Today's AT40
Mar. 23rd, 2008 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearIs March 28, 1987. Another non-repeat, so I'll blog it 'til I have to start dinner (we're cooking for my parents today). correction - I have done this one before, but I didn't say much about it. Took a long distance dedication (a kid who drove a drunk driving accident telling ALL kids "It's Hip to Be Square") to make me remember. I'm cool with the sentiment, of course.
Lets see...at this point, I was recovering from an educational-induced depression (yes, I'm permanently scarred by "The Scarlet Letter", that trashy soap opera of insane "morality" that is supposedly this great American work but I merely saw it then and still do today that religion has no place in politics at all. Not even my own.
Other things going on? Lets see...The Wrath of Keim (our pre-calc teacher), AP American History (struggling through a paper on McCarthy), band (the usual), no science (took chem during the summer school before the year started), Latin 3 (did THAT one one year too many, but didn't have a choice in the matter)...
...and oh yeah, a year of Psychology. now THAT was cool. Teacher was a straight-out rocker whose methods were effective but non-standard enough to easily piss of micro-managing administrations. He was effective as a football coach as well - his Freshman team went 7-0. That of course meant that the next year that team would be broken up - some into JV, some into Varsity, and my graduation-year team the next year sucked dogs...but the NEXT year, that team was reunited all in Varsity and almost made it to state champs. Go fig. I learned early on "never break up a winning, gelled team". Shame my wife's former company hadn't learned that lesson 20 years later...
Musically, I was mostly into two things: blues-rock (Clapton/Cream, the Doors) and New Age electronic (the artists of the defunct Private Music label, for example). The rock scene was still cool, but there were often too many "pop" songs of the producer-manufactured variety for me to bother to listen to anymore.
Last week's #1 - Lean on Me by Club Nuveau. Not my fav (by a long shot), but lots of friends liked it.
#40 is another one-hit-wonder (and a "bottom-40" at that), ex-NFL cheerleader Donna Allen. What did I say above about production-manufacturing? By contrast, #39 is one of those dozens of Madonna hits, La Isla Bonita. True Blue, the album, was basically a hit-factory for her, wasn't it? I didn't care for most of those songs, of course. That's followed by Glass Tiger's last "hit", I will be there. Never really heard it at the time. Next is Michael J Fox w/ Joan Jett in the forgettable (movie and song) Light of Day. Then a lesser Boston hit from 3rd Stage. Still kinda depressing now.
Lets see...at this point, I was recovering from an educational-induced depression (yes, I'm permanently scarred by "The Scarlet Letter", that trashy soap opera of insane "morality" that is supposedly this great American work but I merely saw it then and still do today that religion has no place in politics at all. Not even my own.
Other things going on? Lets see...The Wrath of Keim (our pre-calc teacher), AP American History (struggling through a paper on McCarthy), band (the usual), no science (took chem during the summer school before the year started), Latin 3 (did THAT one one year too many, but didn't have a choice in the matter)...
...and oh yeah, a year of Psychology. now THAT was cool. Teacher was a straight-out rocker whose methods were effective but non-standard enough to easily piss of micro-managing administrations. He was effective as a football coach as well - his Freshman team went 7-0. That of course meant that the next year that team would be broken up - some into JV, some into Varsity, and my graduation-year team the next year sucked dogs...but the NEXT year, that team was reunited all in Varsity and almost made it to state champs. Go fig. I learned early on "never break up a winning, gelled team". Shame my wife's former company hadn't learned that lesson 20 years later...
Musically, I was mostly into two things: blues-rock (Clapton/Cream, the Doors) and New Age electronic (the artists of the defunct Private Music label, for example). The rock scene was still cool, but there were often too many "pop" songs of the producer-manufactured variety for me to bother to listen to anymore.
Last week's #1 - Lean on Me by Club Nuveau. Not my fav (by a long shot), but lots of friends liked it.
