I was supposed to post this like last month or whatever. Better late than never I guess as I get the ball rolling on this long-running series again. This is the bonus post for 1984. I did part one last month in case anyone forgot, which is probably everyone since it was awhile ago.
As always – these are five (or for this year ten) of my favorite songs from a year, not necessarily my five absolute favorites. Nothing definitive here, though these are in the ballpark. Whatever the case, let’s get to it.
Prince – Purple Rain
I’ll start off with the spectacular power ballad from the seminal album and film that turned Prince into a massive superstar. This is a gorgeous song that explores coming of age and the day of judgment, which I guess will involve rain. Not sure my copy of Revelations mentions that but I digress. While Prince showcased an array of instrumental and songwriting prowess to this point, here he lets his voice get in on the action.
Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA
The Boss wrote this to recall the hard times Vietnam War vets faced when coming back into society. The song got confused by some as a patriotic anthem, but it is most certainly not. Rather it’s a dire look at people whose lives are essentially dead ends – no jobs, no hope, no future. I don’t know how so many people got the message mixed up, I turned seven the year this came out and I understood what it was about. No matter though, it is an awesome song and one of Bruce’s shining moments.
Hall and Oates – Out Of Touch
This crazy track was the final top ten hit for the massive pop duo. It’s quite the electro-dance number replete with the smooth harmonies Hall and Oates were famous for. I’m not a “fun and dancing” kind of person but even I can jam out to some Hall and Oates. This was a great way for them to cap off their electric string of hits through the early ’80’s.
Dokken – Don’t Close Your Eyes
This quasi-ballad but super hard rocker was one of many shining stars from the amazing Tooth And Nail record. This song is the perfect marriage of Dokken’s rock attack and melodic sensibilities that would come to define the “hair metal” era.
Ratt – Back For More
This song was re-recorded from an EP released a year prior, but the Out Of The Cellar version is one of many kick ass tracks on an amazing debut album. But this song is the one that puts it all over the edge for me, it’s snarling and pounding and right in your face. Ratt’s sound and presentation would go a long way to defining the 80’s metal movement for sure.
That does it for my bonus 1984 content. It’ll be 5 songs a year from here on out, and I think with my massive procrastination this series will now run into next year. But I’d have to count too much to figure it out one way or another, I’ll know more come September.
As a quick note – next week I’ll have my top ten albums of 2024 list, as well as my write up of Prince’s Purple Rain to cap off my celebration of 1984.
But for today, it’s off to pick five songs from 1982. This one was kind of fun as there seemed to be a bit more variety, I wasn’t necessarily slammed by 10,000 heavy metal songs I love that I had to winnow down. Still plenty of great music but a pretty simple list here.
As always on these and especially for this decade – these are simply five of my favorite songs from the year, not a definitive list of my absolute five favorite songs. I ain’t got time for all that. Let’s have at it.
Iron Maiden – Hallowed Be Thy Name
Pickings are easy when your favorite band offers up what is widely considered the greatest song they ever recorded. This is a haunting tale of a condemned man who is in his final moments. Maiden were able to couple the dread of the story with their trademark harmonizing and rhythm and Bruce Dickinson delivers a performance for the ages. Things really don’t get much better than this heavy metal standard.
Judas Priest – Electric Eye
Choosing just one song from the seminal Screaming For Vengeance album is kind of tough but it’s pretty easy to go with this one. This is a heavy metal smorgasbord with all kinds of quiet and loud, mid-paced and fast stuff. It’s both heavy as hell and quite accessible. The dark theme of overbearing surveillance is on point, even more so now than 42 years ago. I can’t do anything about the hosed state of civilization but I can headbang along to its demise with this.
Michael Jackson – Thriller
This list is shooting fish in a barrel kind of easy. The title track of what is largely held as the best-selling album of all time is an absolute winner – a melodic romp through a zombie horror show. While the song itself is actually a fairly simple premise of picking up a girl by spooking her out with scary movies, the music video was an all-out zombie invasion that wowed audiences the world over. The song remains a Halloween staple to this day and of course Michael was the defining artist of the greatest decade in music.
Prince – 1999
But Michael did have a rival, he was not as alone atop the pop and rock mountain as some would like to believe. Prince would score his first widespread recognition with this apocalyptic hit. The thing to do when facing the end of the world is to party, which The Purple One summed up with a synth-funk track to boogie ’till the end to. It wound up being very fitting when 1999 actually came around, with the ultimately unfounded fears of Y2K. That was some weird shit to live through. But Prince provided the perfect soundtrack for it.
Scorpions – No One Like You
The Scorpions did rock as well as anyone ever. They also made their mark with a series of awesome ballads, but this song did not head into ballad territory – while proclaiming love, it’s a total rocker. It has been a live staple and one of the band’s signature songs since its release on their landmark Blackout album.
The song also holds significant personal meaning for me. I started dating a gal in 2009, still in the age of setting phone ringtones. I set this as her ringtone and it became our song. We were together for nearly 15 years and boyfriend and girlfriend before this past June when we did the deed and got married. And while she is not an ’80’s metal fan of any real sort, she has always appreciated this as our song. So it’s an easy add to close out this list.
That wraps up 1982, which will likely be the easiest by far of any of the ’80’s stuff to do. The next few are absolute hell, let me tell you.
This being the 40th anniversary of 1984 and all of the great music that came from that year, I want to go a bit beyond just looking at albums from then and get into some other stuff. I will be looking at albums again today but in a different context – today I’m going to discuss all of the albums that topped the Billboard 200 chart in 1984.
If I were doing this for most any other year, I’d be up against it. Many years feature between 15 and 20 albums that hit the top chart spot, sometimes even more. It can be absolute carnage up there, especially now with several different genres commanding attention and shorter attention spans leading to more albums going number one, then heading off down the Billboard slide afterward.
