Counting down the Top 50 of '84 - Albums #5 - 1

(or, more accurately, my favorite albums released in 1984)

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Difford & Tilbrook
Difford & Tilbrook

Produced by:	Tony Visconti, E.T. Thorngren, Chris Difford, & Glenn Tilbrook
Billboard 200:	55
CashBox 200:	25
Rolling Stone 100:	33

• Billboard: "sleeker, more expansive pop feel"
• Rolling Stone (★★★): "chock full of Tilbrook's typically jaunty pop tunes"
• Smash Hits (6 out of 10): "plenty of rewards."
• Record Mirror (++): "a disappointment"

Top 3 Tracks
"Love's Crashing Waves"
"Action Speaks Faster"
"Man for All Seasons"

The songwriting duo from Squeeze put out this album after the group split up (temporarily) in the early '80s. Compared to the duo's usual fantastic writing, the songwriting on this release isn't that great, but even the best material couldn't hold up to the slick, flat production given here. However, this came out in the summer of 1984 and I listened to it non-stop, so I'm very familiar with all the tunes and arrangements. Difford & Tilbrook should have been more well known in the US, but this wasn't the release that would gain them that fame and recognition.

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Big Bam Boom
Daryl Hall & John Oates

Produced by:	Daryl Hall, John Oates & Bob Clearmountain
Billboard 200:	5
CashBox 200:	7
Rolling Stone 100:	5

• Billboard: "The hit machine rolls on"
• CashBox: "substantial pop that is constantly anchored by a big funk sound."
• Rolling Stone (★★★★): "the most solid Hall and Oates album in years"
• Stereo Review: "a stiff, slightly awkward record - not a must."
• Robert Christgau: B

U.S. Billboard charted single:	Hot 100	R&B	Dance	AC	Rock
Out Of Touch	1	24	1	8	1
Method of Modern Love	5	21	15	18	5
Some Things are Better Left Unsaid	18	85		17	16
Possession Obsession	30	69	20	8

Top 3 Tracks
"Some Things are Better Left Unsaid"
"Method of Modern Love"
"Out of Touch"

This album was a marked departure for the group as they updated their "blue-eyed soul" sound to match the times. Lots of synths, sequencing, echo, and dance beats in a louder and noisier setting than we were used to with these guys. Now it sounds like every other dance/hip-hop album from the late '80s, so I guess these guys were actually ahead of their time in terms of sonic originality.

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Learning to Crawl

The Pretenders

Produced by:	Chris Thomas
Billboard 200:	5
CashBox 200:	4
Rolling Stone 100:	1

• Rolling Stone: ★★★★
• Trouser Press: "100 percent Hynde. And it's fine."
• CashBox: "one of early 84's success stories"
• Billboard: "strong songs, crack performances"
• Smash Hits (5 out of 10): "a patchy comeback LP"
• Robert Christgau (A-): 'I'm not the kind I used to be/I've got a kid, I'm thirty-three' is certainly a quotable quote, and whether rock-and-rolling her baby or growling at fat cats Chrissie Hynde backs it up."
• High Fidelity: "contains some of the Pretenders' finest music to date"
• Stereo Review: Best of the Month

U.S. Billboard charted singles:	Hot 100	Rock
Back on the Chain Gang	5	4
My City was Gone		11
Middle of the Road	19	2
Time the Avenger		6
Show Me	28	8
Thumbelina		57

Top 3 Tracks
"Middle of the Road"
"Time the Avenger"
"My City was Gone"

This is The Pretenders' greatest album and a more complete album than any they previously released, including their spectacular debut (yeah, I said it). Plus, this music has aged well. The song My City was Gone is especially poignant to me now because it makes me think of the town I grew up in which has undergone significant changes and decay over the years.

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Like a Virgin
Madonna

Produced by:	Nile Rodgers, Steve Bray, & Madonna
Billboard 200:	1
CashBox 200:	1
Rolling Stone 100:	1

• CashBox: "a healthy dose of disco-rock"
• Billboard: "This second album brings considerable muscle"
• High Fidelity: "Madonna pulls off the neat trick of outstripping her own fast start."
• Rolling Stone (★★★½): "Rodgers wisely supplies the kind of muscle Madonna's sassy lyrics demand."
• Smash Hits (8 out of 10): "a good all-American dance album"
• Stereo Review: "sounds thin to me - not terrible, but predictably commercial"
• Robert Christgau: B 

U.S. Billboard charted single:	Hot 100	Dance	AC
Like a Virgin	1	1	29
Material Girl	2	1	38
Angel	5	1	5
Dress You Up	5	3	32

Top 3 Tracks
"Material Girl"
"Like a Virgin"
"Dress You Up"

No sophomore slump here. Madonna brought in Nile Rodgers to produce, found a great bunch of dance tunes, put a sexy "Boy Toy" picture on the cover, and gave the whole package an ambiguous, suggestive, slightly controversial (at the time) title. With this album, Madonna moved from pop singer to pop icon. Madonna doesn't have a great voice, but she knows how to put together a package (e.g., the backing band for much of the album is freakin' Chic for chrissakes) and, with a few missteps, this album transcended the existing concepts of dance-pop and set the stage for dance music in the late '80s.

