top 50 forgotten/"lost" US hits of the late '80s

I post this only so y'all can remember how hot George Michael was at his prime -- and what an ass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHb2XYeXcJI

I remember that song, kind of, but can't really remember how it went.

many of these choices in a nutshell

I heard "We'll be together" in Trader Joe's last weekend and remembered how good that song is.

Change of heart
Time for a new start
Woo woo hey
Do you wanna go to the moo-vays
I had a change of start
Now I'm playing my part
Hey woo woo
Doodle doodle doo

All this time I been confusing the NKOTB song with this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiC81IOkjNk

“i wanna have some fun” and “monkey” at least to me both feel like un-forgotten monster smashes

I know 22 of these songs by title alone. Of those, I think I would vote either Dreamtime or Who's that Girl as my favorites.

I didn’t know Jacob’s Ladder was a biblical thing and thought maybe it was from the Tim Robbins movie... like that key & peele ray parker jr. sketch

yea Dreamtime is good

Wait, I'm not insane, at least acc to Wiki:

Luka" is a song written and recorded by Suzanne Vega, released as a single in 1987. It remains her highest-charting hit in the United States, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Worldwide, the song charted the highest in Poland and Sweden, peaking at No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, and reached the top 10 in Austria, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. Shawn Colvin sings background vocals on the record.[4]

Maybe it's a legacy song issue??

Hm, the two recordings of "Tom's Diner" have about 54.5M total plays on Spotify but the two recordings of "Luka" have about 43.8M total plays - "lost and forgotten" seems a bit overstated?

To me, the Debbie Gibson and Samantha Fox songs aren't forgotten at all. But they were both such huge phenomenons over here. Tiffany on the other hand, was really a US thing. I don't think I've ever heard "All This Time" and remember a bit of the "Could've Been" chorus where she couldn't hit the notes.

I imagine a problem w/"Luka" is that the three people programming '80s hits & Jack radio in the US are probably not hot to drop a song about child abuse in between Prince and U2 hits on their playlists.

my friends and I used to do kamikaze karaoke, where we'd pick random songs, put them into a hat, and then we had to sing whatever we drew.

one of my very oddball friends put in Suzanne Vega "Luka" and I drew it. I didn't remember how it went. still can't hum it.

Tom's Diner though I sometimes hum random banalities to the melody

I am sitting at my table
UberEats guy took a wrong turn
And my brother's trying to call me
I'm pretending I am busy

I imagine a problem w/"Luka" is that the three people programming '80s hits & Jack radio in the US are probably not hot to drop a song about child abuse in between Prince and U2 hits on their playlists.

― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain)

yeah i could see how that could be a downer sandwiched between the prince hit "1999" (about nuclear apocalypse) and the u2 "sunday bloody sunday" (about a massacre). i can only imagine what casey kasem would have to say about that.

the idea that "monkey", particularly given the jam & lewis remix, is "forgotten" seems to be true mostly within a certain very specific context.

"Luka" was basically Vega's "Fast Car."

I think "Monkey" is forgotten only in the sense that it was (at least?) the fourth single from that album, so perhaps was sort of grandfathered in, kind of like, I don't know, "I'm Goin' Down" by Springsteen, which was the ... sixth single from "Born in the USA?" "Goin' Down" only did modestly on the charts, though. "Monkey" was a #1 hit, which I did not know. How many of the aforementioned 50 songs were #1 hits?

"Monkey" i always used to confuse with "Relax"

probably a good thing monkeys aren't in the song about cumming

Tom's Diner though I sometimes hum random banalities to the melody

I am sitting at my table
UberEats guy took a wrong turn
And my brother's trying to call me
I'm pretending I am busy

This is scarcely more banal than the actual words.

that's what I like about it! you can make your own Tom's Diner song and hum it to yourself

"Monkey" was the fifth single and fourth #1 from Faith.

being on this list (and getting little radio play in the us) is def not a guarantee that a song is entirely forgotten -- just chose that word as a slightly less vague adjective than "lost". there are plenty of songs that are still familiar and well-liked that today's radio stations could play but don't, b/c programmers think they don't fit the overall orientation of their format right now, which leans heavily toward rock/pop crossover

like, i've heard "luka" on the classic hits stations in my city a couple times, but only during the all-80s weekends when they go a little deeper than normal on that decade

Oh, if this is strictly about airplay, then, yeah, I don't hear anything by Suzanne Vega.

Giorgio Moroder included a remake of "Tom's Diner" featuring Britney Spears on his album Déjà Vu, released June 12, 2015.[59] Despite being a non-single track at that time, it became his best-selling digital song,[60] debuting and peaking at number 38 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs chart[61] and number 14 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Digital Songs chart

trying to pluck up the courage to listen to this and failing miserably

“i wanna have some fun” and “monkey” at least to me both feel like un-forgotten monster smashes

I don't know what "I Wanna Have some Fun" is.

A lot of these still get occasional spins on SiriusXM "80s on 8" or whatever, but I get what they mean even though "forgotten" is a bad descriptor.

Oh, if this is strictly about airplay, then, yeah, I don't hear anything by Suzanne Vega.

By this standard, though, the majority of hits from any era would be 'lost', surely? A smash like "Don't Stop Believin'" comes along a few times in a decade.

I know the melody of “Tom’s Diner” but I don’t know the lyrics so I just sing the Leonard Cohen “Suzanne” lyrics instead

I saw no reason not to go in with an open mind, but the Moroder/Spears version of “Tom’s Diner” is not good.

xps

I was totally unfamiliar with "Luka" until hearing this album: POLE: My Dick's Double Full​-​Length Release by My Dick

just imagining intense synths and Britney singing over it really nasally, like

"duh duh deh deh duh duh deh deh"

“Monkey” isn’t great imo; sonically interesting but unmemorable and the chorus refrain is surface-level decent but just doesn’t hold a candle to the previous singles; it sounds like a fifth single.

