This Week In 1983: May 6th
There’s really no need to talk about who’s sitting at #1, right? Michael Jackson and “Beat It” hold steady in the top spot for yet another week. Hall & Oates as well as Duran Duran and Journey all drop from the top half to the bottom half of the countdown while Culture Club, Styx and Def Leppard continue to climb. Sadly, two songs from this weeks countdown are no longer available on Spotify. The songs are “Welcome To Heartlight” by Kenny Loggins sitting at #24 and “I Couldn’t Say No” by Robert Ellis Orrall and Carlene Carter which debuts at #35. I’ve linked to their videos if you’re interested in checking them out. Trust me when I tell you that the videos are truly hideous. 80’s hideous. Not even joking. Other debuts this week include “She’s a Beauty” by The Tubes and our feature song of the week, “Gimme All Your Lovin'” by the incomparable ZZ Top.
Song Story: “Gimme All Your Lovin'” by ZZ Top
The song is the first single from the Texas trio’s eighth album but their FIRST ever video. Wildly successful on MTV, the video featured three beautiful women who appear in “The Eliminator” (a 1933 Ford Hot Rod owned by band member Billy Gibbons). The band’s next video for “Sharp Dressed Man” featured the same car and beautiful ladies establishing both as iconic images for the band. The video for this song actually helped pay off the car that starred in it. Gibbons estimates that he spent about $250,000 buying and restoring the car, and was deep in debt on the vehicle. By putting the car in the video, it became a business expense, and thus a write-off. The album, “Eliminator”, was also a sonic departure for the band as it’s the first time the band made use of synthesizers.
Interesting side note: one of the girls in the video was Jeana Keough who starred in all four videos featuring the Eliminator. She was Playboy’s Miss November in 1980 and later went on to star in The Real Housewives of Oracle County.
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