ronnie Spector doing Take Me Home Tonight. Interesting video but we could have done without the fake sax-playing. Why video directors insist on having singers fake playing instruments they've never touched before I'll never know.
Giving Love a Bad Name, the insanely overplayed Bon Jovi hit that defined what the late 80s hard-rock sound would be, taking that role away from metalheads Motley Crue (while the still MIA Def Leppard were in the studio plotting to take over the world in ways that Bon Jovi couldn't possibly imagine). Now at #4.
Madonna's True Blue at #3. Back then (I might have written about this before), MTV had a "make a video for this song" contest that would become the official American video, even though she'd already made a video for the European market. What came out was an ok color-corrected 8mm meant to look like a girl dancing to an old 45, but not good enough to last forever. VH-1 Classic has only shown the European version. I wonder how that kind of contest would be different today given modern computer and home video processing equipment.
Boston's Amanda at #2 (falling from #1). I did like the fact that Boston was back in the charts in general that year, along with Kansas's return, but I didn't care for the song all that much. By then I was a bit sick of the rock ballad scene.
And coming in as the new #1...The Human League's slow pop ballad, Human.
Interestingly enough, the Human League has been on Showtime recently, along with ABC, in a documentary about the early "British New Wave" synth sound and how it developed not out of London (where Punk started and was still king) but Sheffield, along with a little side commentary about how Def Leppard were completely in the other direction of all that, restoring blues-based rock to a position of respect.
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