Welcome back to this week’s Countdown! Today’s songs bring me back to a great time. Well, I suppose any week of ’80s music brings us back to a great time.
If you want to listen to this great music, you can click on the song title to get the YouTube video, and you can click on the album cover to get the song on Amazon.
New, let’s return to the week ending November 8, 1986, and continue the countdown on, One, Two, One, Two, Three, Four!
30. “A Matter of Trust” by Billy Joel
29. “Throwing It All Away” by Genesis
28. “Heartbeat” by Don Johnson
27. “Somebody’s Out There” by Triumph
26. “Freedom Overspill” by Steve Winwood
25. “Walk Like an Egyptian” by The Bangles
24. “Girl Can’t Help It” by Journey
23. “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” by Wang Chung
22. “To Be a Lover” by Billy Idol
21. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by Aretha Franklin
What a way to go out! What do you think of the countdown so far this week? Come back tomorrow as we continue this week’s countdown.
We begin the countdown with Gregory Abbott’s debut into the Top 40. This lead single from Abbott’s debut album Shake You Down was his biggest hit, and would go on to hit the top of the charts. Gregory Abbott is still out there releasing music – most recently, 2019’s “
This was from Jones’ third studio album One to One. It didn’t hit the Top 40 in the U.K., peaking at #43. However on this chart, it would peak all the way up to #17.
This is one of my all-time favorite Talking Heads songs. Released as the lead single from their seventh studio album True Stories, it would peak at #25. The video is also a lot of fun, and won “Best Group Video” at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1987.
This song would eventually peak at #10. The Pretenders were in a major transitional period at this point. This was the first single off of the Get Close album. A few years earlier, original members James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon died of drug overdoses. During the recording of this album, Chrissie Hynde found that Martin Chambers’ drumming had deteriorated, still struggling after losing his 2 best friends. So Hynde let him go, leaving her as the only original Pretenders member. The album turned out to be a success. Chambers reunited with The Pretenders for their 1994 album Last of the Independents (which produced the smash single “
This is easily my favorite Peter Gabriel tune. It would only peak at #26 on this chart, but was a #1 hit on the Mainstream Rock chart. This came of Gabriel’s smash album So. However, it will forever be linked with the iconic scene in the 1989 movie, Say Anything…, as John Cusack’s Lloyd Dobler is holding a boombox, over his head, with this song blaring outside of Diane Court’s (Ione Skye) bedroom.
This classic by the Canadian rock group, Glass Tiger, was starting to drop out of the countdown, falling from 28 to 35. But, it was a smash hit in Canada and in the U.S., hitting #1 and #2, respectively. And yes, that is fellow Canadian Bryan Adams on backing vocals.
This song by the English electronic band was climbing up the charts this week. It would go on to peak at #19 in the US, #11 in the UK, and it would break into the Top 10 in several other countries.
Yes, ‘Til Tuesday had other songs besides “
Here is another song on the way out of the countdown, dropping from 23 to 32 this week. But not before becoming a huge hit, peaking at #3, and becoming one of the highest selling singles of 1986. The song was ranked number twenty-seven in VH1’s 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the ’80s.
This 1961 Ben E. King hit song was re-released to coincide with the classic 1986 movie of the same name. It peaked at #4 in 1961 and peaked at #9 in 1986. In the ’80s, there was a lot of ’50s and ’60s nostalgia in movies, television, and music. There were many ’60s covers in the ’80s. And there were several re-releases, including this one.
