Today’s Song of the Day is Herbie Hancock’s innovated “Rockit”. This instrumental was written by Herbie Hancock, Bill Laswell and Michael Beinhorn, and the video was created by Godley & Creme. The single was released off of Hancock’s 1983 album, Future Shock – Hancock’s 35th album.
Herbie Hancock is a renown jazz musician who joined Miles Davis’ band in 1963. Davis taught Hancock the importance of experimentation, and about how you can achieve excellent results by letting the people working with you experiment as well. And while jazz purists wanted no part of this electro classic, it created a fresh new sound thanks to the production of Bill Laswell and the turntable work of GrandMixer D.ST, who each got the green light from Hancock to do their thing.
Not only was the song itself innovated, but so was the music video. It features a host of animated mannequins, was one of the most innovative of the era. It was very popular on MTV, winning five video music awards in 1984: Best Art Direction, Best Concept, Best Editing, Best Special Effects, and Most Experimental Video. Along with Michael Jackson and Prince, Hancock was one of the first black artists to get significant airplay on MTV, but he barely appears in the video (he is shown in a few shots of the television sets), which was by design. The video was directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, who also make the Police video for “Every Breath You Take.” Their directive was to get Hancock played on MTV, a daunting task considering the network’s reluctance to play black artists. Keeping the artist out of the video was a way to take the race factor out of it, and it worked. In addition to the MTV awards (which were overshadowed by Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” performance at the awards show, BTW), “Rockit” won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance.
A jazz musician in his 40s, Herbie Hancock was an outlier on MTV, where young pop stars were the norm. This song incorporated very modern sounds though, including elements of hip-hop. Combined with the eye-catching video, it fit in surprisingly well on the network.
Today’s Song of the Day is “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson. On this day in 1983, with this song, Michael Jackson became the first Black artist to get heavy rotation on MTV. After launching on August 1, 1981, MTV was reluctant to play music videos by Black artists. MTV denied accusations of racism as they insisted that their format was rock music. MTV was programmed by guys with radio backgrounds who tried to program it like a radio station with a rock format, something that proved impossible because they didn’t have enough videos by rock artists. What they did have were lots of European acts, who had been making videos for years, and were overwhelmingly white. Record companies wouldn’t budget for videos by their black artists since they didn’t think MTV would play them, so the network could make the argument that they simply didn’t have any good videos by black artists that were worthy. That argument went out the window when Jackson made the “Billie Jean” video, which was startlingly innovative.
Today’s Song of the Day is “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon, which hit #1 on this day in 1985. The song remained in the top spot for three weeks. It was the group’s second number-one hit on the U.S. charts (the first being 1981’s “Keep on Loving You”, also written by Kevin Cronin). “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” was the second single released off of 1984’s Wheels Are Turning album, following the song “I Do’ Wanna Know”. REO Speedwagon played this at 
As Mickey Dolenz celebrates his 77th birthday, today’s Song of the Day is “That Was Then, This Is Now” by The Monkees. Throughout the ’80s, there was a lot of nostalgia for the ’50s and ’60s (Back to the Future, Stand By Me, Peggy Sue Got Married), and The Monkees were a big part of that. A Monkees TV show marathon was broadcast on MTV on February 23, 1986. Then in May, Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork announced a “20th Anniversary Tour”. While Michael Nesmith did have a falling out years earlier, he was all for the reunion. However, he was forced to sit out most projects because of prior commitments to his Pacific Arts video production company. In addition to the MTV special, and the tour, the original ’60s episodes of the Monkees television show daily on Nickelodeon. This sudden revival of the Monkees helped move the first official Monkees single since 1971, “That Was Then, This Is Now”, to the No. 20 position on the Billboard charts.
“Tell It To My Heart”. This title track was the first single released from her debut album. The week of January 23, 1988, the single peaked in the number seven spot. It was on the Hot 100 for 25 weeks. Dayne was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal, Female for her performance on “Tell It to My Heart” in 1988.
Today’s Song of the Day is Debbie Gibson’s “Lost In Your Eyes,” which hit #1 on the Billboard charts on this day in 1989. The song was released on January 6, 1989 as the lead single released from Gibson’s sophomore album, Electric Youth.
Return to the 80s 