Bonus material – fun facts, YouTube clips, etc. – to follow (I’m struggling right now, y’all).
“We’re gonna need some more FBI guys, I guess.” – DIE HARD
“By all means, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.” – THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
“That’s some bad hat, Harry.” – JAWS
“Bye, Buddy. Hope you find your dad!” – ELF
“English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?” – PULP FICTION
“You met me at a very strange time in my life.” – FIGHT CLUB
“Hold on to your butts.” – JURASSIC PARK
“If I had a dick, this is where I’d tell you to suck it.” – LAKE PLACID
“Did you know, Mr. Torrance, that your son is attempting to bring an outside party into this situation?” – THE SHINING
“Rabbit is good, Rabbit is wise.” – TWISTER
“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about.” – THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
“Never tell me the odds.” – THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
“So you’re my Uncle Joey. Better get used to these bars, kid.” – BACK TO THE FUTURE
“She might have fooled me, but she didn’t fool my mother.” – PSYCHO
“Well, Jones, at least you haven’t forgotten how to show a lady a good time.” – RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
“That’s funny, that plane’s dustin’ crops where there ain’t no crops.” – NORTH BY NORTHWEST
“Isn’t that something? Middle of a drought and the water commissioner drowns. Only in L.A.” – CHINATOWN
“It seems that envy is my sin.” – SE7EN
“I’ll explain, and I’ll use small words so that you’ll be sure to understand, you warthog-faced buffoon.” – THE PRINCESS BRIDE
“I wanna be thirty. Thirty and flirty and thriving.” – 13 GOING ON 30
“My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room.” – BEETLEJUICE
“I’ll believe in you all my life, every day. [Title character]… I love you.” – E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
“Oh, shit, Tweety! Couldn’t you have waited for a school day?” – POLTERGEIST
“What a relief. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to use the liar-liar-pants-on-fire defense.” – A FEW GOOD MEN
“Ten ought to do it, don’t you think? You think we need one more? You think we need one more. Alright, we’ll get one more.” – OCEAN’S ELEVEN
“You four-eyed pile of shit!” “A pile of shit has a thousand eyes.” – STAND BY ME
“So what’s wrong? What is it? Is it bad? Real bad? Parents?” – THE BREAKFAST CLUB
“I’m Marta, and I’m going to be seven on Tuesday, and I’d like a pink parasol.” – THE SOUND OF MUSIC
“Is that crazy enough for ya’? Want me to take a shit on the floor?” – ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST
“Ohh, for God’s sake! He’s got an arm off!” – SHAUN OF THE DEAD
“Brothers, what we do in life… echoes in eternity.” – GLADIATOR
“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” – THE DARK KNIGHT
“Get in loser, we’re going shopping.” – MEAN GIRLS
“I’ll never quote you. I wouldn’t quote you even as an anonymous source. You’d be on deep background. You can trust me. You know that.” – ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
“Your anagrams are showing, Doctor. Louis Friend? Iron sulfide, also known as fool’s gold.” – THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
This one’s simple: I’ll provide a movie quote (along with the year of release), and you have to guess the film’s title. Later in the week, I’ll publish the answers—along with clips and fun facts!
“We’re gonna need some more FBI guys, I guess.” (1988)
“By all means, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.” (2006)
“That’s some bad hat, Harry.” (1975)
“Bye, Buddy. Hope you find your dad!” (2003)
“English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?” (1994)
“You met me at a very strange time in my life.” (1999)
“Hold on to your butts.” (1993)
“If I had a dick, this is where I’d tell you to suck it.” (1999)
“Did you know, Mr. Torrance, that your son is attempting to bring an outside party into this situation?” (1980)
“Rabbit is good, Rabbit is wise.” (1996)
” I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about.” (1994)
“Never tell me the odds.” (1980)
“So you’re my Uncle Joey. Better get used to these bars, kid.” (1985)
“She might have fooled me, but she didn’t fool my mother.” (1960)
“Well, Jones, at least you haven’t forgotten how to show a lady a good time.” (1981)
“That’s funny, that plane’s dustin’ crops where there ain’t no crops.” (1959)
“Isn’t that something? Middle of a drought and the water commissioner drowns. Only in L.A.” (1974)
“It seems that envy is my sin.” (1995)
“I’ll explain, and I’ll use small words so that you’ll be sure to understand, you warthog-faced buffoon.” (1987)
“I wanna be thirty. Thirty and flirty and thriving.” (2004)
“My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room.” (1988)
“I’ll believe in you all my life, every day. [Title character]… I love you.” (1982)
“Oh, shit, Tweety! Couldn’t you have waited for a school day?” (1982)
“What a relief. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to use the liar-liar-pants-on-fire defense.” (1992)
“Ten ought to do it, don’t you think? You think we need one more? You think we need one more. Alright, we’ll get one more.” (2001)
“You four-eyed pile of shit!” “A pile of shit has a thousand eyes.” (1986)
“So what’s wrong? What is it? Is it bad? Real bad? Parents?” (1985)
“I’m Marta, and I’m going to be seven on Tuesday, and I’d like a pink parasol.” (1965)
“Is that crazy enough for ya’? Want me to take a shit on the floor?” (1975)
“Ohh, for God’s sake! He’s got an arm off!” (2004)
“Brothers, what we do in life… echoes in eternity.” (2000)
“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” (2008)
“Get in loser, we’re going shopping.” (2004)
“I’ll never quote you. I wouldn’t quote you even as an anonymous source. You’d be on deep background. You can trust me. You know that.” (1976)
“Your anagrams are showing, Doctor. Louis Friend? Iron sulfide, also known as fool’s gold.” (1991)
“Misirlou”, “You Never Can Tell”, “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” – PULP FICTION
As always, here is a playlist with the answers. Tell me how you did in the comments!
