Can you name the artist and song:
For three years straight we toured the nation
When we get through we needed a vacation
We wanted to party and get a little rest
So we packed our things and headed out west
Last Song: “Out Here On My Own” by Irene Cara from Fame (1980)
Great job Adora (@Adora2000) and Joe (@Hamilton4Joe)!!!
Sometimes I wonder where I’ve been
Who I am
Do I fit in
Make believein’ is hard alone
Today’s Song of the Day is my favorite song by Irene Cara, who was born on this day in 1959, “The Dream (Hold On to the Dream)”. Irene Cara is a singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. Most people know her from the song “Flashdance… What a Feeling” (which she wrote and is from the film Flashdance), for which she won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. She is also known for playing the role of Coco Hernandez in the 1980 film Fame, and for recording the film’s title song “Fame“.
This song was written by Irene, along with Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte, for the film D.C. Cab. The movie starred Mr. T, Max Gail (Barney Miller), Adam Baldwin (My Bodyguard), Charlie Barnett, Gary Busey, Marsha Warfield, and Bill Mahr, and Paul Rodriguez.
“The Dream” reached number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. The music video was broadcast on MTV and interspersed clips from the film with scenes of Cara performing the song in various London locales.
**Deep Track**
Can you name the artist and song:
Mother protect me, protect me from myself
Lately I can’t tell, who really are my friends
Burning the candle, the candle at both ends
Through crowds, across floors
Each night I just pretend
Last Song: “Fame” by Irene Cara from the Fame Soundtrack (1980)
Great job David (@daviddwwalker), Erwin (@erwin_green), Craig (@cdennis0130), and Peter (@JamsieBlonde007)!!!
Baby you look at me and tell me what you see
You ain’t seen the best of me yet
Give me time, I’ll make you forget the rest
If you’d like to get the song from Amazon, you can click on the album cover below:
Can you name the artist and song:
Try to believe
Though the going gets rough
That you gotta hang tough to make it
Last Song: “Flashdance…What a Feeling” by Irene Cara from What a Feelin’ and Flashdance: Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (1983)
Great job oldschool80stim (@OldSchool80s), Peter (@JamsieBlonde007), Craig (@cdennis0130) and President-Elect Alan Cogan(@almacoganfan72)!!
Take your passion
And make it happen
If you’d like to get this song from Amazon, click on the album cover below:
Welcome back to this week’s Top 40 Countdown! If you missed the previous songs, you can go ahead and check out songs 40-31, 30-21, and 20-11. This has been an exciting week for ’80s music! Today, there may be a few songs we haven’t heard much of. However, this list is covered with very familiar songs, and legendary artists. Let’s conclude this week’s countdown, and check them out!
Well, that wraps up this week’s countdown. What a great week of music! I hope you enjoyed it. What were some of your favorite songs? The next Top 40 will be back in the U.S. In the meantime, Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.
Coco Hernandez: [singing] Remember my name. Fame! I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly – high!
Happy 60th birthday to Irene Cara!!!
If you’d like to buy, watch, or rent this movie from Amazon, click on the movie poster below:
Welcome back to this weeks Top 40 Countdown! If you missed the first 10 songs, you can go back and check them out. At the time of this countdown, I was about to enter my teen years. My 13th birthday was less than a week away. I would get my very own little black & white TV. It didn’t matter that I did not have cable on it. It was my very own TV, and I loved it.
What were you doing at this time in 1983? Now let’s Return to the week ending August 27, 1983, and continue the countdown.
[If you’d like to see the YouTube video of the song, you can click on the song title. If you’d like to purchase or listen to the song on Amazon, you can click on the album cover]
Before Shalamar went “Dancing in the Sheets” with Footloose, they had a hit with this song from their album, The Look, which was the last one to feature Jody Watley as part of the group.
I love Laura Branigan. She has a beautiful voice, and she was beautiful, period. I was so sad when she died in 2004. But, every time I hear this song, all that comes to mind is somebody coming to our school, before prom season, to explain the dangers of drunk driving. The speaker was talking about how his brother died in a drunk driving accident, and this song played for us. It was so sad, it made me want to drink.
