MTV’s Top 100 of 1985, a look back (Part 8)

We’re really getting 80s up in this top ten countdown from 1985. There are better sections of the countdown. There are worst sections of the countdown, but this one is the most 80s yet. And it’s 80s in an incredibly diverse (yet white) way, with new wave, pop, synthpop, hard rock, power ballads, heartland rock, and dance music all managing to fit their way in. And its almost all recognizable now too. I only didn’t know of two songs out of this set of ten, and one I dug so much that I went out and bought more albums by the artist.

The other was by Night Ranger.

 

29. Wham! – “Careless Whisper”

Second best saxophone riff of all-time, right behind “Baker Street.” I remember my mom loving the hell out of this song and this video, probably because it allowed her to look at George Michael. Shit, I think that every suburban boomer mom in America (as well as most of their daughters and some of their sons) jumped at any chance to gawk at George Michael in 1985. Wham! and George Michael were big stars before this, but this is what catapulted George to superstardom, and left Andrew Ridgeley in the dust with his race car and his wife from Bananarama (dude did alright for himself). The second half of the 80s, and a good chunk of the 90s, belonged to George solely from the heat generated by this track.

So how the hell is this only number 29 on the countdown? Was it because it came out in 1984 and was a bigger hit on MTV that year? But that doesn’t make any sense since it was a bigger hit on the Billboard charts in 1985. It was literally the number one song of the year on the 1985 Billboard charts, but here it’s only number 29?  A Night Ranger track you have no memory of is higher on the list. Mick Jagger’s worst single of the 80s charted higher than this. Did someone forget to carry a decimal point or something?

 

28. Robert Plant – “Little By Little”

Just a bit ago we saw former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page show up via his group The Firm with their thankfully forgotten shiny turd of a pop song “Radioactive.” Now Robert Plant makes his sole appearance on the countdown with a track that is seemingly just as forgotten as anything The Firm put out – but much, much better.

This song is just incredible, and has aged very well thanks to Plant’s fantastic vocals and a great overall sound that serves as a crowning example of 80 production (great 80s drum sound on this one). The video helps take it up a notch too, playing up the weirder aspects of the melody with some cool dance numbers and freaky surreal set-pieces. Sure, this is a blatant rip-off of David Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes,” but in 1985 David Bowie wasn’t making any more “Ashes To Ashes,” he was making “Blue Jean.” And yeah, “Blue Jean” is all right, but it ain’t “Ashes to Ashes,” and it ain’t even this. I like this so much I’m going to seek out some 80s Robert Plant albums, which is something I never thought I’d say.

 

27. Madonna – “Crazy For You”

Madonna’s highest ranking song on the Top 100, her first ballad, one of her best songs, and a terrible video. I’ve said multiple times here that I’m not a fan of basic performance videos or movie clip videos, and this one is both! It’s a performance video comprised entirely of scenes from the film in which the song originated (the forgotten 80s teen romance Vision Quest). This one totally deserved a better video, but considering how high it placed on the chart, I guess it didn’t really need one. Another one for my wedding playlist for sure.

 

26. ZZ Top – “Sleeping Bag”

If any act can give Heart a run for their money on who sold out best in the 80s, it would be ZZ Top. In the 70s, ZZ Top was a down and dirty Texas blues band. But the millisecond synthesizers got popular, they didn’t just jump on the bandwagon, they installed the wheels on it. But was that a bad thing? Hell no. Sell out ZZ Top kicks ass. Eliminator is crass and commercial as fuck, but it gave us “Legs,” “Sharped Dressed Man” and “Gimme All Your Lovin'”, all some of the best new wave inspired music of the decade.

Eliminator came out 1983, and never a band to take long breaks between albums, the group followed it up with Afterburner just two years later. It followed the exact same formula as Eliminator, but lightning didn’t strike twice. While nearly all the singles from Eliminator are classics today, the only song from Afterburner that’s had any staying power at all is this one, the biggest hit from the album. In that regard, I guess Heart sold out better, they were able to parlay their newfound love for power ballads and hair metal to at least two megahit records.

But while Heart win the “who sold out more successfully” contest, ZZ Top sure as hell made better videos. This video has bigfoot. And spaceships. And mythical ZZ Top. And it’s not even one of their best videos. That’s how good their videos were. If you were five years old when this sucker came out, you thought it was the raddest thing since He-Man. Trust me.

 

25. Glenn Frey – “The Heat Is On”

When I was a kid, I thought that a woman sang this. Just last week, when my boyfriend heard this song for the first time, he thought the same thing. So I guess it’s not just me? What is it about Glenn Fry’s voice that makes that happen?

Boring video (performance and clip show from the movie, yawn), but damn what a track. It still blows my mind that someone from a band as bland as The Eagles could make music as fun as this. Maybe this is another example of selling out leading to better music. This is the last song from the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack to make its way to the countdown, but it’s not the last big soundtrack single. We still have four more of those to get through, including another by Glenn Frey. The mid-80s was the golden age of the pop soundtrack, for sure.

 

24. Night Ranger – “Sentimental Street”

The video for this is not on YouTube and my efforts to put it there were immediately struck down with an auto copyright notice. Someone out there really doesn’t want you to see this one for some reason.

