Songs

[akirlu]

The thing that surprised me about the alleged top hits of the year I turned eighteen is how many of them didn't even register on my consciousness. What the hell was I listening to? Well, once I got to college, it was the '70s albums of my dormmates that I had missed, like ELP, and Jean Michele Jarre and Steeleye Span, and early Mannheim Steamroller. For radio it was the early KROQ, then so edgy and obscure that the big name from that era would be Wall of Voodoo. Before I went off to college is was an oddball mix of Stuff -- Talking Heads, Cheap Trick, Gary Numan, Walter-as-she-then-was Carlos, Kraftwerk, Blondie, Split Enz, Ice House, Foreigner, Van Halen, ELO, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Vangelis -- more from albums than radio, which may account for how I out-and-out missed any number of the items on the pop charts.

Stuff I Loved:

4. What I Like About You - Romantics
7. Another Brick In The Wall (part 2) - Pink Floyd
10. Fame - Irene Cara
42. I Don't Like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
47. Call Me - Blondie
51. Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
64. Alabama Getaway - Grateful Dead
65. I Got You - Split Enz
69. Cars - Gary Numan
73. Tired of Toein' The Line - Rocky Burnett
78. Turning Japanese - The Vapors

Stuff I Liked:

1. You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
3. Another One Bites The Dust - Queen
25. Volcano - Jimmy Buffet (but truthfully, only much later -- don't think I noticed at the time)
28. Whip It - Devo
35. Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
36. You May Be Right - Billy Joel
39. The Long Run - Eagles
40. I'm Alright - Kenny Loggins
41. Cocaine - Eric Clapton
43. Dreamer - Supertramp
44. Rock Lobster - B-52s
54. Turn It On Again - Genesis
56. Games Without Frontiers - Peter Gabriel
82. Breakfast In America - Supertramp
83. Lola (Live) - The Kinks


Meh:

2. Theme From New York New York - Frank Sinatra (There has always been something that creeps me out about Sinatra)
6. On The Road Again - Willie Nelson
11. Ladies Night - Kool and the Gang
16. He's So Shy - Pointer Sisters
20. The Rose - Bette Midler
30. Love Stinks - J. Geils Band
31. Cheap Sunglasses - ZZ Top
32. You Better Run - Pat Benatar
33. Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar
45. Against The Wind - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
53. It's Still Rock and Roll To Me - Billy Joel
57. Give Me The Night - George Benson
58. The Spirit Of Radio - Rush
59. Brass In Pocket - Pretenders
60. Train In Vain (Stand By Me) - The Clash
61. Working My Way Back To You (Forgive Me Girl) - The Spinners
77. Money - The Flying Lizards
79. 99 - Toto
80. Private Idaho - B-52s


Hated It:

5. Funkytown - Lipps Incorporated
18. Any Way You Want It - Journey
27. This Is It - Kenny Loggins
29. Lady - Kenny Rogers
34. Misunderstanding - Genesis
52. Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen
71. All Out Of Love - Air Supply
74. Wango Tango - Ted Nugent


Er...Huh?":

8. Master Blaster (Jammin) - Stevie Wonder
9. Rapper's Delight - Sugarhill Gang
12. I'm Coming Out - Diana Ross
13. Love X Love - George Benson
14. Could I Have This Dance - Anne Murray
15. Take Your Time (Do It Right) - S.O.S. Band
17. One In A Million You - Larry Graham
19. Rock With You - Michael Jackson
21. I Wanna Be Your Lover - Prince
22. Upside Down - Diana Ross
23. Off The Wall - Michael Jackson
24. On The Radio - Donna Summer
26. Look What You've Done To Me - Boz Scaggs
37. Do That To Me One More Time - The Captain and Tenille
38. My Heroes have Always Been Cowboys - Willie Nelson
46. Don't Push It Don't Force It - Leon Haywood
48. Remember (Walking In The Sand) - Aerosmith
49. (Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon
50. Feels Like I'm In Love - Kelly Marie
55. Special Lady - Ray Goodman and Brown
62. Angeline - Allman Brothers Band
63. Longer - Dan Fogleberg
66. The Breaks - Kurtis Blow
67. Don't Misunderstand Me - Rossington Collins Band
68. Dirty Water - The Inmates
70. Back Of My Hand (I've Got Your Number) - The Jags
72. Say Goodbye To Little Jo - Steve Forbert
75. Steal Away - Robbie Dupree
76. Clones (We're All) - Alice Cooper
81. Sequel - Harry Chapin (Yes, I've heard it since, but had zero awareness at the time)


All of which goes to show that I'm a sucker for a certain type of hook. Or, possibly, never trust a list from 1980 that includes nothing by the Talking Heads. I mean, "Take Me To the River," FFS. No Tom Petty, either.

