December 17, 2024 • 63 mins
This week we're sharing an episode from one of Slate's podcasts called Hit Parade. A decade ago, Rolling Stone magazine called 1984 “Pop’s Greatest Year.” A bold statement…but a lot of critics agree. A confluence of factors—the comeback of dance music, the peak of MTV, the Second British Invasion and the emergence of metal and hip-hop—made the radio a great place to be.
Join Chris Molanphy in this episode of Slate's Hit Parade as he dissects eight reasons why 1984 was awesome for pop fans and walks through all 20 of the year’s No. 1 hits: from “Jump” to “Hello,” “Karma Chameleon” to “Caribbean Queen,” “Let’s Go Crazy” to “Like a Virgin.”
You can listen and subscribe to the Hit Parade podcast on your favorite podcast player.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey there, it's justin Richmond. I want to take a
moment to share a podcast with you that I think
you'll enjoy. It's called Hit Parade, a show from Slate
about chart topping hits and what makes a song a smash.
It's hosted by pop chart analyst and our friend Chris Malanfi.
Twice a month, Chris tells tales from more than half
a century of pop chart history through storytelling, trivia, and
(00:42):
song snippets. Peters Sex how artists you love or hate
dominated the airwaves and shaped your memories forever. Today, we're
sharing one of our favorite episodes with you, What's nineteen
eighty four got to do with It? Edition. In the episode,
christ Dice Sex eight reasons why nineteen eighty four was
awesome for pop fans and walks us through all twenty
years of the year's number one hits, from Jump to
(01:04):
Hello karm a Chameleon to Caribbean Queen, Let's Go Crazy
to Like a Virgin. And when you're done listening to
this episode, make sure to go check out part two
on Hip Parade's feed and go give the show a
follow so you never miss another one.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Now here's Chris.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Hello, Broken Record fans. Chris Molanfi here. I'm so excited
to share with you one of hip Parade's most popular
episodes from the last few months, our exploration of what critics,
chart fans, and pundits call the greatest year in pop
nineteen eighty four. What you're about to hear is part
(01:40):
one of the episode, in which I run down all
of the factors that made nineteen eighty four an exceptional year,
from dance music to the Second British Invasion to hair
metal and hip hop. And there's a whole lot more
in part two, where we walk through all twenty of
the number one hits from nineteen eighty four. So when
(02:03):
you're done listening to Part one, make sure to find
Hip Parade wherever you listen to podcasts and continue the
story with Part two. Okay, let's get in the time machine,
hairspray our bangs, put on some legwarmers, and head back
to the year when doves cried, feet were loose, and
girls just wanted to have fun nineteen eighty four. Welcome
(02:38):
to hip Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from
Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast I'm
Chris molanfy chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's
Why Is This Song? Number One series on Today's Show
forty years ago this week, this was the number one
song in America, an improbable comeback by a regal, statuesque
(03:03):
singer who'd fought hard to return to the center of
the pop conversation. For the woman who came to be
known as the Queen of rock and roll, the late
summer of eighty four gave her the first and only
Hot one hundred chart topper of her career, Tina Turner
(03:23):
with What's Love Got to Do With It?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Love to Do It?
Speaker 5 (03:33):
By the Hot Man hog at Me Brother.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Here's a question you maybe haven't considered in all the
dozens of times you've probably heard What's Love Got to
Do With It? What is this song? How would you
classify it? Given Tina Turner's background, you might call it
rhythm and blues, but Turner preferred to call herself a
(04:00):
rock singer. Critics note that the songs versus have the
lilts of reggae or calypso music, but by the way
way it was first offered to and recorded by a
white British New wave band. We'll get to them later.
Tina's recording charted on Billboard's Pop, R and B, Rock, Dance,
(04:22):
and Adult Contemporary charts. Basically, this is a song for everyone.
I would call What's Love Got to Do With It?
(04:45):
Nineteen eighty four music. It represents everything that made that
year of pop legendary. The hits of nineteen eighty four
were admirably hard to classify. Bands from the world of
(05:15):
rock were playing with dance music, funk, even synthesizers job job,
while artists who were classified as R and B were
rocking harder than ever. Veteran acts who had been around
(05:49):
for a decade or more were, like Tina Turner, trying
new tricks, and a new generation of upstarts were upsetting
the status quo. Sleek dance music was back, even though
(06:26):
we didn't call it disco anymore. A new wave of
(06:46):
teen pin ups were grabbing for pop's brass ring bye Bye,
and of course, thanks to the dominance of MTV, videos
(07:07):
made the charts more colorful than ever. Ben Today, on
Hip Parade, we will travel back four decades to a
year that's been called the greatest in chart history. What
(07:28):
made nineteen eighty four so exceptional. Why did rockers and rappers,
punks and popsters, divas and dream boats all produce some
of their best work? And why forty years later are
we still missing that moment?
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Another break down this long distance Lines and Nights.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
It was a time when some of the most innovative
music wasn't the province of hipster's crew or crate diggers.
It was power rotated on the radio, like, for example,
the top hit of the year.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
This is what.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Wine doves crime.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
And that's where your hit parade marches today. The week
ending August fourth, nineteen eighty four, when Princes When Doves
Cry was in its fifth and final week at number
one on the Hot one hundred, on its way to
being named Billboard's top hit of the year. It's rare
(08:46):
that any year's biggest hit is also its best, but
that's the kind of year nineteen eighty four was still
the gold standard for chart fans four decades later. So
join me as we recall a time when rain was purple,
feet were loose, the reflex was a lonely child, and
(09:08):
girls just wanted to have fun. Stick around.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
We'll be right back with more from this episode of
Hit Parade.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
After the break, We're back with hit Parade.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
This is Canadian pop star Corey Hart with Sunglasses at Night,
a number seven hit in the summer of nineteen eighty four.
In September of twenty fourteen, thirty years after this song
was a hit, and ten years ago this month, Rolling
Stone magazine ran a special commemorative feature ranking of the
(10:10):
one hundred best singles of nineteen eighty four, and Sunglasses
at Night was the song they ranked in one hundredth place,
which is about right. Corey Heart's American breakthrough single isn't
the most devastatingly brilliant hit of eighty four, but it's
a bop and it is of its time, a very cheeky,
(10:34):
kitchy and melodramatic synthpop jam. Maybe all that said, Sunglasses
(10:56):
at Night still gets played on classic hits radio stations
to this day and has racked up more than one
hundred and thirty two million streams on Spotify. And this
is the nineteen eighty four hit that Rolling Stone ranked last.
It should also be noted that the magazine hasn't done
(11:17):
similar commemorative countdowns for other years of pop. In fact,
when they published their twenty fourteen feature, Rolling Stone boldly
titled the Countdown one hundred best singles of nineteen eighty
four Pop's greatest year?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Is that?
Speaker 4 (11:50):
By the way, here's the song they ranked all the
way up at number two, Madonna's Borderline. Bet you've heard
that one on the radio recently too. Rolling Stone's countdown
is a great read, we'll link to it on the
Hit Parade show page, and a good argument starter. The
biggest argument might be over that title pop's greatest year?
(12:16):
Aren't there other candidates? By the way, three years ago,
on this very podcast, we at Hip Parade made the
case for the music of nineteen seventy one, a year
of greatness from Janice Joplin, The Stones, sly Stone, Rod
Stewart and Carol King.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
And It's.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
It's to Night?
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Do we really jatindergain?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
To be clear, rolling Stone called nineteen eighty four pop's
greatest year, not rock's greatest, R and B or rap's greatest. This,
I think is defensible. As I said at the top
of our show, nineteen eighty four was a big year
for pop as a centralizing force. Rock plus R and
(13:10):
B plus dance plus country plus hip hop all found
a place on the radio in eighty four, and nineteen
eighty four was an unbeatable year for the pop single,
So naturally, chart nerds like your hip parade host hold
it in a high esteem.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Let the music play. It moves from thirteen to ten
in our countdown of the forty biggest, Shannon at number nine,
here's Cindy Lauper with girls just want to have fun.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
When you look.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
I'll just cop to it as someone born in nineteen
seventy one who became a teenager in nineteen eighty four,
my bias is undeniable when it comes to both of
those years. So of course I think nineteen eighty four
was a great year for pop. But before I provide
(14:15):
more objective reasons why it might not just be me
and the staff of Rolling Stone claiming this, there's one
more debate we need to address that does often come
up in these pop nerd discussions. Was nineteen eighty four
the great year? Or was it actually nineteen eighty three?
