In honor of the Republican debates--which I managed to miss tonight because 1) I don't have a TV, 2) I spent the evening grading papers, and 3) frankly, I'd rather drink Drano--I thought it would be appropriate to take a look back at the week that the icon of the GOP, Ronald Reagan, took office.

Reagan came on as a very strong candidate and personality (Carter, for all his achievements since leaving the White House, has admitted he was a weak president.) After 10-plus years of unrest following Vietnam, Nixon, inflation, the Ford and Carter years, and disco ( ), Reagan promised a return to a strong, proud America. Whether or not he succeeded depends on who you ask, but it's insightful to take a look back at the songs which were popular during the week the country boldly shifted back to Conservatism.

40. GAMES PEOPLE PLAY, Alan Parsons Project
39. MY MOTHER'S EYES, Bette Midler
38. I NEED YOUR LOVIN', Teena Marie
37. CRYING, Don McLean
36. SMOKEY MOUNTAIN RAIN, Ronnie Milsap
35. HE CAN'T LOVE YOU, Michael Stanley Band
34. A LITTLE IN LOVE, Cliff Richard
33. COLD LOVE, Donna Summer
32. KILLIN' TIME, Susan Anton/Fred Knoblock
31. THE BEST OF TIMES, Styx

30. HEARTBREAK HOTEL, The Jacksons
29. MORE THAN I CAN SAY, Leo Sayer
28. HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT, Pat Benatar
27. WOMAN, John Lennon
26. I AIN'T GONNA STAND FOR IT, Stevie Wonder
25. SEVEN BRIDGES ROAD, The Eagles
24. SUDDENLY, Olivia Newton-John/Cliff Richard
23. KEEP ON LOVIN' YOU, REO Speedwagon
22. TOGETHER, Tierra
21. THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL, ABBA

20. LADY, Kenny Rogers
19. SAME OLD LANG SYNE, Dan Fogelberg
18. 9 TO 5, Dolly Parton
17. MISS SUN, Boz Scaggs
16. GIVIN' IT UP FOR YOUR LOVE, Delbert McClinton
15. TIME IS TIME, Andy Gibb
14. HEY, NINETEEN, Steely Dan
13. TELL IT LIKE IT IS, Heart
12. CELEBRATION, Kool & The Gang
11. I MADE IT THROUGH THE RAIN, Barry Manilow

10. DE DOO DOO DOO, DE DA DA DA, The Police
9. IT'S MY TURN, Diana Ross
8. I LOVE A RAINY NIGHT, Eddie Rabbit
7. PASSION, Rod Stewart
6. EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD, Air Supply
5. HUNGRY HEART, Bruce Springsteen
4. GUILTY, Barbra Streisand/Barry Gibb
3. THE TIDE IS HIGH, Blondie
2. LOVE ON THE ROCKS, Neil Diamond
1. (JUST LIKE) STARTING OVER, John Lennon

That was my first semester of grad school, meaning I won't recognize a whole lot of these without actually listening to them. I do recognize some names I like.


Songs that I can still hear in my head
I Love a Rainy Night
Celebration
9 to 5 (annoyingly so)
Hit Me With Your Best Shot


Susan Anton? Really?

Yeah, really.

I was finishing up my senior year of high school (or what would have been high school; I had enrolled in a GED program), which was a very troubling year for me. AT40 was a release and a bridge into other things, so I have fond memories of nearly all of these songs.

The video is the epitome of goofiness, but I've always liked this infectious number:

I've never seen this video before. It's kind of cool to watch APP in the studio, with Lenny Zakatek on lead vocals:

Huh, this is the first list you've done where nothing caught my attention, HWW.

Maybe this wasn't my month?

Nice to see Ronnie Milsap there.

My favorite has got to be COLD LOVE by Donna Summer, but I like a lot of others here. Don't know several by title.

She was a looker. I'll have to dig up the video, she if she could sing.



Sounds like you were looking for distractions. You know Grad school: intense focus followed by higher octain stress relief.

