About This Time 40 Years Ago… It’s The Hits Of April-ish 1984!

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The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” recently topped one billion Spotify streams. Just think of that. Who knew there were that many bachelorette parties in the world!

By way of comparison, this is far, far more than the biggest hit by the woman who was about to completely wipe Cyndi off the charts.

At the time of writing Madonna’s most popular non-Weeknd related tune – “Material Girl” – only has 400 million streams. But then again, Madge fans have far many more hits to choose from.

At some moment in your life, you will have learnt that “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is a cover. If you weren’t aware of this until now, then consider this that “moment.” You may not have ever bothered to track down the original though. Few people do. You may have imagined that the original was by a 60s girl group, and fair enough.

The Ronettes would have killed “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” A Shangri-Las version may have had a far more morbid tone, but they would have killed it as well.

But alas, no, it was not.

“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was written – and recorded, although it never got past the demo phase – by Robert Hazard: A man famous for…

… writing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

Robert was – at least at this point in his career (after stints as a folk singer, a country singer and a reggae singer, all with virtually zero success,) giving the New Wave pub-rocker sound a go. He sounded a little like a cross between Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and Devo.

That sound wouldn’t really work for him either and he’d give electro-pop a shot. Nothing he ever did really did anything expect for “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

Robert’s version is clearly a very different song. Robert’s mother and father chastise him on how he’s living his life – like Cyndi, Robert was 30 at the time, and probably should have moved out of home by this time, but unlike Cyndi, Robert actually looked as though he was 30, and perhaps older – but he’s like, ‘but there’s so many girls out there who just wanna “have fun.”’

And when Robert sang “have fun”, you could be sure that he meant:

“have sex.”

Cyndi gave the song a radical rewrite, completely changing its meaning. But she’d still have to spend a large chunk of 1984 trying to convince people that “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” didn’t necessarily mean “Girls Just Wanna Have Sex.” It shouldn’t’ve been so hard. For whether having sex or not, Cyndi always seemed to be having a whole lot of fun!

No-one had ever had quite as much fun as Cyndi.

Dancing down the street, coming home in the morning light… still full of pep after a night on the town.

Full of so much pep that she heads straight to the phone to call her friends up – after defeating her wrestling champion father, trapping him in an armlock…

…to organize a great big flashmob to fight for their right to party, or something. It was as though Cyndi was some sort of Pied Piper of partying! Wherever Cyndi went, fun was sure to follow!

Cyndi hiccups her way through “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” – as often happens to some people, when they are having too much fun – and there’s only one sort of solo with enough pep to cure the hiccups; and that’s one with the synthesizer on “Popcorn” setting!

On most records, that would be the most fun moment. But we are only at the halfway point! The peak of perkiness, the most fun moment of all (“THEY JUST WANNA!!!! THEY JUST WANNA-A-A-A-A!!!”) was still to come!

Cyndi was clearly a wacky, zany character. When news reporters came around to interview her, she said wacky and zany things:

“I think I’m pretty normal, the things is… finding out what normal is, it’s so crazy. Because what’s normal? And is “normal”, normal? Or is it crazy?”

Excellent questions.

Was it crazy, for example, to get Captain Lou Albano:

– an ex-professional wrestler who now managed professional wrestlers – not only to play her father in the video for “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” – and later “She Bop?”

And: also hire him as her “advisor,” and according to some sources – i.e. himself – her manager and “discoverer?” Captain Lou Albano said a lot of things. Most of them weren’t true. He repeatedly claimed, for example, that he had written both “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Time After Time.”

You may be wondering at this point: “Why we are suddenly talking about wrestlers?”

Let’s backtrack a little.

According to The New York Post – and supported by other more reputable sources – “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was initially a huge flop. That’s hard to believe, I know. A song with such a “pow-pa-pow pow-pa-pow pow!” intro! A girl with those dance moves! A girl with that fashion sense!! A girl with that hair!!!

There’s not a moment of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” that ought to make you doubt that you are listening to a great big monster hit. There’s not a moment of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” that isn’t designed to grab you.

And yet, apparently, people were not being grabbed. The record company gave Cyndi two weeks to make it a hit – or they’d give up on it. They needed to come up with a marketing strategy, quick smart!

That marketing strategy was to go on the WWF, tell everyone that the Captain was her manager, and have them argue all the time, on stage, arguments that, at least once, turned into a great big fight!

Incredibly, that’s what it took to turn “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” quite possibly the most fun song ever produced, into a hit. The world would never be quite the same again.

“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is a 10.


