It's funny - when I think back to the mid-'80s (grade school), the time I probably listened to Top 40 radio the most, these are the only songs that specifically survive in my memory (in terms of, "I can recall the radio playing them at a particular time/place"):
Eddie Murphy - Party all the TimeJohn Waite - Missing YouFalco - Rock Me AmadeusSly Fox - Let's Go All The Way
(Apparently these are all from 1985... may be something there about neurons firing at a specific childhood age)
Anyway, I know I heard, uh, lots of other stuff as well... but imagine that adult culture mavens of the day weren't enthusiastic about this particular slice of pop music!
― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Monday, 15 January 2024 17:32 (four months ago) link
Oh, “La Isla Bonita” is another (that one’s ’86)
― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Monday, 15 January 2024 17:38 (four months ago) link
"Missing You" did get a lot of positive attention from older people, I remember. Like I recall a high school teacher of mine saying, "now that's a good song." Andy Warhol even mentions it approvingly in his Diaries.
― Josefa, Monday, 15 January 2024 17:39 (four months ago) link
The others you listed, not so much
― Josefa, Monday, 15 January 2024 17:41 (four months ago) link
my middle school years were 97-99, and what I loved about pop radio was how much of a grab bag it was - you had a swing revival, huge Latin pop stars, boy bands, alt rock, country, "Mambo No. 5", whatever the hell Chumbawamba and the Barenaked Ladies were, stuff that heavily sampled disco like "Steal My Sunshine", and it all had this crossover appeal too. I mean sure some of it sucked but there sure as hell was a lot more variety than you've got now. which is why I loved Old Town Road, like its not something I'd want to own the record of but I appreciate such a weird crossover tune where nobody can quite explain what makes it so catchy. it reminds me of being a teenager.
not crazy about any of the tunes he's done since, or more accurately I just don't remember any of them. I appreciate the way he unapologetically keeps poking at conservatives - hell even I think his desecration of religious imagery goes a bit far, but I still respect him for doing it
― frogbs, Monday, 15 January 2024 17:54 (four months ago) link
I'm sorry wait do we not like "Rock Me Amadeus" now????
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 15 January 2024 18:02 (four months ago) link
always got the impression that people mocked "Rock Me Amadeus" a lot at the time but the song was so hooky that it ultimately won out in the end. sort of an "Ice Ice Baby" situation.
kind of disappointed the American copies of Falco 3 didn't have the original radio mix on it, but rather some 9 minute remix, which at least hilarious has a section listing off all of Wolfgang's major accomplishments and the years they occurred, ending with "1985: Austrian rock star Falco records ROCK ME AMADEUS!!"
― frogbs, Monday, 15 January 2024 18:11 (four months ago) link
Yep! I remember that section playing specifically, on the car radio… Lol
― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Monday, 15 January 2024 18:16 (four months ago) link
https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres86.php
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 January 2024 18:26 (four months ago) link
Had no idea late-model Stevie Winwood was so beloved by the Pazz & Jop crowd. Anyway, "Higher Love" way too high, "Walk Like an Egyptian" way too low.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 15 January 2024 18:39 (four months ago) link
In about 1980-1986 I loved absolutely everything emanating from my bedside clock radio. It was an intoxicating mix. Casey Kasem just smoothly rolled it all out for us.
You would hear the Clash (at least, "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go") and then Cyndi Lapuer and then Menudo or Madonna and then the Boss and then Cameo and then "Valley Girl" and then "My Darling Nikki" and then you get Pat Benatar or "The Glamorous Life" or "Life in a Northern Town" or "One of Our Submarines" or "Everyday I Write the Book" or whatever.
All of it was magical.
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 January 2024 19:13 (four months ago) link
Well yeah but you were also young. (I mean, that was my phase of top 40 radio listening/chart countdowns as well, almost to the year -- 81 to 86 in my case, ten to fifteen years old. Do I value it? Very much so and a lot of it due to the (relative, conditional, hardly universal) kaleidoscopic nature. But also because I was that age! It overdetermines my cultural memory as a result, and that often frustrates me.)
