And he, in turn, seemed to have borrowed from a lick in the Detroit Emeralds' late 1971/early 1972 hit, "You Want It, You Got It": Listen to the open, and see what I mean . . .
In hindsight they looked and sounded years ahead of their time - more like something from the early '90s than the early '80s.
My comments for selected songs underneath: 1 2 COME ON EILEEN –•– Dexys Midnight Runners (Mercury)-14 (1 week at #1) (1) Took me a while to warm up to this, but I came to really like it 4 4 JEOPARDY –•– The Greg Kihn Band (Beserkley)-13 (4) I've got an oldies series single with this on one side and The Breakup Song on the other. Both songs are great 7 7 ONE ON ONE –•– Daryl Hall & John Oates (RCA)-13 (7) This and Maneater are by far the two best songs on H2O 8 8 SEPARATE WAYS (Worlds Apart) –•– Journey (Columbia)-12 (8) This song spent six weeks at No. 8. The long peaks were coming to an end as the chart director at Billboard changed after this week. I actually like the follow-up Faithfully better than this 11 6 HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF –•– Duran Duran (Harvest)-18 (3) I really like the three singles from the Rio album. After this I lost interest in them until the '90s. Their lyrics on future singles just didn't make sense and that turned me off of them. 12 17 LITTLE RED CORVETTE –•– Prince (Warner Brothers)-9 (12) It took me a while to get into this one, but I eventually found a promo 45 with a longer version on one side 13 16 EVEN NOW –•– Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band (Capitol)-7 (13) I really like this one. Was a big Seger fan back then 14 10 DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME –•– Culture Club (Virgin)-21 (2) Hate it. Never liked it. Some of their follow-up singles were OK though. 15 19 OVERKILL –•– Men At Work (Columbia)-3 (15) This song was highly anticipated as it debuted all the way up at No. 28 in March - the highest debut since Imagine. It could only get to No. 3. 16 20 I WON’T HOLD YOU BACK –•– Toto (Columbia)-7 (16) Fourth of five singles from Toto IV. One of my favorite albums at the time. 17 12 YOU ARE –•– Lionel Richie (Motown)-15 (4) I like this one better than Truly. 19 11 WE’VE GOT TONIGHT –•– Kenny Rogers & Sheena Easton (Liberty)-13 (6) I like the Seger version better 20 14 I KNOW THERE’S SOMETHING GOING ON –•– Frida (Atlantic)-25 (13) It spent a long time on the charts. The Canadian 45 had the full 5:15 version. 21 18 BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG –•– The Pretenders (Sire)-20 (5) Love it 25 25 SHAME ON THE MOON –•– Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band (Capitol)-19 (2) Peaked at No. 2 for four weeks - his best performing chart single at the time 26 32 PHOTOGRAPH –•– Def Leppard (Mercury)-7 (26) First real hit for this hard rock band. The picture sleeve for the single is hard to find. 29 29 IT MIGHT BE YOU –•– Stephen Bishop (Warner Brothers)-13 (29) I was looking for a girl friend at the time, so this song kind of hit home for me. 31 35 RIO –•– Duran Duran (Capitol)-4 (31) I really like this one - it's catchy. After a big jump into the top 20 the following week, it ended up stalling at No. 14. 32 37 MY LOVE –•– Lionel Richie (Motown)-3 (32) It's OK but not great 34 39 STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART –•– Bryan Adams (A&M)-7 (34) First of four singles from the Cuts Like a Knife album - Adams' big breakthrough. 40 50 ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME –•– Naked Eyes (EMI-America)-7 (40) My 45 doesn't have the drum intro. It seems to be the more common one. Overall, a great chart. 1983 was always my favorite year for Top 40.
