I am such a sucker for music memes. So here's another.
Via Johnny Bacardi and Pop Culture Gadabout:
A.) Go to musicoutfitters.com
B.) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year
C.) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don't remember (or don't care about).
1980:
1. Call Me, Blondie
2. Another Brick In The Wall, Pink Floyd
3. Magic, Olivia Newton-John
4. Rock With You, Michael Jackson
5. Do That To Me One More Time, Captain and Tennille
6. Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Queen
7. Coming Up, Paul McCartney
8. Funkytown, Lipps, Inc.
<9. It's Still Rock And Roll To Me, Billy Joel
10. The Rose, Bette Midler
11. Escape (The Pina Colada Song), Rupert Holmes
12. Cars, Gary Numan
13. Cruisin', Smokey Robinson
14. Working My Way Back To You/Forgive Me Girl, Spinners
15. Lost In Love, Air Supply
16. Little Jeannie, Elton John
17. Ride Like The Wind, Cristopher Cross
18. Upside Down, Diana Ross
19. Please Don't Go, K.C. and The Sunshine Band
20. Babe, Styx
21. With You I'm Born Again, Billy Preston and Syreeta
22. Shining Star, Manhattans
23. Still, Commodores
24. Yes, I'm Ready, Teri De Sario With K.C.
25. Sexy Eyes, Dr. Hook
26. Steal Away, Robbie Dupree
27. Biggest Part Of Me, Ambrosia
28. This Is It, Kenny Loggins
29. Cupid-I've Loved You For A Long Time, Spinners
30. Let's Get Serious, Jermaine Jackson
31. Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer, Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes
32. Sailing, Christopher Cross
33. Longer, Dan Fogelberg
34. Coward Of The County, Kenny Rogers
35. Ladies Night, Kool and The Gang
36. Take Your Time, S.O.S. Band
37. No More Tears (Enough Is Enough), Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer
38. Too Hot, Kool and The Gang
39. More Love, Kim Carnes
40. Pop Muzik, M
41. Brass In Pocket, Pretenders
42. Special Lady, Ray, Goodman and Brown
43. Send One Your Love, Stevie Wonder
44. The Second Time Around, Shalamar
45. We Don't Talk Anymore, Cliff Richard
47. Heartache Tonight , Eagles
48. Stomp, Brothers Johnson
49. Tired Of Toein' The Line, Rocky Burnette
50. Better Love Next Time, Dr. Hook
51. Him, Rupert Holmes
52. Against The Wind, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
53. On The Radio, Donna Summer
54. Emotional Rescue, Rolling Stones
55. Rise, Herb Alpert
56. All Out Of Love, Air Supply
57. Cool Change, Little River Band
58. You're Only Lonely, J.D. Souther
59. Desire, Andy Gibb
60. Let My Love Open The Door, Pete Townshend
61. Daydream Believer, Anne Murray
62. I Can't Tell You Why, Eagles
63. Don't Let Go, Isaac Hayes
64. Don't Do Me Like That, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
65. She's Out Of My Life, Michael Jackson
66. Fame, Irene Cara
67. Fire Lake, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
68. How Do I Make You, Linda Ronstadt
69. Into The Night, Benny Mardones
70. Let Me Love You Tonight, Pure Prairie League
71. Misunderstanding, Genesis
72. An American Dream, Dirt Band
73. One Fine Day, Carole King
74. Dim All The Lights, Donna Summer
75. You May Be Right, Billy Joel
76. Hurt So Bad, Linda Ronstadt
77. Should've Never Let You Go, Neil Sedaka and Dara Sedaka
78. Pilot Of The Airwaves, Charlie Dore
79. Off The Wall, Michael Jackson
80. I Pledge My Love, Peaches and Herb
81. The Long Run, Eagles
82. Stand By Me, Mickey Gilley
83. Heartbreaker, Pat Benatar
84. Deja Vu, Dionne Warwick
85. Drivin' My Life Away, Eddie Rabbitt
86. Take The Long Way Home, Supertramp
87. Sara, Fleetwood Mac
88. Wait For Me, Daryl Hall and John Oates
89. Jo Jo, Boz Scaggs
90. September Morn, Neil Diamond
91. Give Me The Night, George Benson
92. Broken Hearted Me, Anne Murray
93. You Decorated My Life, Kenny Rogers
94. Tusk, Fleetwood Mac
95. I Wanna Be Your Lover, Prince
96. In America, Charlie Daniels Band
97. Breakdown Dead Ahead, Boz Scaggs
98. Ships, Barry Manilow
99. All Night Long, Joe Walsh
100. Refugee, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
Wow, 1980 was a horrible year for popular music. Horrible. I know 99% of the songs on there, but most of them are left blank because...meh. They were songs I heard on the radio and dismissed as not good enough to like but not bad enough to hate. Honestly, I can sing almost every single song on that chart word for word. I'm not proud of it, but it's not my fault. These things just seep into your head through some sort of top 40 radio osmosis. And they stay there forever, embedded in your brain and mosly forgotten about until one day you wake up singing Coward of the County and you don't know why. It's just your brain fucking with you, is all.
So, yea, I like Air Supply. I think I've admitted to that enough times by now. And even though I was big into the "Disco Sucks" thing, that one Donna Summer song makes me want to dance, and who in their right mind can really resist Funkytown?
And Emotional Rescue? Easily the worst song the Rolling Stones EVER made.
My god, look at that list. Olivia Newton John. Captaine and Tenille. Keeny Rogers. Bob Seger. Neil Diamon. Mickey freaking Gilley. How white bread America (read: boring) were the charts back then? No wonder I holed myself up in my room with my ginormous headphones and my satanic metal and "dangerous" punk.
Here's what I was really listening to in 1980 (not an all inclusive list, just a list of songs that were played a lot that particular year)
- AC/DC - "You Shook Me All Night Long"
- Split Enz - "I Got You" (wrote about that one here)
- The Clash - "Brand New Cadillac" (need I get into the whole LONDON CALLING ROCKS thing again?)
- Talking Heads - "Once in a Lifetime"
- Pink Floyd - "Comfortably Numb" (yea, everyone was playing Run Like Hell or Brick in the Wall, but the stoners mellowed out Gilmour's solo)
- The Vapors - "Turning Japanese"
- The Jam - "That's Entertainment"
- The Pretenders = "Tattooed Love Boys"
- B-52's - "Dance This Mess Around"
- The Cure - "Boys Don't Cry"
- Boomtown Rats - "I Don't Like Mondays"
- Van Halen - "And the Cradle Will Rock"
- Ramones - "Rock 'n' Roll High School"
- Steve Forbert - Romeo's Tune" (long story)
- Utopia - "Set Me Free" (what an amazing albumP
- Rush - "Spirit of Radio"
- ZZ Top - "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" (which would have been my tagline had blogs existed in 1980)
- Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers (from a truly amazing album I should write more about)
- U2 - "I Will Follow" (best debut album ever)
- Queen - "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
- The Police = "Canary in a Coal Mine" (I just could not bring myself to sing that dodododadada song out loud. this one was far superior)
- Judas Priest - "Breaking the Law" (ok, show of hands: how many of you automatically do the Beavis and Butthead thing when you hear this song?)
- Black Sabbath - "Heaven and Hell" (Ronnie James Dio!)