“Hand To Mouth” for one, is a much more memorable track.

Hand to Mouth is great but it didn't make anybody wanna fuck

The Jimmy Jam-Terry Lewis remix, which got the airplay, is amazeballs.

as hard, thin, and steely as their work with Jackson (which surely led Michael to hire them).

On first read through the list, the only ones I could hear in my head were the Miami Vice theme (that was my favorite tv show in the late '80s) and "Who's Johnny?", but pretty much every other one I went and listened to I immediately remembered as well. "In Your Room" is pretty decent power pop, if not on the level of the Bangles' best songs. I'm embarrassed to say that I actually once owned that Huey Lewis album that "Perfect World" was on, and I still couldn't remember anything about it. "Jacob's Ladder" is decent, though Huey Lewis always kind of sounds like a fairly standard bar band that somehow ended up famous. I forgot how catchy "Neutron Dance" is. "Election Day" is okay for second-tier Duran Duran. Probably would vote "In Your Room".

"In Your Room" has the trippy fadeout (with excellent as usual harmonies) and classic Steinberg-Kelly smut w/help from Hoffs ("When you're gone I like to try on all your clothes").

Neutron Dance was the first Pointer Sisters song I ever heard and I was hooked immediately.

BTW, for those that are fans of such things, the video for Chicago's "Look Away" is one of those classic super fictionally cinematic plot-driven deals. What's wacky is that the song is from 1988, but there are so many glimmers of "Pretty Woman" in it. I wonder if whoever wrote "Pretty Woman" saw this Chicago video first? Or if Chicago could see into the future?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uKLTtVqQpE

Anyway, the song sucks, but I did learn this:

Before being submitted to Chicago, the song was one of two ballads offered by Epic Records to Cheap Trick, who chose "The Flame" instead.

Songs I didn't recognize by title that I still didn't recognize when listening to them this morning (despite having grown up in the '80s):

New Kids On The Block - I'll Be Loving You (Forever) (though so generic and terrible it's hard to tell)
Tiffany/Could've Been (I suspect DX7 ballads will be a problem for my brain)
Debbie Gibson/Foolish Beat (hot sax! music video plot!)
Tiffany - All This Time
Dino - I Like It (wtf is this shit? my wife knew it, though!)
Cyndi Lauper - Change Of Heart (never heard this, but it's a jam)
Chicago - I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love
Boys Club - I Remember Holding You (boy, Careless Whisper sure made an impact, didn't it?)
Peter Cetera - One Good Woman (barf)
Huey Lewis & The News - Perfect World (I mean, maybe I know this, but it's pretty forgettable)
Kool & The Gang - Victory (weird that I don't know this)
Donny Osmond - Soldier Of Love (eh, not bad. I know of this song from the "Paul's Boutique" 33 1/3, because this is the single Capital wanted to promote over the Beasties)
Daryl Hall & John Oates - Everything Your Heart Desires
New Kids On The Block - Cover Girl (I hated this group at the time)
Breathe - How Can I Fall? (I only know Hand to Heaven)
The Jets - Rocket 2 U (this one I don't know)

My favorite rediscovery of songs I liked at the time are the cuts by the Jets "Cross My Broken Heart" and the one by Regina. Biggest surprise of a song that I haven't heard since it was on the radio: Carl Anderson & Gloria Loring - Friends And Lovers.

How many of these tracks feature orchestra stabs?

I love "How Can I Fall"!

The only reason I know "Spies Like Us" is from the film, but I suspect there are a bunch of disposable boomer tracks like this from the '80s. Like "Just Another Night" by Mick Jagger.

do you personally remember these songs?

Scanning thru the list now. The ones I remember clearly (by title alone) are: Batdance, Miami Vice Theme, When the Children Cry, Spies Like Us, In Your Room, Who’s That Girl, Baby Don’t Forget My Number, No More Lonely Nights, Monkey, Who’s Johnny, Shake Your Love, Jacob’s Ladder (loved that last one as a kid, lol).

Will have to listen to the others and see if my memory is jogged.

Without clicking the link or really researching to see if it qualifies, I feel like Eddie Grant’s “Electric Avenue” should be on this list. That song was huge at the time - has it been played on the radio anytime recently, in any format?

Everybody knows that song.

I haven't heard any stations that play '80s hits lately but "Electric Avenue" seems like it's pretty well known?

I was born in '87 so I missed when the songs here were current hits, but I do remember these being played fairly regularly on the local top 40 station's Friday '80s block in the early '00s:

15. Samantha Fox - Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)
27. Bangles - In Your Room
34. Milli Vanilli - Baby Don't Forget My Number
39. El DeBarge - Who's Johnny
41. The Jets - Rocket 2 U
46. Debbie Gibson - Shake Your Love

Maybe retro songs go in and out of fashion. e.g. I haven't heard Head East on a classic rock station in like 25 years

I predict "Electric Avenue" will endure on the radio b/c the intro is the platonic ideal of song intros that radio DJs can talk over

This is a really difficult tossup between “Who’s That Girl” and “Neutron Dance” for me

I count 8 of those 50 songs from popular soundtracks. And one from a beer commercial.

Everybody knows that song.

I thought the criteria here is whether they’re still played on the radio.

(Also, do younger ppl know it? I’ll believe you if you say yes, but I don’t think I’ve heard it in decades.)

listening to "Don't You Know What The Night Can Do" now, the production is kind of amazing except the snare drum in the chorus which sounds like absolute ass