(14:39):
That's the beasts. In a recent installment of his online column,
radio consultant Sean Ross pulled programmers, critics, and chart fans
over whether they preferred the hits of nineteen eighty three
(15:01):
or eighty four. Ross took it as a given that
this two year duopoly was the high water mark of
Contemporary Hits Radio or CCHR by just under a two
to one margin. Ross's police preferred nineteen eighty four, but
there was a strong eighty three contingent.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Sweet Teams as.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I could just as easily have done this episode about
eighty three. It really was an amazing year, the moment
when the second British invasion took hold, with Duran, Duran, Eurhythmics,
Culture Clubs, Spandau Ballet, Madness, Edie Grant and Dexy's Midnight
Runners all scoring their first American hits, major chart comebacks
(15:57):
for Donna, Summer Marvin Gay, Elton John and David Bowie
put on Red, the peak year for Michael Jackson's streak
of hits from Thriller, a late nineteen eighty two album
(16:19):
that totally dominated eighty three, as well as the pop
breakthrough of Prince. What made nineteen eighty three exciting was
the upsurge before the cultural wave crested. The truth is
(16:44):
a lot of the nineteen eighty four music we'll discuss
in this episode was actually released in eighty three. Big
eighty four hits by Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Lionel Ritchie, Duran, Duran,
the Pointer Sisters, yes Zz Top and Billy Idol, among
many others, emerged from the cauldron of eighty three. So
(17:17):
in a way, you can think of nineteen eighty four
on the charts as at least two years rolled into one.
The movements that were bubbling up earlier in the decade
finally coalesced. As I argued in our nineteen seventy one
episode of Hip Parade. Seventy one was when the music
(17:38):
of the sixties came into full artistic fruition. Similarly, the
innovations of nineteen eighty two and eighty three bloomed into
full flower in nineteen eighty four. So I'm now going
to run down a list of eight reasons why nineteen
(17:59):
eighty four ruled, and the first reason will take us
back before nineteen eighty three or eighty two. In fact,
we need to go back to just before the eighties began.
Reason one for the awesomeness of nineteen eighty four overcoming
(18:19):
the disco backlash, as we have discussed in several prior
Hit Parade episodes, nineteen seventy nine was a turning point
(18:40):
for dance music on the charts and in the popular consciousness.
In the wake of Chicago's menacing Disco Demolition Night in
July of seventy nine, disco became a dirty word. The
(19:06):
music did not actually die. Disco acts like Donna Summer
and production teams like Sheikh's, Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards
continued to score hits into the nineteen eighties, but a
backlash to the culture of disco turned the charts away
from anything perceived as to dance oriented or black derived.
(19:31):
In the first few years of the nineteen eighties, the
hit parade pivoted toward light balladarie, country crossover, and yacht rock,
(20:12):
but by nineteen eighty two and eighty three, as new
wave synthpop began emerging on the charts, the sound of
this so called new pop was essentially disco in another guise, like,
for example, ABC's top twenty hit The Look of Love
(20:33):
Looks and the overwhelming chart success of Michael Jackson provided
a new model for black music that drew from disco
production styles but felt more modern. By late eighty three
(21:06):
and early eighty four, dance music, which is what we
called it. Then pop fans were careful never to say
the other five letter D word was doing better on
the charts than it had since nineteen seventy nine. Sleek
club styles were finding their place on the radio, like
(21:27):
the electro dance music of the Pointer Sisters.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
The.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Explosive freestyle of Shannon, and of course, the nuveaux postdisco
of a newcomer named Madonna. All discussions of what made
(22:14):
nineteen eighty four great have to start with the disco
backlash and the comeback from the backlash, because this informs
virtually everything that brought pop music back to life, even
if no one was saying the word disco, dance, music, production, tropes,
(22:35):
and black informed styles were infecting all manner of hit music,
not just club music or R and B, but also
straight up rock like zz Top UK, synthpop like Bronski Beat,
(23:14):
and even metal. This nineteen eighty four Motley Crue hit,
their second single ever to make the hot one hundred
is basically disco slowed down and rocked up. To all
(23:38):
of this. Erzat's disco from Madonna to Motley Crue came
packaged with glossy music videos which brings us to another
development that happened a few years before nineteen eighty four,
that reached its apotheosis that year. Reason two for the
awesomeness of nineteen eighty four. The peak of first wave MTV.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Is Holy mo, it's not funny.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
You was scared? Weren't here? Oh Listen't that scared?
Speaker 4 (24:19):
This is scared, you could say. Nineteen eighty four kicked
off in spirit on December tewod nineteen eighty three, when
Michael Jackson's cinematic thriller video, directed by John Landis and
(24:40):
modeled after his horror film and American Werewolf in London,
premiered on MTV. Jackson's clip gave the fledgling video channel,
which had launched just two years earlier, its highest ratings ever.
Jackson and MTV were good to each other. When Thriller
(25:02):
the Song was issued as a single in January nineteen
eighty four, a full fourteen month after Thriller the Album
came out, It became the LP's record seventh top ten single,
peaking at number four on the Hot one hundred in
March of eighty four.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
That's not.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
You can divide early MTV history into before Michael Jackson
and after Michael Jackson. Legend has it that the channel
largely refused to play videos by black artists before CBS
Records threatened to withhold all of their videos unless MTV
(26:00):
played Jackson's early nineteen eighty three hit Billy Jean. By
nineteen eighty four, MTV was regularly rotating clips by Jackson, Prince,
Donna Summer, and Lionel Richie Oh. But MTV was also
(26:27):
reinventing rock bands that had been around four years as
video stars. The Cars, the Boston new wave rockers who
released their debut album back in nineteen seventy eight, were
rebooted in nineteen eighty four by their shimmering pop album
Heartbeat City and its string of kitchy videos. Their special
(26:50):
effects heavy clip for You Might Think Not only made
that song a top ten hit, the video upset Michael
Jackson's Thriller for Video of the Year at the first
MTV Video Music Awards.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
When the phrase.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Similarly, Huey Lewis and the News, a San Francisco band
that had been around since nineteen seventy nine, played a
brand of unpretentious barroom rock and roll. Nothing about the
band was hip, Indeed, These were the guys who years
later recorded a song called Hip to Be Square. But
(27:45):
for their LP Sports, the telegenic Huey Lewis and his
band recorded a string of high concept, comical and plot
heavy videos. They and they were rewarded with four straight
(28:16):
top ten singles on the Hot one hundred, Heart and Soul,
I Want a New Drug, the Heart of Rock and Roll,
and if This is It.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
The Never, If This is It.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
It.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
By the time If This Is It cracked the Hot
one hundred in the summer of eighty four, the Sports
LP had topped the Billboard album chart and sold five
million copies. Videos transformed Huey Lewis's career, and they arguably
spurred rock acts of all kinds to up their game
(28:59):
to make songs worthy of video treatment. Of course, the
bands that had benefited the most from the rise of
the music video in America were British New Romantic and
New Wave bands, who, starting in nineteen eighty two and
eighty three, went from curios in America to video superstars.
(29:30):
By nineteen eighty four, these bands, led by video demigods
Duran Duran, were also chart conquerors in America. As the
year began The band's Union of the Snake was lodged
in the top three on the Hot one hundred. But
what made eighty four doubly exciting was that not only
(29:52):
were these UK acts still innovating, the US acts had
been taking notes. Reason three for the awesomeness of nineteen
eighty four, the second British invasion and America catching up.
As we discussed in our British Invasions episode of Hit Parade.
(30:13):
By the spring of eighty four, forty percent of the
Hot one hundred was British acts, fueled in America by MTV.
