Come see, come see, remember me: The Top 40 of January 14, 1984

This week was about more of the same on the charts, and amid the bare pin oaks all over Lexington, but January like that--on the surface. The temps were all over that week, crashing from 59 to 0. I might have been plodding through more Language Arts nitpickiness, but the radio was as erratic as the weather, a fine, late-stage example of early 80s pop music' zany breadth 

40. "Send Me an Angel" - Real Life. Oh, it's drama, honey. A haunting synth hit for no one-knew-they-were-Australian Real Life, and a hit again five years later after it showed up in movies like Teen Wolf Too (lookit key-oot Jason Bateman!). You can be depressed--and dance to it.

36 "Baby I Lied" - Deborah Allen. Jump down four into a country ballad by not-that-Debbie-Allen. Is the the last time a soft-pop country tune hit the early 80s top 40? Or 80s at all until Garth?

33. "Cum On Feel the Noize" - Quiet Riot. "So you think my singing's out of time? It makes me money!" It's a clapback--but Slade's, not QR's. They essentially disappeared after their second single "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)."

26. Let the Music Play - Shannon. It sounded like nothing else before it, and for a reason. "Let the Music Play"shot to number 8 eventually, but more significantly, beget a genre that I never heard of until now, freestyle, but that I can absolutely recognize in the sounds of music after it. This one reminds me of a multi-family trip to Gatlinburg that winter, one (maybe the last one) of several my parents and their friends and friends' kids gathered for in a mountain chalet rented from Chalet Village (the logo is the same!). But, oh no, that chalet is probably long gone, perhaps the victim of 2016 wildfires. Back in early '84, though, the kids--we were all of 14 down to 4--were shooting pool in the lower level of the A-frame while this was playing on the--radio? Maybe MTV, since we also watched "The Jerk" on a TV down there, which was the first time I saw a rated-R movie all the way through without having to madly push buttons on the cable box. It probably was the video, a basic affair that makes me sad that Atlantic decided to staff Shannon's first outing with dancing cater waiters.

25. "Holiday" - Madonna. I thought she was another Shannon. Wouldn't you? Number 16 is as high as this charted. What? It's hard to believe M's earliest hit was kind of a blip.

18. "Read 'Em and Weep" - Barry Manilow. Although Barry "wrote the songs," it was pop-opera, ratchet-up-to-the-chorus composer Jim Steinman who created this last top-20 hit for BM, slipping some 70s piano banging' into the one last time in the early 80s. But the video's of the moment, with Bob Giraldi directing this backstage mini-drama after "Beat It" and "Love Is a Battlefield."

17. "That's All" - Genesis. The second single off of their officially self-titled but loved-by-fans-as the "shapes" album. Last year, I purchased the "shapes" two times, the transactions within weeks of each other, which says more about how last year was than how much I like the album (which I do).

13. "Joanna" - Kool & the Gang. How can you not smile when hearing this song? Pure R&B/pop with a sweet video. K & the Gang's ode will go to number 2, their first hit since "Get Down On It" in 1981.

5. "Twist of Fate" - Olivia Newton John. The 70s comes calling again with ONJ's final top ten hit ever. But what in the heck is this movie? Strange that I never caught it on cable in the years that followed, but my bad movie viewing slowed once I was sprung from grade school later in '84.

1. "Say, Say, Say" - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. The fellas are back. Having just heard "The Girl Is Mine" involuntarily a few hours ago, I must reiterate that this far better song is a relief. And that "Girl" was the first single off of Thriller? As good as "Beat It," "Billie Jean" et al were, I guess we all wanted to forget that duet.

In too deep

I used to scorn listen-at-work Lite FM. Now, I crave it. I need it playing next to me while I sit in front of a computer screen looking at myself, an unasked-for mirror. I have to gaze at my meeting self as well as be in the damn meeting. This meta-meta reflection of the self I want to keep compartmentalized in between close-enough-to business hours is why I need to hear late 80s Genesis bleating out of my ipad or phone next to me. The actual content of the meetings isn’t that bad, it's always looking to the future and, as I have always said, it ain’t like we are performing surgery on babies. But it calms me to hear Phil’s nasal falsetto faintly nearby, or when I step into the room where I sometimes keep it playing. (This is a family thing; both my sister and father keep a radio on in their garages for most of a day.)