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Stop Making Sense
Talking Heads

Produced by:	Talking Heads & Gary Goetzman
Billboard 200:	41
CashBox 200:	29
Rolling Stone 100:	16

• Rolling Stone (★★★★): "a solid artistic statement from a band that's starting to have as much as they've given their listeners."
• Stereo Review: "a great live performance"
• Robert Christgau (B+): "a soundtrack, albeit for the finest concert film I've ever seen"
• CashBox: "an electrifying LP"
• Billboard: "sustains remarkable polish"

Top 3 Tracks
"Found a Job"
"Once in a Lifetime"
"This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)"

Simply put, this album represents the best concert movie ever filmed.

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These are my personal top 10 albums released in 1984. 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 years since release
• My opinion of the overall quality of the album

The top tracks for each album are solely my opinion.

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Other album charts from MFD (formats vary):

• 1976 (17 albums, 3 posts) Top album: Songs in the Key of Life
• 1977 (10 albums, 1 post) Top album: Saturday Night Fever
• 1978 (19 albums, 1 post) Top album: 52nd Street
• 1979 (50 albums, 6 posts) Top album: I Am
• 1980 (10 albums, 2 posts) Top album: Glass Houses
• 1982 (82 albums, 10 posts) Top album: Rio
• 1983 (83 albums, 4 posts) Top album: North of a Miracle
• 1985 (25 albums, 5 posts) Top album: Cupid & Psyche 85

MFD Random Five #56

In which I shuffle through some music files and listen to the first five songs from the years 1976-85 that randomly pop up.

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1. "I Will Follow" by U2 (1983, Island)
   I'm treated to the live version from the Under A Blood Red Sky mini-LP. It was released as a single and peaked at #81. So much energy and passion. I really dig these live cuts and they remind me what a great band these guys were in the early '80s, hungry for success and striving to get there. For many years, I thought the lyrics were, like many early U2 tunes, based in Christian teachings and this was a call to follow Christ. I've since discovered I was wrong about that. Nevertheless, that opening riff is so powerful, simple, and aggressive that you can't help but pay attention.


2. "Follow Me" by Chicago (1982, Full Moon/Warner Bros.)
   Two "follow" songs shuffle around consecutively! What are the odds? This tune is immediately recognizable to me as the opening track to side 2 of my old Chicago 16 cassette. An obvious David Foster composition with soulful vocals from Bill Champlin. The icing on the cake are the horn parts from James Pankow, et. al. Then there's the guitar solo coda - that's gotta be Lukather, right?


3. "Tanque-Ray" by Nick Lowe (1983, Columbia)
   Filler track from the 1983 album, The Abominable Showman. Goes to show even great musicians can have an off day just like the rest of us.


4. "I Zimbra" by Talking Heads (1982, Sire)
   Another live track, this time from the brilliant The Name of this Band is Talking Heads. Eno and Byrne were in their African ripoff phase so the chanting is kinda obvious and kinda awesome. The extra percussion in the expanded ten-piece group is perfect and Adrian Belew tears off a tasty solo. I'll take this as a sign to spin the entire album today. 


5. "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" by Culture Club (1982, Epic)
   Pseudo-reggae meets pseudo-soul and dadgummit this thing is still as catchy as it is disposable. I hate it, I love it, I love to hate it, I hate to love it, I hate that I love it, etc. I got issues. Maybe The Name of this Band... will fix 'em.

Bubbling Under 1981

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The following songs didn't quite make Billboard's Hot 100 list in 1981, peaking at positions 101-110. Nevertheless, there's some good tunes here that deserve a second listen and at least one that has had some real staying power over the last 40+ years.

Below is a Mixcloud show containing 14 of the Bubbling Under tunes followed by an annotated playlist:

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"Look Up!"
Patrice Rushen
From the album Posh
Written by Patrice Rushen, Charles Mims, Jr., Sheree Brown
Produced by Charles Mims, Jr & Patrice Rushen

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	102
Dance	2
R & B	13

Patrice Rushen put out a series of wonderful singles on Elektra from about 1977-87 yet only one song became a Top 40 pop hit. This fact absolutely baffles me. However, her singles did much better on Billboard's Dance and R&B charts. As this single illustrates, Rushen had a fantastic blend of R&B, pop, disco, and jazz in her music.

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"Goodbye Elenore"
Toto
From the album Turn Back
Written by David Paich
Produced by Toto & Geoff Workman

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	107

For the guitar-heavy, arena-rock Turn Back album, the band seems to have come up with some great, aggressive riffs and then didn't do much with them. But the classic Toto chops are on full display, so it's got that going for it. The shuffle groove here reminds me a little of Boston's "Smokin'" so maybe that's what they were going for.

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"Once in a Lifetime"
Talking Heads
From the album Remain in Light
Written by David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth
Produced by Brian Eno

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	103
Dance	20

The band's signature tune wasn't the most successful on the charts, but even after 40+ years, I never tire of hearing it. Classic. A live version of the tune later peaked in the Hot 100 at #91 in 1985.