The UK's post punk, new romantic and synthpop movements redefined
the cutting edge of cool, as personified by acts like
synth soul duo Eurythmics. Here they are with their ghostly
(30:35):
number four hit here comes the Rain Again.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
Comes flying on my head like a memory flying on
my head, you emotion.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Now, just for comparison, here's another number four hit from
just a couple of months later, American Laura Brannigan with
her ghostly synthpop hit self Control. It's not a copy
of Eurythmics or really any specific act. In fact, it's
a cover of an Italian pop song, but you might
(31:14):
say that Team Brannigan was taking notes on British new
wave can Take. Or further down the chart that same summer,
here's a top twenty hit from British duo Wang Chung
(31:36):
their lush technopop bop dancehall Days, which doesn't sound far
removed from this top twenty hit from a few months earlier,
(31:56):
Ray Parker Junior's lush techno pop ballad I just can't
get over loving you.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
When I do your name.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I give.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Does I do.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Loving you?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I can't?
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Or a few spots further down the chart, here's British
progressive rock veterans Yes with their quirky Cacoffinus electro rock
track Leave It, a number twenty four hit in the
spring of eighty four. About six months later, here's a
(32:41):
number twenty three hit by American guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, veteran
of Fleetwood Mac, with his quirky Cacoffinus electra rocker Go Insane.
So say, in short, let's call this positive Transatlantic peer pressure.
(33:07):
Three years of British acts setting the bar for hip,
smart mass appeal pop had rubbed off on the Yanks.
Everybody was bringing their a game. So by nineteen eighty four,
it had become expected that a British blue eyed soul
group like Culture Club would blend guitars, synthesizers and clattery
(33:29):
sound effects on a hit like miss Me Blonde.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
You miss Me and miss Me and miss Me Blood.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
You Miss Me.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
But the same week that song was climbing into the
top ten. Right next to it were Americans Daryl Hall
and John Oates with their own blend of guitars, synths
and clatter. Adult Education and the Ruboffs weren't just happening
(34:09):
across borders. They were happening across genres. Reason four for
the awesomeness of nineteen eighty four. Everybody was crossing over.
Let's play a little name that tune. Here's the intro
to a song that broke on the Hot one hundred
in December nineteen eighty four. It would eventually peak at
(34:32):
number two. Who's the artist? Sounds like moody new wave
guitar rock. Is it Duran, Duran? The Police Tears for Fears. Nope,
(34:53):
it's R and B singer Billy Oshan with Loverboy the
a song that, by the way, was co written and
(35:16):
co produced by famed rock producer Robert John mutt Lang,
who'd also produced hits earlier in eighty four for The
Cars and def Leppard. Let's play again? Whose dance floor breakdown?
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Is?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
This?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Sounds like hard electro funk club music, right, So who
is this? Chic the Gap band Rick James Guess again,
it's British punk turned pop star Billy Idol. With his
Fall eighty four hit Flesh for Fantasy. It made the
top thirty not only on the Hot one hundred, but
(36:08):
also Billboards Rock Tracks and dance disco chartssh rash. At
a time when popular music was coming out of a
(36:30):
very segregated period in the seventies and early eighties, with
rock and R and B and disco staying in separate lanes,
the hits of nineteen eighty four were all over the
genre map. Virtually no one was staying in their lane,
whether it was Lionel Ritchie who wrote and recorded a
(36:51):
straight up country song called Stuck on You that made
the pop and R and B Top ten and even
the country charts Top twenty five, an unprecedented chart crossover
at the time.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
Yeah, the feeding down, deep and massole. Then I just
came use guess.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
A mon.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Or Pat Benattar. She'd spent years building a reputation as
the leading woman on album rock radio. She kicked off
nineteen eighty four with a post disco club rock hybrid
whose video featured Benatar leading a troop of dancers in
a syncopated shimmy. The number five hit Love is a Battlefield.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
That is a bed.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Or Bruce Springsteen, who, as we discussed in our Springsteen
episode of Hit Parade, wrote cover me for disco Queen
Donna summer. Bruce wound up keeping it for himself, but
maintained its torchy millow dry. The florid operatic rock song
was a number seven hit for Springsteen and the East
(38:15):
Street Band in the fall of eighty four. There were
also improbable team ups. A year after Michael Jackson topped
(38:35):
the charts with guitarist Eddie Van Halen on Beat It,
his brothers The Jacksons upped the ante by teaming with
the Stones, Mick Jagger, Mick and Michael Yowled over a
hard guitar riff on the number three summer eighty four
hit State of Shock, and Phil Collins, who'd been adding
(39:13):
Earthwind and Fire's horn section to his tracks for years.
He finally returned the favor by teaming up with E
WF singer Philip Bailey. Their duet Easy Lover, which exploded
with collins booming rock drums and Bailey's fluttery soul vocals,
went to number two on the Hot one hundred, number
(39:35):
three R and B, and number five on the Album
Rock chart. And I haven't even mentioned Prince, whose guitar,
(39:59):
vocals and very persona obliterated genre boundaries all over nineteen
eighty four. We'll talk more about him a little later.
(40:26):
In the twenty first century, genres increasingly seem like quaint
relics of a bygone time, and artists record in whatever
idiom they like, from Lil naz X to Steve Lacy
Taylor Swift to Post Malone, Beyonce to Shaboozi.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
But in the.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Eighties, this kind of promiscuous genre mixing was revolutionary, and
nineteen eighty four was ground zero for all of it.
(41:06):
More in a moment.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
After the break, we'll be back with the conclusion of
part one of what's nineteen eighty four got to do?
With the edition from Hip Parade, We're back with the
rest of this episode of Hip Parade.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
Besides all this crossover between genres, there was one genre
that really went out of its way to become more
accessible in nineteen eighty four. Reason five for the awesomeness
of nineteen eighty four Metal goes pop. Okay, hold on
(41:58):
to your hairnet, I Chris malanfy am about to say
something nice about bon Jovi. Runaway, their debut single, a
number thirty nine it in April nineteen eighty four, is
a really good song, maybe because it sounds the least
like a bon Jovi song on it. John bon Jovi
(42:20):
fronted a group of Journeymen session musicians he never played
with again. Runaway was emblematic of glam metal in nineteen
(42:40):
eighty four, and yes, as we discussed in our Hit
Parade episode about bon Jovi, they really were considered metal
at that time. After they began topping the Hot one hundred.
A couple of years later, the term hair metal was coined.
This brand of metal was frothy, catchy, laced with hooks,
(43:02):
and piled with synthesizers. Van Halen, whose LP nineteen eighty
four was the year's top charting hard rock album, did
as much for the synthesizer that year as any techno pop.
Speaker 5 (43:15):
Act Yeah You de Sile pure Ses.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
But even when nineteen eighty four metal avoided synths and
stuck to guitars, it was shamelessly catchy. Like everything else
that year, metal was helping to define the bounds of
mass appeal pop. Van Halen scored three top twenty hits
(43:56):
in eighty four, including aleweight and Panama, and a massive
number one hit that we'll discuss later. But they were
not alone. They were joined in the top forty that
year year by Germany's Scorpions with the number twenty five
hit rock You Like a Hurricane. La band Rat with
(44:27):
their metallic love song Round and Round. The single reached
number twelve, and their LP Out of the Cellar went
top ten and double platinum. And the garish, flamboyant and
(44:54):
deliberately cartoonish Twisted Sister. Their music videos featuring bugs, bunny style,
comic violence against parents and principles, made Twisted Sister MTV stars.
But it must also be said that their number twenty
one hit We're Not Gonna Take It, written by outspoken
(45:15):
Twisted Sister frontman d Snyder, was a heartfelt, melodic and
stirring anthem god, so even the most meat and potatoes
rock bands were going the extra mile. In eighty four,
(45:38):
on the other end of the spectrum, America's most cutting
edge new genre was infiltrating the zeitgeist. Reason six for
the awesomeness of nineteen eighty four hip hop culture becomes
pop culture.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Faith, physic, dreams of Passage.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
By eighty five four, hip hop had existed for over
a decade since DJ cool Hirk's legendary nineteen seventy three
Wreckroom Party, and rap had been a recorded medium for
more than four years since nineteen seventy nine's Rappers Delight.
The full pop breakthrough of rap was still a couple
(46:30):
of years away, but you could feel it getting closer.
