86: El DeBarge, "Who's Johnny"

By Wm. on July 5, 2025

I've mentioned before that I do a lot of my 70s and 80s Billboard Hot 100 chart research via the Ultimate Music Database. I know it's an imperfect resource--that'll happen with (what I assume is) hand-entered data--but there's much to recommend it. One thing I particularly like is that for each week's chart, there are columns for both peak-as-of-that-date and ultimate peak position. As I was listening to this weekend's Premiere offering of 7/5/86, I summoned the UMD page for that week and something quickly jumped out at me: all of the songs in the top 10 either had already or would soon peak at #4 or higher (five would reach the top, three would get to #3, and there was one #2 and one #4 tune). That seemed unusual, but was it? This inquiring mind suspected so and was soon hot on the trail of the answer.

The short answer is that, in the 80s, such a thing only happened twice, and 7/5/86 was the first of those two times. (I'll get to the other occurrence in a bit.) I can understand why such a thing might have been unlikely to happen in the early 80s, what with the slower chart action during the Bill Wardlow era. Once we get beyond the middle of 1983, songs begin to bounce up and down more, and by July 1986, it wasn't uncommon for a three-, four-, or even greater position advance to be followed the next week with a drop of roughly equal measure (for instance, a few weeks prior to this show, "Is It Love" by Mr. Mister had gone 14-8-13 over a three-week period). I think that increases the likelihood of something like we see here?

There's evidence to support this if we step back just a bit and look at how many times, and when, all of the songs in the top 10 peaked at #5 or higher. That happened 18 times in the 80s, including the two times of #4 or higher. There were two instances in 1980 and two more in 1981 (consecutive weeks in July) before chart movement loosened up. Afterward, we get two in the latter half of 1983, one in the summer of 1985, two back-to-back weeks in October of 1986, and then four times in each of 1988 and 1989. Clumps continued to abound: in each of those last two cases, there was an instance of top 5-or-higher in three consecutive weeks: 11/19-12/3 of '88, and 9/9-9/23 of '89. This makes me believe that there's a lack of independence for such occurrences; that is, given that all 10 songs are past, current, or future Top 5 hits one week, the probability that such a thing will happen the following week is apparently higher than it would be otherwise.

I do fully realize this is trivia of limited appeal, but hey, in some ways I look for patterns for a living.

"Who's Johnny" is another of those yo-yo cases I referenced above. On this show it's surging three spots up to its peak of #3; the next week it would drop back to #5. The DeBarge clan's AT40 chart history syncs up almost exactly with my college years. Their first hit, "I Like It," came aboard in the early spring of my freshman year, while the two solo hits from El and Chico, the last times any member of the family made the show, both came and went within six months of my graduation. I will say that I didn't give their stuff (perhaps with the exception of "Rhythm of the Night") the attention it deserved at the time, but "All This Love" and "Time Will Reveal" are welcome anytime now.

Short Circuit, the film that features "Who's Johnny" on its soundtrack, was almost certainly the last movie I saw while an undergraduate. My recollection now is that it was entertaining enough if a bit contrived--any movie featuring Ally Sheedy was attractive to me at the time. Maybe I saw the video below back in the day, maybe I didn't; I will say it doesn't really give Sheedy much to work with.

As for the second occurrence of the all #4-or-higher Top 10, that happened when Casey was at the helm for the final time in the classic era, 8/6/88.