This is the highest ranking song on the countdown that I have zero recollection of. Zero. None. Nada. Zip. Don’t remember the song, the video, nothing about it. And while some of the lesser-known tracks on this list weren’t big hits outside of MTV, this one cracked the Billboard Top 10! It made the Billboard Top 100 for the year! Sure it was only 99 (beating Sheena Easton’s “Sugar Walls”) but a lot of the songs on this list didn’t even appear on that list.

What is this song? It leaves me with more questions than answers. What kind of band was Night Ranger anyways? I always thought they were a hard rock band, but now that I think about it, I can’t name a hard rock song by the group. Of course, I can only name three songs by the group, this one, the immortal “Sister Christian,” the terrible “(You Can Still) Rock in America.” I guess they weren’t has hard or heavy as I thought they were.

Damn Yankees makes a lot more sense now.

 

23. Don Henley – “All She Wants To Do Is Dance”

Until I sat down to write about this countdown, I did not know that this song was actually about living in an oppressive government regime fraught with riots and social unrest. Or maybe I did know that at one point and the part of my brain that held that knowledge expunged it for something more useful. In actuality, it probably replaced it with knowledge of obscure Japanese pop music, but whatever. Anyways, good work on being prescient Don, this one is more relevant than ever.

Too bad it sounds terrible. It’s the worst of 80s production. It’s nearly all synthesizers, and bad synthesizer. The sax you hear? That’s a synthesizer. The bassline and drums? Also synthesizers. The only sounds on here that aren’t generated by synthesizers are the guitars and Henley’s voice. That didn’t have to be a bad thing. “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins is also 90% synthesizer, but that had the help of Giorgio Moroder. This doesn’t, and it all sounds too bright and heavy on the treble. An epitome of grating 80s production, through and through. Everything just comes out like noise. I bet there’s a good live version of this out there somewhere that strips that shit out.

Great video though. Don Henley can’t look cool. He just can’t. But he sure is trying his best. All while living in a Mad Max-lite disco! Fantastic.

 

22. David Lee Roth – “California Girls”

David Lee Roth is a stupid motherfucker with no describable talents. He was also the best frontman of the 80s. Talent is overrated.

So is writing songs. He’s debut EP, Crazy From The Heat, was just four songs. All covers. He said that he put out an EP because most albums only have a few really good songs anyway. Effort is also overrated.

That EP with four songs had two singles, which is a ballsy move. Of the two singles, I always preferred “Just A Gigolo,” but both of the tracks are great, if entirely disposable, fun. And covering the Beach Boys was a surefire way to tap into burgeoning boomer nostalgia in 1985, a cheap and easy way to get a hit. And if there are two things that Dave loves, it’s being cheap and easy. Dave is not one for hard work. Hard work is overrated.

As for the video, I imagine this is what it’s like in Dave’s head 24/7, even today. He don’t strike me as deep. Deep is overrated.

 

21. John Cougar Mellencamp – “Small Town”

The clearest example of the John (then Cougar) Mellencamp aesthetic, sound, lifestyle, whatever, you name it. This song has 211 words. He says the phrase “small town” 34 times. This is heartland idealization as pornography.

I’ve always felt that Mellencamp was a dumbed down Springsteen. Bruce sings about small town life, but he paints vivid, character-driven pictures that showcase both the good and the bad of blue collar life. Mellencamp ain’t got time for that shit. Y’see, he was born in a small town and he was educated in a small town and he loves living in a small town because a small town is a small town where small town people live a small town life in a small town.

Small town.

If the memes around the term “basic bitch” had existed in 1985, John Mellencamp’s face would’ve been plastered all over them.

I might’ve liked this song at one point in my life. But as it is now, and with the current political climate being what it is, I never want to hear him sing the words “small town” again. John has many better songs than this, one will even show up on this countdown later.

 

20. Huey Lewis & The News – “Power Of Love”

The overly bright horn-esque Yamaha synth sound is the downfall of many an 80s single, and why many of them sound so damn dated. But not here. No way. Here, the corny, cheesy, overpowered synths bring the song together. Couldn’t tell you why. Maybe it’s because they actually use the sound like a good band uses horns, with some restraint, and not pulsing and pounding through the whole damn song like with that Don Henley tune.

Or maybe it’s because this tune just kicks ass. Huey Lewis & The News are like The Strokes (HEAR ME OUT), both looked exceptionally cool for their times because they both tried exceptionally hard to make it look like they weren’t trying. Huey Lewis & The News have the aura of a podunk small town rock band, one that just happens to have some of the cleanest, most professional-sounding production and fantastic songwriters. I’m so sad Huey’s career fizzled out in the 90s. Elton John kept shit going (for longer than was reasonable) it’s not fair that we didn’t get three to four decades of Huey Lewis goodness.

And this video is awesome. Yes, it’s painfully obvious that all the footage with Christopher Lloyd was shot in another location and on another day, but I don’t care – they got him, and were able to avoid yet another boring clip show soundtrack music video as a result. Doc Brown should’ve been in more videos too. Even ones that weren’t connected to Back To The Future. Why the hell not? Dude’s a time traveler he could be anywhere. Give me a video with Doc Brown in 2020. Maybe he can fix all this shit. SAVE US FROM 2020 DOC BROWN! AND SAVE HUEY LEWIS’ CAREER TOO!