Post by Hervard on Jan 22, 2011 11:00:41 GMT -5
American Top 40: The 80s - January 22-23, 2011
This week’s presentation: January 26, 1980
Cool - just like last year, they ran the a January, 1980 show! Last year, they did the show from the week before. And, of course, the week before was guest-hosted, so we probably won’t hear that one. January 5 would be ideal for the 70s version of the show, since it counted down the Top 50 songs of that decade, but would be quite out of place for AT40: The 80s.
LW#3: ESCAPE (THE PINA COLADA SONG) - RUPERT HOLMES
LW#2: DO THAT TO ME ONE MORE TIME - THE CAPTAIN & TENNILLE
LW#1: ROCK WITH YOU - MICHAEL JACKSON
As always, I’ll comment on those later.
DROPPERS:
NO MORE TEARS (ENOUGH IS ENOUGH) - BARBRA STREISAND & DONNA SUMMER (38) - Ugh, I did not like this song. Thank God it dropped off this week!
SAVANNAH NIGHTS - TOM JOHNSTON (34) - wtf did this sound like again?
HEAD GAMES - FOREIGNER (27) - Great song! Shame that it fell off.
BABE - STYX (23) - Great song! One of my favorites by them!
STILL - THE COMMODORES (22) - Thank God this depressing song dropped off this week! So odd, as it was #6 two weeks before. I guess people suddenly decided they didn’t like the song.
40) LAST TRAIN TO LONDON - ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA (debut) - Meh, definitely not one of their best.
39) LOST HER IN THE SUN - JOHN STEWART (debut) - Good song, though I prefer “Gold”.
38) WONDERLAND - THE COMMODORES (debut) - Nice, pleasant song. Much better than their other song on the chart this week!
37) WORKING MY WAY BACK TO YOU/FORGIVE ME GIRL - THE SPINNERS (debut) - Great song! I definitely prefer this one to the original Four Seasons version (and I liked their added “bridge” to this song).
36) YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU - SANTANA (36) - Great song! One of their best (although I don’t like the fact that it cut out in the middle - sounds like WUEZ is up to their old tricks again (then again, no; at least they’re not repeating the same segment twice - knock on wood) ).
35) ON THE RADIO - DONNA SUMMER (debut) - Great song! Casey mentioned that in 1979, there was only one week that Donna Summer wasn’t on the chart. That would be January 13 - “MacArthur Park” fell out of the Top 40 and “Heaven Knows” was just debuting on the Hot 100 - and just barely made it to the Top 40 the following week.
34) DO YOU LOVE WHAT YOU FEEL - RUFUS & CHAKA KHAN (40) - It’s okies, but nothing special - typical late-70s R&B dance music.
AT40 ARCHIVES: NEW KID IN TOWN - THE EAGLES - Great song! Not sure what my favorite song from Hotel California would be - it’s pretty much a toss-up between this one and the title track (which I heard at I-Hop the other day).
OPTIONAL EXTRA: TOO HOT - KOOL & THE GANG - Great song! One of their best, and possibly my favorite of their upbeat songs.
33) VOICES - CHEAP TRICK (37) - Great song! Sounds a little like something that the Beatles would do. Too bad they cut out the second verse
32) COOL CHANGE - LITTLE RIVER BAND (10) - Wow, what a big drop! This was a great song, one of my favorite songs by them. Right up there with “Lady”, “Take It Easy On Me” and “We Two”.
31) SEPTEMBER MORN - NEIL DIAMOND (39) - Wow, Casey’s a little off with his math this week - he said that this song was up nine places. Well, anyway, this is a pretty good song, but not quite my favorite song from Diamond.
LONG DISTANCE DEDICATION: STILL THE ONE - ORLEANS - Great song; definitely one of their best. Kind of appropriate for the dedication, only the author hadn’t seen the people that inspired the dedication for years.
30) ROTATION - HERB ALPERT (30) - Good song, but not quite as good as “Rise”.
29) FOREVER MINE - THE O’JAYS (33) - Good song; your typical late-70s R&B slow jam.
28) JANE - JEFFERSON STARSHIP (14) - Good song, though the intro of the song is somewhat misleading - when I first heard it, I thought it was going to be a ballad, but, in fact, it actually rocks out.
27) WHY ME - STYX (32) - Good song, but I prefer several others by them.
26) FOOL IN THE RAIN - LED ZEPPELIN (31) - Good song.
25) LONGER - DAN FOGELBERG (35) - Great song! One of his best!
24) AN AMERICAN DREAM - DIRT BAND (FEATURING LINDA RONSTADT) - Great song! Possibly my favorite by them!