Comments

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I think this list helps show me how much radio had changed by then: On bschilli's list (1970), I recognized almost all the songs on the list -- from hearing them on Top 40 radio, which played almost everything but country & western music. Ten years later, I was listening to what was effectively alternative radio, which played all sorts of stuff, including one to three Talking Heads songs each day, but not much Willie Nelson or heavy metal.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

KFML must have died right about that time. I know it was still in existence at some point in 1974, because I recorded Dr. Demento off the air from them that year. They were the heir to KMYR, an underground-type station that perished and was bought out earlier in the decade. Wonderful, eclectic stuff, with stoned announcers who played whatever they felt like and sounded like they were sitting in an easy chair in the same room with you. On Sunday morning, John Dunning did a program of old-time radio shows.

[bedii.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with you that Sinatra's later stuff (with the exception of High Hopes) is creepy. That's probably why I found him so effective in The Manchurian Candidate--his character has been brainwashed and is far, far from normal at the beginning, which fits. His early stuff back when he was a skinny guy from a poor family in Brooklyn works much better for me.

I promise you've heard Could I Have This Dance but it's not surprising you forgot it: it's probably the most forgettable tune Anne Murray ever recorded, which is saying something. And My Heroes have Always Been Cowboys would never have gone anywhere on Country stations let alone anywhere else if it had been recorded by anyone else but Willie Nelson--he picked that horse up and carried it around the track and over the finish line on the goodwill of the listening public: there was nothing special in the lyrics or the tune.

Ever since I attended Psych. 210, Human Sexuality, I have loathed the Kenny Rodgers hit Ruby because the prof let the TA, who was in a wheelchair, do the sections on sex and the physically disabled and she went over how vile it was line by line. It may be more vile than The Sloop John B. was before the Beach Boys reworked it. Compared to those two, Pat Boone's final #1 hit Speedy Gonzales is a nursery rhyme and should be played daily.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm not clear about what is alleged to have been vile about The Sloop John B.. As I understand it, the lyric changes the Beachboys made were very small compared to the versions performed by the Kingston Trio, or the Weavers before them, which in turn do not seem to have changed from those recorded by Carl Sandburg. So, what gives?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I don't think I thought of them as underground at the time, but KFAT out of Gilroy was way out there on the weirdo, granola-powered, furry-freak inspired folk-country-roots spectrum back in the late '70s. Staples of that era included Peter Rowan's "Free Mexican Air Force," and Kinky Friedman's "They Don't Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore," and Rosalie Sorrel's "Hostile Baby-Rocking Song." Around the same time I was an avid fan of Book Time with Dick Estell. How I first got hooked on the humor books of Patrick McManus was being read them by Dick Estell.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think popular radio has been fragmenting into submarkets for decades. What I listened to in the 1980s wasn't called alternative at the time, and eventually it became a temporarily dominant niche market, but it certainly had diverged from mainstream pop already.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I think I've heard of KFAT. Not sure -- I think someone sent me a tape of some of it once.

KFML would mix genres in their sets. I first heard a cut from "A Little Touch of Shmilsson In The Night" there. They also played Firesign Theatre. I first heard them on KMYR, probably when there was only one album out. The next album I heard first on KFML. After the third album, I started buying them myself, sometimes before the station played them, but I heard everything through "Giant Rat of Sumatra" played on KFML anyway. I also have a Proctor & Bergman show, broadcast live from Ebbet's Field (in Boulder), thanks to KFML. They had P&B in the station before the concert, chatting with a DJ or two. One of them coughed and remarked that he was suffering from a rare tropical disease. A minute later, an announcer coughed and Proctor said, "I see you have the same disease!" A light bulb went off in my head.

[bedii.livejournal.com]

The early written versions I've seen were "Negro" dialect versions that just did not age well--the early Tex Avery cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny with a "mushmouth" black hunter instead of Elmer Fudd came to mind. "Vile" is probably overreacting on my part, but I just didn't like those versions when I read them.

Ruby, on the other hand, manages to hit every cliche and stereotype about someone with spinal cord disabilities having no sex life and spending the rest of their life as a lump in a chair. Without going into details, it's pretty damn clear that the composer never talked to anyone with experience in the area.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Or maybe Ruby just wasn't willing to adjust. The lyrics talk about her age, maybe she'd rather be with someone else who could have sex in a more traditional way.