80s
This Week In The 80’s: It’s Only Love
This Week In The 80’s: It’s Only Love It’s January of 1986. I’m a sophomore in high school and about six weeks from getting my drivers license. There’s A LOT of great music on the CONTINUE READING…
Music
80s
This Week In The 80’s: The Death of Simon Le Bon Was Greatly Exaggerated. Or Was It?
This Week In The 80’s: The Death of Simon Le Bon Was Greatly Exaggerated. Or Was It? It’s the end of January, 1985. Second semester of my freshman year of high school. Madonna is spending CONTINUE READING…
Columns
This Week In The 80’s: Ground Control To Major Tom.
This Week In The 80’s: Ground Control To Major Tom. It’s 1984. Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney sat near the top of the charts (#2) at the beginning of 1983 and now they sit at CONTINUE READING…
80s
This Week In The 80’s: Toni Basil Sues ‘Em All!
This Week In The 80’s: Toni Basil Sues ‘Em All! It’s 1983. It’s 1983. Men At Work supplant Daryl Hall & John Oates’ “Maneater” in the #1 spot (which has been there for the past CONTINUE READING…
80s
This Week In The 80’s: Olivia Newton-John Gets “Physical”.
This Week In The 80’s: Olivia Newton-John Gets “Physical”. It’s 1982. MTV had only been around for a short five months and was only available in a few markets because conservative cable operators refused to CONTINUE READING…
Music
‘Last Christmas’ by Wham!
When I interviewed the late Deon Estus (former Wham! bassist), I asked him about 1984’s holiday single “Last Christmas.” His response was, “Every artist has to do a Christmas song. It is one of my favorites to this CONTINUE READING…
80s
Two Parodies of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ from the ’80s
“The Twelve Days of Christmas” has always been a favorite Christmas carol for me ever since I heard the Ray Conniff Singers version (originally from 1962) on my parents’ record player as a child. Then John CONTINUE READING…
80s
A Very Special Christmas (1987 album)
Back in 1987, a charity album was released titled A Very Special Christmas. The album featured renditions of Christmas classics by some of the biggest names in music at that time and the proceeds went to Special Olympics. CONTINUE READING…
90s
My Favorite ’90s Music Videos
Music videos have been a part of my life since I was a very young child. The first time I ever saw MTV was at my grandparents’ house in Chicago. I don’t remember watching cable CONTINUE READING…
80s
MTV Nostalgia: Our Memories of Music Television
“Ladies and Gentlemen, rock and roll.” Those were the first words spoken by creator John Lack as Music Television aka MTV launched on Saturday, August 1, 1981, at 12:01 a.m. eastern time. The first images were CONTINUE READING…
80s
The Beginnings of MTV
Before MTV The earliest ancestor of the modern music video was the soundie, a black-and-white 16mm film recording of a musician performing before a live audience. The first soundies appeared in 1940, and all the CONTINUE READING…
80s
Songs from the ’80s with Titles Not in the Lyrics
You can guess the title of most songs just by listening to them. Most songs have the song’s title in the chorus or at least somewhere within the lyrics. But there are a small group CONTINUE READING…
80s
The Underappreciated Voice of Paul Carrack
There were so many tremendous vocalists in the ’80s, but one of the best and most underappreciated is Paul Carrack. You might not immediately recognize the name, but I expect you would recognize his voice. CONTINUE READING…
A1
Favorite Songs With Outdated Pop Culture Lyrics
Music has a way of dating itself. I’m not talking just the instrumentation and production of music although that is probably the easiest way to recognize songs from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, etc. Not very CONTINUE READING…
80s
Songs from the ’80s That Peaked at #2
More often we remember songs that reached #1 on the pop charts. But what about those songs from the ’80s that were good enough to make it to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 but just couldn’t make CONTINUE READING…
