Is This Message Understood?

By Wm. on October 22, 2024

Here are the next twenty-five titles on my list of favorite songs that peaked somewhere in the Billboard Hot 100 during 1984.

75. INXS, "I Send a Message" (#77, August)
74. The Fixx, "The Sign of Fire" (#32, January)
73. Bonnie Tyler, "Holding Out for a Hero" (#34, April)
72. Irene Cara, "Breakdance" (#8, June)
71. Madonna, "Lucky Star" (#4, October)

The first of five songs, by four separate acts, from Down Under shows up at #75. Cy Curnin and company appear for the second time, and we get the final Top 40 hits for both Tyler and Cara. I bought Madonna sometime that fall, the only album of hers I ever purchased. Maybe the ascent of "Lucky Star" on the charts pushed me to buy it (the video had been playing on MTV for some time already), but you'll learn before soon enough it isn't my favorite song on the album.

70. Slade, "Run Runaway" (#20, June)
69. Real Life, "Catch Me I'm Falling" (#40, May)
68. The Motels, "Remember the Nights" (#36, January)
67. Shannon, "Let the Music Play" (#8, February)
66. Robert Plant, "In the Mood" (#39, January)

I soon learned from friend Warren that Slade had a long string of success in the U.K. prior to helping propel Quiet Riot to momentary stardom. (They occasionally show up when I play 70s Heardle, though I rarely get it right when they do.) I fancy that Motels song more than I do fellow Little Robbers track "Suddenly Last Summer." The synth line in the chorus of "Let the Music Play" absolutely screams winter of 1984, and you will not hear me complain about that one bit. I had a friend in college who modified Plant's lyric to, "I'm in the mood for monotony," and I can't hear it any other way now.

Speaking of moments frozen in time, when else could you have seen guitars and drums like those in this Real Life clip?

65. Alan Parsons Project, "Don't Answer Me" (#15, May)
64. R.E.M. "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" (#85, July)
63. Bon Jovi, "Runaway" (#39, April)
62. Lionel Richie, "Running with the Night" (#7, February)
61. Re-Flex, "The Politics of Dancing" (#24, March)

James's then-girlfriend Stacey is the first person I can remember going on about this great new band out of Athens, probably sometime in the late spring of 1985. It would take about a year after that to begin scooping up some of their albums. I doubt Reckoning is R.E.M's best record, but it's long felt to me that it's their quintessential one.

While I'm hardly a big Richie fan, he did occasionally come up with songs I found pretty appealing. Forgive me for actively enjoying a Bon Jovi song; as penance, here's a clip of a song that I'm guessing James would have ranked much higher.

60. Corey Hart, "Sunglasses at Night" (#7, September)
59. Genesis, "That's All" (#6, February)
58. Prince, "Let's Go Crazy" (#1, September)
57. The Cars, "Hello Again" (#20, December)
56. Rod Stewart, "Infatuation" (#6, July)

This set kicks off with three tunes that are safely in the canon of 80s oldie station playlists for years still to come. We get our first, but far from last, taste of Heartbeat City, and probably the only song of Rod's I really liked between "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" and "Lost in You"--maybe we have Jeff Beck to thank for that.

55. Bruce Springsteen, "Dancing in the Dark" (#2, June)
54. Rick Springfield, "Love Somebody" (#5, May)
53. Romantics, "Talking in Your Sleep" (#3, January)
52. John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, "On the Dark Side" (#7, October)
51. Yes, "Leave It" (#24, April)

Not only do we get the Boss, but we also hear from a guy who wrote a song about being occasionally mistaken for him and a group whose sound is at least reminiscent of that of the E Street Band. Only one of these five acts also appears in the top half of my survey; those familiar with previous posts here will have no trouble discerning which one that is.