And finally, videos with bonus fun facts!
Grease
FUN FACT: “You’re the One That I Want” was one of two songs written for Grease by Olivia Newton John’s longtime collaborator John Farrar. His other contribution, “Hopelessly Devoted to You”, was nominated for Best Original Song at the 51st Academy Awards; it lost to “Last Dance” from Thank God It’s Friday.
The Sound of Music
FUN FACT: Charmain Carr, who portrayed eldest child Liesl in the Best Picture Oscar-winning musical, was 21 and just thirteen years younger than her on-screen dad, Christopher Plummer. Carr developed a massive crush on Plummer, and really, who could blame her? Anyway, The Sound of Music soundtrack was a massive success, selling a worldwide total of 20 million copies and reaching the top of the album chart in Australia, Norway, the US, and the UK, where it was the best-selling album of 1965, 1966, AND 1968. In 1967, it had to settle for second place. The #1 album that year? Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.
Sigh…
Chicago
FUN FACT: It had been thirty-four years since the last musical (1968’s Oliver!) won the Best Picture Oscar when Chicago took home the top prize for 2002. The film won five more awards, including Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones). I absolutely adore this movie, and “We Both Reached for the Gun” is one of my all-time favorite scenes. Just absolute perfection.
Top Gun
FUN FACT: The Top Gun soundtrack, featuring Kenny Loggins’ #2 hit “Danger Zone” and Berlin’s Best Original Song Oscar winner “Take My Breath Away,” made the Top 10 in fourteen countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada. Fans of the film likely remember the infamous “volleyball scene”, for which “Playing with the Boys” provides the soundtrack.
Footloose
FUN FACT: “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” and “Footloose” were both nominated for Best Original Song at the 57th Academy Awards; they lost – along with “Ghostbusters” and “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” – to Stevie Wonder’s atrocious “I Just Called to Say I Love You” from The Woman in Red. The “Willard learns how to dance” sequence was added to Footloose when Chris Penn revealed his own lack of dance experience (RIP, Chris, you were a treasure, and you left us way too soon).
By the way, I can’t think about “I Just Called to Say I Love You” without thinking of this hilarious scene from High Fidelity.
South Pacific
FUN FACT: The South Pacific soundtrack went to #1 in both the UK and the US, where it spent seven months atop the Billboard 200 – the fourth-longest run ever. In the UK, the album holds the all-time record for most weeks at #1 with a whopping 115, which means it spent more than two years in the top spot.
Purple Rain
FUN FACT: The Purple Rain soundtrack was an absolute juggernaut, selling more than 25 million copies worldwide since its 1984 release. The album spent 24 consecutive weeks in the top spot on the Billboard 200 and yielded two #1 hits (“When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy”). It is widely regarded as the best album not only of 1984 but of the entire decade. Purple Rain currently ranks eighth – the highest of any ’80s album – on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Click the link below to read their entire list.
FUN FACT: Many soundtracks utilize various artists but When Harry Met Sally… features only one, a 21-year-old Harry Connick Jr. The album consists of Connick’s covers of standards by the Gershwins (“But Not for Me” and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”), Duke Ellington (“Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”), Benny Goodman (“Stompin’ at the Savoy”), and Rodgers & Hart (“Where or When” and “I Could Write a Book”), among others. The album also earned Connick a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
FUN FACT: The midnight movie existed before 1976, but The Rocky Horror Picture Show made it a cultural craze. The viewings began at the Waverly Theater, an art-house theater in Greenwich Village, and featured costumes and audience participation. Over the next few years, the trend gradually spread, first to cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, then to the rest of the country. I definitely remember being aware of midnight showings of the movie in the early ’80s, and my friends and I attended a screening as soon as we were old enough.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
FUN FACT: “March of the Swivel Heads”, which plays over Ferris’s race home in the final minutes of the film, is not an original composition but an instrumental remix of “Rotating Heads” off The English Beat’s 1982 album Special Beat Service (a PBandJulie fave).
