Every Billboard #1 Mainstream Rock hit discussion thread (1981 - present)

OH YEAH. Classic material for Jagger to shine. RS keeping it fresh 17+ years into an amazing career. What an opening lick! Still one of the best ever.

 

Classic, though wildly overplayed since it crossed formats, still didn't make me hate it. A little fatigue perhaps. Since we have 2 Foreigners already, can I throw a shout out for my favorite unknown Foreigner song, The Modern Day?
The Modern Day - YouTube Music

 

Great song.

 

Good song, doesn't seem like a #1 hit, but i wouldn't kick it out of bed.

 

Fun, gimmicky song but not one I'd play on purpose. Iconic to my high school days however.

 

I feel about the same way here as Centerfold. Fun song, gimmicky, good sound but I would not put it on my turntable. I'd rather be a few drinks in and hear JJ play it live. Which I have, btw.

 

Shoot me if you must but DD is my fave VH album. Wore out the 8 track!

 

I Love Rock And Roll
Gritty and cheezy at the same time. Musically very simplistic. Attitude-wise, it's what rock and roll is all about. On the whole, not really my bag, but still very good at what it does.

Oh, Pretty Woman
A cover that didn't need to be made, especially by Van Halen. Makes Ice Cream Man look like Stravinsky.

Don't Let Him Know
One of the better examples of arena rock out there. Melodic, just heavy enough, creative, strong vocal, very engaging.

Jenny
Oh, now there's one of those insidious earworms! Really a stupid concept, but executed well enough to be forgiven.

Heat of the Moment
Part of the "this is a supergroup made up of the greatest prog players" confusion. Not a bad song, not a great one. Easily good enough for its times if you set aside the expectation of some kind of fusion of Yes and King Crimson.

No One Like You
Classic commercial Scorpions. Pretty catchy at first but easily outgrown.

Stone Cold
Not a bad song, but I ever liked the more commercial direction here. Bring back Ronnie! I liked the gritty Rainbow better than this mainstream AOR.

Hurts So Good
Part of why John Cougar got booed off the stage when opening for Tull/The Who. Rightfully so.

 

Do not know the Prism song. Tommy Tutone, same bucket as Centerfold and I Love R&R. Gimmicky as hell, loved it when I was 16, will sing along to it now, but not a classic.

 

Wait, what? That happened?

 

Heat of the Moment, great memories. Another great opening riff, thoughtful lyrics, but fresh sound for 82, "and now you find yourself in 82", lol, stands the test of time.

No One Like You, more great memories, my first exposure to Scorpions, associate these last 2 songs with a specific girlfriend who broadened my horizons, musically and otherwise. Good but not great song. Repetitive. God, please do not bring the Whitesnake song into this thread or I will really blow it up! Lol, but sheesh, talk about repetitive!!!

Stone Cold, good but boring? Some good riffs but an average song.

Hurts so Good, good catchy pop tune, not my fave JCM but very listenable. Sometimes love don't feel like it should.

 

Yep.
Folsom Field, Boulder CO. September '82.

Cougar only got six songs before being run off the stage. My buddy and I started booing after the second song. After the fifth, our entire section was booing. After the sixth, it seemed like the entire stadium was booing. Cougar flipped us the bird and stormed off halfway through his set.

I understand that happened a few more times on that tour.

I started to feel bad, but John Mellencamp seemed to recover nicely, so it's all good.

 

Dang.

 

Classy. I HATE that. I've come to see the opening act too.....
Saying anything else will get this post removed.

 

Just a little clarification before we continue.
I've made mention of both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the Top 40. When I say "Top 40 hit," I mean a song that peaked in one of the top 40 spots on the Hot 100, as the Top 40 wasn't a thing until the Nineties.
Thank you. The next review should be up very soon.

 

Stone Cold : It might not be "Man On The Silver Mountain" or "Stargazer" but "Stone Cold" is a well decent song in its own right. Although, it only hit number 40 on the Billboard charts, I remember hearing it often on top radio in mid 1982. More importantly, this is the song that ultimately led me to Deep Purple a couple of years later.

Hurts So Good: Simplistic but fun. All of the right elements are there; the booming drums, the opening riff, the catchy chorus. A perfect summer song.

 

Amazing that "Hurts So Good" was a bigger hit on the Year End Top 100 than his next one, despite this only peaking on the "regular" chart at #2.

 

Hmm, I loved listening to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" in the 70s and 80s. But maybe that was unrelated to a subsequent Billboard "Top 40" chart?

