Tag: music

The 1985 Top 100 #1s

White Nights

The Billboard 1985 Top 100 #1s is largely familiar to me. Oh, check out Arthur’s take on the songs of that year.

Say You, Say Me—Lionel Richie (Motown), #1 for four weeks, gold record. The song was featured in the 1985 film White Nights, directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines, which I saw at the time. Incidentally, that was the year Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet leader. 

We Are The World – USA for Africa (Columbia), #1 for four weeks, quadruple platinum record. Written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson, and famously produced by Quincy Jones. I think I watched the video so often that I could tell you who soloed when. I know how Dan Aykroyd, the first guy alphabetically on the session, got there. But I never bought the single; I bought the ALBUM.

Careless Whisper – Wham! featuring George Michael (Columbia), #1 for  three weeks, platinum record

Can’t Fight This Feeling – REO Speedwagon (Epic),#1 for three weeks, gold record

Money For Nothing – Dire Straits (Warner), #1 for three weeks

Shout – Tears For Fears (Mercury), #1 for three weeks, gold record

Two weeks at the top

Broken Wings – Mr. Mister (RCA)

I Want To Know What Love Is – Foreigner (Atlantic), gold record. Okay, I own it on an album: I LOVE this song. It’s a sappy video, but the choir is great.

The Power Of Love – Huey Lewis and the News (Chrysalis), gold record. Obviously, per the video, from the movie Back To The Future, which I saw at the time. 

Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Tears for Fears (Mercury). I love the beat, which is described as a shuffle; it has a strolling element. And it’s an antiwar song.

We Built This City – Starship (Grunt), gold record. When John Hebert, Tom Skulan, and I wrote a parody comic book called Sold Out, it referenced this song with the lyrics, “We bilked this city on black and whites.” It is a well-hated song, and I’m not a fan.

St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) – John Parr (Atlantic). I’ve never seen that movie.

Everything She Wants – Wham! (Columbia), gold record

Heaven – Bryan Adams (A&M)

A View To A Kill – Duran Duran (Capitol). I’ve never seen this James Bond film. 

One More Night – Phil Collins (Atlantic), gold record

The rest are one week at #1

Separate Lives – Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin (Atlantic). Also from the movie White Nights.

Crazy For You – Madonna (Geffen), gold record. It’s on the soundtrack for a movie called Vision Quest, which I’m not familiar with. 

Every Time You Go Away – Paul Young (Columbia), gold record. My favorite song on the list, better than the Hall and Oates original

Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds (A&M). This is on the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club, a film I’ve never seen.

Part Time Lover – Stevie Wonder (Tamla)

Take On Me – a-ha (Warner)

Saving All My Love – Whitney Houston (Arista), gold record. From her debut album.

Miami Vice theme – Jon Hammer (MCA), instrumental. A great theme for a TV show I watched for a couple of seasons.

Sussudio -Phil Collins (Atlantic), gold record. Meh.

Oh Sheila – Ready For The World (MCA). I don’t remember this song!

#1 pop but not on Billboard in 1975

“I learned the truth…”

Here are the songs that were #1 pop but not on Billboard in 1975. This means they were #1 on Record World, Cash Box, or both. Some of the songs are great, and at least one is awful.

The number after the RW and CB designation is the number of weeks at #1. The * indicates the songs I positively own in some physical form, though I likely also possess the Barry White and Janis Ian tracks.

You’re The First, The Last, My Everything – Barry White (20th Century Records), CB 1, co-written and produced by White

*Boogie On Reggae Woman – Stevie Wonder (Tamla), CB 1, RW 1, produced, arranged, and written by Wonder 

*No No Song – Ringo Starr (Apple), CB 1, the last Starr single release to top any U.S. pop charts. Written by Hoyt Axton and David Jackson, produced by Richard Perry

*Jackie Blue – Ozark Mountain Daredevils (A&M), CB 2, RW 1

*How Long – Ace (Anchor), CB 1. Written by lead singer Paul Carrack.

*When Will I Be Loved – Linda Ronstadt (Capitol), CB #1. Written by Phil Everly; produced by Peter Asher. 

