1984 comprised the very middle of my college experience, an eventful year containing both very low lows and decently high highs. Over the course of those twelve months I met a number of dear and important friends with whom I've managed to maintain steady contact since. And while I might have a slight preference for the music of 1983, I don't hold it against anyone who thinks that what we listened to in '84 was the best of that decade. I do know that the songs I've been reviewing in this series, along with plenty of others from 1984, are usually a cinch to flood my brain with memories of times past.
In December of that year, I wrote down two lists of 1984 fave tunes; both have appeared in this space before. A list of twenty-six songs went to James in a letter, with a subset of ten of those showing up in a subsequent year-end diary entry. All 26 made this Top 100, though a couple have fallen way down the list. Nine of them (and five of the subset) appear in this post. The power of the music I first heard when I was twenty is largely immutable, apparently. Drum roll for the current final ten, please...
10. Survivor, "I Can't Hold Back" (#13, December)
Who knows why some songs seem to carry an electric current for you? I still dig on the build-up from verse to chorus at the beginning, as well as that final crescendo.
9. Howard Jones, "What Is Love?" (#33, June)
This one should be no surprise, having appeared twice here for other reasons over the last year-plus.
8. Wang Chung, "Dance Hall Days" (#16, July)
How could a mathematician not like a song that comes from an album called Points on the Curve? I do wonder how the suits at Geffen came to decide this shouldn't be its lead single, though.
7. Duran Duran, "The Reflex" (#1, June)
I'm not usually a big remix guy, but this time it was both 100% necessary and a 1000% improvement on the album version.
6. Eurogliders, "Heaven (Must Be There)" (#65, December)
I'm trying to remember how I first encountered this song out of Australia. MTV is the logical guess, as I'm not sure Lexington radio would have touched it. However it was, I quickly bought the 45 and have completely loved it ever since. Near the top of my "wish they'd feature it as incidental music in a Netflix series so others could discover its awesomeness" list.
5. U2, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (#33, December)
I'd fallen fairly hard for U2 earlier the year when I picked up War, and consequently was excited to learn toward the end of '84 about the upcoming release of The Unforgettable Fire. The lead single did not disappoint in the slightest, even if other cuts on the album sorta did.
4. Eurythmics, "Here Comes the Rain Again" (#4, March)
The only song today that wasn't on that list of twenty-six from forty years ago. I don't think of it as having grown on me that much, as I've always liked it, and yet... Even with the underlying pulsating synth, we definitely see a warmer Annie Lennox than we had to that point.
3. Lindsey Buckingham, "Go Insane" (#23, October)
Title song from an album with an overabundance of inventive, creative sounds courtesy of a Fairlight.
It sure looks like I favor songs from overseas here at the top: only Lindsey and Survivor come from the good ol' U. S. of A today.
2. Paul Young, "Come Back and Stay" (#22, April)
Another song I associate with the lifting fog of the opening weeks of the year. To be truthful, it might be the female backup vocal work that's the best part of the piece, particularly the haunting wail that accompanies the otherwise instrumental bridge.
Like the Eurythmics tune, the video largely takes place on a rocky coastline; maybe that's a coincidence, or maybe there's some unexplored link between geography and the state of my life at the time.
1. Talk Talk, "It's My Life" (#31, May)
I guess my life as a blogger started in the summer of 2016. The genesis was a series of Facebook posts, each day featuring one of the forty-four songs I'd ripped onto two cassette tapes across two evenings in May 1985, down at the WTLX studios. Six of those qualified for consideration on this list, and they all turned out to rank #17 or higher (for the record, they're the songs at #1, #2, #6, #10, #15, and #17)--you truly do like what you like.
Anyway, "It's My Life" is another 45 I immediately snagged in real time, and it's held sway over me ever since. It was not a difficult decision--at all--to place it at the top of these rankings. It's also a rare instance of We Just Agree with Mark Seaman, proprietor of My Favorite Decade; in fact, I accurately predicted we both would choose "It's My Life" for #1.
For those of a certain age and mindset, it's a stone cold timeless classic.