“It” is internet radio. I also a need human-programmed sequence of songs coming at me. Even though it’s computer-served, it’s not calculated by bytes—if algorithms are indeed composed of bytes. I don’t feel like looking this up. I’ve had enough of examining the parts of Dr Frankenstein’s monster that has run a lot of my life since...well, I can pretty much pinpoint since when. I used a black-screen, orange typeface computer 1992-95 while working, but not very much. I used the typewriter and phone more often (that is, when I wasn’t wandering the museum's galleries shooting the breeze with my friend Thom or sneaking out to walk by the lake, or to Summerfest). I remember the first time I looked at the friggin internet, at email, I mean, by sneaking (there I went again) into the library of the Art Museum after its public hours in 93 or 94 and using that computer because it was the only one in the whole joint hooked up to a modem. Somehow (!) I knew how to connect. Maybe Rob S., gave me the instructions, because I distinctly remember that the first email I either sent, received, or both, was from/to him. I have a print-out of it somewhere (Jesus). But I remember that. The pup’s ears hearing Pavlov’s bell for the very first time. Aww. 

When was 1992? Oh, 28 years ago. Nice. 

When I used a computer more comprehensively, at my next job (1995-98), it wasn’t internet connected (was it?). It was at the TYA theatre company I worked at as administrator for its educational/outreach department. I needed music off to the side next to me there, too, but it was classic rock, WKLH 96.5. I heard enough "China Grove" to last me another lifetime, but that was okay, it and the other "classic" (some twenty years old at the time) were the window to the outside of that office, because--well, there weren't any windows. We were in the basement of the hulking performing arts center, and I needed that radio not only for mental background variation but also to temper the urgent grind and whine of the elevator machinery in the room right next to (across from?) my office.

Do I want to be back there? No, not by that machine room, but, yes, back in the untroubled shifts of pecking data entry, laser printing sheets of Avery 5160 labels (and, yes, I pulled that product number directly from the rayless reaches of my mind), affixing said labels, answering the same questions on the phone every day, writing ideas on scrap paper, and daydreaming about plays, boys, clothes, traveling...No. I want that structured and tranquil frame around me now. But in then. I don't want to be 24 again, no, thank you. I don't want the the FOMO we didn't know had a name, the robotic going-out, the magnetic draw of emotionally stupid people and men who were good-looking or cool, the lack of money. 

I want to feel emotions spurred by the radio, not by the unreal amphitheatre of words, words, words, opinions, and everyone's unbridled emotional waste of the last decade. Lite FM radio in the 90s. Whitney, Gloria, Phil, Sarah, Hootie, Elton, Tina, Rod, the Boyz, Sheryl, and, yes, the goddamn Goo Goo Dolls. "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" Yep! I can in "This Kiss," and I'm "Building a Mystery" even though it's like ray-aaaaaayn on your wedding day! I miss this kind of comfort like the deserts miss the rain. I mean, I just played this twice. 

I draw the line, however, at Jewel. That flight back to this there I'd rather be is grounded. 

Pointless Radio Reviews: Abacab

I decided to review what’s playing on retro pop radio. Because somebody had to. 

 “Abacab,” Genesis. 1981.

My cousin and I flipped our wigs when we dug this album out of her dad’s stack by the (very, very nice, why did he let two 11 year olds play it?) stereo. Uncle had...a song on the radio?! What if we’d found a copy of Freeze-Frame next? 

Everything's gonna come around

Reading the coverage of a special visit this week is nudging little connections that might not be there otherwise. Maybe there's hope for this ol' world to get its act together, at least if this guy thinks there's some.

So the message here hit me.



Or it's that having to work doggedly at the computer lately seems to flow when accompanied by then-there-were-three Genesis.

I dunno, I think this one from 1983 has a feel of both the old, theatrical, Gabriel Genesis and the impending "Invisible Touch-ah!" Genesis. Weird oogly synths and Phil's falsetto.

Did I just connect the Pope and Genesis? Sure.