I DID get my very first big boy record player/speakers at this time and spent the remainder of the money on album jackets that looked good from milk crates at a sidewalk sale. No top 40 stuff but a few "best ofs" and attempts to look eclectic, which were actually my better gets. Alice's Restaurant, Court and Spark, Andy Mackay (Sax in your clip reminded me), Roxy Music, Diamond Dogs, APP "Tales of .... Bach "Musical Offering" by St Martin, which actually had random people from the grad dorm showing up in my room....


I think if I tried, I could remember everything I bought and I think I still have all those albums sitting in the garage.

Duh! "Hungry Heart." Of course I know that one.

For me, the theme here is Songs By Major Artists that:
...I don't know
39. MY MOTHER'S EYES, Bette Midler
33. COLD LOVE, Donna Summer
30. HEARTBREAK HOTEL, The Jacksons
26. I AIN'T GONNA STAND FOR IT, Stevie Wonder

..I know, but didn't recognize the title
25. SEVEN BRIDGES ROAD, The Eagles

...I know, but need help to remember how they go
11. I MADE IT THROUGH THE RAIN, Barry Manilow
9. IT'S MY TURN, Diana Ross
4. GUILTY, Barbra Streisand/Barry Gibb

..I know, but I didn't know these guys had version
37. CRYING, Don McLean
13. TELL IT LIKE IT IS, Heart



Other songs I don't know:
35. HE CAN'T LOVE YOU, Michael Stanley Band
34. A LITTLE IN LOVE, Cliff Richard
32. KILLIN' TIME, Susan Anton/Fred Knoblock
22. TOGETHER, Tierra
17. MISS SUN, Boz Scaggs
15. TIME IS TIME, Andy Gibb


UGH
19. SAME OLD LANG SYNE, Dan Fogelberg

A real hotch-potch of a list. Some stuff I like, some stuff I don't like, some stuff I don't recognize/don't remember, some stuff I'm indifferent to, and some stuff that's been way overplayed.

Here's the ones I know and like:

40. GAMES PEOPLE PLAY, Alan Parsons Project
31. THE BEST OF TIMES, Styx
27. WOMAN, John Lennon
21. THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL, ABBA
20. LADY, Kenny Rogers
19. SAME OLD LANG SYNE, Dan Fogelberg
14. HEY, NINETEEN, Steely Dan
12. CELEBRATION, Kool & The Gang
11. I MADE IT THROUGH THE RAIN, Barry Manilow
9. IT'S MY TURN, Diana Ross
6. EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD, Air Supply
4. GUILTY, Barbra Streisand/Barry Gibb
3. THE TIDE IS HIGH, Blondie
1. (JUST LIKE) STARTING OVER, John Lennon

And here's the ones I can't stand, with added barbs:

28. HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT, Pat Benatar - I admit it would be cruel to make fun of Pat Benatar's overbite, huge eyes, tiny (cocaine casualty?) nose, and non-stop bad hair days, but it's all too easy to do when she recorded pseudo-edgy abuse-exploiting anthems like this one.
13. TELL IT LIKE IT IS, Heart - NO, just NO! Ann Wilson is one of the most bombastic, overrated white girl belters in the world, and this horrible version of a great Aaron Neville song is her worst offense, even worse than Heart's execrable 1990 hit "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You."
10. DE DOO DOO DOO, DE DA DA DA, The Police - And speaking of overrated...Sting writes an inane pop song that pretends to make fun of inanity, and laughs all the way to the bank. UGH!
5. HUNGRY HEART, Bruce Springsteen - Not a bad song, but it should have been recorded by the Ramones as originally intended. For a so-called "friend of the working man", Broooce can seem awfully greedy and calculating.
2. LOVE ON THE ROCKS, Neil Diamond - It's not just that he comes across to me as a pompous, pretentious, self-important, smarmy a**. What really bothers me is that he's adored by a whole generation of psuedo-ironist hipsters. Some of his songs are worse than others, but they're all tainted for me by that blasted hipster cred. YUCK!

Pat Benatar was a feisty rocker in a time when female singers were of the Debbie Harry or Donna Summer varieties. Nothing wrong with either, but Benatar looked and sounded like she could kick ass and mean it. I really like a lot of her early hits, including "Heartbreaker" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." "Love Is a Battlefield" became overplayed and annoying, and her subsequent hits didn't strike much of a chord with me.