At the start of the year, Melly Mill's irresistible anti
drug jam Whitelines was something like a phenomenon, bubbling under
the Hot one hundred and peaking just outside the top
forty on the R and B chart. Famously, the first
(47:04):
rap group to break into the top ten on the
Hot one hundred would be run DMC with their Aerosmith
cover Walk This Way. That wouldn't happen until nineteen eighty six.
But in eighty four, run DMC were already making waves
with their self titled debut album and a string of
(47:25):
black radio hits, including the rock rap fusion rock Box
a number twenty two R and B hit No Bright.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
The xnog Babe Manders, Up and Down, Slow Bay For.
Speaker 4 (47:44):
And In the summer of eighty four, Brooklyn rap troupe
Nucleus scored a national hit with their zany electro funk
classic jam On It. It reached number fifty six pop
number nine R and B, remarkable for a rap single
on an independent label, and speaking as a native Brooklyn Nite,
(48:07):
I can tell you jam On It was as huge
on the radio that summer as anything by Madonna or Duranduran.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Screen.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
The way you could tell hip hop culture was really
going overground was how elements of the culture scratching, rapping,
and especially breaking, were infecting middle of the road. Nineteen
eighty four, pop Records actress and pop star Irene Kara,
one year passed her number one hit Flashdance, What a Feeling,
(48:54):
returned to the top ten with the single Breakdance. As
guileless as this song was, it probably did more to
introduce breaking to middle America than most rap singles did,
(49:20):
and famously, nineteen eighty four was the year breaking hit
the big screen. Canon Films released two back to back
teensploitation dance movies in eighty four, in quick succession, the
hit Breakin and the insta sequel Say It with Me Now,
break In two Electric Boogaloo. The first Breakin generated a
(49:45):
top ten hit from electro soul duo Ollie Brown and
Jerry Knight. Ollie and Jerry's Breakin' There's No Stopping Us
reach number nine in August of eighty four, but possibly
(50:12):
rap's biggest pop culture moment of eighty four came on
a single by An R and B Veteran.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Chuck a con chuck a kon chuck a kN chacka.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Kan chuck.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
Chuck chaka cohns. I Feel for You was a cover
of a song by Prince, with guest harmonica playing by
Stevie Wonder and samples of Wonder's early hit Fingertips, punctuated
most famously by rapping from Mellie Mill and up to
the minute scratching and hip hop style production.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Cha co Let Me tell You What's One to be?
Speaker 4 (51:10):
I Feel for You reached number three on the Hot
one hundred and number one on the R and B
chart In November eighty four, Shaka Khan's biggest pop hit ever,
served as a mainstream ambassador to hip hop culture. Rap
was also becoming famous for beefs. The dis records Ro
(51:31):
San Rock San and Rock San's Revenge also dropped in
late eighty four, but the biggest beef of the year
happened in the pop world between two female newcomers. It
was concocted entirely by the media, yet even there something
positive emerged. Reason seven for the awesomeness of nineteen eighty four.
(51:56):
Cindi Lauper plus Not Versus Madonna. Cindy Lauper and Madonna,
(52:16):
two dance pop singers nurtured in New York's downtown arts
and club scene, released their solo debut LPs She's So
Unusual and Madonna, respectively, just weeks apart in the second
half of nineteen eighty three. By nineteen eighty four, both
LPs were spinning off strings of hits. Because the patriarchy
(52:56):
won't allow two accomplished women to coexist without trying to
start a fight. By mid eighty four, the press and
the music industry positioned Cindy Lauper and Madonna as would
be rivals. As we discussed in our Lapper episode of
Hip Parade, neither woman actively engaged in this imagined rivalry.
(53:20):
The fact that the media even called it a catfight
was depressing. But here's the thing, this was a happening.
Not since the early sixties girl group era had two
(53:44):
women launched careers simultaneously and had this much chart impact
out of the box. By the end of eighty four,
Lauper became the first woman to pull four top five
hits from a single album, the number two hit Girls
Just Want to Have Fun, the number one Time after Time,
(54:05):
the number three Shebop, and the number five hit All
Through the Night. Madonna's success took, believe it or not,
(54:27):
a bit longer to get rolling. Holiday was only a
number sixteen hit, Borderline a number ten hit, But by
the time Lucky Star reached its peak in October of
eighty four, Madonna had kicked off a six year streak
(54:56):
of sixteen consecutive top five hits, a still unbroken Hot
one hundred record, and she matched Lauper's daring from the start.
Just weeks after Cindy Peak with her ode to the
Joys of Female Masturbation, she bop Madonna dropped her meditation
(55:29):
on Reinvigorated Virginity. We'll get to that song in more
detail a bit later in the show. I choose to
remember the Cindy Madonna confluence of nineteen eighty four as
(55:49):
a next level moment for women on the charts, rather
than a rivalry. Two great artists, each with totally original
pop persona, were dropping first rate bops every few weeks.
As the meme says, why not both when they broke
(56:24):
in eighty four. Madonna was over twenty five years old,
Lauper thirty years old, fairly mature for brand new pop stars.
But they were both kids compared with some of the
year's big hit makers, which brings up one last X
factor about the year. Reason eight for the awesomeness of
(56:48):
nineteen eighty four, Old dogs learn new tricks. As I
said at the top of our show, Tina Turner pulled
off a major comeback in nineteen eighty four, becoming a
(57:11):
bigger hit maker than she'd ever been at the ripe
old age of forty four, and she was in good company.
A wave of pop veterans scored major hits in eighty four,
not just keeping up with the whipper Snappers, but totally
reinventing themselves. You might say Tina Turner wasn't the only
(57:35):
elder superstar with legs. Legs. Zz Top's first ever top
ten hit in the summer of eighty four, peaked just
(57:58):
as the Bearded Texas Trios members turned thirty five. As
we discussed in our Legacy Hits episode, after spending the
seventies as electric blues craftsmen, zz Top rebooted themselves on
their Eliminator album as electro dance rockers, retrofitting their guitar
(58:19):
crunch with sequencers and synthesizers, and they rebooted themselves as
MTV stars in a series of cheeky videos. Or let's
consider a very different but just as senior rock band Chicago.
(58:47):
They'd been recording since the late sixties. In nineteen eighty four,
as Chicago's members were all between thirty five and forty,
the horn inflected troop went multi platinum with Chicago seventeen
their most hit packed LP. Ever, four of its hits
cracked the top twenty, and two of them reached the
(59:10):
top five, including the number three hit Hard Habit to Break,
and those were just the groups. Veterans soloists were also scoring.
In eighty four, David Bowie, who had just turned thirty seven,
(59:39):
kept up his hot streak that he'd kicked off the
year before on the Let's Dance LP with his glossy
eighty four single Blue Gene, a number eight hit in November.
Even some of the apparent young'uns were older than they looked.
Two men who both turned thirty five in nineteen eighty
(01:00:01):
four had each just recorded his biggest, most hit packed
album ever. Lionel Ritchie, whose CA slowed Down LP produced
five top ten hits, including two number ones, and Bruce Springsteen,
(01:00:33):
who's born in the USA, would produce a record seven
top ten hits across nineteen eighty four, eighty five and
eighty six.
Speaker 5 (01:00:44):
USA US.
Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
For Bruce, the only bad news was none of those
seven hits reached number one on the Hot one hundred,
but several veterans did go all the way on the
big chart, along with avatars of the new pop from
George to Madonna, Duran, Duran to Wham. Let's spend part
(01:01:14):
two of this show walking through all of these number
one hits coming up. In part two, we take a
spin through the twenty songs that reached number one on
(01:01:34):
the Hot one hundred in nineteen eighty four. They embody
all the hallmarks that made eighty four pop's greatest year.
They were cinematic and charismatic, ballads and bops, old school
and next wave. And the only artist who repeats is
let's call him the kid who maybe was just too bold.
(01:01:56):
Broken Record listeners, thanks for listening to part one. You
can listen to part two right now. Just find Hit
Parade in your favorite podcast app. Thanks to everyone at
Broken Record or the chance to share this look at
an amazing year for pop. Our show was written, edited,
and narrated by Chris Molanfy That's Me. My producer is
(01:02:19):
Kevin Bendis. Derek john is Executive producer of Narrative Podcasts,
and we had help from Joel Meyer. Alicia Montgomery is
VP of Audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster
of shows at Slate dot com Slash Podcasts. You can
subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in
(01:02:40):
addition to finding it in the Slate Culture Feed. If
you're subscribing on Apple podcasts. Please rate and review us
while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show.
