This Week's Top 10 - May 18, 1985

I have the original LP pressing of Centerfield - with the final track as "Zanz Kant Danz" rather than the revamped, litigation-induced "Vanz Kant Danz."

 

I voted for We Are The World. Cheesy? Maybe, but there's Stevie, Dylan, Springsteen, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson & MJ singing on it.

 

And that makes it a good song why?

I read over the top 100 and I know about a dozen of the tunes on it. I would rank the following up near the Tears For Fears and Simple Minds tracks:

31 INVISIBLE -- Alison Moyet
56 EVERYTIME YOU GO AWAY -- Paul Young
42 THE GOONIES ’R’ GOOD ENOUGH -- Cyndi Lauper
33 NEVER ENDING STORY -- Limahl
50 DO YOU WANNA GET AWAY -- Shannon

I was too busy listening to the Smiths and such to pay much attention to the charts ...

 

My very first month in radio, Lewistown Pennsylvania. Can almost remember which ones were in which rotation at the time. Thankfully was spared We Are The World as it had run it's course by the time this chart hit, on radio at least. For those who never worked radio (and radio vets, your experiences may vary), the charts reflected what was selling, not what was playing. For playing you went with Radio and Records magazine which was an accurate representation of what was hot on the airwaves. Here's what our rotation system was like.....

(a) tunes 1 thru 10, 3 to 4 per hour depending on the daypart
(b) tunes 11 to 30, 2 to 3 per hour depending on the daypart
(c) tunes 31 to 40, 1 to 2 per hour
(d) up and coming tunes, one per hour
(r) recurrents, anywhere from current to six months back, one per hour
The rest of the time was filled with catalog stuff.

You always got the "a" and "b" tunes in, "c" tunes if you could, "d" and "r" were disposable. So I mentioned that to say that about half of these were already out of hot rotation but I remember them all fondly.

 

Sade and Simple Minds are the stand-outs from that chart for me.

 

For two reasons : Stevie Wonder's intervention in which he modulates and changes the melody and makes it so much better.
And the fact that everyone only has one line to shine, so they're all singing their little hearts out, until Dylan comes along and sings like he couldn't possibly care less.

 

DON’T YOU (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds - The only song on the list I like, and it's one of my least favorite Simple Minds songs.

 

I think I either hate all of these songs, or I simply dislike them. I voted for "EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD" by Tears For Fears. Songwise, I can see how some of these are good "songs" (particularly, "Don't You Forget About Me"), but I can't stand the 80s production.

 

I hate the songs in this chart except "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" by Tears For Fears and "Everything She Wants" by Goerge Michael.

 

Back in the day, "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", did absolutely nothing for me. Today however, I think it's one of the best songs of the 80s. Even the video has held up extremely well.

 

The ones that stand out for me:

"Crazy for You"
"Everybody Wants to Rule the World"

There's also a lot of crap, too, but it's nostalgic crap because this was the period when I first fell in love. I think "Crazy for You" was on the soundtrack to the film Visionquest.

Remember that one?

Anyway, I remember going on a date to that film--ahh, good times.