Meanwhile, in Stupid Hair Land:

“Hold Me Now” by Thompson Twins

Now, Cyndi’s hair would have to belong on The Mount Rushmore Of Iconic Hairstyles Of The 80s. No question. But who else’s hair also deserves that honour?

Many will instantly reach for the A Flock Of Seagulls guy. Others would go for Limahl from Kajagoogoo (and also “Never Ending Story”). The 80s produced a lot of excellent hair, it’s hard to whittle the list down. But another band should be considered in the running, and that band was the Thompson Twins.

To be precise, the Thompson Twins was that band.

The Thompson Twins was a weird name for The Thompson Twins, since the more observant of you will have noticed that there were three of them. This curious fact became almost as much of a talking point as their hair – Rolling Stone headline? “Why The Thompson Twins Don’t Add Up” – although three is at least closer to two than their original line up, when they had seven members.

The Thompson Twins were of course named after The Thompson Twins.

To be precise, they were named after Thomson and Thompson. From the Tintin comics.

Very sadly, no band titled Captain Haddock has ever had a hit record. Billions of blistering barnacles in a thundering typhoon!!!

Of the three members of The Thompson Twins, it was Alannah Currie who sported the most notable specimen of spectacular follicular fashion.

Alannah was the percussionist in The Thompson Twins; banger of all sorts of random instruments, including whatever that is behind her in the video.

Mostly Alannah banged the marimba, an important component of the Thompson Twins sound. Not as important though as her other role in band: that of The Thompson Twins stylist!

Alannah showed that you could do more with a mohawk than just style it into vertical spikes. You could turn it, for example, into a great big horse’s mane! In the video for “Hold Me Now,” Alannah is sadly wearing a hat. An outstanding hat it is true, but a hat nonetheless. To truly appreciate Alannah’s mane, you must go to the video of “Doctor, Doctor” (it’s a 6)

As percussionist and stylist, Alannah may have been the most critical member of The Thompson Twins, but she was not the lead singer.

That was Tom Bailey.

And he was no slouch in the hair department himself, being in possession a deeply impressive fuzzball quiff! A fuzzball quiff so impressive that fans stole chunks of it straight from his head, requiring Tom to wear replacement chunks of synthetic hair.

So for all of you wondering, like Mark Knopfler, buddy, is that his real hair?; the answer is… no! Not all of it anyway.

There was also Joe Leeway, bass-player, and Barry Gibbs impersonator.

He had dreads.

“Hold Me Now” is a ballad. What, with Spandau Ballet’s “True” (it’s an 8) coming out at about the same time, the New Romantics were clearly drifting off into their radio ballad phase. This seems to be the way that most musical revolutions end. To be precise: most musical revolutions end this way, it seems.

The Thompson Twins may have looked ridiculous. To be precise, they did look ridiculous. But they proved that even the use of enough hairspray to single handedly create a hole in the ozone layer was not enough to dull their ability to write sad poetry.

Tom has a picture. It’s pinned to his wall. It’s an image of him and Alannah. They’re laughing and loving it all.

Tom and Alannah had had a fight. “Hold Me Now” is about that fight. They clearly made up though. Otherwise, “Hold Me Now” would never have been recorded, and we wouldn’t be here talking about it. Alannah held Tom now and warmed his heat. Oh-Woah, Oh-Woah!

And thus it was proven: that even 80s hairbands have feelings, too.

“Hold Me Now” is an 8.


Meanwhile, in Halloween Classic Land:

Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell

I don’t think I’ll be upsetting too many people by suggesting that “Somebody’s Watching Me” is a B-Grade “Thriller.”

Maybe make that a C-Grade “Thriller.”

Since B-Grade horror movies are the best horror movies, “Somebody’s Watching Me” ought to be – at least in theory – better than “Thriller.”

But obviously it is not.

One reason I don’t think I’ll be upsetting too many people by suggesting that “Somebody’s Watching Me” is a B-Grade “Thriller” is that it was clearly written, recorded, and released with the aim of being a B-Grade “Thriller.” I mean, the thing does have Rockwell childhood-friend Michael Jackson, singing the chorus.

The thing also features Rockwell reciting his verses in what is either an atrocious English accent (why?)

Or: an even worse impersonation of Vincent Price, the guy who did the scary spoken word bit on “Thriller.” Sadly, the verses of “Somebody’s Watching Me’ are nowhere near as funky as “the funk of 40,000 years!” Or even funky – or scary – at all!

Read them, if you dare!

Then the disco strings play the Twilight Zone theme song.