I've never been a fan of the Police, but I do like their early songs, as well, including "De Doo Doo Doo." At a time when every other pop song was about how wonderful love is (which is really every pop music era), they dared to record a song that had something meaningful to say about how rhetoric is used to confuse and mislead people. The message is even more relevant today.

Ironically, that message ties in with the Republican debates (which, as I said, I didn't watch) because of the way political speech on both sides is used to distort, fabricate and play to emotions.

Another irony: the song at No. 1 celebrates the joys of "Starting Over," which is how the Republicans must have felt when Reagan won the White House. It's truly ironic that the Beatle who most personified the '60s ethos of questioning authority and doing your own thing should have as the last hit of his lifetime a retro '50s-style song that signaled a "going backwards" of sorts in US politics.

Debbie Harry was the princess of punk! She ate Pat Benatars for breakfast!



Well said. We can only wonder what Lennon would have made of the 1980s had he not been taken away from us one year into that decade.

What about Joan Jett?

Joan Jett was, in my opinion, a mediocre entertainer who inaugurated one of the worst things in music: the sped-up "punky" cover of a cheesy pop song. And I think she couldn't write a decent song to save her life.

Fair enough, Fanfie. I just personally think that The Runaways' music embodied the spirit of punk rock more than Blondie's did.

Debbie Harry is the only one that got a member of Yes fired!

I like the Runaways just fine. Joan on her own, no.

Early Blondie could rock out with the best of them. Later Blondie was equally punk by being willing to experiment with any style. Sure, some were better than others, but at least they tried with sincerity.

Uh? I never heard that story. Tell me more, tell me more.

During Yes's first American tour, she and Tony Kaye apparently hooked up, leading him to stay in New York for a few weeks after the end of the tour, while the rest of the band went back to England to work on their new album. The rest of the band found this a convenient excuse to sack Kaye and replace him with Rick Wakeman.

I hadn't heard that story, either.

Let's see . . . the Yes members I know who were fired or who otherwise left involuntarily would be

Peter Banks . . . apparently didn't get along with the producer and was not as good a player as Steve Howe.

Tony Kaye . . . resisted the evolving musical direction and not as good a player as Rick Wakeman.

Patrick Moraz . . . could not adjust to the British sensibility of making music.

Igor Khoroshev . . . assaulted a female security guard backstage at a concert.

All except Khoroshev predate Blondie's ascent to stardom. Was Igor the unlucky one (though deservedly so) or was it someone else?

LOL

Thanks, EDE.

J'adore rock-and-roll gossip.

Ah, I see you answered the question while I was typing. I'd never heard that version of Kaye's departure before. That would have been in 1971. Was Debbie involved in the music scene then, or was she still a Playboy bunny?

Not much for this one I recognise, even from the bigger acts.

29. MORE THAN I CAN SAY, Leo Sayer
27. WOMAN, John Lennon
21. THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL, ABBA
18. 9 TO 5, Dolly Parton
12. CELEBRATION, Kool & The Gang
10. DE DOO DOO DOO, DE DA DA DA, The Police
3. THE TIDE IS HIGH, Blondie
5. HUNGRY HEART, Bruce Springsteen, although I'd have heard that one after the others. 28. HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT, Pat Benatar would be the same.

There's not too many of those I've listened to a lot. Blondie probably comes out on top. Hungry Heart too, but only because I heard it from someone else a lot.

Debbie's involvement in the music scene actually goes all the way back to about 1968 and some silly pseudo-hippie group she was part of. In the late 90s, she drolly told a VH1 interviewer that, at the time, she was "clueless".

I didn't realize till now that I had actually heard this song before and I really like it! The use of reggae-inspired instruments and melodies is very reminiscent of what ska artists in the 90 would do and I wouldn't be surprised if bands like Sublime or 311 took some inspiration from songs like this!

Blondie was quite an interesting band. They started out as punk, but became stars with the discofied "Heart of Glass." "The Tide is High" and "Rapture" showed they were incredibly versatile.

In their relatively short career, they had four Number One hits--the three mentioned above, and "Call Me," which was also the No. 1 hit of the year in 1980.

Thanks for the info on Debbie.

You're very welcome, He Who. I know quite a bit about her, because I think she's awesome. Still going strong at 70.