AT40 ARCHIVES: LOVE THEME FROM A STAR IS BORN (EVERGREEN) - BARBRA STREISAND - Great song! Dave Koz’s “Faces Of The Heart” (a minor AC hit from 1994) sounds a little like an instrumental version of this.
OPTIONAL EXTRA: 99 - TOTO - Great song! One of their best! Kind of odd for an extra choice, as the song only got as high as #26.
23) THIRD TIME LUCKY - FOGHAT (26) - Good song, though I’m not a big fan of Foghat.
22) DAYDREAM BELIEVER - ANNE MURRAY (28) - Great song! I actually prefer this to the original version by the Monkees.
21) ROMEO’S TUNE - STEVE FORBERT (25) - This was his only Top 40 hit, but it was a great one!
20) PLEASE DON’T GO - KC & THE SUNSHINE BAND (9) - No. Just no.
19) DON’T LET GO - ISAAC HAYES (20) - This song was OK, but nothing special.
18) WAIT FOR ME - DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES (19) - Great song!
17) DEJA VU - DIONNE WARWICK (21) - Great song. She’s had a few better, though.
16) YES I’M READY - TERI DeSARIO & KC (24) - Good song - I like this much better than KC’s whinefest back at #20.
15) THIS IS IT - KENNY LOGGINS (16) - Good song, but far from being his best. This song showed tenacity, though - it never quite made it to the Top Ten, yet managed to log sixteen weeks in the Top 40.
14) DON’T DO ME LIKE THAT - TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS (17) - Great song! One of my favorites by them!
13) LADIES’ NIGHT - KOOL & THE GANG (8) - This song was OK, but not quite their best.
12) BETTER LOVE NEXT TIME - DR. HOOK (12) - Great song! Definitely my favorite song by them! Like the Kenny Loggins’ song, this song spent an unusually long time on the chart for a song that didn’t quite hit the Top Ten (though it spent two less weeks in the Top 40 than “This Is It”). It ranked around the mid-point on the year-end survey.
AT40 ARCHIVES: RICH GIRL - DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES - Great song! This one seemed to have been edited out of the show - at least my station didn’t play it.
OPTIONAL EXTRA: ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL - PINK FLOYD - Good song. If you listen real carefully, at the very end, you can hear the beginning of the part at the end where the teachers are screaming at the kids.
11) I WANNA BE YOUR LOVER - PRINCE (13) - Good song - the very first song by Prince that most people had heard (as his 1978 song “Soft And Wet” only peaked at #92).
10) SARA - FLEETWOOD MAC (15) - Great song! One of my favorite songs by them!
9) THE LONG RUN - THE EAGLES (11) - Good song, but The Long Run was definitely not one of their high points (although I did like the album cut “The Sad Cafe”.
LONG DISTANCE DEDICATION: NEVER MY LOVE - THE ASSOCIATION - Good song, but I prefer Blue Swede’s remake of this song from the mid-70s.
8) CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE - QUEEN (18) - Good song, obviously Elvis-inspired.
7) WE DON’T TALK ANYMORE - CLIFF RICHARD (7) - Good song, although I prefer a few of his other songs, such as “A Little In Love” from about a year later.
6) SEND ONE YOUR LOVE - STEVIE WONDER (5) - Great song! Has sort of a hypnotic effect.
5) CRUISIN’ - SMOKEY ROBINSON (6) - Good song, but not quite my favorite from him. Not sure if I prefer this or the Huey Lewis/Gwyneth Paltrow remake a few years later.
4) ESCAPE (THE PINA COLADA SONG) - RUPERT HOLMES (3) - Good song
3) COWARD OF THE COUNTY - KENNY ROGERS (4) - Great song! One of my favorite story songs of all-time. Casey mentioned that Kenny had never quite hit #1 on the pop chart. If only he knew what would happen in November...
OPTIONAL EXTRA: REFUGEE - TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS - Earlier, I mentioned that “Don’t Do Me Like That” was one of my favorites from Tom Petty. Well, so is this song - in fact, I like it a tad better.
2) DO THAT TO ME ONE MORE TIME - THE CAPTAIN & TENNILLE (2) - Great song! My absolute favorite from them!
1) ROCK WITH YOU - MICHAEL JACKSON (1) - Good song - my second favorite Off The Wall single behind “She’s Out Of My Life”.
Predictions for next week: A few people have predicted 1981 or 1987 for next week. I’ll go with January 31, 1981 for next week’s show, with January 31, 1987 as my back-up prediction. For the past three years, they seemed to waste no time getting on a show from 1988, but I expect we won’t be hearing a show from that year until sometime in February - that’s a possible prediction for two weeks from now.