Thanks for listening, and I look forward to leading the
hit parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching
on the one. I'm Chris molanfy
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey there, it's justin Richmond. I want to take a
moment to share a podcast with you that I think
you'll enjoy. It's called Hit Parade, a show from Slate
about chart topping hits and what makes a song a smash.
It's hosted by pop chart analyst and our friend Chris Malanfi.
Twice a month, Chris tells tales from more than half
a century of pop chart history through storytelling, trivia, and
(00:42):
song snippets. Peters Sex how artists you love or hate
dominated the airwaves and shaped your memories forever. Today, we're
sharing one of our favorite episodes with you, What's nineteen
eighty four got to do with It? Edition. In the episode,
christ Dice Sex eight reasons why nineteen eighty four was
awesome for pop fans and walks us through all twenty
years of the year's number one hits, from Jump to
(01:04):
Hello karm a Chameleon to Caribbean Queen, Let's Go Crazy
to Like a Virgin. And when you're done listening to
this episode, make sure to go check out part two
on Hip Parade's feed and go give the show a
follow so you never miss another one.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Now here's Chris.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Hello, Broken Record fans. Chris Molanfi here. I'm so excited
to share with you one of hip Parade's most popular
episodes from the last few months, our exploration of what critics,
chart fans, and pundits call the greatest year in pop
nineteen eighty four. What you're about to hear is part
(01:40):
one of the episode, in which I run down all
of the factors that made nineteen eighty four an exceptional year,
from dance music to the Second British Invasion to hair
metal and hip hop. And there's a whole lot more
in part two, where we walk through all twenty of
the number one hits from nineteen eighty four. So when
(02:03):
you're done listening to Part one, make sure to find
Hip Parade wherever you listen to podcasts and continue the
story with Part two. Okay, let's get in the time machine,
hairspray our bangs, put on some legwarmers, and head back
to the year when doves cried, feet were loose, and
girls just wanted to have fun nineteen eighty four. Welcome
(02:38):
to hip Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from
Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast I'm
Chris molanfy chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's
Why Is This Song? Number One series on Today's Show
forty years ago this week, this was the number one
song in America, an improbable comeback by a regal, statuesque
(03:03):
singer who'd fought hard to return to the center of
the pop conversation. For the woman who came to be
known as the Queen of rock and roll, the late
summer of eighty four gave her the first and only
Hot one hundred chart topper of her career, Tina Turner
(03:23):
with What's Love Got to Do With It?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Love to Do It?
Speaker 5 (03:33):
By the Hot Man hog at Me Brother.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Here's a question you maybe haven't considered in all the
dozens of times you've probably heard What's Love Got to
Do With It? What is this song? How would you
classify it? Given Tina Turner's background, you might call it
rhythm and blues, but Turner preferred to call herself a
(04:00):
rock singer. Critics note that the songs versus have the
lilts of reggae or calypso music, but by the way
way it was first offered to and recorded by a
white British New wave band. We'll get to them later.
Tina's recording charted on Billboard's Pop, R and B, Rock, Dance,
(04:22):
and Adult Contemporary charts. Basically, this is a song for everyone.
I would call What's Love Got to Do With It?
(04:45):
Nineteen eighty four music. It represents everything that made that
year of pop legendary. The hits of nineteen eighty four
were admirably hard to classify. Bands from the world of
(05:15):
rock were playing with dance music, funk, even synthesizers job job,
while artists who were classified as R and B were
rocking harder than ever. Veteran acts who had been around
(05:49):
for a decade or more were, like Tina Turner, trying
new tricks, and a new generation of upstarts were upsetting
the status quo. Sleek dance music was back, even though
(06:26):
we didn't call it disco anymore. A new wave of
(06:46):
teen pin ups were grabbing for pop's brass ring bye Bye,
and of course, thanks to the dominance of MTV, videos
(07:07):
made the charts more colorful than ever. Ben Today, on
Hip Parade, we will travel back four decades to a
year that's been called the greatest in chart history. What
(07:28):
made nineteen eighty four so exceptional. Why did rockers and rappers,
punks and popsters, divas and dream boats all produce some
of their best work? And why forty years later are
we still missing that moment?
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Another break down this long distance Lines and Nights.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
It was a time when some of the most innovative
music wasn't the province of hipster's crew or crate diggers.
It was power rotated on the radio, like, for example,
the top hit of the year.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
This is what.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Wine doves crime.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
And that's where your hit parade marches today. The week
ending August fourth, nineteen eighty four, when Princes When Doves
Cry was in its fifth and final week at number
one on the Hot one hundred, on its way to
being named Billboard's top hit of the year. It's rare
(08:46):
that any year's biggest hit is also its best, but
that's the kind of year nineteen eighty four was still
the gold standard for chart fans four decades later. So
join me as we recall a time when rain was purple,
feet were loose, the reflex was a lonely child, and
(09:08):
girls just wanted to have fun. Stick around.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
We'll be right back with more from this episode of
Hit Parade.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
After the break, We're back with hit Parade.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
This is Canadian pop star Corey Hart with Sunglasses at Night,
a number seven hit in the summer of nineteen eighty four.
In September of twenty fourteen, thirty years after this song
was a hit, and ten years ago this month, Rolling
Stone magazine ran a special commemorative feature ranking of the
(10:10):
one hundred best singles of nineteen eighty four, and Sunglasses
at Night was the song they ranked in one hundredth place,
which is about right. Corey Heart's American breakthrough single isn't
the most devastatingly brilliant hit of eighty four, but it's
a bop and it is of its time, a very cheeky,
(10:34):
kitchy and melodramatic synthpop jam. Maybe all that said, Sunglasses
(10:56):
at Night still gets played on classic hits radio stations
to this day and has racked up more than one
hundred and thirty two million streams on Spotify. And this
is the nineteen eighty four hit that Rolling Stone ranked last.
It should also be noted that the magazine hasn't done
(11:17):
similar commemorative countdowns for other years of pop. In fact,
when they published their twenty fourteen feature, Rolling Stone boldly
titled the Countdown one hundred best singles of nineteen eighty
four Pop's greatest year?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Is that?
Speaker 4 (11:50):
By the way, here's the song they ranked all the
way up at number two, Madonna's Borderline. Bet you've heard
that one on the radio recently too. Rolling Stone's countdown
is a great read, we'll link to it on the
Hit Parade show page, and a good argument starter. The
biggest argument might be over that title pop's greatest year?
(12:16):
Aren't there other candidates? By the way, three years ago,
on this very podcast, we at Hip Parade made the
case for the music of nineteen seventy one, a year
of greatness from Janice Joplin, The Stones, sly Stone, Rod
Stewart and Carol King.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
And It's.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
It's to Night?
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Do we really jatindergain?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
To be clear, rolling Stone called nineteen eighty four pop's
greatest year, not rock's greatest, R and B or rap's greatest. This,
I think is defensible. As I said at the top
of our show, nineteen eighty four was a big year
for pop as a centralizing force. Rock plus R and
(13:10):
B plus dance plus country plus hip hop all found
a place on the radio in eighty four, and nineteen
eighty four was an unbeatable year for the pop single,
So naturally, chart nerds like your hip parade host hold
it in a high esteem.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
Let the music play. It moves from thirteen to ten
in our countdown of the forty biggest, Shannon at number nine,
here's Cindy Lauper with girls just want to have fun.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
When you look.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
I'll just cop to it as someone born in nineteen
seventy one who became a teenager in nineteen eighty four,
my bias is undeniable when it comes to both of
those years. So of course I think nineteen eighty four
was a great year for pop. But before I provide
(14:15):
more objective reasons why it might not just be me
and the staff of Rolling Stone claiming this, there's one
more debate we need to address that does often come
up in these pop nerd discussions. Was nineteen eighty four
the great year? Or was it actually nineteen eighty three?