Saturday Night Fever
FUN FACT: Prior to the release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the soundtrack to 1977’s Saturday Night Fever was the best-selling album of all time (it still ranks in the top ten). It also won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The Bee Gees wrote much of the album’s material over the course of a weekend, but they weren’t involved with the production until after filming had been completed. Apparently, the rehearsal scene was originally set to Boz Scaggs’ “Lowdown”, but Columbia Records refused to allow its use in the film, and one of the Gibbs’ contributions – “More Than a Woman” – was used instead.
Barbie
FUN FACT: Inspired by Saturday Night Fever, Barbie director Greta Gerwig requested that the dance sequence feature a disco song. The result, Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night”, became the album’s lead-off single and earned a Song of the Year nomination at the 66th Grammy Awards. Two other Barbie songs – Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” – were nominated for Best Original Song at the 96th Oscars, with the latter taking home the prize.
Singin’ in the Rain
FUN FACT: Singin’ in the Rain‘s songs were largely written by producer Arthur Freed – with his songwriting partner, composer Nacio Herb Brown – earlier in his career for features like The Broadway Melody and Babes in Arms, which makes the film one of the OG jukebox musicals.
If you’re like me, you probably think of one or both of the following clips when you hear “Singin’ in the Rain”:
The wholesomeness of Tom Holland…
Or the depravity of A Clockwork Orange…
BONUS FUN FACT: After four days of filming this scene, director Stanley Kubrick wasn’t happy with the results. He asked Malcolm McDowell if he could dance, and as it turns out, he could. Kubrick turned the cameras back on, and McDowell began to dance and sing the first song that popped into his mind – “Singin’ in the Rain”. Kubrick retroactively obtained the rights to the song for $10,000 so he could keep the scene in the film.
Fame
FUN FACT: Fame was one of the first (if not THE first?) R-rated movies I saw, and though some of the adult material (SA, abortion) went over my head at the time, I adored the musical sequences. I dreamed of attending a performing arts school, where musicians and dancers could break into unrehearsed musical numbers in the cafeteria – or even on 46th Street. Much of Fame‘s music was written by the team of Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, who later composed the songs for Footloose; Gore and Pitchford won the Best Original Song Award for “Fame” at the 53rd Academy Awards.
The Little Mermaid
FUN FACT: The film responsible for kicking off the Disney renaissance featured songs by the legendary team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, whose partnership was tragically cut short when Ashman died of AIDS in 1991. “Under the Sea”, the musical highlight of The LittleMermaid, earned the pair a Grammy and an Oscar. It was the first Best Original Song Oscar win for Disney since 1964’s Mary Poppins (more on that one shortly).
Pink Floyd – The Wall
FUN FACT: Fame and Pink Floyd – The Wall were both directed by Alan Parker, one of my favorite filmmakers (he also made Midnight Express, Birdy, and The Commitments, among many others). If you aren’t already a fan of Pink Floyd or a stoned college student, you’ve probably never seen this surrealist mind-fuck of a movie, but it’s definitely worth a watch. Obviously, the vast majority of the film’s music came from the band’s 1979 album of the same name, but one new song – “When the Tigers Broke Free” – was written directly for the movie.
Mary Poppins
FUN FACT: Mary Poppins’ music was written by the legendary Sherman brothers, Richard and Robert, who also scored The Parent Trap (1961), The Jungle Book (1967), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Charlotte’s Web (1973), and many more. The Sherman brothers won two Oscars for Mary Poppins – Best Original Score and Best Original Song for “Chim Chim Cher-ee”.
Tommy
FUN FACT: The original rock opera, Tommy began life as a brilliant 1969 double album by The Who. The soundtrack to the 1975 feature film adaptation contained most of the same music but sung by the actors – including Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, Elton John, and Tina Turner – instead of the band. Of course, since lead singer Roger Daltrey portrays the title character, there’s a little bit of crossover.
That Thing You Do!
This might legitimately be my favorite movie scene of all time
FUN FACT: This fucking delight of a movie – Tom Hanks’ debut as a feature film director – tells the story of the ultimate one-hit wonders, Erie PA’s own The Wonders (Tom Everett Scott, Johnathon Schaech, Steve Zahn, and Ethan Embry). The period-perfect details, from the costumes to the set decoration to, yes, the music, are exquisite. The late, great Adam Schlesinger should have won an Oscar for the exuberant title song (he was nominated but lost to – UGGGGGGGHHHHHH – Andrew fucking Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for “You Must Love Me” from Evita).
Reality Bites
FUN FACT: The Reality Bites soundtrack is a fun mix of ’70s and ’80s tunes like The Knack’s “My Sharona”, Squeeze’s “Tempted”, and U2’s “All I Want You Is You” and Gen-X artists like Juliana Hatfield, The Posies, Dinosaur Jr., and Lisa Loeb. The latter – with the help of her backup band Nine Stories – performed the album’s biggest hit, “Stay (I Missed You)”, which went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Loeb originally wrote the song to sell to Daryl Hall but eventually decided to keep it for herself. When her then-neighbor Ethan Hawke heard “Stay”, he convinced RealityBites director Ben Stiller to use it in the film.