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 15 January 2024 19:17 (four months ago) link
Several hours ago I had an exchange with a certain rock critic/author on my FB wall on this very point: while he loved Tara Kemp's "Hold You Tight," I hesitated: it came out the summer before my senior year when at least half the AT40 boasted a hook, lyric, vocal, and aural effect worth savoring. Strip nostalgia away and it's sound, solid track.
But we need nostalgia too.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 January 2024 19:20 (four months ago) link
Frogbs, the local radio stations sometimes got to do promo cuts that were like: "1985: Q107 was the first to play... ROCK ME AMADEUS."
The Eddie Money song "I Wanna Go Back," from 1986, also had a section that was editable. Instead of "I... was listenin' to the radio," it could instead say "I... was listenin' to Q107."
Pretty sure that the Huey Lewis song "The Heart of Rock and Roll" had radio edits allowing local stations to put their cities in.
SAINT LOUIS! DETROIT! SCRANTON PA! FAYETTEVILLE!
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 January 2024 19:22 (four months ago) link
I absolutely don't mind it but I don't want to live there. I kinda think of it this way: there's a clutch of artistic work encountered from my youth that I still have an active interest in one way or another, like 'pop music' widely defined as such -- Peanuts, Star Wars and its derivations, and probably unsurprisingly Tolkien given my podcast. While Tolkien is the one whose work I end up engaging with the most regularly now precisely due to said podcast -- it's been almost five years of low key but still steady rigor and reflection -- the others I mention also benefit from me looking back that way, as I tend to do, recognizing where I was at, considering the lingering impact, but not pretending to be a naif in first full flush. What I *can* do in turn is recognize how so many things catching my interest and attention now, whether wholly new or encountered belatedly for the first time, result as a part of a continuum from those early fascinations. So you could say it's less nostalgia for the cultural product as nostalgia for the cultural process, perhaps.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 15 January 2024 19:28 (four months ago) link
I mostly agree: I've been in too many battles over every revision to the book on phony Beatlemania. I didn't want to deny my humanity, though. It sometimes needs affirming.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 January 2024 19:38 (four months ago) link
Ned Ragget, I sympathize. You are a professional and (I gather) you feel a moral duty to analyze art on its own merits. As opposed to how most civilians get to experience art: "this is what reached me in my formative years, when I was most porous to art."
Me? I am a civilian and I am also just too old and tired to care. "Yep, I admit that I love the music that I heard when I was in middle school."
Guilty as charged. Judge me negatively if you wish; I don't give a shit. And no, I am not gonna go research lo-fi trap-dance-crunk-core (or whatever) just because it is what the kids are into these days.
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 January 2024 19:38 (four months ago) link
I don't think you can analyze art "on its own terms." Interpretation depends on context and attitude and setting, thus re-engaging a beloved album will by necessity deal with nostalgia.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 January 2024 19:41 (four months ago) link
Alfred, one of the things I admire about your writing is how much of your own listening history and context you bring.
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 January 2024 19:43 (four months ago) link
you feel a moral duty to analyze art on its own merits
Hmm, perhaps. But, as Alfred notes, context does have a place, whether within my own memory or considering wider scopes. None of which is to say that your own approach -- which is evidently the one more broadly shared by people in general -- is strange or invalid, it clearly is not. As for me, I don't really follow what 'the kids' are into on a defined and specific basis, it's more like "Oh this is out there and new and I like it? Great!"
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 15 January 2024 19:51 (four months ago) link
great post dyl
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 15 January 2024 19:54 (four months ago) link
My sweet spot for top 40 is 1982-1984 (ages 14 to 16, which fits the cliche) but I can also recognize that 1962-1968 was an incredible stretch for top 40 even having no memory of that time and even though I discovered most of those hits when I was over 18 (didn't listen to oldies radio till around 1987). That's really easy to hear. Other periods sound great to me too, such as the WWII-era '40s, while more recent periods don't do it for me at all - like the 2010s. I think maybe an unappreciated factor here is how we respond to the prevailing rhythms of a particular era. Rythms affect us in subconscious ways to a major extent, and besides that we may just have natural preferences for certain types of grooves.