“Somebody’s Watching Me” came out at the perfect time for a B-Grade “Thriller” to come out. “Thriller” – the single – had only just peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 a month before, in March 1984.

“Thriller” reached No.4 on the Hot 100 (it’s a 10). Presumedly, if they’d released it before Halloween it would have gone to Number One! But they didn’t; a missed opportunity.

Even the “Thriller” video – released a couple of months before the “Thriller” single – didn’t come out before Halloween. The “Thriller” video was released on December 2nd. That’s over a month after Halloween! Who’s making these decisions?!?!

I find this almost as mystifying as the question of why anyone thought it was a good idea to release “The Girl Is Mine” as the lead single! Or: to include “The Girl Is Mine” on “Thriller,” at all!

Now, “Thriller” is the ultimate Halloween party song. No question. The presence of Michael Jackson on “Somebody’s Watching Me” provides a huge boost to “Somebody’s Watching Me” Halloween party song credentials, of which the song would otherwise – Twilight Zone disco strings not withstanding – have none.

I mean, not having any privacy – as any teenager will tell you – is a scary predicament. But it’s not a SCARY predicament, if you know what I mean.

“Like you would know.”
“Oh, and, by the way? I’m quitting school.”

Rockwell’s credentials themselves – his pop star credentials that is – were also disappointingly slight. He was just an average man. But he didn’t lead an average life… for Rockwell was a Gordy!

That’s the Gordy family. The owners of Motown Records, to which he was signed.

Legend has it that despite being the son of Berry Gordy, the owner of Motown Records, Rockwell got signed to Motown without his father’s knowledge. This is usually framed as evidence that Rockwell – real name Kennedy – did not get signed as a result of nepotism.

But “his father not knowing about it” doesn’t necessarily mean that the Motown minions weren’t aware of who he was. It would have been a difficult secret to keep from them.

Some Motown minion probably signed Rockwell in order to curry favor with Berry and make him happy. Bad miscalculation. When Berry found out, Berry was not happy! “How did this happen?!?!” he exclaimed in what I imagine was despair!

“I guess they liked my music,” Rockwell replied, an implausible theory.

I hope the minion didn’t get fired. After all, Motown did get one hit out of it. Or, to be generous, one-and-a-half hits. There was also this horror show!

“Obscene Phone Caller” is a 3.

But Rockwell didn’t only have family connections, even if those family connections were dead set against him having anything to do with the family business.

According to an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Rockwell also had God on his side! He had written “Somebody’s Watching Me” in his bedroom, after praying to God to give him the talent to write a hit single.

The same interview also reveals the inspiration for the “when I’m in the shower, I’m afraid to wash my hair, ’cause I might open my eyes and find someone standing there!” bit:

Rockwell was inspired, it appears, by himself. Since he was constantly playing pranks on his girlfriend, frightening her whenever she was in the shower! It turns out that the monster… was inside him all along!

Clearly there’s something about “Somebody’s Watching Me” that inspires so-bad-it’s-goodness, as a decade later it would be back near the top of the charts – in Europe anyway – under the guise of “Somebody Dance With Me” by Eurodance rapping dofus DJ Bobo!

  • “Somebody’s Watching Me” is a 6.
  • “Somebody Dance With Me” is a 7.

Meanwhile, in Soundtrack Land:

It’s The Footloose Soundtrack!

Footloose – the movie – is to the 80s, what Grease was to the 70s: a never-ending parade of iconic scenes, an assembly line of monster hits.

Sure, The Breakfast Club might be the ultimate 80s flick, but it’s nothing but talking – talking, talking, talking! – “Don’t You Forget About Me,” and a single stoned dance-montage.

Based purely on the sheer volume of records it sold, Footloose probably exceeds the combined total of every movie John Hughes ever made, even though it contains not a single song that Kevin Bacon’s character – Ren – would likely ever dance to.

Ren liked Men At Work (Really? Kids actually liked Men At Work?). Ren liked The Police. And his mother informs us that he wants to be David Bowie.

Well, who doesn’t?!?

I cannot imagine Ren getting down to “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” even though it does contain a beat so simple even an uncoordinated cowboy could learn to dance to it.

A lot of people have a lot of questions about “Let’s Hear It For The Boy.” Mostly along the lines of, “this guy is absolutely useless, why is Denise Williams wasting her time with this loser?” But pop music has long had a tradition of “in love with a scrub” songs, of which The Crystals’ “He’s Sure The Boy I Love” may be the all-time greatest. But that’s a story for another column.

