Voices
Daryl Hall & John Oates
| Produced by: | Daryl Hall, John Oates |
| Billboard 200: | 17 |
| CashBox 200: | 24 |
| Rolling Stone 100: | 23 |
- Stereo Review: " they have just about enough soul for Top-40 radio."
- Billboard: "rock'n'roll, recalling the original spirit of new wave as well as the stripped down rock sounds of the late '50s and early '60s."
- CashBox: "With the return to a more rhythmic approach in the music, this Hall and Oates LP is full of surprises"
- Record World: "After toying with many musical genres, this duo takes the rock 'n' roll road and proves its pop craftsmanship."
- Robert Christgau (C+): "the mildly interesting stuff is commercial filler"
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: | Hot 100 | AC |
| How Does It Feel To Be Back | 30 | |
| You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' | 12 | 15 |
| Kiss on My List | 1 | 16 |
| You Make My Dreams | 5 |
Top 3 Tracks
"Kiss On My List"
"You Make My Dreams"
"How Does It Feel To Be Back"
The duo is often described as "blue eyed soul" but there's more new wave-ish pop tunes than soulful crooning on this album. The group's first self-produced album, it marked a change in their sound and created momentum to greater chart success that soon followed. Four of the album's eleven tracks reached the top 40 and the album stayed on the Billboard Top 200 chart for 100 weeks.
When You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling was receiving regular radio play, I was a scrawny high school freshman, but that didn't stop me from singing the song to women as I tried to get them to notice. It didn't help that my cracking voice was changing at that time. Top Gun's Maverick may have been more successful with his bar version, but I thought of the idea 6 years before he hit the screens.
When You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling was receiving regular radio play, I was a scrawny high school freshman, but that didn't stop me from singing the song to women as I tried to get them to notice. It didn't help that my cracking voice was changing at that time. Top Gun's Maverick may have been more successful with his bar version, but I thought of the idea 6 years before he hit the screens.
Mad Love
Linda Ronstadt
| Produced by: | Peter Asher |
| Billboard 200: | 3 |
| CashBox 200: | 3 |
| Rolling Stone 100: | 2 |
- Stereo Review: "a well -intended, spirited, almost plucky little album"
- Rolling Stone: "Though Mad Love isn't a major exhibition, it's certainly a fascinating failure."
- Record World: "geared to surprise, pleasantly."
- Billboard: "nothing but fun-sounding basic rock with an occasional high energy ballad"
- Robert Christgau (B-): "it falls way over on the strident side of powerful"
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: | Hot 100 | AC |
| How Do I Make You | 10 | |
| Hurt So Bad | 8 | 25 |
| I Can't Let Go | 31 | 48 |
Top 3 Tracks
"I Can't Let Go"
"How Do I Make You"
"Girls Talk"
I'm wild about Linda and I'm wild about this wonderful collection of tunes with three songs from Elvis Costello plus four more from The Cretones. And how can you look at that cover pic and not wish that you were on the other end of that telephone line?
Airplay
Airplay
| Produced by: | Jay Graydon & David Foster |
| Billboard 200: | - |
| CashBox 200: | - |
| Rolling Stone 100: | - |
Top 3 Tracks
"Nothin' You Can Do About It"
"Cryin' All Night"
"She Waits For Me"
Überproducers/session players Jay Graydon and David Foster decided to make an album of their own, created Airplay, and released this album. Most of the session playing on this album was done by ace vocalist Tommy Funderburk, trumpets by Jerry Hey, and contributions from Toto, including Jeff Pocaro, Steve Pocaro, David Hungate, and Steve Lukather. The result is one of the best pop albums that few ever heard. Why did the album tank? From Graydon:
Airplay received little record company promotion in the states and David and I did nothing to promote. Simply bad business and the album totally stiffed!!! This was not the record company's fault in full. We could have worked the record doing a tour, etc. but David and I were too busy writing and producing acts that sold big numbers. We blew it!!! Ironically, the album became an underground pop success in Japan and many other countries. It still sells well in some territories.
Catching the Sun/Carnaval
Spyro Gyra
Catching the Sun
|
Carnaval
| |
| Both produced by: |
Jay Beckenstein and Richard Calandra
| |
| Billboard 200: |
19
|
49
|
| CashBox 200: |
21
|
40
|
| Rolling Stone 100: |
22
|
36
|
- Stereo Review: "if you approach Spyro Gyra's music as light entertainment instead of jazz, you may enjoy it."
- Billboard: "the majority here is top-notch jazz-rock"
- CashBox: "this Buffalo-based sextet delivers its most melodic effort yet"
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: | Hot 100 | AC |
| Catching the Sun | 68 | 15 |
| Percolator | 48 | |
| Cafe Amore | 77 | 14 |
Top 3 Tracks
"Catching the Sun"
"Cafe Amore"
"Philly"
"Philly"
Yeah, it may seem like a cop-out to put these two smooth jazz/instrumental pop albums tied for the sixth spot on this list, but maybe it will make more since if you knew that my initial exposure to both these 1980 albums was through this 1982 two-fer cassette release:
So more like a double album to me than two single album releases. This Twin Pax cassette got a lot of time in the Markmobile's Pioneer deck, particularly if there were adults above 30 in the passenger seat because how could this smooth stuff possibly offend?
So more like a double album to me than two single album releases. This Twin Pax cassette got a lot of time in the Markmobile's Pioneer deck, particularly if there were adults above 30 in the passenger seat because how could this smooth stuff possibly offend?
These are my personal top 10 albums released in 1980. The following criteria was used on a very slippery sliding scale:
- How often I enjoyed the album at the time of release
- How often I've enjoyed the album over the past 40+ years
- My opinion of the overall quality of the album
The top tracks for each album are solely my opinion.
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