Hi peeps,
When we think 1980’s there are
many things that come to mind. First and foremost Americans had the last great
Commander in Chief of our nation in the late, great Ronald Reagan. For
entertainment purposes, we acknowledge movies like ET, Ghostbusters, Back to
the Future, and of course the Naked Gun as movies as movies that shaped the 80’s.
Popular sitcoms in the 80’s were the Dukes of Hazard, A-Team, The Cosby Show
(um sorry), Family Ties, and Cheers. NFL fans remember the 1980’s as the decade
of the San Francisco 49’ers, while pass-happy offenses were taking over the
game lead by QB’s like Neil Lomax.
But when I think about the
1980’s, one thing stands out more than anything and that was the music. I was
too young to remember Disco but listening later in life, some of it was pretty
good. And the greatest prophetic statement I’ve ever uttered was back in 1989
when I mentioned that Top 40 music was about to get really bad and that’s
exactly what happened! Top music in the 1990’s was absolutely pitiful yet
country music in the 1990’s had its best decade ever. Pop music to this day
with spares like Justin Bieber and Meghan Trainor topping the charts is abysmal,
and the puke on the top 40 charts hasn’t changed ever since the date the
calendar turned to January 1, 1990.
While 80’s music is really
good, I’ve always pondered what year within the decade provided us with the
best music? I’ve decided to lock myself in my laboratory for hours upon hours of
intense research to answer the question. When I was a kid, I used to listen to, and on
occasion, tape with cassette recorder Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. On a recent
business trip to the bayou, I was flipping through the radio channels and came
upon Kasem’s voice once again. Since Top 40 music has been so terrible for
going on 25 years now, I haven’t bothered to attempt to find Kasem’s show. But
then he rattled off that the #17 song of the year was the song from the movie
Arthur, Christopher Cross’ Best that You Can Do. It was at this time where I
felt like Marty McFly and thought perhaps I had gone back in time, not to 1955,
but instead to 1981. Or was it possible that this radio station was playing a
re-run of his famous show? I soon discovered that it was it the latter. It was
a short-time after that I realized that I needed to complete this research, so that
mankind can finally answer the question, once and for all, in what year during
the 1980’s produced the best music?
So the research project was
underway and I reviewed the top 100 songs for each year according to Billboard
magazine. Unfortunately the folks at Billboard are mortal and some very good
songs did make the list of top 100 of its year of release, so those songs were
not included here in my research. I extensively studied every note, chord,
lyric, arpeggio, a total of 1,000 songs in all, to reach my final conclusions
on which year produced the best music from the 1980’s.
Below are the
results of my thorough analysis. I selected the 250 best songs of the decade and
the chart below depicts the results. For example out of the 250 best songs of
the decade, 10 songs were from 1980, 9 songs from 1981, etc. Why 250 you ask? It was an arbitrary number folks. I selected songs that were
really good and after reviewing my analysis, checking it once, checking it
twice, seeing what songs were naughty and nice, my work was complete.
Year
Chart-toppers
1980
|
10
|
1981
|
9
|
1982
|
32
|
1983
|
39
|
1984
|
19
|
1985
|
28
|
1986
|
24
|
1987
|
25
|
1988
|
31
|
1989
|
33
|
250
|
My research provided both some
expected and unexpected results. I did expect both 1980 and 1984 to fall low on
the list and that premise was confirmed. On the flip side, one thing I didn’t
expect was that as the 80’s moved along, more prevalent love songs were
appearing as the best songs of the year. It’s a good thing that I am rugged,
tough manly man, so we have no worries about losing my man card. I also would
have never guessed that the most frequent musician making the top 5 was Gloria
Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine as she has three appearances in the top 5
with two number 1 smashes and one number 2 hit. Lieutenant Horatio Caine would
be impressed. While I don’t like Madonna
one bit, she earned the number 1 song of 1985. The most overrated song of the decade
was clearly from 1988 with George Michael’s Faith as Billboard ranked it as the
#1 song of 1988 and that song was one of the worst songs on the list, and most
ironic as well considering the musician. The most underrated song of the decade
was from 1989 with Sa-fire’s, Thinking of You. The Billboard folks rated it the
#96 song of the year where yours truly decided that it was the #4 song of 1989.
As a special bonus, I also
conducted special bonus research free of charge to you for reading my blog on
the 5 best songs from each year!
1980
1.
Gary Numan- Cars
2.
Styx- Babe
3.
Olivia Newton John- Magic
4.
Michael Jackson- Rock With You
5.
Blondie- Call Me
1981
1.
John Lennon- Woman
2.
Foreigner- Urgent
3.
Christopher Cross- Arthur’s Theme- Best That You
Can Do
4.
Daryl Hall and John Oates- Kiss is On My List
5.
REO Speedwagon- Take it on the Run
1982
1.
Don Henley and Stevie Nicks- Leather and Lace
2.
Jackson Browne- Somebody’s Baby
3.
Rod Stewart- Young Turks
4.
38 Special- Caught Up in You
5.
Earth Wind and Fire- Let’s Groove
1983
1.
Michael Jackson- Beat It
2.
Def Leppard- Photograph
3.
Don Henley- Dirty Laundry
4.
Duran Duran- Hungry Like the Wolf
5.
Toni Basil- Mickey
1984
1.
Cars- Drive
2.
ZZ Top- Legs
3.
Bruce Springsteen- Dancing in the Dark
4.
Scandal- Warrior
5.
Cars- Magic
1985
1.
Madonna- Crazy For You
2.
Glenn Frey- You Belong to the City
3.
Jack Wagner- All I Need
4.
Bruce Springsteen- Born in the USA
5.
Bryan Adams- Run To You
1986
1.
Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine- Bad
Boy
2.
Whitney Houston- Greatest Love of All
3.
Human League- Human
4.
Dionne Warwick- That’s What Friends Are For
5.
Eddie Murphy- Party All the Time
1987
1.
Debbie Gibson- Only In My Dreams
2.
Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine-
Rhythm is Going to Get You
3.
Genesis- In Too Deep
4.
Swing Out Sister- Breakout
5.
Crowded House- Don’t Dream It’s Over
1988
1.
Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine-
Anything For You
2.
Aerosmith- Angel
3.
Val Halen- When It’s Love
4.
Pet Shop Boys- What Have I Done to Deserve This
5.
Rick Astley- Never Gonna Give You Up
1989
1.
Sheriff- When I’m With You
2.
New Kids on the Block- I’ll Be Loving You
Forever
3.
Def Leppard- Armageddon It
4.
Sa-Fire- Thinking of You
5.
Will To Power- Baby, I Love Your Way- Freebird
Without further ado, the #1 song from the 80’s
was from 1989, a song I dedicate to my beautiful wife Julie, from the band Sheriff, When
I’m With You.
YouTube video
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