“Let’s Hear It For The Boy” is a 6.

I can’t picture Ren owning a copy of “Footloose,” either. But the kid is in Utah.

And Kenny Loggins’ mixture of old style rock’n’roll with just a hint of breakdance beat (the “CUT!… FOOT!… LOOSE!” bit) is precisely the sort of song you could picture being a hit in the “Footloose”-verse.

Which it is because it seems to follow them everywhere. Within the “Footloose”-verse, “Footloose” gets the cowboys excited even more than John Cougar Mellancamp’s “Hurts So Good.”

Footloose is obviously a fantasy movie. No teenager loves dancing as Ren and his friends do.

Go to any high school dance and all the kids will do is stand with their backs glued to the wall. Boys on one side of the room, girls on the other. At least that’s what they were like in the 80s.

Maybe it’s different now. High school dances in the 80s sucked!

One of the reasons why high school dances in the 80s sucked was because the DJ always played “Footloose.” Also, “Nutbush City Limits.” Also, “The Time Warp.”

High School Dances in the 80s followed a very strict, very streamlined and very predictable playlist.

But the DJ at the Footloose High School Dance is playing “Footloose” before “Footloose” became THE song to play at High School Dances. The dude was ahead of his time! Or maybe it was just because the song was so inescapably popular in the “Footloose”-verse.

Maybe our hesitance had something to do with the sense that there was something missing. Something we were all subconsciously waiting for. Something like Kevin Bacon bursting through the door, shouting “what is this I see?… I thought this was a party… LET’S DANCE!!!!”

Maybe that’s why we so rarely cut “Footloose.”

“Footloose” is an 8.

But really, let’s be honest: there’s only one Footloose song worth dancing to.

Or at least worth playing chicken with tractors to – and that’s “Holdin’ Out For A Hero” by Bonnie Tyler, which pounds out all the bombast of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” with the added bombast of a gay club track!

Surprising thing about this scene: it’s the other guy who has the boombox! It’s the other guy who’s playing “Holdin’ Out For A Hero!”

And yet, even with Bonnie ringing in his ears, he still loses! And yes, I realize it’s just because Ren gets his shoelace caught in the clutch, but that should be no obstacle for a Bonnie Tyler backed bully!

 Sometimes, this stupid-ass movie just makes no sense.

“Holding Out For A Hero” is a 10!


Meanwhile, in Sex Land:

“Relax” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Frankie said,Relax’ You knew that Frankie said ‘Relax’ because you could buy t-shirts boasting Frankie Says Relax.

Those T-shirts – and others in the range including “Frankie Says Arm The Unemployed” – were ubiquitous across the UK in 1984.  So much so that people started printing “Who Cares What Frankie Says?” T-shirts and they too sold a shit-tonne.

That’s how big Frankie Goes To Hollywood were in the UK in the Summer of ’84. The summer that Frankie Goes To Hollywood were the Biggest Band In The Land.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood were not exactly a band. They were more like an experiment. An experiment of ZTT Records – or Zang Tumb Tuum, a business name that makes about as much sense as anything else they ever did – who in turn were less like a record label and more like a collective of pop theorists, putting their wild, crazy, anarchic theories of cultural mayhem into practice!

Not many record labels are founded by NME music journalists/critics!

That would be Paul Morley, the leading pop theorist of his day.

There was also Trevor Horn, the nerd behind The Buggles, of “Video Killed The Radio Star” fame, the royalties from which he had invested in more synthesizers and drum machines and samplers than pretty much anyone else in Britain.

There was also Jill Sinclair, who, as best that I can tell, took care of the running-the-business side of the business.

Together they were looking for the ultimate band to manufacture. They wanted Bronski Beat at first, but Jimmy Somerville turned them down. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. Jimmy just wanted to get through his life without having to constantly deal with the homophobia that came with just being who he was.

ZTT had a different approach; they wanted the most out-and-proud gang of guys they could find. The type of guys who would write a song filled with sex advice and sex-related sound effects. Frankie Goes To Hollywood were that gang of guys.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood were not necessarily the gang of guys on the record about sex advice and sex-related sound effects, though.

Trevor Horn was the kind of producer who, if he didn’t like the way the band sounded on a record, would just rerecord it when they weren’t there, sampling the bassline of a single monotonous bass note (an ‘E’ in case you care) on top of which he could layer sexy sound effects.

Sound effects such as a whole lot of laser-like explosions which are very, very clearly supposed to represent a gallon of semen squirting everywhere! Those lasers may be a sample of the band jumping into a pool… the only contribution by any non-Holly members of the band to the final product.