Pulp Fiction
FUN FACT: Director Quentin Tarantino didn’t commission a musical score for his noir masterpiece, choosing instead to use existing pop, rock, and R&B songs by artists like Kool & the Gang, Al Green, Dusty Springfield, and Chuck Berry. He also used several surf rock songs by groups like The Centurians, The Tornadoes, and – most famously – Dick Dale (“Misirlou”) to score the movie; Tarantino has stated he chose surf rock because it reminded him of “rock ‘n’ roll Ennio Morricone music, rock ‘n’ roll spaghetti Western music.”
Apparently, this is an all-pop quiz blog now. Not literally, of course, but I am having a lot of fun coming up with new ideas.
This one combines my love of film and music. Each clue contains three songs from a single motion picture; your job is to name the film that includes those songs. Some of these movies are musicals; others are comedy or drama films that contain either existing pop songs OR songs written specifically for the movie.
“Summer Nights”, “You’re the One That I Want”, “We Go Together”
***** CONTENT WARNING – THIS POST CONTAINS BRIEF MENTIONS OF NUCLEAR WAR, SPOUSAL ABUSE, SUICIDE, DEPRESSION, AND A CERTAIN CONVICTED FELON/FORMER PRESIDENT/CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE *****
These albums are all turning forty this year. This list is in chronological order by release date and covers albums released between May and August of 1984.
Lament – Ultravox
CHART POSITION: #115 in the US, #8 in the UK
SINGLES: “One Small Day”, “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes”, “Lament”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “White China” and “Heart of the Country”
FUN FACT: Ultravox achieved their greatest success in the US the previous year with Quartet, but their most iconic song is Lament‘s “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes”, hands down my favorite dance song about a looming nuclear holocaust. According to lead singer Midge Ure, the lyrics were inspired by Nevil Shute’s apocalyptic novel On the Beach (the phrase “on the beach” is a Royal Navy euphemism for retirement from active service).
The plot of the music video for “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” differs from the song’s original inspiration, On the Beach. Instead of a nuclear war, the video depicts a meltdown at a nuclear power plant.
For more on Quartet – and other great albums from 1983 – click here:
SINGLES: “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)”, “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Harborcoat”, “7 Chinese Bros.”, “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)”, “Pretty Persuasion”, “Time After Time (Annelise)”, “Letter Never Sent”, “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville”
FUN FACT #1: Reckoning was recorded over a period of just sixteen days. Producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, with whom R.E.M. had worked on their exquisite debut Murmur, used binaural recording to mimic the sound of the band’s live shows.
FUN FACT #2: In their first U.S. network television appearance, R.E.M. played an early version of “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” – before the song even had a title – on The Late Show with David Letterman on October 6, 1983.
FUN FACT #3: 10,000 Maniacs (a PBandJulie fave) recorded an excellent version of “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” for their 1992 single “Candy Everybody Wants”.
Grace Under Pressure – Rush
CHART POSITION: #10 in the US, #5 in the UK, #4 in the band’s native Canada
SINGLES: “Distant Early Warning”, “The Body Electric”, “Red Sector A”, “Afterimage”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Grace Under Pressure was the first Rush album since their 1974 debut, not to be produced by Terry Brown. The band co-produced the album with Peter Henderson, who worked on ’70s classics like Wings’ London Town and Wings at the Speed of Sound and Supertramp’s Breakfast in America.
Bananarama – Bananarama
CHART POSITION: #30 in the US, #16 in the UK
SINGLES: “Cruel Summer”, “Robert De Niro’s Waiting…”, “Rough Justice”, “Hot Line to Heaven”, “The Wild Life”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Two of Bananarama‘s singles appeared on movie soundtracks in 1984. “Cruel Summer”, the album’s biggest hit, reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 thanks to its inclusion in The Karate Kid. Later that year, the group provided the theme song for The Wild Life, the spiritual successor to Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Junk Culture – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Love and Violence”
FUN FACT: Junk Culture is the perfect bridge between OMD’s earlier, more avant-garde work and the Top-40 direction the band took the following year with Crush. Lead singer Andy McCluskey once referred to Junk Culture as “the catchiest, poppiest album we’ve ever made”.
The Top – The Cure
CHART POSITION: #180 in the US, #10 in the UK
SINGLES: “The Caterpillar”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Shake Dog Shake”, “Birdmad Girl”, “Give Me It”, “The Caterpillar”, “Piggy in the Mirror”
FUN FACT: The Top is neither my favorite album by The Cure (that’d be The Head on the Door) nor their best work (Disintegration?), but it’s the album that made me a fan of the band. In fact, between this and Siouxsie & the Banshees’ Hyæna (which also featured The Cure’s lead singer, Robert Smith), 1984 was the year I made a life-altering discovery – goth, the music that matched the darkness inside me.
