Today's AT40...

[acroyear]

...probably won't be heavily covered, as I have to do a lot of cleaning and no in the room that has the computer.  Maybe I'll get lucky and it's one I've already done, or less lucky as it'll be one that sucks...

and it is...March 20, 1982, in my 6th grade year and first year really caring about it.  Last Week...

• #3 I Love Rock n Roll
• #2 Open Arms
• #1 Centerfold

And I believe this will be the week where #3 and #1 swap around Journey's only #2 that stays there, I week I definitely remember, 27 years ago...Anyways, I've covered this part of 1982 several times before, and it is often ballad-heavy (a Feb 1982 had 11 ballads in a row)and full of crossover-country (ah, the days of Alabama and Eddie Rabbit), as MTV hadn't quite brought the New Wave into the mainstream, so you'll get random bullet-thoughts rather than song-by-song lists this time 'round. (ok, up to 30 and i'm still tagging each one...guess I lied...)

• #40 is a long-forgotten Stevie Woods with Just Can't Win 'Em All, a kinda typical pop-rock song of the time, akin to Ride Like the Wind or the output of The Little River Band.  Evolutionary from the 70s mellow-rock, rather than revolutionary away from it.
• #39 is another long-forgotten name, a Boston clone called Prism, with Don't Let Him Know.
• #38 is yet another long-forgotten, Greg Guidry, Goin' Down, another typical soft-rock ballad.  This seems to be the era of "lame white singer syndrome"...now hearing this, it's the first I'm actually having vague memories of.
• and here's the fading out of crossover-country, Alabama's Love in the First Degree (37), ...
• an here's a memory that got a LOT of Y-103 airplay, Paul Davis's '65 Love Affair at 36
  
• and back to the forgotten lame white ballad singers and groups, Le Roux with Nobody Said It Was Easy at 35.
• the most dialed rock phone number of the 80s, 867-5309!
• smokey robinson's lameness continues with Tell Me Tomorrow, which I have no memory of (though Tears of a Clown also got WAY too much airplay back then).
• one of Neal Diamond's lamer of lames, On the Way to the Sky, trying to out "Lady" Kenny Rogers it seems.  bleh.
• Ah, they remembered what a guitar was, with Juke Box Hero at 31.  You know who I mean.  I made a killer mash-up (not that we used that term back then) between this with Death Star battle footage from Return of the Jedi a few years later...I really ought to fidget with the software I have and try to reconstruct all of those videos I made back then.  I really loved this song for years back then.
• 30 Quarterflash's Find Another Fool, one that's been getting a lot of play on my own work-out playlists in my office gym.

• 29 Kenny Roger's Through The Years, which also doubled as a long-distance dedication.  go fig.
• 28 The cover of My Guy, which I do remember, was actually done by "we are family" Sister Sledge, which I didn't.
• 27 ABBA's last stand, When All Is Said and Done
• 26 another memory, Quincy Jones/James Inghram's Find One Hundred Ways
• 25 a long time fav, Stevie Nick's Edge of 17.
• 24 Rick Springfield's Don't Talk To Strangers, another heavy on the playlist all those years ago.
• 23 Cliff Richard, once the "English Elvis", with the terribly retro Daddy's Home.  In light of "who's your daddy", this song takes a whole new meaning, I think.
• 22 Van Halen's cover years (as far as the pop chart goes) peak with Pretty Woman
• 21 Huey Lewis asks Do You Believe In Love

• 20 Rod Stewart says, Tonight I'm Yours (but don't hurt me).
• 19 a classic! Bob and Doug MacKenzie's Take Off, even featuring Geddy Lee, 'eh?
  
  and it's over...you hosers.
  
  
• 18 Centerfold's follow-up, Freeze Frame, from J. Giels Band.  Shame they didn't survive this hit parade, 'cause they were actually quite good and somewhat ahead of their time.  I guess that's when things change: when you stop being a head of your time and start defining your time itself, the pressures change.
• 17 a lost Pointer Sisters track, Should I Do It.
• 16 The Little River Band, produced by Sir George Martin, with Take It Easy On Me
• 15 a big radio hit at the time, Leader of the Band
• 14 one of the last instrumentals to hit #1 (a few months from now, after winning the oscar it was just nominated for), Chariots of Fire
• 13 Bernie Higgins's Key Largo was another huge radio hit on Y-103.
  
  Casey talks about the break-up of The Knack, thanks to poor sales, poor critical reaction, and attacks by feminists over their lyrical content at the time.
  
  
• 12 Buh Buh Buh Buh Bobby Sue, from the Oak Ridge Boys, being more like Sha Na Na crossed with Ray Stevens than their typical
  
• 11 The Police's fascinatingly off-beat (in every sense - good luck finding the actual downbeat in that), Spirits in the Material World

and into the top ten we go...

• 10 Something I never really had 'til the (terrible in hindsight) Atari version, Pac Man Fever
• 9 The Cars Shake It Up, one which I really liked and liked even more when I finally got to see the video that would still be in modest rotation on MTV during the summer @ my cousin's.
• 8 Diana Ross's Mirror Mirror, owing a lot more to the disco 70s we just left, much like Kool and the Gang's output at the time.
• 7 ONJ's Make a Move On Me, her followup to one of the tops of the decade, Physical.  This didn't do nearly as well, as we now know.
  
• 6 The GoGos have still Got The Beat (with the #1 album).  Strange to see this video, where while singing a straight-out pop-rock song with some early 60s retro to it, they act like they're still the punk band of 3 years earlier that had no idea how to even play their instruments.
• 5 the 4th group to have their first 6 hit songs chart into the top 5.  Joining the Jacksons, Elvis, and the Monkees (not the Beatles, impressively enough), Air Supply with Sweet Dreams. I was a HUGE fan of this at the time...I got better.
  
• 4 Stevie Wonder's sound hasn't really changed much from his start to this hit, That Girl.
  
  now we'll see if I was right...BINGO!
  
  
• 3 Centerfold
• 2 Open Arms
• 1 I Love Rock and Roll!

Now to continue cleaning...