Mixtapes for Hookers

For a variety of reasons–including boredom, the Buffetlibre Rewind thing, and frustration that I don’t have the money to see George Michael this weekend–I’ve decided that now’s as good a time as any to count down my 101 favorite pop hits of the 80’s.

The rules were the same as the ones for the 90’s list I made last winter; in order for a song to qualify–and thus save me much gnashing of teeth and typing fingers about what defines a pop hit–it had to have hit the Top 40 in the US, according to Billboard magazine. This means that, among other songs, I wasn’t allowed to include Inside Outside by the Cover Girls, And She Was by Talking Heads, Games Without Frontiers by Peter Gabriel, and Hole In My Heart (All The Way To China) by Cyndi Lauper; they all narrowly missed the Top 40.

I also disqualified my favorite overwrought ballad of the decade (Whitney Houston’s All At Once) because, oddly, that song was never officially released as a single.

As with the nineties list, I’ll be breaking this up into a kajillion separate posts, so keep checking back. In the meantime, here’s songs 101-91:

101. Human League, (Keep Feeling) Fascination [1983, #8]

One of the nice things about the Human League is that, for all the band’s arty tendencies, they also just sound like a bunch of people who stand around and sing happy songs together. And, as this video demonstrates, they’re even willing to get dressed up for the occasion.

100. Rod Stewart, Young Turks [1981, #5]

Since he’s spent the last decade shitting on the world’s collective ears with endless covers of the Great American Songbook, it’s easy to forget that Rod Stewart actually had a pretty good voice once, and that periodically he even used it to sing a song that wasn’t completely terrible. Like this one.

99. Jermaine Stewart, We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off [1986, #5]

Thanks to a Youtube commenter, I just learned that apparently in 1986 poppers were enjoyed by heterosexual seventeen-year old Jermaine Stewart fans. Also, I’m endlessly amused by this song’s call to classiness, which forbids nudity but does allow for cherry wine. Because that makes sense.

98. Olivia Newton-John, Physical* [1981, #1 - 10 weeks]

Number one for a then record-breaking ten weeks, this surprisingly piffly song also featured a really deranged video where Olivia hung out with muscly dudes and then they left her to go to the shower room together. Kylie Minogue wasn’t the first tiny blonde Australian to go for the homos…

(*expect lots of this sort of Youtube embedding difficulty as the chart goes on…)

97. Donna Summer, This Time I Know It’s For Real [1989, #7]

A surprise comeback for the disco queen in 1989, this sugary song’s actually better than On The Radio or any of her other, now-forgotten hits from earlier in the decade.

96. Love and Rockets, So Alive [1989, #3]

Depeche Mode put out some amazingly sullen pop throughout the decade, but it wasn’t until 1989 that (comparatively) gloomy college rock finally made it to the pop charts. With gothy backup ahhhh’s and mildly raspy vocals, So Alive was dark enough for disaffected teenagers but poppy enough that it wouldn’t scare anybody.

95. Sheena Easton, Morning Train (9 to 5) [1981, #1]

Sounding like one of those Maxine Nightingale-type working women’s anthems but actually extolling the pleasures of being a stay-at-home wife, Sheena Easton’s first American hit was more or less the opposite of the similarly-titled Dolly Parton song from the same year. I can’t help preferring this one, though, though that’s maybe just because it happened to be #1 the week I was born.

94. Starpoint, Object of My Desire [1985, #3]

Can you imagine a man that’s “too much to ask, even for a fantasy?” Or one that’s so amazing he could provoke the “aaahng yaaaaah yaaaah!” exclamation that immediately precedes that line? Just wondering.

93. When In Rome, The Promise [1988, #11]

A song this hopelessly romantic sounds like it could only come from the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, but The Promise didn’t actually appear on film until Napoleon Dynamite sixteen years later. Which is, I now realize, why I was suddenly hearing it again all the time four years ago.

92. REM, The One I Love [1987, #9]

One of only two REM songs to hit the top 40 in the 80s–the other one, oddly, was Stand–The One I Love only really has about four lyrics in it, and one of them is “Fire! Fire!” So I can’t say I blame people that took it for a love song, even though Michael Stipe apparently described it in inverviews as an “incredibly violent” song about using people. Honestly, I’m not sure why it can’t be both, but regardless, I think it’s nice that some people aren’t bitter enough to automatically assume that the word love should have negative connotations.

91. Soft Cell, Tainted Love [1982, #8]

Possibly the most definitive song of the 80’s in America’s cultural consciousness, Tainted Love was actually first a single for Northern Soul singer Gloria Jones in 1964. Later performed by the hopelessly silly Marc Almond, this was to be Soft Cell’s only hit this side of the Atlantic, as our country wasn’t quite ready for Sex Dwarf. Also, it would serve as inspiration for my favorite jeans commercial of the late nineties.