Street Talk – Steve Perry
CHART POSITION: #12 in the US, #59 in the UK, #79 in Australia
FUN FACT: “Oh Sherrie”, written for Perry’s then-girlfriend, was the album’s biggest hit, and the accompanying video went into heavy rotation on MTV. To this day, when I hear those opening lyrics – “You should’ve been gone” – I smash that volume button.
Ocean Rain – Echo & the Bunnymen
CHART POSITION: #87 in the US, #4 in the UK
SINGLES: “The Killing Moon”, “Silver”, “Seven Seas”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Nocturnal Me”, “Thorn of Crowns”, “My Kingdom”
FUN FACT #1: “The Killing Moon”, perhaps the band’s most iconic track, didn’t chart in the US. Lead singer Ian McCulloch has always maintained that the lyrics “Fate up against your will / Through the thick and thin / He will wait until you give yourself to him” came to him fully formed in a dream. The strings – a combination of cello and a keyboard arrangement – were inspired by balalaika music bassist Les Pattinson and guitarist Will Sergeant had heard in Russia. In 2001, the tune was featured in the opening scene of the cult film Donnie Darko.
FUN FACT #2: My favorite Ocean Rain track, “Nocturnal Me”, plays over the end credits of the Stranger Things 1 episode “The Flea and the Acrobat”.
Stay Hungry – Twisted Sister
CHART POSITION: #15 in the US, #34 in the UK
SINGLES: “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, “I Wanna Rock”, “The Price”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Burn in Hell”
FUN FACT #1: The massively popular videos for “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock” feature actor Mark Metcalf reprising his Animal House persona, Doug Neidermeyer – and his signature catchphrase, “What do you wanna do with your life?”
FUN FACT #2: Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snider testified before the Senate in 1985 in opposition to the PMRC’s effort to censor explicit lyrical content. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” appeared on the “Filthy Fifteen” list, comprised of songs that the committee found most objectionable. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” is obviously cartoonish, and your average eight-year-old could differentiate between it and literal violence. Fuck – and I cannot emphasize this enough – the Parents Music Resource Center.
For more on the PMRC, including the entire “Filthy Fifteen” list, click here:
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Country Death Song”, “Never Tell”, “Sweet Misery Blues”, “It’s Gonna Rain”
FUN FACT: Hallowed Ground is Violent Femmes’ most divisive record. Fans and critics alike objected to the fire & brimstone lyrics and the country & western sound. Based on the band’s previous work, many assumed that Gordon Gano’s religious lyrics were ironic; in fact, Gano is a devout Baptist.
Couldn’t Stand the Weather – Stevie Ray Vaughan
CHART POSITION: #31 in the US, did not chart in the UK
SINGLES: “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”, “Cold Shot”, “Couldn’t Stand the Weather”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Stevie Ray Vaughan had a very good 1983; his debut, Texas Flood, was released to critical acclaim AND he performed on one of the year’s biggest albums, David Bowie’s Let’s Dance. Couldn’t Stand the Weather wasn’t as universally beloved as Texas Flood, and Vaughan was criticized for its dearth of original material. His version of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” is pretty terrific, though.
All Over the Place – The Bangles
CHART POSITION: #80 in the US, #86 in the UK
SINGLES: “Hero Takes a Fall”, “Going Down to Liverpool”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Hero Takes a Fall”, “James”, “Dover Beach”, “Going Down to Liverpool”, “Where Were You When I Needed You”
FUN FACT #1: The Bangles’ commercial breakthrough wouldn’t happen until 1986, but their debut, All Over the Place, is the album that got the attention of Prince, who wrote the band’s first hit single, “Manic Monday”. Compared to their later work, All Over the Place has a retro feel I love.
FUN FACT #2: “Going Down to Liverpool” was written by Kimberley Rew for his band Katrina and the Waves, best known for the infectious 1985 single “Walking on Sunshine”. The video, directed by Susanna Hoffs’ mom Tamar, stars Leonard Nimoy as an unimpressed chauffeur (Nimoy was a family friend). Unlike most of the band’s singles, “Going Down to Liverpool” features lead vocals by drummer Debbie Peterson.
Private Dancer – Tina Turner
CHART POSITION: Top 10 in twelve countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada. In the US, Private Dancer was the fifth-most popular album of 1985.