Fun little song. I love it but am also still sick of hearing it. I had a buddy who was absolutely crazed about the this song and the album. He went to the concert, of course. I didn't like the song at the time. I've warmed up to it. I thought it was cool to have some R&B, even if it wasn't quite authentic. I was sick of hearing it by this point. Meanwhile, it was still at #1 on the R&B chart. 6 9 DER KOMMISSAR –•– After The Fire (Epic)-11 (6) It seemed like the Europeans appreciated R&B a lot more than Americans did. I think that was true up until the late 90s. I was never a big Journey fan but this one wasn't too bad. Popular on college campuses, too. He actually had one more U.S. hit single. It didn't hit the top, but it was respectable. I still think of this song as their best. Like the song above it^, it was very popular college at dances and parties. Booooo! I never liked it. I've never heard it. R&B! People overseas really respected it. But, I gotta tell ya, the vocal performance sounds to me like the guy is a wuss. Cool little song, but I think they overplayed the paranoia theme. Zzzzzzzzz.... This hit #1 on the R&B chart a few chart months ago. I like it. It has more energy and groove than "Truly", that's for sure. The only thing this song has going for it is her powerful voice. That's it. Agree. The first time I heard this it was on Casey Kasem's AT40, and I loved it right away. Little did we realize that producer Phil Collins and engineer Hugh Padgham would soon run the gated drum sound into the ground. I didn't remember hearing this one until the fall of the year and that is why I was so sure it hadn't been released until then. Now that I really go back in my mind, I probably did hear it earlier in the year and just blocked it out. It didn't impress me, so it didn't get committed to memory until later. I was still in an R&B mindset in early 1983 even though I was hearing all these cool Brit-pop songs. Apparently, Tom Petty or somebody wasn't too much of a fan, either. It wasn't included on his biggest-selling greatest hits album. But, I like it, and wondered why it was ignored so much. Another song I ignored. I also didn't know it was Golden Earring until a few years ago. I heard it played at a club and it suddenly came out of memory, and I realized how good a song it is. No memory of it, either. I guess it wasn't popular out here in Arizona. I have his "Complete Clapton" CD but still can't tell you how the song sounds. I heard this a lot on the radio. One of his best. I liked it, but wasn't goo-goo about it. Oh yeah! A perfect power-pop song! At this point, the only hard rock band I really liked was Van Halen. I was at my friend's house one day in January of '83 and we were just listening to his records. He's the same guy who introduced me to Van Halen three years earlier, BTW. He put this on and when "Photograph" came on it hit me like a ton of bricks! I don't think I had heard pop/metal sound so good. It had all the hooks, great lyrics, middle-eight guitar solo...a perfect pop song that was heavy, too. And it had keyboards! He let me borrow the album which still had the Chicago high-rise label, and I made a nice copy of it. I soon bought my own LP of it with the black Mercury label. It did annoy me that the whole album sounded rather dull. In later years, after reading just how much processing was done to every instrumental track, I understood why. Producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange used a harmonizer on all the guitars and vocals which is why the damn album is in perfect pitch. Certainly a precursor to Autotune. I wish I could forget. Unlike you, I really like it. Nice little party song. I bought this 45 too. I barely remember this, and I have his greatest hits CD. An attempt by Barry Manilow to remain relevant in a changing musical landscape. I kind of like this song, but it also reminds me a bit too much of Andrew Gold's "Thank You For Being A Friend" from 1978. They were almost known more for their videos at this point. Still, a good song. I would have sworn this song came out in a later year. It's a nice little ballad but doesn't do anything for me. Well, I like it, and this was a big hit single. I don't know how you missed it. As a Switch fan from the late 70s, and having bought the self-titled "DeBarge" album two years earlier, this group was no stranger to me. It was a family group that reminded me more of the Sylvers than any others. No memory of it. Again, unlike you, I love the song. I cold bought the "Jarreau" album on sight at the PX one Sunday morning before even hearing a note from it. I bought it on cassette because it had the bonus track "I Keep Calling". Warner Brothers had tried selling cassettes in blister packs for some reason, and that's how my cassette came. Interestingly, the cardboard was the same size as the cardboard packaging companies would use for CDs for the next decade. Anyway, I love the song and the album is just as enjoyable as his last album "Breakin' Away", except more musically adventurous. I like the video for "Mornin'", too. Gotta love the title of this! The blind Mr. Milsap certainly had a sense of humor! "There's a stranger in my house that I can't see"! Thing about Ronnie Milsap is that he never sounded very country to me. He always had some R&B in his sound. Another song I didn't hear until that summer. Another perfect pop song. POWER PLAYS My only memory of it is from the movie "Valley Girl". Still whiny. Now seeing ZZ Top was a shock! Like many of their 70s contemporaries, they had never really went away, but this was a huge comeback! NEW THIS WEEK Never heard of it.
Yeah, one side has what they now call the "midnight" version, or the dance mix, and the other is the familiar pop version with the long fadeout with the woman's orgasmic cries.
The first time I heard the song was when I played the album after buying it. I was stoked that they actually put a hard rock song on it. As soon as that guitar solo started, I knew it was Eddie Van Halen without even checking. Eddie refused payment for it, as it was his pleasure to do it as a fan of Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones. There still seems to be some discrepancy on exactly how the solo came to be. One story has it that Michael and Quincy wanted him on it and called him into the studio. Another story has it that they sent Eddie the tape and laid down his track.
EVH has a story, which I kind of doubt is true but I hope it is, about being in a record store shortly after "Beat It" came out, and it played on the in-store sound system. He overheard a teenager saying to his friends, "Listen to this jerk trying to sound like Eddie Van Halen!" So he tapped the know-it-all on the shoulder and said, "Actually, that is me."
There is one place I know of (certainly in New York) where "Beat It" never gets play, EVH or no EVH: Classic rock stations.
I remember one time waiting up all night just to see the Eat It video. As a 7th grader IN-3D was right up my alley!
While that’s certainly the case the last 35 years or so, the station I eventually worked for, WPDH Poughkeepsie DID play ‘Beat It’ at the time and I remember the controversy it inspired. The jocks were always quick to point out the EVH connection in the front sell or back sell but it didn’t go over well and was eventually dropped
"Beat It" was a pleasant surprise when it hit. Here was an artist known more for r&b and pop tackling a straight ahead rock song and doing it convincingly. The magic of this single was that it combined driving rock with a pop sensibility and an irresistible groove in a way that appealed to both his fan base and casual listeners who probably wouldn't have sought out his music otherwise.