(14:39):
That's the beasts. In a recent installment of his online column,
radio consultant Sean Ross pulled programmers, critics, and chart fans
over whether they preferred the hits of nineteen eighty three
(15:01):
or eighty four. Ross took it as a given that
this two year duopoly was the high water mark of
Contemporary Hits Radio or CCHR by just under a two
to one margin. Ross's police preferred nineteen eighty four, but
there was a strong eighty three contingent.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Sweet Teams as.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I could just as easily have done this episode about
eighty three. It really was an amazing year, the moment
when the second British invasion took hold, with Duran, Duran, Eurhythmics,
Culture Clubs, Spandau Ballet, Madness, Edie Grant and Dexy's Midnight
Runners all scoring their first American hits, major chart comebacks
(15:57):
for Donna, Summer Marvin Gay, Elton John and David Bowie
put on Red, the peak year for Michael Jackson's streak
of hits from Thriller, a late nineteen eighty two album
(16:19):
that totally dominated eighty three, as well as the pop
breakthrough of Prince. What made nineteen eighty three exciting was
the upsurge before the cultural wave crested. The truth is
(16:44):
a lot of the nineteen eighty four music we'll discuss
in this episode was actually released in eighty three. Big
eighty four hits by Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Lionel Ritchie, Duran, Duran,
the Pointer Sisters, yes Zz Top and Billy Idol, among
many others, emerged from the cauldron of eighty three. So
(17:17):
in a way, you can think of nineteen eighty four
on the charts as at least two years rolled into one.
The movements that were bubbling up earlier in the decade
finally coalesced. As I argued in our nineteen seventy one
episode of Hip Parade. Seventy one was when the music
(17:38):
of the sixties came into full artistic fruition. Similarly, the
innovations of nineteen eighty two and eighty three bloomed into
full flower in nineteen eighty four. So I'm now going
to run down a list of eight reasons why nineteen
(17:59):
eighty four ruled, and the first reason will take us
back before nineteen eighty three or eighty two. In fact,
we need to go back to just before the eighties began.
Reason one for the awesomeness of nineteen eighty four overcoming
(18:19):
the disco backlash, as we have discussed in several prior
Hit Parade episodes, nineteen seventy nine was a turning point
(18:40):
for dance music on the charts and in the popular consciousness.
In the wake of Chicago's menacing Disco Demolition Night in
July of seventy nine, disco became a dirty word. The
(19:06):
music did not actually die. Disco acts like Donna Summer
and production teams like Sheikh's, Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards
continued to score hits into the nineteen eighties, but a
backlash to the culture of disco turned the charts away
from anything perceived as to dance oriented or black derived.
(19:31):
In the first few years of the nineteen eighties, the
hit parade pivoted toward light balladarie, country crossover, and yacht rock,
(20:12):
but by nineteen eighty two and eighty three, as new
wave synthpop began emerging on the charts, the sound of
this so called new pop was essentially disco in another guise, like,
for example, ABC's top twenty hit The Look of Love
(20:33):
Looks and the overwhelming chart success of Michael Jackson provided
a new model for black music that drew from disco
production styles but felt more modern. By late eighty three
(21:06):
and early eighty four, dance music, which is what we
called it. Then pop fans were careful never to say
the other five letter D word was doing better on
the charts than it had since nineteen seventy nine. Sleek
club styles were finding their place on the radio, like
(21:27):
the electro dance music of the Pointer Sisters.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
The.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Explosive freestyle of Shannon, and of course, the nuveaux postdisco
of a newcomer named Madonna. All discussions of what made
(22:14):
nineteen eighty four great have to start with the disco
backlash and the comeback from the backlash, because this informs
virtually everything that brought pop music back to life, even
if no one was saying the word disco, dance, music, production, tropes,
(22:35):
and black informed styles were infecting all manner of hit music,
not just club music or R and B, but also
straight up rock like zz Top UK, synthpop like Bronski Beat,
(23:14):
and even metal. This nineteen eighty four Motley Crue hit,
their second single ever to make the hot one hundred
is basically disco slowed down and rocked up. To all
(23:38):
of this. Erzat's disco from Madonna to Motley Crue came
packaged with glossy music videos which brings us to another
development that happened a few years before nineteen eighty four,
that reached its apotheosis that year. Reason two for the
awesomeness of nineteen eighty four. The peak of first wave MTV.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Is Holy mo, it's not funny.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
You was scared? Weren't here? Oh Listen't that scared?
Speaker 4 (24:19):
This is scared, you could say. Nineteen eighty four kicked
off in spirit on December tewod nineteen eighty three, when
Michael Jackson's cinematic thriller video, directed by John Landis and
(24:40):
modeled after his horror film and American Werewolf in London,
premiered on MTV. Jackson's clip gave the fledgling video channel,
which had launched just two years earlier, its highest ratings ever.
Jackson and MTV were good to each other. When Thriller
(25:02):
the Song was issued as a single in January nineteen
eighty four, a full fourteen month after Thriller the Album
came out, It became the LP's record seventh top ten single,
peaking at number four on the Hot one hundred in
March of eighty four.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
That's not.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
You can divide early MTV history into before Michael Jackson
and after Michael Jackson. Legend has it that the channel
largely refused to play videos by black artists before CBS
Records threatened to withhold all of their videos unless MTV
(26:00):
played Jackson's early nineteen eighty three hit Billy Jean. By
nineteen eighty four, MTV was regularly rotating clips by Jackson, Prince,
Donna Summer, and Lionel Richie Oh. But MTV was also
(26:27):
reinventing rock bands that had been around four years as
video stars. The Cars, the Boston new wave rockers who
released their debut album back in nineteen seventy eight, were
rebooted in nineteen eighty four by their shimmering pop album
Heartbeat City and its string of kitchy videos. Their special
(26:50):
effects heavy clip for You Might Think Not only made
that song a top ten hit, the video upset Michael
Jackson's Thriller for Video of the Year at the first
MTV Video Music Awards.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
When the phrase.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Similarly, Huey Lewis and the News, a San Francisco band
that had been around since nineteen seventy nine, played a
brand of unpretentious barroom rock and roll. Nothing about the
band was hip, Indeed, These were the guys who years
later recorded a song called Hip to Be Square. But
(27:45):
for their LP Sports, the telegenic Huey Lewis and his
band recorded a string of high concept, comical and plot
heavy videos. They and they were rewarded with four straight
(28:16):
top ten singles on the Hot one hundred, Heart and Soul,
I Want a New Drug, the Heart of Rock and Roll,
and if This is It.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
The Never, If This is It.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
It.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
By the time If This Is It cracked the Hot
one hundred in the summer of eighty four, the Sports
LP had topped the Billboard album chart and sold five
million copies. Videos transformed Huey Lewis's career, and they arguably
spurred rock acts of all kinds to up their game
(28:59):
to make songs worthy of video treatment. Of course, the
bands that had benefited the most from the rise of
the music video in America were British New Romantic and
New Wave bands, who, starting in nineteen eighty two and
eighty three, went from curios in America to video superstars.
(29:30):
By nineteen eighty four, these bands, led by video demigods
Duran Duran, were also chart conquerors in America. As the
year began The band's Union of the Snake was lodged
in the top three on the Hot one hundred. But
what made eighty four doubly exciting was that not only
(29:52):
were these UK acts still innovating, the US acts had
been taking notes. Reason three for the awesomeness of nineteen
eighty four, the second British invasion and America catching up.
As we discussed in our British Invasions episode of Hit Parade.
(30:13):
By the spring of eighty four, forty percent of the
Hot one hundred was British acts, fueled in America by MTV.
The UK's post punk, new romantic and synthpop movements redefined
the cutting edge of cool, as personified by acts like
synth soul duo Eurythmics. Here they are with their ghostly
(30:35):
number four hit here comes the Rain Again.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
Comes flying on my head like a memory flying on
my head, you emotion.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Now, just for comparison, here's another number four hit from
just a couple of months later, American Laura Brannigan with
her ghostly synthpop hit self Control. It's not a copy
of Eurythmics or really any specific act. In fact, it's
a cover of an Italian pop song, but you might
(31:14):
say that Team Brannigan was taking notes on British new
wave can Take. Or further down the chart that same summer,
here's a top twenty hit from British duo Wang Chung
(31:36):
their lush technopop bop dancehall Days, which doesn't sound far
removed from this top twenty hit from a few months earlier,
(31:56):
Ray Parker Junior's lush techno pop ballad I just can't
get over loving you.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
When I do your name.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I give.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Does I do.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Loving you?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I can't?
