acroyear | Today's AT40

is...April 2, 1983, nearing the homestretch of the 7th grade and seeing the 80s start to turn into themselves (the economic recovery might have had something to do with that...)

We review "last week" with

hungry like the wolf
do you really want to hurt me
billie jean

And here we go with...

Kenny Loggins with a forgotten song, Welcome to Heartlight, which sounds like a weird cross between Lindsey Buckingham and the Spanish guitars of La Isla Bonita...and a touch of Glen Fry in the choruses, but Loggins wrote the whole thing.
Phil Collins Don't Care Anymore, setting his style of the consistent drum riff playing through the whole song that avoids the cymbal and highhat thing. His stylings were quite innovative at the time, and such pitch-drum playing was still rare in rock. Best examples I knew of were Mark Brzezicki of Big Country and Simon Phillips' work with Mike Oldfield around that time.

A very dark track compared to the other hits of Hello.
Stephen Bishop keeps telling you It Might Be You, one of the last of the early 80s ballads, much like the 82 stuff I rant about each time they come up. :) Speaking of Phil Collins, Bishop wrote Separate Lives from White Nights, which Phil sang on. This song is famous from the Dustin Hoffman smash of the time, Tootsie.

Now an AT40 Extra, as Casey explains about this new device, the "Digital Audio Compact Disc", 4.7 inches and no grooves, read by a laser. The players were selling for $1000 (in 1983 dollars) and cd's selling for $17.

hardly the "last link in music evolution", but certainly the wave of the future as he predicted, 26 years ago...

Just You And I, Crystal Gayle and Eddie Rabbitt.
Oxo, Whirlygirl. I have absolutely no memory of this at all. Nothing. A one-hit wonder as in i wonder how it even became a hit at all...
Billy Joel's Allentown, which I loved a LOT at the time and for the next few years (thanks to Greatest Hits volume 1/2), but today I'm a touch tired of.
De Barge's first hit, I Like It, slowly climbs...into obscurity.
The late and missed Laura Branigan follows up her record-setting Gloria (most weeks in the hot 100 for solo female performer) with the modulation-heavy Solitaire. Love you, Laura, but pick a key, please...
Men At Work's former #1, Down Under, fading away. The follow-up, Be Good Johnny, wouldn't do quite as well. Song still remains an 80s classic.
James Ingrham and Patti Austin with one of those late-era 70s-sounding ballads, Baby Come To Me. Huge airplay on "adult contemporary" (trans: "Mellow Rock") stations at the time and for years to come. A Quincy Jones production.

The Thompson Twins continue climbing with Lies.

They named themselves after the characters in Tintin, which makes me wonder if the characters will show up in the Moffat/Spielberg film coming out soon (Wikipedia says yes - "Scotty" Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, though given that the two are supposed to be act-alike twins, and the film is motion-capture, I wonder why they didn't just have one person playing both...).
Late Dan Fogelberg's Make Love Stay.
Toto's I Won't Hold You Back, after a quote from late drummer Jeff Porcaro about how the band (members) contributed more to pop than any other band, given that as session men they've played for Michael Jackson's Thriller, ONJ's Physical, most Boz Scaggs lps, and a whole lot more including their own huge albums. Such credentials didn't go away after his death - his replacement was session wizard Simon Phillips.
Bob Seger with his Silver Bullet band, rockin' out (in the same key as every other Seger song) with Even Now.
Thomas Dolby's She Blinded Me With Science. Strange stuff...
ABC shoots that Poison Arrow
Prince first hits big w/ Little Red Corvette
Joe Jackson's Breaking us in Two
Stray Cat Strut, which had had heavy MTV rotation almost a year before.
Tom Petty's Heartbreakers say there's been a Change of Heart

followed by a long distance dedication of Minnie Riperton's Lovin' You, which none of the bird chirping can cover up enough for me...

Pet Benetar's Little Too Late. Pretty straight rocker, contrasted with the very polished Shadows of the Night.
Christopher Cross says it's Alright, babe we're gonna make it. really. he means it. Can't you tell?
Eric Clapton says he's got a rock n roll heart, but is still deep in his country music phase...
Earth Wind and Fire, with Fall In Love With Me, which I have almost no memory of at all.
Bob Seger's other hit that year, Shame on the Moon (a #2 in a previously reviewed AT40) is falling down...
After the Fire covers Falco's Der Kommisar in English. On a tour where they opened for ELO, ELO's drummer got sick, and the drummer for After the Fire had to play for ELO's gigs as well.
Michael Jackson's followup to Billie Jean is already on its way up while Billie Jean's still going, soon to join Billie Jean in the top 5 at the same time, something that rarely happens.
Abba's Frida with her only solo hit, I Know There's Something Going On. Phil Collins produced it, which may explain the heavy drum part...something I didn't know 'til today.
The Greg Kihn Band, with another future target for "Weird Al", Jeopardy.
Kevin Roland and Dexy's Midnite Runners only American hit, Come On Eileen. Subsequent (and previous) albums would be more Van Morrison-bluesy than celtic-tinged bluegrass, and be not nearly as good.

And into the top ten with...

That overplayed, inescapable Twilight Zone from Golden Earring. As I've written before, this remained high on DC-101's rotation well until they stopped being an AOR station in the early 90s.
Daryl Hall and John Oats's dedication to March Madness, One on One.

What, it wasn't about basketball? Who knew?
Journey's rocker, Separate Ways...I really need to reconstruct that Robotech mash-up I made 20 years ago...I picked up this album on tape in Montreal in 1986, and was shocked at how much better side 2 was even as good as the hits on side 1 were (well, besides Back Talk).
Mr. Roboto from Styx continue the arena rock trend. I loved this at the time (picked up both the 45 (b-side: Snowblind) and LP), and was very annoyed that I never actually saw the video 'til years later. Don't Let It End I saw all the time later on, but I kept missing this one every time MTV ran it. Today, I see it on VH1 Classic all the time, but they almost never run Don't Let It End. Go fig.
Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton duet on We've Got Tonight, written by Bob Seger (who's of course in the countdown twice himself). "Next week" it would be the #1 country song, but this would be its pop peak.
The Pretenders with one of Y-103's inescapable high-rotation songs, Back on the Chain Gang
Lionel Ritchie's You Are, which I have little to add over my last few times it's come up.
Duran Duran hold onto #3 with Hungry Like The Wolf
Culture Club holds at #2 with Do You Really Want To Hurt Me

and both of those were worthy #1 candidates had it not been for...
Billie Jean, from Michael Jackson

So with that repeat of a 3,2,1 (actually, according to Casey, repeat from 11 to 1 all unchanged), I'm outta here...