― Josefa, Monday, 15 January 2024 20:03 (four months ago) link
One thing I want to make sure the thread understands is that “Let’s Go All The Way” is an absolutely badass song
― the new drip king (DJP), Monday, 15 January 2024 22:34 (four months ago) link
WHEEEE
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 January 2024 22:49 (four months ago) link
Stupid brag but I saw Sly Fox do that song live at Disney World in 1986
― Josefa, Monday, 15 January 2024 22:53 (four months ago) link
Had never heard that song before today, it is good
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, 15 January 2024 22:57 (four months ago) link
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, April 24, 2013 12:28 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink
AHHHHHHHHH
― Call me at **BITCOIN (DJP), Wednesday, April 24, 2013 12:42 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink
LET'S GO ALL THE WAY!
― Camp Macaroni Style (snoball), Wednesday, April 24, 2013 1:30 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink
chuff chuff zinny ninny, chuff chuff zinny ninny
― ledge, Thursday, July 10, 2008 9:53 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― how's life, Wednesday, April 24, 2013 1:30 PM (ten years ago)
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:00 (four months ago) link
It's difficult to engage with popular culture in a way that doesn't unconsciously elevate certain contingent contextual parameters into some sort of universal and permanent set of rules of engagement. More than "nostalgia" for particular cultural artefacts, it's this which makes talking about the past versus today such a fraught exercise.
Specifically in this case, I don't understand why we would even talk about "top 40 radio" in a 2024 context - how many people engage with it today? It's not how most people are exposed to or consume new music. It's difficult for me to even think about whether "the kids" today have a better or worse deal because the rules of engagement have transformed so radically.
Maybe there was some benefit to me, as a teenager, in being forced to engage with the radio and with music video shows, and then more attentively with specific music on an album by album basis premised on how much pocket money I could save, but there were a lot of false starts along the way, e.g. being inundated with the video clip for K's Choice "Not An Addict" until I convinced myself that I liked it and bought the album, which I then listened to until I convinced myself that I liked that, only to realise that in truth nothing about it did anything for me. These are the kinds of experiences that my mid-90s nostalgia skips over, just as I struggle now to remember the stresses and boredoms and minor irritations of whatever was going on 10 years. I'm sure kids today have equivalent underwhelming experiences in engaging with popular culture, but trying to reach some overarching view as to whether the sum total of experiences is worse now seems to me like a thankless task.
― Tim F, Monday, 15 January 2024 23:28 (four months ago) link
Xxp DJP speaks wisdom. That song rocks nonstop
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:29 (four months ago) link
LOOKS LIKE AN APPLE CORE
― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:31 (four months ago) link
Looking at the Billboard Hot 100 for 1995 vs 2022, the main thing that sticks out is the ‘95 lineup seeming more adult-oriented. We were getting Montell Jordan at school dances but my parents would also put him on at parties. I don’t know if parents of junior high kids today are living the Jack Harlow/Morgan Wallen life.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:34 (four months ago) link
Taylor Swift, who still dominates the charts, is as much or more parent music than teen music
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:37 (four months ago) link
Many xps but: Also I didn't have cable, and therefore didn't have MTV, and therefore didn't see music videos until most of their heyday had passed.
There was a network show called "Friday Night Videos," but if you weren't poised in front if the TV when it aired, you would not be able to see moonwalking Michael Jackson or Cyndi's checkerboard hairdo or Van Halen's thing with words about right now or REM's thing with the wings or the thing about how everybody hurts.
You just simply didn't. Until later, when you somehow managed to see them and you figured out what people had been talking about for the previous several years.