A lot of Air Supply songs sound the same to me. There’s nothing wrong with that. But, there are some exceptions and this is one of them. And there is a good reason for this. It was written by Jim Steinman. Steinman wrote all of Meat Loaf’s biggest hits. There is another non-Meat Loaf Jim Steinman song coming up on this week’s countdown. And I love that one too. “Making Love Out of Nothing At All” is one of those ballads that I never got sick of.
Gunter glieben glauchen globen
And so began my love affair of rock music. And I have not looked back since. Def Leppard was a great band from the beginning, and they just kept getting better and better. They are still incredible in concert, and even released new studio album a couple of years ago. And unlike a certain contemporary of theirs who still puts out albums, and who shall remain nameless, Def Leppard can still rock your face off!
We can’t have an early ’80s countdown without a British New Wave band! This was Naked Eyes’ second hit, reaching up to #11.
Very underrated Journey song, off of the Frontiers album. I don’t even remember seeing this video on MTV.
One of my crushes! I love Irene Cara! She has several other great songs besides this and “Fame”. But, both “Flashdance…What A Feeling” and “Fame” still get me pumped up.
This is my favorite Rick Springfield song. My mom had the Living in Oz album (on vinyl of course), and I always listened to this song. Great way to finish things today!
That wraps up today’s list of songs. This is an awesome week of great music! Come back tomorrow as we check out the next 10 songs.
Follow @returntothe80sCan you name the artist and song:
Baby, you could never look me in the eye
Yeah, you buckle with the weight of the words
Last Song: “Flashdance… What a Feeling” by Irene Cara from the albums What a Feelin’ and Flashdance soundtrack (1983) in honor of Irene Cara, who turned 57 on Friday.
Great job By Hook Or By Book ~ Book Reviews, News, & Other Stuff Robert (@mishouenglish), and Andy (@andytorah)!!!
Now I hear the music
Close my eyes, I am rhythm
Welcome back as we continue the countdown! If you missed the previous articles, you can check out songs 40-31, 30-21, and 20-11. Well, this has been an incredible week of music – especially the previous 10 songs. And now we have reached the top 10, which has some more classic music I think you’ll enjoy. So, let’s Return to the week ending May 28, 1983, and find out what were the biggest hits that week.
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This is a great way to start the Top 10! Bryan Adams’ big breakthrough single is still one of my favorites by him.
This awesome ballad was the third single released off Richie’s self-titled debut solo album. Kenny Rogers also provided backing vocals on this track.
Next up is another song from a debut album of an ’80s powerhouse. This song was the second single released from Culture Club’s Kissing to Be Clever album (after “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me“). This song is one of my favorite Culture Club songs.
Easily my favorite Branigan tune! I love all her music, but this is #1 for me. What an incredible talent she was. I was so upset when she died on August 26, 2004. This song was the lead single from the Branigan 2 album. This debuted on the charts the same week her breakthrough hit, “Gloria“, dropped off the charts.
And the hits keep on rolling! This single off of Prince’s 1999 album was his first to break the top 10. This is one of my favorite Prince songs.
Once again, we have another classic ’80s tune. This was Thomas Dolby’s only top 40 hit in the U.S. It peaked right here at #5. One more thing before we move on to the next song. Science!
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Men At Work were extremely hot in the early ’80s. This was in the heart of their big run. The second single from their second album, Cargo, would peak at #3.
I think everybody here may have possibly heard of this song, maybe. We all know that Eddie Van Halen famously plays the guitar solo here. But, you may not know this fun fact: there were a few members of Toto who played on this song – Steve Lukather (guitar, bass guitar), Steve Porcaro (synthesizer), and Jeff Porcaro (drums).
Now it’s the part of the countdown where we see what was topping the other charts this week:
Topping the Country charts was the legendary Merle Haggard with “You Take Me For Granted”
The #1 Rock song was “She’s a Beauty” by The Tubes
The best R&B song was “Save the Overtime (For Me)” by Gladys Knight and the Pips
The #1 Adult Contemporary song was “My Love” by Lionel Richie
The #1 album was (yep, you guessed it) Thriller
And the #1 Dance song is also our #2 song
This song was my introduction to David Bowie. Bowie has always reinvented himself. This was during his pop period. I liked this song a lot, and there are so many great songs on the Let’s Dance album, that I like even more.