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Or a few spots further down the chart, here's British
progressive rock veterans Yes with their quirky Cacoffinus electro rock
track Leave It, a number twenty four hit in the
spring of eighty four. About six months later, here's a
(32:41):
number twenty three hit by American guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, veteran
of Fleetwood Mac, with his quirky Cacoffinus electra rocker Go Insane.
So say, in short, let's call this positive Transatlantic peer pressure.
(33:07):
Three years of British acts setting the bar for hip,
smart mass appeal pop had rubbed off on the Yanks.
Everybody was bringing their a game. So by nineteen eighty four,
it had become expected that a British blue eyed soul
group like Culture Club would blend guitars, synthesizers and clattery
(33:29):
sound effects on a hit like miss Me Blonde.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
You miss Me and miss Me and miss Me Blood.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
You Miss Me.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
But the same week that song was climbing into the
top ten. Right next to it were Americans Daryl Hall
and John Oates with their own blend of guitars, synths
and clatter. Adult Education and the Ruboffs weren't just happening
(34:09):
across borders. They were happening across genres. Reason four for
the awesomeness of nineteen eighty four. Everybody was crossing over.
Let's play a little name that tune. Here's the intro
to a song that broke on the Hot one hundred
in December nineteen eighty four. It would eventually peak at
(34:32):
number two. Who's the artist? Sounds like moody new wave
guitar rock. Is it Duran, Duran? The Police Tears for Fears. Nope,
(34:53):
it's R and B singer Billy Oshan with Loverboy the
a song that, by the way, was co written and
(35:16):
co produced by famed rock producer Robert John mutt Lang,
who'd also produced hits earlier in eighty four for The
Cars and def Leppard. Let's play again? Whose dance floor breakdown?
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Is?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
This?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Sounds like hard electro funk club music, right, So who
is this? Chic the Gap band Rick James Guess again,
it's British punk turned pop star Billy Idol. With his
Fall eighty four hit Flesh for Fantasy. It made the
top thirty not only on the Hot one hundred, but
(36:08):
also Billboards Rock Tracks and dance disco chartssh rash. At
a time when popular music was coming out of a
(36:30):
very segregated period in the seventies and early eighties, with
rock and R and B and disco staying in separate lanes,
the hits of nineteen eighty four were all over the
genre map. Virtually no one was staying in their lane,
whether it was Lionel Ritchie who wrote and recorded a
(36:51):
straight up country song called Stuck on You that made
the pop and R and B Top ten and even
the country charts Top twenty five, an unprecedented chart crossover
at the time.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
Yeah, the feeding down, deep and massole. Then I just
came use guess.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
A mon.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Or Pat Benattar. She'd spent years building a reputation as
the leading woman on album rock radio. She kicked off
nineteen eighty four with a post disco club rock hybrid
whose video featured Benatar leading a troop of dancers in
a syncopated shimmy. The number five hit Love is a Battlefield.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
That is a bed.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Or Bruce Springsteen, who, as we discussed in our Springsteen
episode of Hit Parade, wrote cover me for disco Queen
Donna summer. Bruce wound up keeping it for himself, but
maintained its torchy millow dry. The florid operatic rock song
was a number seven hit for Springsteen and the East
(38:15):
Street Band in the fall of eighty four. There were
also improbable team ups. A year after Michael Jackson topped
(38:35):
the charts with guitarist Eddie Van Halen on Beat It,
his brothers The Jacksons upped the ante by teaming with
the Stones, Mick Jagger, Mick and Michael Yowled over a
hard guitar riff on the number three summer eighty four
hit State of Shock, and Phil Collins, who'd been adding
(39:13):
Earthwind and Fire's horn section to his tracks for years.
He finally returned the favor by teaming up with E
WF singer Philip Bailey. Their duet Easy Lover, which exploded
with collins booming rock drums and Bailey's fluttery soul vocals,
went to number two on the Hot one hundred, number
(39:35):
three R and B, and number five on the Album
Rock chart. And I haven't even mentioned Prince, whose guitar,
(39:59):
vocals and very persona obliterated genre boundaries all over nineteen
eighty four. We'll talk more about him a little later.
(40:26):
In the twenty first century, genres increasingly seem like quaint
relics of a bygone time, and artists record in whatever
idiom they like, from Lil naz X to Steve Lacy
Taylor Swift to Post Malone, Beyonce to Shaboozi.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
But in the.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Eighties, this kind of promiscuous genre mixing was revolutionary, and
nineteen eighty four was ground zero for all of it.
(41:06):
More in a moment.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
After the break, we'll be back with the conclusion of
part one of what's nineteen eighty four got to do?
With the edition from Hip Parade, We're back with the
rest of this episode of Hip Parade.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
Besides all this crossover between genres, there was one genre
that really went out of its way to become more
accessible in nineteen eighty four. Reason five for the awesomeness
of nineteen eighty four Metal goes pop. Okay, hold on
(41:58):
to your hairnet, I Chris malanfy am about to say
something nice about bon Jovi. Runaway, their debut single, a
number thirty nine it in April nineteen eighty four, is
a really good song, maybe because it sounds the least
like a bon Jovi song on it. John bon Jovi
(42:20):
fronted a group of Journeymen session musicians he never played
with again. Runaway was emblematic of glam metal in nineteen
(42:40):
eighty four, and yes, as we discussed in our Hit
Parade episode about bon Jovi, they really were considered metal
at that time. After they began topping the Hot one hundred.
A couple of years later, the term hair metal was coined.
This brand of metal was frothy, catchy, laced with hooks,
(43:02):
and piled with synthesizers. Van Halen, whose LP nineteen eighty
four was the year's top charting hard rock album, did
as much for the synthesizer that year as any techno pop.
Speaker 5 (43:15):
Act Yeah You de Sile pure Ses.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
But even when nineteen eighty four metal avoided synths and
stuck to guitars, it was shamelessly catchy. Like everything else
that year, metal was helping to define the bounds of
mass appeal pop. Van Halen scored three top twenty hits
(43:56):
in eighty four, including aleweight and Panama, and a massive
number one hit that we'll discuss later. But they were
not alone. They were joined in the top forty that
year year by Germany's Scorpions with the number twenty five
hit rock You Like a Hurricane. La band Rat with
(44:27):
their metallic love song Round and Round. The single reached
number twelve, and their LP Out of the Cellar went
top ten and double platinum. And the garish, flamboyant and
(44:54):
deliberately cartoonish Twisted Sister. Their music videos featuring bugs, bunny style,
comic violence against parents and principles, made Twisted Sister MTV stars.
But it must also be said that their number twenty
one hit We're Not Gonna Take It, written by outspoken
(45:15):
Twisted Sister frontman d Snyder, was a heartfelt, melodic and
stirring anthem god, so even the most meat and potatoes
rock bands were going the extra mile. In eighty four,
(45:38):
on the other end of the spectrum, America's most cutting
edge new genre was infiltrating the zeitgeist. Reason six for
the awesomeness of nineteen eighty four hip hop culture becomes
pop culture.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Faith, physic, dreams of Passage.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
By eighty five four, hip hop had existed for over
a decade since DJ cool Hirk's legendary nineteen seventy three
Wreckroom Party, and rap had been a recorded medium for
more than four years since nineteen seventy nine's Rappers Delight.
The full pop breakthrough of rap was still a couple
(46:30):
of years away, but you could feel it getting closer.
At the start of the year, Melly Mill's irresistible anti
drug jam Whitelines was something like a phenomenon, bubbling under
the Hot one hundred and peaking just outside the top
forty on the R and B chart. Famously, the first
(47:04):
rap group to break into the top ten on the
Hot one hundred would be run DMC with their Aerosmith
cover Walk This Way. That wouldn't happen until nineteen eighty six.