It was those sound effects – and the underlying subject matter of premature ejaculation – that would ultimately get the song banned by the BBC:

– both Radio One and Top Of The Pops, even during the weeks it was Number One! – thereby ensuring that fans would need to buy the thing in order to hear it.

The official reason for the ban?: “BBC TV believes that the lyrics of this song are sexually explicit and not suitable for viewing in family viewing time.”

It’s honestly hard to disagree with them.

Even Smash Hits – a magazine that, although largely targeted at teenage girls, had a big gay readership – made the decision not to print the lyrics out. Maybe that’s the reason why nobody’s ever been entirely sure what a lot of the lyrics are.

 I remember one karaoke video that insisted that the words included “semen… feel it.” It’s not “semen”, it’s “scene of love.” But it’s an understandable mistake.

I also always thought it was “sock it to it.” Everybody did. Holly insists however that it’s “when you wanna suck it, chew it.” Which sounds like painful advice.

Probably the most mystifying element of the ban is that it took so long. The BBC played “Relax” for several weeks before the penny finally dropped as to what it was about. Which lyric do you think finally tipped them off? My vote is for “COME…. WOARGGJHHH!”

Or was it the marketing campaign?

ZTT’s marketing strategy for the entire Frankie Goes To Hollywood project was to release singles, discussing the big issues, in the following order:

  • Sex: That would be this one.
  • War: I’ll be discussing that one soon!
  • Religion: Did they skip this one? Or is “The Power Of Love” about religion?

Paul Morley was definitely scheming those schemes! That’s why “Relax” hit the charts with laser-beam precision!

There was also the advertisement for “Relax” itself, with the slogan “All The Nice Boys Love Sea Men.” And which included the boast that Frankie were going to make “duran duran lick the shit off their shoes.” Also the artwork for the 12 inch version of “Relax”, which included a short porn novel.

And still it took the BBC several weeks to notice!

“Relax” is a 9.

The whole New Romantic – and its various offshoots – movement would die soon after Frankie arrived. Was it just that every musical movement comes with planned obsolescence built in? Was it because AIDS set acceptance of gay lifestyles back a decade or more?

Or was it because, after Frankie Goes To Hollywood, there was simply no further that pop music could shoot in that direction without turning into Sigue Sigue Sputnik?

“Love Missile F1-11” is an 8.

What a rad time to have been alive!

To hear these and other 80s hits, tune into DJ Professor Dan’s Twitch stream on Friday nights Melbourne time…which is about lunch time London time, and breakfast time New York time! It’s the DJ Professor Dan Breakfast Show!

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Pauly Steyreen
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April 29, 2024 1:43 am

My son has told me this about present day high school dances (his high school anyway)…

There is virtually no slow dancing, and the one slow song they played at his last dance was 40 years old (True by Spandau Ballet).

I grew up in the era of slow jams and even an off night dance had at least 6 slow dances. Sometimes 10 or more…

The whole “nervously ask the person you have a crush on to dance” (or more likely for me, “dream about doing this while you stand shyly by the wall”) seems to gone the way of the buggy whip.

Last edited 7 months ago by Pauly Steyreen
Virgindog
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April 29, 2024 12:22 pm
Reply to  Pauly Steyreen

Frankie says use the buggy whip.

Zeusaphone
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April 29, 2024 8:38 pm
Reply to  Pauly Steyreen

That whole “afraid to ask girls to dance” never made sense to me, even though many of my high school friends were like that. I never had trouble asking girls to dance or whatever. I had trouble getting them to say yes, since I was scrawny and not particularly good looking, but asking was never an issue for me.

thegue
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April 30, 2024 9:53 am
Reply to  Pauly Steyreen

There were three slow dances an evening; 2 songs per session, each an hour apart.

It was a rare occasion when I could pull it together to ask a girl to dance with me before the final slow dance, which in middle school was always “Open Arms” by Journey.

cstolliver
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April 30, 2024 4:06 pm
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You were in middle school when “Open Arms” was out? Man, I’m old — that was freshman year in college for me.

Ozmoe
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May 1, 2024 8:24 pm
Reply to  Pauly Steyreen

I was a wallflower at my school dances. If I ever asked a girl to dance and succeeded, it was a rare occasion indeed. And there ain’t no way it would’ve been a slow dance either.

