This Week's Top 10 Chart

Folks I never know which of these weekly posts will cause a stir.
I thought last week's chart would spend a day or two on page one and then disappear into the
Bowels of the forum. Instead Grant's distaste for Stand By Your Man (which by the way did not make the U.S. Pop Top 10) kept the thread active all week. Ya never know.

This week I have climbed twelve years ahead into the Eighties. Not my favorite period but I am trying to be a little more random in my selections. I 'm not sure how this one will play out but like I've already said, I never do.

This week's chart is from May 23, 1987

Code:

 1. With Or Without You..................[B]U2[/B]
 2. Looking For A New Love...............[B]Jody Watley[/B]
 3. The Lady In Red......................[B]Chris DeBurgh[/B]
 4. You Keep Me Hangin' On...............[B]Kim Wilde[/B] 
 5. (I Just) Died In Your Arms...........[B]Cutting Crew[/B]
 6. Heat Of The Night....................[B]Bryan Adams[/B]
 7. Big Love.............................[B]Fleetwood Mac[/B]
 8. Always...............................[B]Atlantic Starr[/B]
 9. La Isla Bonita.......................[B]Madonna[/B]
10. Talk Dirty To Me.....................[B]Poison[/B]

 

Agreed, Dave: blame it on Grant! Excellent patsy

1. A+
2. C+
3. C
4. C+
5. B-
6. C
7. A
8. B-
9. B-
10. C-

A 7.0 average...just scraping into B- territory.

Well, two great 45's here: U2's great single(great bass)and Fleetwood Mac's surprising comeback hit, which still kicks serious ass(even if it sounds like a Lindsay solo record). After that, 8 & 9 are good, the latter a bit below Madonna's usual standard of the period; 5 is a decent one-shot; after that, mediocrity abounds: nice people or not, Watley & Wilde just didn't have much going on; Wilde's Supremes remake is just a discofied joke, typical rote UK nonsense, though you could dance to it(big deal, right? The DeBurgh is pop mush; the ladies dug it, I guess. That leaves Bryan Adams, aka Mr. Bland, and Poison, a prettyboy pretender of a rock band. Neither recorded especially awful music, just precious little that's memorable(and what little is, isn't on this chart).

ED

 

This is probably the year that holds the most memories for me. I was just started getting into music big time I love very song on here except Atlantic Starr.

 

Re: Re: This Week's Top 10 Chart

Come on Ed. You know that wasn't what I was doing.
It takes two to tangle.

 

Re: Re: Re: This Week's Top 10 Chart

I know...and I'm glad I wasn't the one tangling. Sure was an interesting conversation, one I had no intention of getting involved in. It was, however, a clever hijacking...so clever, I hadn't even noticed it right away...

ED

 

Come on everybody sing!

I just diiiied in your arms tonight, must have been something you saaaid!

 

Hi PL, you must get the same TV commercials I do.

HITS OF THE 80's!

mud-

 

During this time period, I was not a fan of what was on the pop charts and listened to exclusively country when I turned on the radio and I'm glad I overall didn't miss much although now I can tolerate some songs, but am still not a fan of what was on the pop charts then.

 

This may as well have been the Top 10 chart for 1897 cuz I can't hum one bar from any of these tunes.

Jim W.

 

Of course.

 

The Kim Wilde song and Jody Watley songs are the only ones I like here. THe rest...

 

Not digging U2 in the '80s would be like not digging the Stones in the '60s: essential and unavoidable. And one of the best bass beats of any rock record, anywhere. Might want to check it out.

ED

 

The Saturday Night Live sendup of this with Will Farrell and that other guy as the wedding band playing this is heeelarious.

 

Poison - Talk Dirty To Me

The advent of mega-hair bands. Gone now....all of them. Who remembers?

Fleetwood Mac - Big Love

Definitely not one of their best efforts.

U2 - With Or Without You

Amazing tune! At their peak. There have been other great U2 albums but this one's hard to beat!

Everything else is pretty much radio filler for me. Kim Wilde was a cutie! Wasn't she?

 

I guess you've never been to Metal Sludge? That site is hilarious.