SINGLES: “Let’s Stay Together”, “Help!”, “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, “Better Be Good to Me”, “Private Dancer”, “I Can’t Stand the Rain”, “Show Some Respect”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT #1: Private Dancer was a comeback for the ages. After enduring years of abuse at the hands of her ex-husband Ike, Tina struggled to jump-start her solo career. Only one of her first four solo albums – 1975’s Acid Queen – appeared on the Billboard 200. But in 1984, Turner signed with Capitol Records, whose A&R rep John Carter is credited with helping Turner reboot her career. Private Dancer was a triumph, selling over 12 million copies worldwide, earning four Grammy Awards, and ushering in the age of Tina.
FUN FACT #2: Almost every track on Private Dancer is credited to a different songwriter, among them Mark Knopfler (the title track), Al Green (“Let’s Stay Together”), David Bowie (“1984”), and Lennon-McCartney (“Help!”). The legendary songwriting duo of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn – who’ve collaborated on iconic singles like Exile’s “Kiss You All Over”, The Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz”, and Toni Basil’s “Mickey” – teamed up with Holly Knight to write “Better Be Good to Me”. And Terry Britten, who’s written singles for artists like Olivia Newton-John and Cliff Richard, collaborated with Graham Lyle for Private Dancer‘s biggest hit, “What’s Love Got to Do with It” (the pair shared that year’s Grammy for Song of the Year).
Major Moves – Hank Williams Jr.
CHART POSITION: #100 in the US (#1 on the country chart), #20 in Canada
SINGLES: “Attitude Adjustment”, “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight”, “Major Moves”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: NFL fans will recognize “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” as the basis for the Monday Night Football theme song, “Are You Ready For Some Football?”
Born in the U.S.A. – Bruce Springsteen
CHART POSITION: #1 in eleven countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada. In Canada, Born in the U.S.A. was the best-selling album of 1984, and in the US, it was the best-selling album of 1985.
SINGLES: “Dancing in the Dark”, “Cover Me”, “Born in the U.S.A.”, “I’m on Fire”, “Glory Days”, “I’m Goin’ Down”, “My Hometown”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Downbound Train”
FUN FACT #1: Born in the U.S.A. yielded a rare seven1 Top 10 hits, although none of them went to #1. “Dancing in the Dark”, accompanied by a music video directed by Brian De Palma (!!!) and starring a then-unknown Courteney Cox, is Springsteen’s biggest hit of all time.
1 Among the other albums to achieve this feat are Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad, Genesis’ InvisibleTouch, Madonna’s True Blue, George Michael’s Faith, and Whitney Houston’s Whitney.
Courteney Cox, who was hired for the “Dancing in the Dark” video at a casting call, believed she was one of several young women Springsteen might pluck from the audience for a dance – and she secretly hoped he WOULDN’T pick her. Director Brian De Palma had other ideas, specifically telling Springsteen to select the 19-year-old Cox.
FUN FACT #2: Despite its near-constant use by pandering right-wing politicians, “Born in the U.S.A.” is a blistering critique of American policy in the post-Vietnam War era (Springsteen was inspired to write it after reading Ron Kovic’s memoir, Born on the Fourthof July). Most nauseatingly, the song has been used at 45 rallies, despite Springsteen referring to the former president as “a flagrant, toxic narcissist” and a “threat to our democracy”.
FUN FACT #3: The album’s iconic cover photo, taken by Annie Leibovitz, drew controversy because – I am not making this up – some folks thought it looked like The Boss was urinating on the flag. Springsteen has denied any hidden message in the photo, telling Rolling Stone‘s Kurt Loder that “the picture of my ass looked better than the picture of my face”.
FUN FACT #4: At the 27th Grammy Awards, Born in the U.S.A. was nominated for Album of the Year; it lost – as did Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual, Prince’s Purple Rain, and Tina Turner’s Private Dancer – to Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down. More on Purple Rain in a bit (and more on Can’t Slow Down in the third and final volume of this post).
Hyæna – Siouxsie and the Banshees
CHART POSITION: #157 in the US (it was the band’s Billboard 200 debut), #15 in the UK
SINGLES: “Swimming Horses”, “Dazzle”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Dazzle”, “Take Me Back”, “Belladonna”, “Swimming Horses”, “Dear Prudence”
FUN FACT #1: “Dear Prudence” was not Siouxsie and the Banshees’ first Beatles cover; that distinction belongs to “Helter Skelter”, which the Banshees recorded for their 1978 debut, The Scream.
FUN FACT #2: “Dazzle”, originally composed on the piano, features a 27-piece band comprised of members of the London Symphony Orchestra. The lyrics “Swallowing diamonds / A cutting throat” were inspired by the scene in 1976’s Marathon Man in which Laurence Olivier swallows diamonds.
From Her to Eternity – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
CHART POSITION: #40 in the UK (did not chart in the US)
SINGLES: N/A
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Avalanche”, “From Her to Eternity”
FUN FACT: From Her to Eternity (Cave’s debut album) is a pun on the title of James Joyce’s novel From Here toEternity.