JJ Live At Leeds
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JJ Live At Leeds
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April 29, 2024 5:02 am

If the lyrics to Relax weren’t suggestive enough this account of the video indicates it wasn’t for family viewing;

‘The orgiastic clip, set in a gay leather bar, saw a girl being shut in an iron maiden and Johnson tied to a wagon wheel and seemingly urinated on by a corpulent Nero.’

In this instance the ban is credited with turning it into a monster. It took 12 weeks from first charting to get to the top which is longer than most singles chart lifespan. It now sits as 6th biggest selling single ever in Britain.

The Power Of Love was the religion one. The lyrics aren’t overtly religious but the video sure was as it portrayed the birth of Jesus.

Phylum of Alexandria
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April 29, 2024 8:19 am

My wife’s uncle offered to drive us into Tokyo a few weeks back, so we could make a certain tonkatsu place in time before they closed. He’s a nice guy, but gruff: drinks a lot, sounds like a yakuza when he talks, and waxes romantic about living a nomadic life like in Easy Rider.

When we were riding in his car, he was blasting music the whole way there. His soundtrack of choice? 80’s female pop.

“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” and my favorite, “Holding Out for a Hero.”

Badass.

Zeusaphone
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April 29, 2024 11:21 am

The thing also features Rockwell reciting his verses in what is either an atrocious English accent (why?)

Why, indeed. At the time there was a trend of hip hop artists using bad English accents, both exaggerated (Slick Rick) and outright fake (Dana Dane), that extended into R&B. “Oh Sheila” was just a few months away.

mt58
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April 29, 2024 12:39 pm
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JJ Live At Leeds
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JJ Live At Leeds
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April 29, 2024 1:39 pm
Reply to  mt58

Until last week I had never heard this. Not only am I now familiar with it I’ve just written up an explainer of what is going on it when my UK novelty series gets to the 80s. I guess this proves the internet wasn’t lying about it crossing over to some parts of the US.

mumchance
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mumchance
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April 29, 2024 12:54 pm
Reply to  Zeusaphone

It wasn’t just hip-hop artists — this is also the year of “Every Day is Halloween”. That makes three Halloween-y American songs involving British accents (real or fake) in the same year. What were we thinking?

thegue
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thegue
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April 30, 2024 9:54 am
Reply to  mumchance

I’ll have whatever Al Jourgensen is having.

feetontheground
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April 29, 2024 1:15 pm

Robert Hazard may not have been that nationally famous, but he was certainly famous in the Philadelphia area. His 1982 song “Escalator of Life” only hit #58 on the Hot 100 but was big in the Delaware Valley. And like his fellow Cyndi Lauper songwriters the Hooters he and his band the Heroes played pretty much every high school in the area.

thegue
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April 30, 2024 9:56 am

I was about to say – he lived in Southampton, next door to a friend of mine. I never met him, but it was a nice house with a LOT of land. This was in 1986; I’m pretty sure it was “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” money, not “Escalator of Life” money, though he definitely got my $.99 from that 45.

cappiethedog
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April 29, 2024 6:09 pm

J. Hoberman, when he wrote for The Village Voice(inexplicably fired in 2012) put “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” on his 1983 year-end list. It looked like this.

  1. Francisca(Manuel de Oliveira)
  2. Diary for My Children(Marta Meszaros)
  3. Stranger than Paradise(Jim Jarmusch)
  4. Der Riese(Michael Klier)
  5. The Story of Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Lodz(Peter Cohen)
  6. Tightrope(Richard Tuggle)
  7. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun(Ed Grilles)
  8. Nostalghia(Andrei Tarkovsky)
  9. Kamilla(Vibeke Lokkeberg)
  10. Once Upon a Time in America(Sergio Leone)

I know what everybody is thinking. Where is Star Trek III: The Search for Spock?

Hoberman doesn’t cite Ed Grilles. It’s just listed as “music video”. I looked it up. And learned something.

Portuguese National filmmaker Manuel de Oliveira passed away in 2015 at the mind-boggling age of 106. His last film was Gebo and the Shadow in 2012.

Do the math.

Ozmoe
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Ozmoe
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May 1, 2024 8:27 pm
Reply to  cappiethedog

Holy crap! Way to live life to its fullest, Manuel de Oliveira!

LinkCrawford
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LinkCrawford
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April 30, 2024 11:21 am

“Hold Me Now” is always at least an 8. But sometimes it catches me in its nostalgic snare and I believe it is then a 10.

blu_cheez
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April 30, 2024 6:00 pm

Everyone remember the “Relax” scene in “Body Double”?
https://youtu.be/AYs_CpoAG5o

(it cuts off before it gets more saucy)

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