I have lost track of why we are discussing this in a Lil Nas X thread
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:38 (four months ago) link
Point of order, “Not An Addict” is great (but not the type of song that would ever entice me into buying a band’s album)
― the new drip king (DJP), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:41 (four months ago) link
"Rock Me Amadeus" was catchy as hell, but it was no "Der Komissar."
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:41 (four months ago) link
“Der Kommisar“ > “Vienna Calling” > “Rock Me Amadeus”
I would put “Jeanny” in there but I don’t remember how it goes
― the new drip king (DJP), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:44 (four months ago) link
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin),
Same. I watched the Friday Night Videos re-runs on Saturday mornings; I've vivid memories of watching the videos for "The Reflex," "We Belong," "I Feel For You," many others. We got a VCR that same year. When pop music obsessed me I recorded FNV in 1989-1990. Until I did that, though, I relied on those monitors that big department stores like Burdines/Macy's installed in the kids departments. That's where I learned about Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper, Pet Shop Boys, Wham!, Madonna, Bruce, etc.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 January 2024 23:59 (four months ago) link
We had a small PBS station, broadcasting out of Broomfield, Colorado, whose most popular show by some distance was "Teletunes." They played the stuff that MTV didn't, and without any of the extraneous material. Here's an interesting 2020 piece from the local free paper:
https://www.westword.com/music/sounds-on-29th-season-looks-at-music-videos-and-revisits-teletunes-archive-11826452
One of my favorite bits was their signoff every night, which was "Goodbye to You" by Scandal.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 16 January 2024 00:07 (three months ago) link
correct ranking of Mitteleuropean 80s rock songs that are not as good as "99 Red Balloons"
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 16 January 2024 02:56 (three months ago) link
Until I did that, though, I relied on those monitors that big department stores like Burdines/Macy's installed in the kids departments. That's where I learned about Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper, Pet Shop Boys, Wham!, Madonna, Bruce, etc.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 16 January 2024 06:40 (three months ago) link
I noticed this a lot with 80's and 90's totp reruns, not just stuff that adults could enjoy but also tons of older artists still hitting the top4 on the regular, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Phil Collins ofc. I do see a lot of headlines about veteran artist x topping the album charts these days but I think they're safely siloed off from the hot100.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 16 January 2024 09:50 (three months ago) link
Anyway, re: nostlagia, I've been playing a lot of those Sporcle music clip quizzes Limmy plays on his streams and I'll tell you I'm a fucking beasy when it comes to identifying two second excerpts of hit songs from the 50's to about 2005 and utterly useless after that. This would break the heart of 18 year old me who envisioned my future as a fearless chronicler of pop history, keeping my ears to the ground and my mind in the trenches for as long as I breathed.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 16 January 2024 09:54 (three months ago) link
but think how embarrassing it would be to know the difference between some awful dubstep pop monstrosity and the Chainsmokers, or the difference between any of the “stomp clap hey” bands of the early teens
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Tuesday, 16 January 2024 12:39 (three months ago) link
Lol re:older acts hitting the top 100
Taylor Swift and Drake debuted around 18 years ago. It’s the equivalent of Grace Slick on the charts in 1986.
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Tuesday, 16 January 2024 13:55 (three months ago) link
Chris Stapleton, Miley, and Nicki were all around two decades ago as well.
― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Tuesday, 16 January 2024 14:05 (three months ago) link
hell we all were
― B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 16 January 2024 14:34 (three months ago) link
weren't there a bunch of old 60s farts in the 80s charts too?
― Left, Tuesday, 16 January 2024 14:39 (three months ago) link
grace slick for example
― Left, Tuesday, 16 January 2024 14:40 (three months ago) link
Take a look at the 1986 rundown I linked to.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 16 January 2024 14:42 (three months ago) link
The whole “we are at the end of history” shit is tedious post-leftist reactionary podcast runoff imho, no offense to anyone who got bamboozled
Cf https://t.co/IFFIFDFBW5
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Tuesday, 16 January 2024 14:46 (three months ago) link