If at first…

*Please Mr. Please – Olivia Newton-John (MCA), CB #1. Co-written and previously sung by Bruce Welch, a long-time member of The Shadows, who “also wrote several hit singles for the group and Cliff Richard.” He was  once engaged to ON-J

*Someone Saved My Life Tonight – Elton John (MCA), CB 1, RW 1 from the Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy album that went to #1 in its first week of release

At Seventeen – Janis Ian (Columbia), CB 1. Written by Ian when she was 23.

Run Joey Run – David Geddes (Big Tree Records), CB 1. How did I miss this throwback from the 1950s?

Mr. Jaws – Dickie Goodman (Cash), CB 1, RW 1. One of those break-in novelties like his “The Flying Saucer” (1956) 

*They Just Can’t Stop It, The (Games People Play) – The Spinners (Atlantic), RW1. Produced, arranged, and conducted by Thom Bell. I never understood why Games People Play was the info in the parentheses.  

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Make democracy work part of ordinary life, not an add-on (ht/Paul Tonko). Lauren DesRosiers quoted Audre Lorde: “Every day of your lives is practice in becoming the person you want to be. No instantaneous miracle is suddenly going to occur and make you brave and courageous and true. And every day that you sit back silent, refusing to use your power, terrible things are being done in our name.”

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Tonko and Fahy

My Congressperson, US Rep. Paul Tonko: “I traveled to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia… This visit was even more urgent given the results of a report from ICE’s Office of the Inspector General from an unannounced facility inspection earlier this summer. The report found the facility and ICE staff were not in compliance with federal law and used excessive, inappropriate force, including striking detainees and spraying them with pepper spray.

“Despite the pressing need for oversight and in violation of federal law that grants me and all Members of Congress access to these facilities, I was denied at the gate. The facility guards blocking my entry went so far as to confirm that they knew they were in violation of the law. If they are fine ignoring the legal rights of a Member of Congress, what does that mean for our own communities and individuals who are detained?”

You may or may not be able to read my state senator, Pat Fahy’s, newest op-ed in the Times Union, “about the paramilitary-type tactics taking over our streets. 

“No visible identification, no judicial warrants, no due process – these are setting a dangerous precedent for Americans and normalizing paramilitary secret police style tactics on our streets. That’s why I introduced legislation to prohibit ICE agents from wearing masks or face coverings during civil immigration enforcement in New York.

“Security and humanity can both exist, and instilling fear will not create the immigration reforms we need to enrich America and honor its legacy.”

Kudos to them both.

MUSIC

Not Me No Way – Rebecca Jade ℗ 2025 Ultimate Vibe Recordings, Released on: 2025-08-18

Join Ice – Jesse Welles

He Just Can’t Wait To Be King! – Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Coverville 1545: Cover Stories for Steve Martin and Modest Mouse and 1546: The Mamas & The Papas Cover Story

The Mamas & The Papas cover Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart songs: My Heart Stood Still (from One Dam’ Thing after Another, 1927); Glad To Be Unhappy (from On Your Toes, 1936); Sing For Your Supper (from The Boys from Syracuse, 1938). They sang those three songs and Here In My Heart (from Dearest Enemy, 1925) for Rodgers and Hart Today, a salute to the composers, which aired March 2, 1967, on ABC TV, then reworked it as  No Salt On Her Tail.

Symphony No. 1 in F minor by Dmitri Shostakovich

Gospel Plough – Robert Plant and Saving Grace

Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You from the movie The Music Man

You’ll Be Back – Primer

On The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe from the movie The Harvey Girls (1946),  with Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, and many others

Theme to the movie Emma by Rachel Portman

The Cast of Oliver with Davy Jones perform I’d Do Anything on The Ed Sullivan Show, Feb 9, 1964

Peter Sprague Plays Waters of March featuring Allison Adams Tucker

Run On -Elvis Presley

I Love You Period –  Dan Baird

Bernstein – Academic Festival Overture (Brahms)

Go Away, Little Girl – Donny Osmond

Beethoven “Moonlight Sonata” for Mongkol, the Old Bull Elephant (ht/aal)

The hairpin: The Most Misunderstood Symbol in Music (ft. Seymour Bernstein) by Ben Lade

Sunday Stealing — 2×4

office space

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Dr. Medusa is an associate professor who stole this meme from her friend Clare. Since Clare no longer blogs, it’s unknown whether she originated it or stole it. But that doesn’t matter. What’s important now is how you answer these questions.