This week’s presentation: January 26, 1980
Cool - just like last year, they ran the a January, 1980 show! Last year, they did the show from the week before. And, of course, the week before was guest-hosted, so we probably won’t hear that one. January 5 would be ideal for the 70s version of the show, since it counted down the Top 50 songs of that decade, but would be quite out of place for AT40: The 80s.
LW#3: ESCAPE (THE PINA COLADA SONG) - RUPERT HOLMES
LW#2: DO THAT TO ME ONE MORE TIME - THE CAPTAIN & TENNILLE
LW#1: ROCK WITH YOU - MICHAEL JACKSON
As always, I’ll comment on those later.
DROPPERS:
NO MORE TEARS (ENOUGH IS ENOUGH) - BARBRA STREISAND & DONNA SUMMER (38) - Ugh, I did not like this song. Thank God it dropped off this week!
SAVANNAH NIGHTS - TOM JOHNSTON (34) - wtf did this sound like again?
HEAD GAMES - FOREIGNER (27) - Great song! Shame that it fell off.
BABE - STYX (23) - Great song! One of my favorites by them!
STILL - THE COMMODORES (22) - Thank God this depressing song dropped off this week! So odd, as it was #6 two weeks before. I guess people suddenly decided they didn’t like the song.
40) LAST TRAIN TO LONDON - ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA (debut) - Meh, definitely not one of their best.
39) LOST HER IN THE SUN - JOHN STEWART (debut) - Good song, though I prefer “Gold”.
38) WONDERLAND - THE COMMODORES (debut) - Nice, pleasant song. Much better than their other song on the chart this week!
37) WORKING MY WAY BACK TO YOU/FORGIVE ME GIRL - THE SPINNERS (debut) - Great song! I definitely prefer this one to the original Four Seasons version (and I liked their added “bridge” to this song).
36) YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU - SANTANA (36) - Great song! One of their best (although I don’t like the fact that it cut out in the middle - sounds like WUEZ is up to their old tricks again (then again, no; at least they’re not repeating the same segment twice - knock on wood) ).
35) ON THE RADIO - DONNA SUMMER (debut) - Great song! Casey mentioned that in 1979, there was only one week that Donna Summer wasn’t on the chart. That would be January 13 - “MacArthur Park” fell out of the Top 40 and “Heaven Knows” was just debuting on the Hot 100 - and just barely made it to the Top 40 the following week.
34) DO YOU LOVE WHAT YOU FEEL - RUFUS & CHAKA KHAN (40) - It’s okies, but nothing special - typical late-70s R&B dance music.
AT40 ARCHIVES: NEW KID IN TOWN - THE EAGLES - Great song! Not sure what my favorite song from Hotel California would be - it’s pretty much a toss-up between this one and the title track (which I heard at I-Hop the other day).
OPTIONAL EXTRA: TOO HOT - KOOL & THE GANG - Great song! One of their best, and possibly my favorite of their upbeat songs.
33) VOICES - CHEAP TRICK (37) - Great song! Sounds a little like something that the Beatles would do. Too bad they cut out the second verse
32) COOL CHANGE - LITTLE RIVER BAND (10) - Wow, what a big drop! This was a great song, one of my favorite songs by them. Right up there with “Lady”, “Take It Easy On Me” and “We Two”.
31) SEPTEMBER MORN - NEIL DIAMOND (39) - Wow, Casey’s a little off with his math this week - he said that this song was up nine places. Well, anyway, this is a pretty good song, but not quite my favorite song from Diamond.
LONG DISTANCE DEDICATION: STILL THE ONE - ORLEANS - Great song; definitely one of their best. Kind of appropriate for the dedication, only the author hadn’t seen the people that inspired the dedication for years.
30) ROTATION - HERB ALPERT (30) - Good song, but not quite as good as “Rise”.
29) FOREVER MINE - THE O’JAYS (33) - Good song; your typical late-70s R&B slow jam.
28) JANE - JEFFERSON STARSHIP (14) - Good song, though the intro of the song is somewhat misleading - when I first heard it, I thought it was going to be a ballad, but, in fact, it actually rocks out.
27) WHY ME - STYX (32) - Good song, but I prefer several others by them.
26) FOOL IN THE RAIN - LED ZEPPELIN (31) - Good song.
25) LONGER - DAN FOGELBERG (35) - Great song! One of his best!
24) AN AMERICAN DREAM - DIRT BAND (FEATURING LINDA RONSTADT) - Great song! Possibly my favorite by them!