We have now arrived at the #1 song this week. And what a way to end! My big ’80s crush – Irene Cara. This is her signature song, but she has so many other great ones that get overlooked. I love her voice and music. Even though this song gets all the airplay, I still love it.
Well that wraps up this week’s countdown. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have. I’m going to try to keep this going next week by Returning to the year that The Empire Strikes Back came out. Then the following week – the week the new Star Wars movie is coming out – we are going to Return to (yes we’re going there) 1977! So, that’s something to look forward to. In the meantime, Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.
Follow @returntothe80s Welcome back as we wrap up this week’s Top 40 Countdown. There have been some flat-out classics so far this week, and today is no different. You can go back and check out songs 40-31 30-21, and 20-11. Well, I think this has been one of the better Top 40 weeks, so let’s Return to the week ending June 18, 1983, and finish the countdown.
Well, here’s a blast from the past. Hall & Oates were a staple of the ’80s music scene. But, this song is often overlooked. This song is actually a cover, originally done by Mike Oldfield (with Maggie Reilly on vocals) in 1982. Hall & Oates made it their own, and made it a big hit, topping out at #6 on the charts.
Just like Hall & Oates, Rick Springfield had a great hot streak in the early-to-mid ’80s. This song, Springfield’s first single from his Living in Oz album, would be his fourth top 10 hit, peaking right here at #9. It was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1984, but lost to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”.
This synthpop song just screams ’80s! But, did you know that this was a cover? It was originally written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David in the ’60s. The original recorded version was released by Lou Johnson in 1964. Sandie Shaw also released a version of this song that same year, and it was a #1 hit in the U.K., Canada, and South Africa.
The 1964 versions and this ’80s version were each a product of their time. I like all the versions, but of course, I prefer Naked Eyes.
This is a nice ballad by one of my favorite bands – Styx. This song is from their divisive album, Kilroy Was Here. This was the beginning of the end of the original run of Styx, but you wouldn’t know it here.
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Lionel Richie immediately proved that he could have a successful career post-Commodores, with his incredible self-titled debut album. This ballad was the third single released from that album, and was his third top 10 hit in a row. Kenny Rogers, who often collaborated with Richie, provided the backing vocals on this song.
Men At Work is just pure ’80s. They were on a hot streak at this time. The combination of Colin Hay’s voice and Greg Ham on sax, gave Men At Work a very unique sound. Everyone knows “Down Under“, but this is one of their better songs as well.
Speaking of unique sounding, this song was a worldwide smash hit. The song’s title refers to Electric Avenue, a market street in the Brixton area of London. You could not escape this song when it was first released, but man was it fun!
All week we have been hearing from artists who had been around for a while, but were introduced to me with the ’80s tunes in the countdown this week. This is another one. I remember first hearing this song on the radio while eating breakfast before school. This song was from the album of the same name, and was part of many of David Bowie’s reinventions. This is a great song from a great album.
Culture Club followed their world-wide smash hit debut, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”, with this song. I like this one better. Culture Club was one of those bands that I didn’t care much for back then, but enjoy much more now.
Before we uncover this week’s #1 song, lets see what was topping some of the other charts this week:
The number one country song this week was – “You Can’t Run From Love” by the gone too soon Eddie Rabbitt
Topping the R&B charts was “Juicy Fruit” by Mtume. I never heard of the song or the band.
Sitting on top of the rock charts was this week’s #14 song, “Every Breath You Take” by The Police
The number one adult contemporary song was our #13 song this week – “Never Gonna Let You Go” by Sergio Mendes
For the 17th, and final consecutive week, the #1 album was the legendary Thriller by Micahel Jackson
The #1 dance song brings us to our Hot 100 number one song this week:
What a Feeling! and what a way to end the countdown! A few years earlier, Irene Cara hit it big with the theme song for Fame. Somehow, she outdid herself with this classic from the movie, Flashdance. This song won all kinds of awards, including the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. This is a well deserved #1 hit.
Well, that wraps up this week’s countdown. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have. This has got to be one of the best countdowns we’ve covered so far. 1983 was such an incredible and pivotal year of music. Do you agree? We’ll be back with another countdown in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.
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