What surprised me is how quickly this single was released. Billie Jean was only on the chart for about 5 weeks when all of a sudden Beat It debuted. It was unusual to have two singles climbing the chart at the same time, but Epic obviously knew what they were doing as the Thriller LP shot to No. 1 for the beginning of a 37-week domination over the next year and a half. Since The Girl is Mine was still on the chart when Beat It debuted, it gave Michael three singles on the chart at once - something he would accomplish several times during 1983. Despite a record-breaking seven top 10 singles, this is the last we'd see of Jackson at No. 1 on the singles charts with songs from this LP.
I wonder if some of the latter singles didn't go even higher than they did was because so many people owned the album at the time that they weren't springing for the single as the hot 100 was an amalgram of airplay and sales, especially the title track that would eventually go in at #4 but is just as iconic and famous as the two #1's off this album, but come March 1984, who didn't own a copy of the album? And by then those who didn't weren't going and buying the single when they could own the album (I remember reading somewhere that in early 1984, Thriller was moving 100k units per day at the height of the popularity of the title track).
I would like to comment on the first part of 1983, in general: As a teenager obsessed with music during this period, 1983 was the aural equivalent of the scene in The Wizard Of Oz when everything changes from black & white to color. The radio was suddenly filled with exciting, quirky new sounds and MTV was showing us some quite eccentric personalities. Each new week brought a new hit that no one would have predicted as being successful even a year ago. At this point, before the dust had settled, Prince and Michael Jackson were just 2 of many exciting figures vying for space in the upper reaches of the charts, not quite recognized as the Titans of the 80’s. A clear demarcation point for me though was, around 3 weeks after the premiere of the Beat It video, as I was standing in the lunch line at school, seeing a very popular student wearing the Beat It jacket, and everyone gasping with delight. Apparently the wildly popular early 80’s clothing chain called Merry Go Round was filling the store with the clothing we were seeing on MTV . Several months later I succumbed and got myself a shirt featured in a future Quiet Riot video. At this early date, the metal kids at my school were digging Beat It. 6 months later, they were denying ever loving it.....
it does shock me how territorial some audiences are regarding artists.... I say this because people balked at "Beat It" getting rock airplay, yet about this time next year a certain song will be #1 on the Rock chart by an artist who at that point was still associated as a rocker (though that would change over the next couple years), yet with a power ballad that still gets airplay today, but on AC stations and not a classic rock station at all (and the stuff you'll hear from him on classic rock will have been before this #1 hit, nothing post), yet rock audiences were more receptive to that being played next to Def Leppard and Scorpions than they were a "rock" MJ song with an EVH solo?
A Rock and Roll pioneer in Chuck Berry who sold out to the lowest common denominator for one last stab at glory...….very sad indeed!
What I do find interesting about "Beat It" is that Michael essentially allowed himself to play a supporting role in the video and doesn't even appear onscreen until just over a minute into it)... a drastic change from pretty much every video onward (barring a "message" video like Man In The Mirror or a clip like Liberian Girl where he has a lot of famous guest stars and just appears at the end) where he is at the center of everything. One of the most prominent dancers in terms of screentime is Michael DeLorenzo who at that time was a cast member of Fame and would eventually star in his own cop show on Fox in the 90s. Plus, we can't discuss the video without also bringing up Weird Al's parody "Eat It" (definitely the first time I'd heard of him at the age of 4), which was essentially a shot by shot parody remake of the original and brought back the majority of the original people from "Beat It".... the ending where he pays homage to the last scene in Thriller creeped me out as a young'un (we'll get to how scared I was of the Thriller video the first time I saw it when we get later into 1983/1984 lol)
My favorite Michael Jackson solo tune. It’s a rock song with a great groove, and a killer guitar line. Someone mentioned that it’s never played on Classic Rock stations - if that’s true, it’s a crying shame. This is by any definition a classic rock track.
It doesn't shock me at all. He didn't sell out, and half the world has a 'ding-a-ling". There are those who hold it and the other half who lie about not holding it. It's a beautiful little song. "Those of you cannot sing, you must be playin' with 'cha own ding-a-ling-oooo!"
"BEAT IT" Extremely popular in my 5th grade class. At times it seemed that certain students were bringing the Thriller album to school every day, just looking for an excuse to play some of it, and the teacher usually let them. It is cool to hear MJ doing a hard rock song. EVH's guitar solo is actually pretty pedestrian by his standards--you'd never mistake it for the energy of most of the songs on Van Halen I, for instance. But for Top 40, it was gratifying to hear a bona fide guitar solo for the first time at #1 in what seems like a long time.
Well, rock fans can be territorial, which is actually played into its downfall in contemporary relevance, mainly alternative audiences who act like someone is selling out if more than a million people stream their song or watch their video on YouTube, but even in 83-84 I have a hard time grasping that rock fans would complain about "Beat It" being played alongside The Police and Def Leppard, yet in less than a year's time have no problem with a power ballad first solo #1 hit we'll be discussing making it all the way to #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart that "rocks" way less than Beat It or Little Red Corvette (Prince was more embraced by rockers than MJ was, but while he placed a few entries on the rock chart, he never actually made it to the top 10) did.