But my cup runneth over with luck – in 1984, only five albums reached the top of the Billboard chart. It was the lowest amount for any year in Billboard history and is not something likely to ever be repeated. Seeing the very short list will shed light on exactly why that is, two artists basically dominated the number one spot that year and it’s glaringly obvious who those are, to anyone who was around at that time.
Michael Jackson – Thriller
Of no surprise to anyone, the King of Pop dominated the charts in the early going in 1984. Released in late 1982, Thriller spent 37 total weeks on the top of the chart. Here 40 years later in the year of our lord 2024, the album is still on the chart and has been for 612 weeks. Oh, and it’s the best-selling album in history.
The thing is that Thriller doesn’t relate to the music of 1984, at least in terms of my evaluation of the year, with it obviously having been released in 1982. Now, Michael Jackson certainly does relate to 1984 and the whole of the ’80’s – this guy was THE star and he was still grabbing the spotlight even with an album over a year old. All seven of the album’s singles had been released by the end of 1983, but the title track and its crazy video were omnipresent through 1984. Jackson was on top of the world in a way very few stars ever had been.
For the purposes of my year-long look at 1984, Thriller won’t be a part of it for obvious reasons. But I am certain to discuss the album at some point in time.
Footloose – The Soundtrack
Finally on the chart issued April 21, the King of Pop’s reign was over. It was a movie soundtrack that took the crown. Footloose the movie was about a dancing ban in a small Midwest town, and that would put a focus on the movie’s music. The movie did respectably well at the time and is fondly remembered by many, but the soundtrack was the true star of the show. It would spawn six top 40 hits, two of them going to the top of the Billboard 100.
The Footloose song by Kenny Loggins was the prime hit, and Let’s Hear It For The Boy, performed by Deniece Williams, joined it as a Billboard number one. Almost Paradise, performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart, hit number seven on the charts. The Jim Steinman-penned and Bonnie Tyler-performed Holding Out For A Hero charted at 34 in the US, but would take the top spot in the UK.
The soundtrack album hung on to the number one spot for two months, finally bested in late June. Movie soundtracks were big business in the ’80’s and Footloose was a monster even among them. It was certified nine times platinum in the US and has a host of other platinum and gold certifications around the world.
I do not have any plans to discuss this soundtrack further as I look back on 1984 – nothing against it, but a lot of it wasn’t really my jam beyond the Bonnie Tyler song and I have plenty else to talk about.
Huey Lewis and the News – Sports
1984 was often about an album hitting the top spot and hanging around for awhile, but in this lone instance, the album hit number one and was dethroned the next week, though the album did spend a total of 160 weeks on the chart.
But that is no shade to Huey Lewis and his band. Sports was the group’s breakthrough – after a gold record on their prior album, this one would catch fire and wind up 7 times platinum. Four of these songs would hit the top ten of the singles charts, stuff like If This Is It and The Heart Of Rock & Roll were commonplace on airwaves during this time, and for years afterward. It was catchy and pleasing music that just about everyone could get into and a lot of people did.
I will be covering Sports at some point this year, I’m not sure exactly when that will be.
Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA
Just after Independence Day in the US, The Boss arrived with a transformative album that would define his career and sell like hotcakes. The July 7th chart was the first of four consecutive weeks at number one for this record, which would then again claim the spot for a few weeks in early 1985.
The album would offer up seven singles, all of which went top ten in the Billboard 100. Famously, none of these or any of Springsteen’s other singles would ever hit the top spot on the singles chart, but success is relative.
And success was here in droves – the album was the best-selling record from 1984, moving over 30 million units eventually. (distinct of course from the best seller in 1984, which was Thriller) Bruce has recorded several heralded albums, but Born In The USA is the one that is the first mention when he is discussed. We can wax poetic about many of his works before and after, but this is where the conversation with Bruce Springsteen comes or goes.
There is a lot to say about this record – in term of Springsteen’s shift to pop rock, themes of working class struggles and triumphs, and the misplaced political implications behind the title track. And I will get into all of that – here soon, when I discuss the album in detail, which is coming up in the next month.
Born In The USA would reign atop the Billboard 200 for a month, then the rest of the year would be defined by someone we can only call “the artist.”
Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain
Springsteen would be bounced out of the top chart spot on the chart released August 4 of ’84. The replacement album would reign supreme for the rest of the year, 22 weeks, then the first 2 weeks of 1985 before the favor was returned by Springsteen.
Purple Rain was not just an album, but also the soundtrack to Prince’s first feature film of the same name. The movie was a hit, raking in ten times the amount of money spent on it, while the soundtrack was an absolute monster smash. The album has gone on to sell 25 million copies across the world, with 13 platinum certs in the US. Prince joined the rare company of Elvis and The Beatles by having the number one film, album and song all at the same time.
Prince’s landmark offering saw him slide more into the pop world, but also utilizing a grand scope of band composition and arrangement. A handful of Prince’s signature songs can be found here, including the title track and the mega-hit When Doves Cry. The controversial Darling Nikki is also featured in both the film and on record – it would be the song that kicked off the PMRC and the “Filthy Fifteen.”
Prince ruled the roost for the back half of 1984, and Purple Rain was the Billboard chart champion for most weeks at number one. I will do a write-up on this one, but be warned – I have always planned it to be the final post for the 1984 anniversary thing, so it’s not coming ’till the end of the year.
That covers the number one albums of 1984. A bit down the line I’ll look at a few records that were blocked out of the top spot by the stone cold lock these few releases had on the year. I’ll also dive into the number one songs of the year, a spot open to a lot more variety. And I’ll have some more companion pieces dealing with various things in 1984 as we go along. Enjoy the weekend.
The Crooked Wanderer 