Goodbye Cruel World – Elvis Costello and the Attractions
CHART POSITION: #35 in the US, #10 in the UK
SINGLES: “I Wanna Be Loved”, “The Only Flame in Town”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “The Only Flame in Town”, “Room with No Number”, “Inch By Inch”, “The Comedians”, “Sour Milk Cow Blues”
FUN FACT #1: “The Comedians” is in one of my favorite time signatures, quintuple (5/4) time. Yes, I do know I’m a nerd.2 Anyway, the most famous song in that time signature is “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet (other examples are The Beatles’ “Within You Without You” and Lalo Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme).
FUN FACT #2: “The Only Flame in Town”, which features Daryl Hall (y’all, Daryl Hall was EVERYWHERE in 1984) on backing vocals, began its life as a torch song before it was reworked by producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley in a pop-R&B style. The video, featuring a “Win a date with the Attractions – and Daryl” storyline, helped bolster the single’s success in the US, where it reached #56 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise? – Art of Noise
CHART POSITION: #85 in the US, #27 in the UK
SINGLES: “Beat Box”, “Close (to the Edit)”, “Moments in Love”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Art of Noise, an avant-garde synth-pop outfit, was comprised of engineer/producer Gary Langan, programmer J. J. Jeczalik, keyboardist/arranger Anne Dudley, music journalist Paul Morley, and producer Trevor Horn (also known for his work with The Buggles). The band made innovative use of sampling to create their “sound collages”. Art of Noise, with an updated lineup, achieved their greatest US success later in the decade with singles like “Peter Gunn” (with original guitarist Duane Eddy!), a remake of Prince’s “Kiss” (with Tom Jones!), and “Paranoimia” (with Max Headroom!). They were also fully credited on Prodigy’s 1996 single “Firestarter”, which samples “Close (to the Edit)”.
Purple Rain – Prince and the Revolution
CHART POSITION: #1 in the US, Canada, Austria, Netherlands, and Zimbabwe, top 10 in eight more countries. Purple Rain made the year-end charts in several countries, including the US and Canada, where it was outsold only by Born in the U.S.A.
SINGLES: “When Doves Cry”, “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Purple Rain”, “I Would Die 4 U”, “Take Me with U”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of them
FUN FACT #1: The best album of 1984 – and possibly the greatest album of the entire decade – is one of the best-selling, as well. An absolute masterpiece from beginning to end, with banger after banger like “When Doves Cry”, “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Darling Nikki”, “I Would Die 4 U”, that killer title track, and more. There’s not an ounce of fat on this album. 15/10. No notes. Purple Rain has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.
FUN FACT #2: The cover photo was taken at the Warner Bros. backlot in an area known as Hennesy Street. Designed to resemble a Lower East Side alley, Hennesy Street has appeared in movies like Annie, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Gremlins, Bugsy, Minority Report, Road to Perdition, and The Greatest Showman. Originally known as Tenement Street, it was renamed in honor of Annie‘s production designer, Dale Hennesy, who passed away before filming on the 1982 musical ended.
FUN FACT #3: The video for “When Doves Cry”, Purple Rain‘s leadoff single, caused a stir at MTV, whose execs deemed it too sexually explicit for television.
FUN FACT #4: Inexplicably, none of the songs from Purple Rain were nominated for Best Original Song at the 57th Academy Awards, though Prince did win Best Original Song Score (which isn’t even a category anymore!). Even worse, in one of the biggest travesties in Oscar history, Stevie Wonder’s absolutely dreadful “I Just Called to Say I Love You” took home the Best Original Song prize that year.
FUN FACT #5: “Darling Nikki”, with its explicit reference to female masturbation (go Nikki!), was one of the aforementioned “Filthy Fifteen”.
Victory – The Jacksons
CHART POSITION: Top 5 in twelve countries, including the US, the UK, and Canada
SINGLES: “State of Shock”, “Torture”, “Body”, “Wait”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT #1: Victory is the only album that features all six of the Jackson brothers, including Randy (who didn’t officially join the family band until Jermaine’s departure in 1975), Jermaine (who had just reunited with his brothers the previous year for the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever), and Michael and Marlon (who both left for good after the Victory tour concluded).
FUN FACT #2: Neither of Victory‘s videos – “Torture” and “Body” – starred Michael Jackson, who was still churning out sales of Thriller (that album, released at the end of 1982, was the best-selling album of 1984 in the US). If you pause the “Torture” clip at precisely 2:00, you can spot the Michael wax dummy they borrowed from Madame Tussauds.
Diamond Life – Sade
CHART POSITION: Top 5 in ten countries, including the US and the UK (where it was the seventh-most popular album of the year)
SINGLES: “Your Love is King”, “When Am I Going to Make a Living”, “Smooth Operator”, “Hang On to Your Love”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Sade, named for its lead singer Helen Folasade Adu, earned the Best New Artist Award at the 28th Grammys. Their signature song, “Smooth Operator,” reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single’s video, featuring actors Michael Feast and Amanda Pays, was directed by Julien Temple, who later cast Sade in his 1986 musical Absolute Beginners. For “Smooth Operator”, Sade was nominated for Best New Artist in a Video at the 2nd MTV Video Music Awards (they lost to ‘Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry”).