The 2×4 Meme

TWO foods you can’t stand

  1. Peanut butter:  What’s odd is that, as a kid, I LOVED peanut butter. But I must have ODed on it because the smell now makes me nauseous.

2. Black olives

FOUR foods you love

  1. Lasanga, possibly the only thing I make using the oven 

2.  Strawberry ice cream

3. Carrot cake

4. Deviled eggs

Location

TWO places you never want to see again 

  1. A truly awful motel in Ashtabula, OH, where we stayed for the 2016 Olin Family reunion.  

2. A cockroach-infested apartment I lived in Kingston, NY for two months in late 1972. 

FOUR places you’d like to revisit

  1. Toronto, ON, Canada, where we went to just ahead of the Olin Reunion in Peterborough , ON in 2011. It was combined with a stop at Niagara Falls. I can always go to the Falls.

2. Barbados, where we spent our honeymoon in 1999. 

3. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH. I’ve been there twice, in 1998 (the Carls Perkins and Wilson had recently died) and 2016. 

4. Paris, France. We were in France for a few days, but not nearly enough in the capital

TWO musical artists who make you want to change the station 

  1. I don’t know a musical act well enough to hate. There are aspects of various music that I don’t enjoy: misogyny, hyperviolence.

FOUR musical artists you love to listen to

  1. The Beatles (what a surprise)

2. Sly and the Family Stone

3. Beach Boys – Sly and Brian died recently

4. Talking Heads

The past

TWO moments you’d like to erase

  1. Oddly enough, this came up in conversation recently. Trying to get moved from a horrendous office space in August 2017 involved yelling (not just by me), and I needed to leave to cool off, but I was physically blocked. There are more details, but suffice to say: 1) I did get to move, but 2) it took WAY too much effort.  

2. One morning in June 2009, I was trying to get back from Charlotte, NC, to Albany, NY. Because of a conversation too inane to repeat, I was late for my plane and had to switch items while in the TSA line.  

FOUR moments you’d like to relive. OK, I’m not sure the premise is correct for me. Do I want a rush of nostalgia? No. Do I want to “fix” the past? Maybe, but THEN what? Do I want to re-remember stuff? Well, maybe.

  1. I’m told that, when I was in third grade, I got so angry because some kids were playing keep-away with my hat that I went home. I can totally believe it. I don’t remember this, but my friends tell me I then hopped a Crowley’s milk truck to get home. I’d only want to relive to clarify the narrative.

2. When my maternal grandmother would ramble about relatives, which she called “relations,” I would take notes the next time.

3. I would put my childhood photo album in a safer place.

4. When I took apart the front door lock when I was a kid, I would have taken notes so I could put it back together.

 

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

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both fans and athletes being left at the gate

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JEOPARDY Coincidences

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Flat earth

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Yo Semite

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Should the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics go forward?

I am ambivalent.

NYT: What Immigration Crackdown Means for the 2028 Olympics.

Axios: A new $250 visa fee could curb World Cup and Olympic travel. The U.S. travel industry is warning that the fee could deter millions of international visitors just as the country gears up to host the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympics.

USA Today: Olympics organizers are willing to treat FOTUS like a toddler to protect 2028 LA Games | Opinion. “By letting him think he’s in charge of … something, Games officials could avoid headaches over athlete visas and fan safety while keeping him from meddling elsewhere…

“Olympic athletes and their coaches are supposed to be exempt from Trump’s latest travel ban, while Olympic fans are usually greeted with open arms by host countries. Yet the recent refusal to allow Cuba’s women’s volleyball team and Senegal’s women’s basketball team into the United States, along with ICE agents who target immigrants, as well as citizens and tourists, has raised concerns that Olympic athletes and fans won’t have a safe harbor for the Los Angeles Games.

“Before anyone squawks about canceling the Games or moving them, save your breath.”

Democratic reputation

Inside The Game (February 2025): “The [regime] didn’t prioritize visa processing in its first term… So I can’t imagine that there’s going to be some full-court press to get these visas processed in a short amount of time,” David J. Bier, Associate Director for Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute, told The Los Angeles Times last month.

“The fear among organisers and sporting bodies alike is that even stricter immigration policies end up resulting in the worst-case scenario of both fans and athletes being left at the gate, with the ensuing and considerable revenue loss if the situation escalates; not to mention a major hit to the nation’s democratic reputation.”

MUSIC
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