MTV in the 80s Song of the Day

[bosk1]

So this is how you thank us for bumbing the thread?

[Cool Chris]

I only know one Loverboy song off the top of my head (Turn Me Loose) but I love it. Great driving song.

I missed most of 1983...

Musically, or in general?

[KevShmev]

Tough crowd today. 

Journey - Who's Crying Now?

Technically a ballad, this one doesn't really have that 80s cheese feel to it, at least I don't think so.  Good mellow song, and the outro is absolutely gorgeous.

Better? 

[bosk1]

The Jouney ballads are WAY overplayed, but I will still give an enthusiastic to any pre-Raised On Radio Journey.

[Orbert]

Haha, I see.  If you played four early Loverboy songs, they had to have been The Kid Is Hot Tonite, Turn Me Loose, Working for the Weekend and Lucky Ones.  Yes?

To paraphrase Meat Loaf, two out of four ain't bad.  We did "Lady of the 80's" and, for some reason I never quite understood, we did "Jump" (was that song even a hit?).  It was my idea to seque "Jump" into "Workin' for the Weekend" -- rather than the four strikes, we led in with the synth hook -- and we also did "Lucky Ones".

I missed most of 1983...

Musically, or in general?

In general.  The band broke up, I moved back home and started taking classes again, and I got a job working third shift at a 24-hour campus restaurant.  I worked, I went to school, I slept, in that order.  The seemlingly few hours a day I was awake were spent with my girlfriend, in a perpetual fog induced by too little sleep and too much non-tobacco.  The mid 80's were basically lost years for me.

[BlobVanDam]

Meh. One of my least favourites from the album. It's not bad, but far from one of their better ballads. The guitar work is a highlight, but otherwise it's a bit dull imo.

[Jaq]

Maybe I shouldn't have bumped the thread...

Like a lot of people who liked Loverboy, I tend to think of them as being their first two albums, since the drop off after that was fairly steep. About the only thing I remember about this album was the video for Hot Girls In Love, where a lucky MTV contest winner got to be in the video. If you blinked, you missed it, though, since it was the video for Hot Girls In Love, and the contest was won by an attractive, but overweight young lady. Always felt bad for her.

Who's Crying Now was great, even though with Open Arms on the second side the days of a Journey ballad not being a traditional power ballad were coming to a close. Any song with a lot of Neal Schon soloing at the end gets my vote, though. 

[Orbert]

About the only thing I remember about this album was the video for Hot Girls In Love, where a lucky MTV contest winner got to be in the video. If you blinked, you missed it, though, since it was the video for Hot Girls In Love, and the contest was won by an attractive, but overweight young lady. Always felt bad for her.

Ha, I do remember that. The one shot she was in, she was seated at some kind of control panel. In later versions of the video, she had been edited out and replaced.  It was really kinda pathetic how that all played out.  "Be in a Loverboy video!"  Yeah, for literally two seconds, and only in the version that we play for a few weeks to make the prize seem legit.

[KevShmev]

Maybe I shouldn't have bumped the thread...

 

But I'd like to point out that since this thread is now over a year old, most of what I would consider the best 80s stuff has been covered.  Just saying...

Steve Winwood - Roll with It

I remember this guy having a string of hits in the latter half of the 80s, but I never cared for any of them.  This one was played to death on MTV, and I think it went to number 1 on the pop charts, but no thanks.

[DebraKadabra]

Journey - Who's Crying Now?

MUCH better, Kev.  Who's Crying Now? absolutely SLAYS Open Arms IMO.  Plus, it's aged better.  Great song.

Steve Winwood - Roll with It

Overplayed.

[Jaq]

There is a GALAXY of difference between the young Steve Winwood who sang Gimme Some Lovin and the middle of the road rocker he became in the 80s. A cosmos worth of difference. Sometimes I wish rockers wouldn't age so gracefully. 

[BlobVanDam]

Journey - Who's Crying Now?

MUCH better, Kev.  Who's Crying Now? absolutely SLAYS Open Arms IMO.  Plus, it's aged better.  Great song.

It seems that you and I only agree in DT side. For general music discussion, er not so much, my dear.

[KevShmev]

Stars on 45 - Stars on 45

This disco song is basically a cover/conglomeration of a bunch of early Beatles songs, with a Stars on 45 chorus hook at the beginning and the end.  My parents had this on record, and I listened to it like crazy back then.  I remember when I finally heard a lot of those Beatles songs, I already knew parts of them because of this song.  I suspect hearing Beatles songs in a disco song was nightmarish to a lot of Beatles fans at the time, but for a young kid like me who didn't know any better , it was a good, fun song.  And it went to number 1 here in America, so plenty had to have liked it.