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"Send a Little Love My Way (As Always)"
Stephen Bishop
From the album Red Cab to Manhattan
Written by Stephen Bishop
Produced by Mike Mainieri & Tommy LiPuma

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	108
Adult Contemporary	31

With a supporting cast that includes Steve Gadd, Dean Parks, and Mainieri, this single is a little piece of soft rock heaven yet it only hit #31 on the AC chart. Go figure.

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"Generals and Majors"
XTC
From the album Black Sea
Written by Colin Moulding
Produced by Steve Lillywhite

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	104
Rock	28

I can't explain why XTC wasn't bigger in the US. Maybe they were a bit too quirky. The band's pop songwriting was always top-notch and this anti-war song is no exception. It did better in the band's native UK, peaking at #32.

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"Time Heals"
Todd Rundgren
From the album Healing
Written by Todd Rundgren
Produced by Todd Rundgren

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	107
Rock	18

Daryl Hall once said, "I think [Todd Rundgren] writes great religious music. He just doesn't have very many members of his church." Well, I'm a member. This upbeat tune is typical Rundgren with all his familiar chord progressions and cadences. This tune sometimes gets a mention in the annals of pop culture as its video was the eighth music video to air on MTV during its launch on August 1, 1981.

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"Two Lonely Nights"
Nielsen Pearson
From the album Nielsen/Pearson
Written by Reed Nielsen and Mark Pearson
Produced by Richard Landis

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	110

From the album that spawned the duo's only Top 40 hit, "If You Should Sail," this single doesn't quite meet that song's standard, but its a decent, smooth westcoast joint. Odd choice for single release - it's good album filler, but it's still filler. Is that Tom Scott on a lyricon solo?

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"Second Choice"
Any Trouble
From the album Where Are All the Nice Girls?
Written by Clive Gregson
Produced by John Wood

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	108

The entire Where Are All the Nice Girls? is full of hook-laden power pop and is highly recommended for fans of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Marshall Crenshaw, early Joe Jackson, etc.

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"Summer Strut"
Spyro Gyra
From the album Freetime
Written by Jeremy Wall
Produced by Jay Beckenstein & Richard Calandra

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	108

Spyro Gyra hit the Top 40 in 1979 with "Morning Dance" and the MCA label spent the next few years releasing singles in an attempt to duplicate that success. Top 40 success never came again for the band, but they earned a lifelong fan in me, if that helps them any. If you watched the Weather Channel back in the '80s and '90s, you might have caught this tune in a "Local on the 8's" segment.

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"One Step Ahead"
Split Enz
From the album Waiata
Written by Neil Finn
Produced by David Tickle

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	104

The best cut on the Waiata album (pronounced why-arter), this song's hook isn't immediate, but once it grabs hold, it's in my ears for days. Another early MTV participant, the video for this song was the 28th aired on the network.

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"Talk to Ya Later"
The Tubes
From the album The Completion Backward Principle
Written by The Tubes, David Foster & Steve Lukather
Produced by David Foster

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	101
Rock	7

Reportedly, the album was lacking a clear cut single. So, producer David Foster, well known for bringing in session musicians if the band isn't meeting his standards, brought in Toto guitarist Steve Lukather was brought in to co-write and do the guitar work here. Nevertheless, it's the lead track on the album and, as such, grabbed my attention immediately when Jim, a high school buddy, loaned me his cassette of The Completion Backward Principle, a tasty collection of catchy, high gloss power pop. I wore that tape out. And then returned it. Sorry, Jim.

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"Beautiful World"
Devo
From the album New Traditionalists
Written by Gerald Casale & Mark Mothersbaugh
Produced by Devo

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	109

The lyrics of this song start off as positive and upbeat then turn cynical and darker in short order. But I dig the simplistic music. Along with "Through Being Cool," this single is certainly one of the top two tunes on New Traditionalists.

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"Tube Snake Boogie"
ZZ Top
From the album El Loco

Written by Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill & Frank Beard

Produced by Bill Ham

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	102
Rock	4

I grew up in the Houston area, so I heard a lot of ZZ Top on the radio and friend's tape decks. I was 14 years old when this song was released and, because of the sexual innuendo or double entendres throughout, me and my friends knew all the lyrics. Typical sex-crazed teenage mindset - it amused me much more as a teenager than it does now as a grandfather who is recently retired. But I guess that's to be expected.

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"Going Back to Miami"
The Blues Brothers
From the album Made in America
Written by Wayne Cochran
Produced by Bob Tischler

U.S. Billboard charts peaks:
Bubbling Under	108

The Blues Brothers weren't actually brothers, didn't play much actual blues music, and weren't particularly funny other than in their 1980 movie, which is fantastic. However, they were able to put together a stellar band (the likes of which hasn't been seen since) and that made all the difference. The band constantly steals the show and in this piece, Tom Scott rips off a reed-melting tenor solo that should have placed this live single in the Hot 100 all on its own. 

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SEE ALSO:

Bubbling Under 1982

Bubbling Under 1983

Music ads for 1985 releases