#40 is another one-hit-wonder (and a "bottom-40" at that), ex-NFL cheerleader Donna Allen. What did I say above about production-manufacturing? By contrast, #39 is one of those dozens of Madonna hits, La Isla Bonita. True Blue, the album, was basically a hit-factory for her, wasn't it? I didn't care for most of those songs, of course. That's followed by Glass Tiger's last "hit", I will be there. Never really heard it at the time. Next is Michael J Fox w/ Joan Jett in the forgettable (movie and song) Light of Day. Then a lesser Boston hit from 3rd Stage. Still kinda depressing now.
- Now, a Cindy Lauper cover of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. And I actually quite like it.
- Heart, I just DIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEED in your arms tonite! again.
- Trivia note: guitarist Robert Cray played in the band for the Toga Party scene in Animal House
- Eddie Money may want to go back, but I don't. I wouldn't mind seeing them all now, but not what they (or I) was back then.
- Ex-J. Giels singer Peter Wolf hops his way with Come as you Are. Liked this a lot (I think i have the 45) - great party tune and cool video.
- A trivia note about the 1980 domino record, leading into Robbie Neville doing a song called Dominos (it's better than Cest La Vie, which I *hated*). Personally, I preferred the Genesis song about Domino, of course.
- Dead or Alive is trying to Find Myself a Brand New Lover - I appreciate it more now than then.
- At #27, the Beastie Boys start their career off with Fight for your Right. Who'd have though they'd still have a career today, and a well respected one, even though they'd never have a hit like this again...
- Heavy hitters follow after a few dance things best left forgotten - Walking Down your Street (The Bangles), Living on a Prayer (Bon Jovi), and the return of Bruno, Bruce Willis's Respect Yourself, then REO Speedwagon remembers what it's like to be a rock band with That Ain't Love.
- Peter Gabriel says, "Hi There!" - the song that created Funk Fingers - Jerry Marotta is drum-sticking Tony Levin's bass; in order to do that live (with Jerry and later Manu having to actually play drums), Tony and is tech invented Funk Fingers to duplicate the sound. In a fit of irony, Jerry himself uses a set on Tony Levin's band tours.
- Prince's Sign O The Times, his first significant hit post-Revolution. Didn't really care much for this change in direction.
- Climbing (down 2 notches) step by step, one by one, Huey Lewis is on Jacob's Ladder Co-written by Bruce Hornseby. I didn't notice it before but hearing it now, it's obvious Bruce had a hand in it.
- Lou Graham's Midnight Blue. I hated it, but at least he remembered what the hell a guitar was.
- Wang Chung with another party song, Let's Go
- Aretha Franklin and George Michael with the very forgettable duo, I knew you were waiting for me. ick. of course, i call it forgettable and meanwhile
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faireraven is upstairs singing it like she just heard it yesterday...go fig. - Crowded House's Don't Dream it's Over. As H once said, this is a bloke (Neil Finn) who wrote some real corkers...
- Sweden's contribution to the Big Hair band craze, Europe with the cool lick (the first 2 dozen times) based The Final Countdown.
- *sigh* Expose's early hit, Come Go With Me. They've been reunited for some time now, but apparently are in a lawsuit over whether or not they can actually use the name.
- Linda Ronstant, singing American Tale's Somewhere Out There, actually took union pay scale for her Broadway stage performance in Pirates of Penzance, 'cause she *really* wanted the gig. As for the song, this kinda set the stage for the cheesy-pop-duet re-recordings of songs in musicals for use in the film's closing credits. The one time Don Bluth actually led Disney, who did this with Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, among others.
- in #5, Bruce Hornseby with Mandolin Rain, written by him and his brother, just like Jacob's Ladder mentioned above. I loved this album, which I did finally pick up on CD during the great Tower collapse.
- Genesis with the shitty single edit of Tonight^3. Give me the album version (or better still, the live version from Wembley that year - Bank's solo is better) over this p.o.s. cut any time. The song is not great in itself - the song is a vehicle for the instrumental section in the middle. Any ternary form (ABA) that cuts the the "B" is just redundant crap, in any genre.
- A forgettable early Janet Jackson ballad. ick. Let's not wait awhile 'til it's over. UGH - they just repeated it...hiccup on the tape it seems. now i have to wait ANOTHER while 'til this boredomfest is over.
- Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now, says Starship. Well, losing one of your lead singers to total boredom seemed to do the trick.
- Lean on Me.