[Jaq]

I think that, blessedly, that decade plus of heavy drinking I did before I quit drinking for good blew my memory of this song right out of my head. Because it sounds like a musical nightmare from the description.

[masterthes]

Eh, it was alright

[Orbert]

Fortunately, this song was from before I was into The Beatles.  I recognized the songs, but was not disgusted and offended as I'm sure I would be today.  "Stars on 45" started something of a mini-trend of these kinds of song mashups which are really quite horrible.  I'd completely forgotten about this until just now, and I hate you for reminding me of their existence.

[KevShmev]

 

Blame Jaq. He bumped this thread and asked for more.

[Orbert]

I think that, blessedly, that decade plus of heavy drinking I did before I quit drinking for good blew my memory of this song right out of my head. Because it sounds like a musical nightmare from the description.

It would seem that no one is happy about this.  I don't even know who I should sue.

[KevShmev]

Heart - Nothin' At All

Another of their smash hits from their 1985 self-titled album, this was probably my favorite from that album back then, and probably still is.  I liked the video, too, as it displayed a fair amount of playful silliness by the Wilson sisters.

[DebraKadabra]

Stars on 45 - Stars on 45

Um...

Heart - Nothin' At All

I vaguely remember this one.  May have to YT it to properly remember (fogey brain).

[bosk1]

Heart - Nothin' At All

Another of their smash hits from their 1985 self-titled album, this was probably my favorite from that album back then, and probably still is.  I liked the video, too, as it displayed a fair amount of playful silliness by the Wilson sisters.

The videos from this album, as well as the songs, all seem to blur together in my mind right now.  It's been so long since I really lisented to them.  But man, that was such a good album.

[KevShmev]

Wow, I can't believe any 80s fan wouldn't know this one offhand, but to each their own, I guess.

[King Postwhore]

Man I've missed a lot.  So, I'd love to help the Wilson Sisters take off and put on dresses.



Not a bad tune.  Catchy.  Saw them on this tour with Cheap Trick.

[KevShmev]

Man I've missed a lot.  So, I'd love to help the Wilson Sisters take off and put on dresses.

 

[KevShmev]

Blondie - Rapture

Others who were big MTV watchers in its earliest days will remember that the channel played the living shit out of this video.  Reading up on it, it apparently was the first rap video ever played on the channel.  Interesting.  I never much cared for it, and listening again now, it still does little for me. 

[Orbert]

I like the main part of the song.  It's got a cool groove.  I've never been a rap fan, but this was a bit different and not too obnoxious, so I was okay with it, especially as it was part of something else.

Also, it took me way too long to notice the link between "Rap" and "Rapture".

[Jaq]

Here's another video by Blondie, along with Heart of Glass, which I first saw on HBO's Video Jukebox. They played the living fuck out of this video, but it wasn't out of any sense of "hey, this is groundbreaking music", more like "hey, they made VIDEOS!"  Rap's certainly come a long way since the start.

[King Postwhore]

When I think of HBO's Video Juke \Box I think of Asia's "Heat Of The Moment"

Like Orbert said, really good groove but now a song I would search on my I-Pod for though it is there.

[bosk1]

LOVED this song back in the day.

[DebraKadabra]

Blondie - Rapture

Others who were big MTV watchers in its earliest days will remember that the channel played the living shit out of this video.  Reading up on it, it apparently was the first rap video ever played on the channel.  Interesting.  I never much cared for it, and listening again now, it still does little for me.

Wow.  Never knew that, especially since The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" was so much more popular back then.

Anyhoo - you couldn't catch me admitting it back then, but this is a pretty damn good song.

[King Postwhore]

Deb, it's so funny that you say,  "you couldn't catch me admitting it back then."  Why were we ever like that?!  Who cares what other people think of the music we listened to but it's so damn true.  I did it as well!

[DebraKadabra]

I know!  It seems so silly now, but back then I guess we placed more importance on our "street cred" with our friends instead of just enjoying good music - regardless of what it is.

[King Postwhore]

I started to break out of that when I bought Iron Maiden--Piece Of Mind and Duran Duran--Rio the same day.


Oh the heckling I got but years later some of them tell me now that Rio is their best album.

[DebraKadabra]

I think it took me a little longer to figure that out, but I got there nonetheless.

[bosk1]

I listened to whatever I felt like listening to, and didn't care too much what other people thought.  But trust me, I had plenty of other issues.