Tryin' To Stay Hip

By Wm. on October 19, 2024

Back in the summer, friend Mark told me he'd soon be publishing the list of his 84 favorite singles from 1984 over at My Favorite Decade. For any number of reasons--it's a multiple-of-10-years-ago, one of my favorite years for pop music, an incredibly eventful twelve months for yours truly meaning songs of the period can trigger strong memories--I took Mark's efforts as a sign that I should scramble to create my own set of rankings. In order to directly compare with Mark, I used the same criteria he did for a song's eligibility: 1) it had to have reached the Hot 100; and 2) it had to ascend to its peak position on a 1984 chart. That gave over 430 candidates for consideration. I eventually winnowed things down to 100 tunes, though eliminating the last few took a little time. While not exactly another effort at We Just Disagree, I did want to compare: I fully expected we'd be in synch some of the time but clash horribly plenty, too.

I'm breaking my presentation into five parts: two sets of 25, followed by two sets of 20, then wrapping things up with the top 10. Sure, there's ego involved in this exercise, thinking anyone might be interested in my opinions, but at the least I'm hoping that if you're reading this, you really like some of these songs and have your own fond recollections of life forty years ago.

Anyway, let's get the good times rolling with the first quarter of the list. You'll quickly see there are big hits and relative obscurities distributed throughout.

100. The Fixx, "Are We Ourselves?" (#15, October)
99. Chris DeBurgh, "High on Emotion" (#44, August)
98. Thomas Dolby, "Hyperactive" (#62, March)
97. Honeymoon Suite, "New Girl Now" (#57, October)
96. Deborah Allen, "Baby I Lied" (#26, January)

The first five includes a couple of failed follow-ups to Top 40 hits from DeBurgh and Dolby, the only country song on the list, and one of just two pieces of Canadian Content.

The DeLorean's appearance in the beginning of the vid for "New Girl Now"reminds me that when I started at Transy, one of the upperclasswomen there was driving one.

95. Genesis, "Taking It All Too Hard" (#50, July)
94. Josie Cotton, "Jimmy Loves Maryann" (#82, April)
93. Pretenders, "Show Me" (#28, May)
92. Huey Lewis & the News, "The Heart of Rock' n' Roll" (#6, June)
91. Bob Dylan, "Sweetheart Like You" (#55, January)

Genesis includes a couple of lousy singles (you'll be able to infer which ones I mean after I'm done with this series) but several pretty awesome album cuts. I believe the Cotton tune is the only song in my Top 100 that I didn't know back in the 80s. I've long been a fan of Infidels, but it's Chrissie getting the embed from this set.

90. Tony Carey, "A Fine, Fine Day" (#22, May)
89. Midnight Star, "No Parking on the Dance Floor" (#81, April)
88. Prince, "When Doves Cry" (#1, July)
87. Tracey Ullman, "Breakaway" (#70, June)
86. Billy Idol, "Eyes Without a Face" (#4, July)

Carey isn't the only act based in West Germany at the time that we'll be seeing (yes, a hint about a coming attraction). Kentucky represents with a great track from Frankfort's Midnight Star, and I get to make mention of Irma Thomas for the second time in a month due to Ullman's charming cover of "Breakaway."

Maybe I like "Hot in the City" more, but "Eyes Without a Face" is a plenty fun, silly romp, deservedly one of Idol's biggest hits.

85. James Ingram with Michael McDonald, "Yah Mo B There" (#19, March)
84. Billy Ocean, "Caribbean Queen" (#1, November)
83. Pointer Sisters, "Automatic" (#5, April)
82. Billy Joel, "The Longest Time" (#14, May)
81. Queen, "Radio Gaga" (#16, April)

The run of Billys ends almost as soon as it began, and we get Queen's final Top 40 hit while Freddie was alive. I'm not much of a McDonald fan, so it's a bit of an upset to find "Yah Mo B There" making the cut.

80. Pointer Sisters, "I'm So Excited" (#9, October)
79. Huey Lewis & the News, "I Want a New Drug" (#6, March)
78. Psychedelic Furs, "The Ghost in You" (#59, June)
77. Paul McCartney, "No More Lonely Nights" (#6, December)
76. Sheila E., "The Glamorous Life" (#7, October)

Second and final entries from both the Pointers and Huey. It's not Macca's last Top 10 hit but his last good one. Maybe Sheila E. got attention because of her association with the Purple One, but it's clear she had sufficient chops to stand on her own.

I count fourteen Songs Casey Never Played on the list. Perhaps not too surprisingly, most are in the fourth quartile--the Psych Furs provide us with the ninth we've encountered already.