The Chronic Curmudgeon

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August 19, 2006

Mudge's Favorite 134 Songs of the 80s: The Last of the Pure Pop

Continuing on... getting down to the real nitty gritty here. And while much of the rest of this list will be on the metallic side (or the hair side), these four happen to be four of the highest purely pop songs left in my Top 134. Yep, there's not a single metal thing about any of these... they might not even have upset your parents. But dammit, I liked 'em anyway. And they happen to have fallen in order, 24 to 21 on this list. So....

24. Missing You, John Waite I can hear the howls of rage from MU Hoop and Tweety already for putting this slice of pure pop in front of AC/DC. But you know what? I just liked this song. A lot. From the reverse psychology chorus ("I ain't missin' you at all" -- even though the song is about how much he misses her) to the really catchy hook, this was just a really well crafted pop song. The whole 'shatter-the-pay-phone-receiver' trick in the video was also pretty cool. Great pop song from 1984, and it reaches #24 on my top 134 list.

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23. The Stroke, Billy Squier This song was about sleazy record company executives. No, really. What did you think it was about? You dirty little cheeky monkeys! Billy Squier's 1981 ode to the jerks and wankers he ran across in the music industry quickly picked up a more onanistic reputation in urban myth -- but whatever you thought it was about, there was no denying that it was a great song. There's a fantastic call-and-respond potential in the chorus; in fact, I would love to do this song with a band, if only for the ability to get a roomful of people to make vulgar hand gestures in public at my direction. But beyond that... the snare brushing to make the drumline sound like the oars moving in time to the call of coxswain Billy (oh stop it, I told you that the song was not about paying attention to your own coxswain!), to the catchy nature of the guitar riff, this is just a great song that's hard (stop it, I said!) not to sing along to. It comes in at number #23 on the countdown.

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22. Victory Line, Limited Warranty. Nope, you've never heard of this song or this band. (For the record, they were a Minneapolis band who won Star Search in 1985.) No one who wasn't within range of Minneapolis-St. Paul radio stations in the spring of 1986 would have ever heard of it. And if you watch/listen to it now, you're almost sure to ask "how did this song ever get in here?"

But our love of songs often comes as much from the memories we associate with them as from the songs themselves. And so it is for me with this song. After Limited Warranty won Star Search and got their record contract, their first album and first single came out in the spring of 1986. While it peaked out somewhere around #80 on the national charts, in Minnesota they were favorite sons who'd won big nationally, and Minneapolis radio played the spit out of this song; you literally could not ever go more than 15 minutes without hearing it on one of the pop stations. Local radio got way behind these guys, and for the spring-summer of 1986 they were as huge back home as Prince or the 'Mats.

And "Victory Line"s run -- April to July 1986 -- happened to coincide with my final two months of high school. There was and is no getting around it; this song was/is my "graduating from high school" song. Those last two months of school, when you're 17 or 18 and about to finish school and join the world, and you're on top of the world and indestructable and everything seems so optimistic and perfect and like you can't wait for the rest of your life to begin because you're going to take on the world and leave it crying uncle... that's the phase I was in when this song was all you could hear on the radio stations in our area. Those are the wonderful, wistful, innocent memories I associate with this song... it takes me back to when I was young, had the best body I'll ever have, had more naive confidence than I will ever have, was on top of the world and had not yet experienced enough of the world to even realize how naive I was. It was the most optimistic time of my life, and that's what this song is for me. Think of your own life, the most optimistic, indestructable, on top of it all time you ever experienced... and the song you associate with it. Don't you think you might overrank that song on your own list because of its association with that time for you?

So yeah... the song's not that great when I listen to it with a fresh ear in 2006. It doesn't matter. This is my graduating from high school song, and because of that it is #22 on my list -- and I don't care whether you've ever heard it or think it's cheesy 80s schlock. The memories and feelings it induces make this one of my all time favorites, and it always will be. Watch the video here.

21. What Does It Take, Honeymoon Suite Two hit wonders (remember "New Girl Now?") from Niagara Falls, Canada, Honeymoon Suite made a permanent entry into my pantheon with this 1985 hit which was huge in Canada (and thus also got significant radio airplay in "south Canada" -- i.e. Minnesota). I make no pretenses herel; it's pure pop. And it's one of my all time favorite examples of pure pop. I think it ended up on the soundtrack for one of the John Cusack movies of the 80s too. I can't think of anything else to write about this song, other than that it is one of my favorite "sing along in the car when you think no one can hear what you have on" songs. It comes in at #21 on this list, and could easily have gone even higher.

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Posted by Christopher on August 19, 2006 07:23 PM

Comments

Posted by: Jennifer at August 19, 2006 09:31 PM

Posted by: Tweetypie at August 19, 2006 09:46 PM

Posted by: Marquette Hoops at August 21, 2006 08:57 PM

Posted by: Curmudgeon at August 21, 2006 10:11 PM