Can you name the artist and song:
Love, baby, love
It’s written all over your face
There’s nothing better we could do
Than live forever
Last Song: “Give It To Me Baby” by Rick James from Street Songs (1981)
Great job Adora (@Adora2000)!!!
When I was high as the sky
Out all night just dancing
You say let’s go home
That’s the time I start romancin’
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:
Sittin’ in the classroom, thinkin’ it’s a drag
Listening to the teacher rap, just ain’t my bag
Last Song: “Super Freak” by Rick James from the album Street Songs (1981)
Great job Adora (@Adora2000), Lisa (@gabbyg89), Martin (@mcmaenza), Teen Movie Classics (@TeenClassics), HellsKitchenHotSauce (@HKhotsauceNYC), Barth (@GimbleIi)!!!
She’s a very special girl,
From her head down to her toenails
Yet she’ll wait for me at backstage with her girlfriends,
In a limousine
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 back and check out songs 40-31 and 30-21. At this point in time, MTV was still in its infancy, as it just debuted 2 1/2 months ago. Some artists already threw their hat in the ring, and filmed music videos. Others were not yet ready to embrace this medium. So, this is a very interesting and transitional time. Now, let’s Return to the week ending October 17, 1981, and continue the countdown.
As far as I’m concerned, you can’t go wrong with Billy Joel. This song was originally released in 1976 on his Turnstiles album. But, it didn’t have success until it was released on Joel’s live album, Songs in the Attic.
Another fun fact: Billy Joel confirmed that he wrote the song with Ronnie Spector and The Ronettes song “Be My Baby” in mind. Because of this, Ronnie Spector recorded her own cover version of “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” in 1977 with the E Street Band, soon after Joel released his first recording of the song on Turnstiles.
During this part of the decade, there were a lot of country-crossover hits. But, now we have a jazz-crossover hit! This is a song I would never have listened to back when it was released, but absolutely love it now. This song came off of Al Jarreau’s Breakin’ Away album, which was his most popular album, spending two years on the Billboard 200. it also won Jarreau the Grammy Award in 1982 Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.
This was the fourth and final US Top 40 hit for the Scottish songstress. Lulu is best known for her title track songs for the movies To Sir With Love, and The Man with the Golden Gun.
U can’t touch this Rick James smash hit (unless you’re M.C. Hammer), which topped the pop, R&B and dance charts in the US.
This was the Mowtown legends’ return to the Top 40. It was the first song released from their new record label Casablanca Records. The song also became an international hit.
This isn’t exactly one of Kenny Rogers’ most well known songs. But, it did reach number 14 on the Hot 100 and 5 in the US Country charts. It was off of his album Share Your Love, which was produced by Lionel Richie.
This song was originally performed by Otis Clay in 1973. Bob Seger’s cover of this song is the most successful version of the song, reaching number five on the pop singles charts.
This was the first single released off of ELO’s 1981 album, Time, and became an international hit. I’m not sure if I would have heard of this song if it wasn’t featured in The Coffee Achievers TV commercials….
Well, if you’re gonna follow-up “Jessie’s Girl”, this is the way to do it. Rick Springfield proved he was here to stay with this Sammy Hagar penned tune. Just like “Jessie’s Girl”, this rocker came off of Rick Springfield’s 1981 international breakout album Working Class Dog, and would reach up to #9 on the charts.
I’m not sure what the U.S. presidential debate fact-checkers would say, but I believe that this is where the rage of the ’80s sax solo began. This was the first single released from Foreigner’s classic 4 album. The album was produced by “Mutt” Lange. The then-unknown Thomas Dolby played synthesizer on some tracks on the album, including this song. And the aforementioned sax solo was performed by by Motown great Junior Walker.
That wraps up today’s list of songs. So far, this has been a pretty solid week. And the best is yet to come! So come back Friday to see what the Top 10 was this week in 1981. And as usual, I would love to hear your thoughts on this countdown. See ya Friday!
Follow @returntothe80s
Return to the 80s 