But in eighty four, run DMC were already making waves
with their self titled debut album and a string of
(47:25):
black radio hits, including the rock rap fusion rock Box
a number twenty two R and B hit No Bright.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
The xnog Babe Manders, Up and Down, Slow Bay For.
Speaker 4 (47:44):
And In the summer of eighty four, Brooklyn rap troupe
Nucleus scored a national hit with their zany electro funk
classic jam On It. It reached number fifty six pop
number nine R and B, remarkable for a rap single
on an independent label, and speaking as a native Brooklyn Nite,
(48:07):
I can tell you jam On It was as huge
on the radio that summer as anything by Madonna or Duranduran.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Screen.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
The way you could tell hip hop culture was really
going overground was how elements of the culture scratching, rapping,
and especially breaking, were infecting middle of the road. Nineteen
eighty four, pop Records actress and pop star Irene Kara,
one year passed her number one hit Flashdance, What a Feeling,
(48:54):
returned to the top ten with the single Breakdance. As
guileless as this song was, it probably did more to
introduce breaking to middle America than most rap singles did,
(49:20):
and famously, nineteen eighty four was the year breaking hit
the big screen. Canon Films released two back to back
teensploitation dance movies in eighty four, in quick succession, the
hit Breakin and the insta sequel Say It with Me Now,
break In two Electric Boogaloo. The first Breakin generated a
(49:45):
top ten hit from electro soul duo Ollie Brown and
Jerry Knight. Ollie and Jerry's Breakin' There's No Stopping Us
reach number nine in August of eighty four, but possibly
(50:12):
rap's biggest pop culture moment of eighty four came on
a single by An R and B Veteran.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Chuck a con chuck a kon chuck a kN chacka.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Kan chuck.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
Chuck chaka cohns. I Feel for You was a cover
of a song by Prince, with guest harmonica playing by
Stevie Wonder and samples of Wonder's early hit Fingertips, punctuated
most famously by rapping from Mellie Mill and up to
the minute scratching and hip hop style production.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Cha co Let Me tell You What's One to be?
Speaker 4 (51:10):
I Feel for You reached number three on the Hot
one hundred and number one on the R and B
chart In November eighty four, Shaka Khan's biggest pop hit ever,
served as a mainstream ambassador to hip hop culture. Rap
was also becoming famous for beefs. The dis records Ro
(51:31):
San Rock San and Rock San's Revenge also dropped in
late eighty four, but the biggest beef of the year
happened in the pop world between two female newcomers. It
was concocted entirely by the media, yet even there something
positive emerged. Reason seven for the awesomeness of nineteen eighty four.
(51:56):
Cindi Lauper plus Not Versus Madonna. Cindy Lauper and Madonna,
(52:16):
two dance pop singers nurtured in New York's downtown arts
and club scene, released their solo debut LPs She's So
Unusual and Madonna, respectively, just weeks apart in the second
half of nineteen eighty three. By nineteen eighty four, both
LPs were spinning off strings of hits. Because the patriarchy
(52:56):
won't allow two accomplished women to coexist without trying to
start a fight. By mid eighty four, the press and
the music industry positioned Cindy Lauper and Madonna as would
be rivals. As we discussed in our Lapper episode of
Hip Parade, neither woman actively engaged in this imagined rivalry.
(53:20):
The fact that the media even called it a catfight
was depressing. But here's the thing, this was a happening.
Not since the early sixties girl group era had two
(53:44):
women launched careers simultaneously and had this much chart impact
out of the box. By the end of eighty four,
Lauper became the first woman to pull four top five
hits from a single album, the number two hit Girls
Just Want to Have Fun, the number one Time after Time,
(54:05):
the number three Shebop, and the number five hit All
Through the Night. Madonna's success took, believe it or not,
(54:27):
a bit longer to get rolling. Holiday was only a
number sixteen hit, Borderline a number ten hit, But by
the time Lucky Star reached its peak in October of
eighty four, Madonna had kicked off a six year streak
(54:56):
of sixteen consecutive top five hits, a still unbroken Hot
one hundred record, and she matched Lauper's daring from the start.
Just weeks after Cindy Peak with her ode to the
Joys of Female Masturbation, she bop Madonna dropped her meditation
(55:29):
on Reinvigorated Virginity. We'll get to that song in more
detail a bit later in the show. I choose to
remember the Cindy Madonna confluence of nineteen eighty four as
(55:49):
a next level moment for women on the charts, rather
than a rivalry. Two great artists, each with totally original
pop persona, were dropping first rate bops every few weeks.
As the meme says, why not both when they broke
(56:24):
in eighty four. Madonna was over twenty five years old,
Lauper thirty years old, fairly mature for brand new pop stars.
But they were both kids compared with some of the
year's big hit makers, which brings up one last X
factor about the year. Reason eight for the awesomeness of
(56:48):
nineteen eighty four, Old dogs learn new tricks. As I
said at the top of our show, Tina Turner pulled
off a major comeback in nineteen eighty four, becoming a
(57:11):
bigger hit maker than she'd ever been at the ripe
old age of forty four, and she was in good company.
A wave of pop veterans scored major hits in eighty four,
not just keeping up with the whipper Snappers, but totally
reinventing themselves. You might say Tina Turner wasn't the only
(57:35):
elder superstar with legs. Legs. Zz Top's first ever top
ten hit in the summer of eighty four, peaked just
(57:58):
as the Bearded Texas Trios members turned thirty five. As
we discussed in our Legacy Hits episode, after spending the
seventies as electric blues craftsmen, zz Top rebooted themselves on
their Eliminator album as electro dance rockers, retrofitting their guitar
(58:19):
crunch with sequencers and synthesizers, and they rebooted themselves as
MTV stars in a series of cheeky videos. Or let's
consider a very different but just as senior rock band Chicago.
(58:47):
They'd been recording since the late sixties. In nineteen eighty four,
as Chicago's members were all between thirty five and forty,
the horn inflected troop went multi platinum with Chicago seventeen
their most hit packed LP. Ever, four of its hits
cracked the top twenty, and two of them reached the
(59:10):
top five, including the number three hit Hard Habit to Break,
and those were just the groups. Veterans soloists were also scoring.
In eighty four, David Bowie, who had just turned thirty seven,
(59:39):
kept up his hot streak that he'd kicked off the
year before on the Let's Dance LP with his glossy
eighty four single Blue Gene, a number eight hit in November.
Even some of the apparent young'uns were older than they looked.
Two men who both turned thirty five in nineteen eighty
(01:00:01):
four had each just recorded his biggest, most hit packed
album ever. Lionel Ritchie, whose CA slowed Down LP produced
five top ten hits, including two number ones, and Bruce Springsteen,
(01:00:33):
who's born in the USA, would produce a record seven
top ten hits across nineteen eighty four, eighty five and
eighty six.
Speaker 5 (01:00:44):
USA US.
Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
For Bruce, the only bad news was none of those
seven hits reached number one on the Hot one hundred,
but several veterans did go all the way on the
big chart, along with avatars of the new pop from
George to Madonna, Duran, Duran to Wham. Let's spend part
(01:01:14):
two of this show walking through all of these number
one hits coming up. In part two, we take a
spin through the twenty songs that reached number one on
(01:01:34):
the Hot one hundred in nineteen eighty four. They embody
all the hallmarks that made eighty four pop's greatest year.
They were cinematic and charismatic, ballads and bops, old school
and next wave. And the only artist who repeats is
let's call him the kid who maybe was just too bold.
(01:01:56):
Broken Record listeners, thanks for listening to part one. You
can listen to part two right now. Just find Hit
Parade in your favorite podcast app. Thanks to everyone at
Broken Record or the chance to share this look at
an amazing year for pop. Our show was written, edited,
and narrated by Chris Molanfy That's Me. My producer is
(01:02:19):
Kevin Bendis. Derek john is Executive producer of Narrative Podcasts,
and we had help from Joel Meyer. Alicia Montgomery is
VP of Audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster
of shows at Slate dot com Slash Podcasts. You can
subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in
(01:02:40):
addition to finding it in the Slate Culture Feed. If
you're subscribing on Apple podcasts. Please rate and review us
while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show.
Thanks for listening, and I look forward to leading the
hit parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching
on the one. I'm Chris molanfy
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