Welcome back to this week’s Top 40 Countdown! If you missed yesterday’s songs, you can always go ahead and check them out. There were some classics songs yesterday, and we get more of the same today. What were you doing this week in 1984? I was heading down the home stretch of junior high school, and getting ready for high school. Cable TV was still new in our area. I had my MTV for less than a year at this point. So, there were a lot of changes and transitions at this point in my life. And by this point, music had pretty much transitioned from the soft pop and disco sound of the late ’70s/early ’80s to the classic ’80s sound. Let’s continue the countdown, and see what was popluar this week of April 14, 1984…

30. “A Fine Fine Day” by Tony Carey

We begin today’s list of songs with a pleasant surprise for me. I had never heard of Tony Carey before. It turns out that he was the keyboard player for the rock band Rainbow for a short time in the mid-to-late ’70s. After he left Rainbow, Carey embarked on a solo career. That career did not exactly take off, but he had a pretty good hit with this song.

29. “The Longest Time” by Billy Joel

This fun, doo-wop song was the fourth single released from Billy Joel’s classic album, An Innocent Man. A lot of his songs from that album got overplayed, but this was one that I never really grew tired of. I also enjoyed the video. It did fool me though. I had never known, until in recent years, that it is actually Billy Joel singing all the lead and backing vocals on this track.

28. “99 Luftballons” by Nena

This is classic ’80s! It was an anti-war protest song by the band from Germany. The original German version was such a huge success that an English version was also created (“99 Red Balloons“). I believe that the German version still got most of the airplay in the U.S. One thing I know for sure is that “Captain Kirk” are about the only words I understand in either version.

27. “The Language of Love” by Dan Fogelberg

Dan Fogelberg is best known for his soft rock hits in the early ’80s (“Longer“, “Leader of the Band“, and “Same Old Lang Syne“). But this was my introduction to him, and it is my favorite of all his songs. I always just felt that this was a bright, upbeat tune.

26. “Leave It” by Yes

This is an interesting song and video by the prog-rock band, Yes. There is nothing wrong with your screen. The video was shot upside down, and was one of the first music videos to use computer-generated imagery.

25. “The Authority Song” by John Cougar Mellencamp

This is a classic by John Cougar Mellencamp. This is off of his 1983 album, Uh-Huh, which was the first album in which he used his real last name, going from being known as John Cougar to John Cougar Mellencamp.

24. “Got a Hold On Me” by Christine McVie

This is Fleetwood Mac’s keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie’s biggest solo hit. This is probably my favorite song of the day. Christine McVie is very good and very underrated.

“Don’t Waste Your Time” by Yarbrough & Peoples

We’ll take a break for a minute, and check out a song that debuted this week. This one is “Don’t Waste Your Time” by the R&B duo of Yarbrough & Peoples. I had never heard this song before. It’s not a bad song. But, I chose it so you could check out a V-E-R-Y young Ice-T towards the beginning of the video, driving the Mercedes.

On with the countdown….

23. “Come Back and Stay” by Paul Young

This was another pleasant surprise for me. I don’t remember this song at all. It kind of has a pop-rock-new-wavey feel to it.

22. “Head Over Heels” by The Go-Go’s

Another classic tune by a classic band.

21. “Don’t Answer Me” by Alan Parsons Project

We’ll finish up today’s list with a cool song and video. The video tells it’s story through a comic book. Alan Parsons was known as being more prog-rock, but this song has more of a pop-rock Wall of Sound style. Yet another ’80s classic.

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I hope you guys are enjoying this week’s countdown. Let me know what you think so far, as we are halfway through. Tomorrow, we will be back to continue the countdown, and we will have Long Distance Dedication.

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