 

I count just one great song here (U2) and one good one (Fleetwood Mac). I can see why I was starting to look further afield than the top 10 charts in '87 - glad I found John Hiatt and "Bring the Family"!

 

Oh yeah, I remember reading about that when it was released in Pulse (RIP). I didn't own a radio in the 80's but somehow I still know these songs and they annoy me. (except for the Fleetwod Mac)

 

Wow, with the exception of the U2 (I agree A+), and to a lesser degree numbers 4 and 5 (which I almost consider guilty pleasures), I actually think that Ed's grading too easily this week. Don't go soft on us, dude!

I'm familiar with most of these songs, but they're not very memorable except for the three i mentioned above. During this period, my tastes and the Top 40 rarely coincided.

Ray

 

This is an amazing record; a deserving #1 hit, and yes, that bass is incredible. So is Bono's low range; I never knew he could sing so low and with such strength in his low range. As often as this song gets played on both classic rock and "80s 90s and today" stations, I still get something out of it when I hear it. I cannot say the same about the follow-up, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

This is a fun record. She never did anything better as a solo singer. (She had been in Shalamar before this.) This record is where Ah-nuld (or his scriptwriters) stole the catch phrase, "Hasta la vista, baby!" I like it better here.

Of all the records he did -- "A Spaceman Came Travelling" gets played at my place every Christmas season -- why this one was the biggest hit is beyond me. Good slow dance number, I guess; the musical equivalent of a "chick flick." What's funny is that it took this record almost a year to become a US hit. Not bad for what it is, but he did better.

Again, for what it is, not bad. It's certainly less reprehensible than what Tiffany did later to "I Saw Her Standing There." I wish that "Kids in America" had been her biggest hit, though.

I like this record. I don't know why, I just do.

This one is OK. Bryan Adams wasn't really my favorite, but he did a lot worse than this one.

Repeat after me: "Uhh ... Ahh ... Uhh... Ahh!" I had almost the same reaction the first time I heard this as I did when I first heard the song "Tusk," though not quite as strong. It's amazing how little this song has been played in the ensuing years. I like it.

A truly awful record, easily the worst on this chart. I assume this group must have done SOMETHING palatable over the years, but their three biggest hits, of which this was the biggest, are truly dire, as our British friends would say. (Their other two biggest hits were "Secret Lovers" and "Masterpiece" ... they make me cringe just thinking about them.)

The fifth single from her True Blue album, and I like all five singles. Of the five, this is not quite as good as the others, but it's still better than most of the other songs in this top 10. I always hoped that ESPN's Chris Berman would have caught onto this one and talked about Bobby "La Isla" Bonilla!

Did not like this record then. I do now. It's grown on me because of what it is -- a silly, fun song. Poison did a lot worse than this, and so did other "hair metal" bands. For some reason, the line about "in the old man's Ford" makes me smile...

 

Re: Re: This Week's Top 10 Chart

I think you're being a bit too generous, Ed.
I'd give each of the Brian Adams and Poison tracks a solid F.
The U2 track is classic, and I still like the Fleetwood Mac song very much.

This was about the time when I started desperately looking for something other than top 40 radio.
Squeeze's "Babylon and On" LP came out this year, and I think I finally found REM for the first time too.
Ah the memories. Nearing the end of high school. Girl friends, beer, cars, thinking about college and the future, tasting freedom...the world seemed to be all mine.

Dan C

 

Uh....loves? B- is not 'love'...overall, it amounts to mediocrity, a few fair sides, and two killers.

Sometime, you and I must discuss this jones you have with Percy Faith's "Summer Place"...I thought his arranging work for Johnny Mathis beat anything he issued under his own name. I'll chalk it up to the fact you're a few years older than me, and the song has special memories of your youth. Unlike(as I posted elsewhere)better fluff of the type(I will repeat: Bill Pursell's "Our Winter Love" is MY idea of fluff...even Jankowski's "A Walk In The Black Forest"), "Summer Place" didn't move me. And the movie wasn't so hot, either.

ED

 

I prefer "Theme From a Summer Place" to ANY of the songs on this chart. I did fall madly in love with Jody Watley, though. Didn't care much for the song, but I'd watch the video whenever I saw it on TV.