AT40 ARCHIVES: LOVE THEME FROM A STAR IS BORN (EVERGREEN) - BARBRA STREISAND - Great song! Dave Koz’s “Faces Of The Heart” (a minor AC hit from 1994) sounds a little like an instrumental version of this.
OPTIONAL EXTRA: 99 - TOTO - Great song! One of their best! Kind of odd for an extra choice, as the song only got as high as #26.
23) THIRD TIME LUCKY - FOGHAT (26) - Good song, though I’m not a big fan of Foghat.
22) DAYDREAM BELIEVER - ANNE MURRAY (28) - Great song! I actually prefer this to the original version by the Monkees.
21) ROMEO’S TUNE - STEVE FORBERT (25) - This was his only Top 40 hit, but it was a great one!
20) PLEASE DON’T GO - KC & THE SUNSHINE BAND (9) - No. Just no.
19) DON’T LET GO - ISAAC HAYES (20) - This song was OK, but nothing special.
18) WAIT FOR ME - DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES (19) - Great song!
17) DEJA VU - DIONNE WARWICK (21) - Great song. She’s had a few better, though.
16) YES I’M READY - TERI DeSARIO & KC (24) - Good song - I like this much better than KC’s whinefest back at #20.
15) THIS IS IT - KENNY LOGGINS (16) - Good song, but far from being his best. This song showed tenacity, though - it never quite made it to the Top Ten, yet managed to log sixteen weeks in the Top 40.
14) DON’T DO ME LIKE THAT - TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS (17) - Great song! One of my favorites by them!
13) LADIES’ NIGHT - KOOL & THE GANG (8) - This song was OK, but not quite their best.
12) BETTER LOVE NEXT TIME - DR. HOOK (12) - Great song! Definitely my favorite song by them! Like the Kenny Loggins’ song, this song spent an unusually long time on the chart for a song that didn’t quite hit the Top Ten (though it spent two less weeks in the Top 40 than “This Is It”). It ranked around the mid-point on the year-end survey.
AT40 ARCHIVES: RICH GIRL - DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES - Great song! This one seemed to have been edited out of the show - at least my station didn’t play it.
OPTIONAL EXTRA: ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL - PINK FLOYD - Good song. If you listen real carefully, at the very end, you can hear the beginning of the part at the end where the teachers are screaming at the kids.
11) I WANNA BE YOUR LOVER - PRINCE (13) - Good song - the very first song by Prince that most people had heard (as his 1978 song “Soft And Wet” only peaked at #92).
10) SARA - FLEETWOOD MAC (15) - Great song! One of my favorite songs by them!
9) THE LONG RUN - THE EAGLES (11) - Good song, but The Long Run was definitely not one of their high points (although I did like the album cut “The Sad Cafe”.
LONG DISTANCE DEDICATION: NEVER MY LOVE - THE ASSOCIATION - Good song, but I prefer Blue Swede’s remake of this song from the mid-70s.
8) CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE - QUEEN (18) - Good song, obviously Elvis-inspired.
7) WE DON’T TALK ANYMORE - CLIFF RICHARD (7) - Good song, although I prefer a few of his other songs, such as “A Little In Love” from about a year later.
6) SEND ONE YOUR LOVE - STEVIE WONDER (5) - Great song! Has sort of a hypnotic effect.
5) CRUISIN’ - SMOKEY ROBINSON (6) - Good song, but not quite my favorite from him. Not sure if I prefer this or the Huey Lewis/Gwyneth Paltrow remake a few years later.
4) ESCAPE (THE PINA COLADA SONG) - RUPERT HOLMES (3) - Good song
3) COWARD OF THE COUNTY - KENNY ROGERS (4) - Great song! One of my favorite story songs of all-time. Casey mentioned that Kenny had never quite hit #1 on the pop chart. If only he knew what would happen in November...
OPTIONAL EXTRA: REFUGEE - TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS - Earlier, I mentioned that “Don’t Do Me Like That” was one of my favorites from Tom Petty. Well, so is this song - in fact, I like it a tad better.
2) DO THAT TO ME ONE MORE TIME - THE CAPTAIN & TENNILLE (2) - Great song! My absolute favorite from them!
1) ROCK WITH YOU - MICHAEL JACKSON (1) - Good song - my second favorite Off The Wall single behind “She’s Out Of My Life”.
Predictions for next week: A few people have predicted 1981 or 1987 for next week. I’ll go with January 31, 1981 for next week’s show, with January 31, 1987 as my back-up prediction. For the past three years, they seemed to waste no time getting on a show from 1988, but I expect we won’t be hearing a show from that year until sometime in February - that’s a possible prediction for two weeks from now.