 

Possibly.

 

Happy 73rd birthday to Joe Walsh!

 

#21 .38 Special, Caught Up in You
Written by Don Barnes, Jeff Carlisi, Jim Peterik, and Frankie Sullivan*
Produced by Rodney Mills
Label: A&M
Issued June 26, 1982; 1 week at #1
^9 weeks



.38 Special was formed in 1974 in Jacksonville, Florida by Don Barnes and Donnie Van Zant. If you're a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan, you probably recognize that surname. Yes, Donnie is the younger brother of Lynyrd Skynyrd's original lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant. They also have a younger brother named Johnny, which means their parents willingly named their sons Ronnie, Donnie, and Johnny. Good for them, I guess.
Anyway, Don Barnes sings and plays guitar. Jeff Carlisi also plays guitar. And then to cap off the list of songwriters, there's Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan of Survivor. You know, the band that made Eye of the Tiger. They and .38 Special were label mates. Sullivan didn't actually contribute to Caught Up in You, though; I'll explain the asterisk in a moment.
Caught Up in You was in fact solely the work of Barnes, Carlisi and Peterik. This wasn't the first .38 Special hit Peterik co-wrote with them. The trio previously wrote Hold On Loosely and Rockin' into the Night. So if you wondered why a southern rock band's most famous hits sounded more like Survivor than Skynyrd, that's why. Heck, .38 Special had a hit with a song written by Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams.
But why is Frankie Sullivan credited, you ask? Let's start with some context. The other members of Survivor evidently weren't cool with Peterik writing songs for another band, even for one under the same label. Peterik has said that the .38 Special songs would never have been right for Survivor, a sentiment that "fell on deaf ears" when he tried to explain it to his fellow band mates. They felt Peterik was giving aid to a competitor, which Peterik didn't exactly dispel when he described meeting with .38 Special to write songs for them as "sneaking around." The rest of Survivor would probably have said Peterik took it even further. Sullivan demanded a writing credit on Caught Up in You because he claimed it used a chord progression from a song he and Peterik wrote for Survivor. Peterik wrote in his autobiography that there was "no solid evidence to the similarity," but .38 Special agreed to give Sullivan credit anyway to avoid a lawsuit.
The song's success must've put them in a generous mood. Caught Up in You was at one point .38 Special's highest charting hit. It was their first of two top 10 hits on the Hot 100. The band had a second #1 rock hit between those two, but we'll get to that in a later review. While I confess I was never the biggest fan of Caught Up in You before I wrote this, listening to it again has kind of warmed me up to it. It's a decent song about a topic that's been proven to work: someone had their heart broken before, but their new flame has reminded them how good love can feel. The instrumentation is nice and Barnes' vocals have the passion and conviction needed to sell you on the emotion he's feeling.
It helps that its parent album is quite good. 1982's Special Forces - not to be confused with the Alice Cooper album of the same name from the previous year - peaked at #10 on the Billboard 200 and was the second of three consecutive .38 Special albums to be certified Platinum by the RIAA. I really liked Back on the Track, which should've charted much higher than #56 on Top Tracks. Chain Lightnin' did much better, deservedly peaking at #9 on Top Tracks. Rough Housin' is a nice little barn burner. And you can definitely tell without checking that Peterik co-wrote the album's other single You Keep Runnin' Away, which features a guitar lick that sounds suspiciously like the riff from Heart's Crazy On You. Oh, and Firestarter, the B-side to Caught Up in You, is absolutely worth checking out.
So while Caught Up in You still isn't my favorite track off Special Forces, I enjoyed the record more than I thought I would. I'll give .38 Special a thumbs up.

 

The only .38 Special I own, or have even heard, is their vinyl compilation Flashback. I like their singles very much but never took it any farther. I am okay with my superficial relationship with .38 Special.

I think this is my favorite single from them; it has hooks galore for my ears and I think .38 Special has a cool sound - listener friendly southern rock kinda akin to California country-rock with their laidback vocal & high singalong-ability.

PS, @Albuman , I really dig your write-ups.

 

I do get a kick out of seeing these old videos. My advice to the protagonist is that woman is far, far too popular in that bar. She is getting around way too recreationally, and he is best to not take her up on the hotel room. And also those tables are so tiny, there must be a lot of spills.

 

Thank you so much.

 

I loved "Caught Up In You" from the first time I heard it. It had a sound that was part Southern Rock, part arena rock, with some irresistible pop hooks thrown in.