Ride the Lightning – Metallica
CHART POSITION: #48 in the US, #87 in the UK
SINGLES: “Creeping Death”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Ride the Lightning”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”
FUN FACT: Ride the Lightning takes its name from Stephen King’s epic The Stand (a character uses the phrase to refer to death by electric chair). Though the album only made it to #48 on the Billboard Hot 100, it has been certified 6x Platinum in the US – and it set Metallica up for their commercial breakthrough, 1986’s Master of Puppets.
Go Insane – Lindsey Buckingham
CHART POSITION: #45 in the US, #33 in Sweden
SINGLES: “Go Insane” and “Slow Dancing”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “I Must Go”, “Loving Cup”
FUN FACT: Go Insane was executive-produced by the legendary Roy Thomas Baker, who has worked with artists like Queen, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Santana, and The Cars. Buckingham earned seven VMA nominations for Go Insane, four for the title track and three for “Slow Dancing”.
Zen Arcade – Hüsker Dü
CHART POSITION: N/A
SINGLES: N/A
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Pink Turns to Blue”
FUN FACT: Zen Arcade – a double concept album about a young man who escapes an abusive home life only to discover that the world at large is even worse – combines elements of hardcore punk, folk, and psychedelia. Hüsker Dü recorded a cover of The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” during the Zen Arcade sessions; it was released as a non-album single in April 1984.
Mirror Moves – The Psychedelic Furs
CHART POSITION: #43 in the US, #16 in Canada
SINGLES: “Heaven”, “The Ghost in You”, “Here Come Cowboys”, “Heartbeat”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Highwire Days”
FUN FACT #1: While promoting The Cure’s Head on the Door in 1985, Robert Smith named Mirror Moves as one of his five favorite albums.
FUN FACT #2: The cover art is an homage to graphic designer and video director Barney Bubbles, who died by suicide in 1983. Among the album covers Bubbles designed are Music for Pleasure by The Damned (below left) and Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True (below right). As a director, he helmed videos for artists such as Squeeze, The Specials, and Fun Boy Three.
Crusade, Blade, Presumed, Patriot – Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Blade Runner/2049, Presumed Innocent, Patriot Games)
Chill, Fatal, Dangerous, Force – Glenn Close (The Big Chill, Fatal Attraction, DangerousLiaisons, Air Force One)
Ice, Working, Mist, Village – Sigourney Weaver (The Ice Storm, Working Girl, Gorillas in theMist, The Village)
I, Short, Whiskey, Scots – Margot Robbie (I, Tonya, The Big Short, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Mary Queen of Scots)
Mississippi, Arizona, Missouri, French – Frances McDormand (Mississippi Burning, Raising Arizona, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The French Dispatch)
Eight, Blind, Practical, Sleeping – Sandra Bullock (Ocean’s Eight, The Blind Side, Practical Magic, While You Were Sleeping)
John, Point, Idaho, Bill – Keanu Reeves (John Wick franchise, Point Break, My Own Private Idaho, Bill & Ted series)
Noon, Dial, Rear, Thief – Grace Kelly (High Noon, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catcha Thief)
Afternoon, Scent, Sunday, Thirteen – Al Pacino (Dog Day Afternoon, Scent of a Woman, Any Given Sunday, Ocean’s Thirteen)
Identity, Hunting, Private, Zoo – Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity, Good Will Hunting, Saving Private Ryan, We Bought a Zoo)
Quiet, Tomorrow, Fall, Train – Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place, Edge of Tomorrow, The Fall Guy, The Girl on the Train)
Color, Lion, Girl, Boys – Whoopi Goldberg (The Color Purple, The Lion King, Girl, Interrupted, Boys on the Side)
Steel, Places, Amazing, Blonde – Sally Field (Steel Magnolias, Places in the Heart, The Amazing Spider-Man, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde)
12, Smith, Fight, Vampire – Brad Pitt (12 Monkeys, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Fight Club, Interviewwith the Vampire)
Rocky, Bull, Lovely, Witches – Susan Sarandon (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Bull Durham, The Lovely Bones, Witches of Eastwick)
Few, Nest, Terms, Anger – Jack Nicholson (A Few Good Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’sNest, Terms of Endearment, Anger Management)
Empire, Sally, Blues, Return – Carrie Fisher (The Empire Strikes Back, When Harry MetSally…, The Blues Brothers, Return of the Jedi)
Park, Independence, Snatchers, Earth – Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Earth Girls Are Easy)
Hard, Sixth, Pulp, Yards – Bruce Willis (Die Hard franchise, The Sixth Sense, Pulp Fiction, The Whole Nine/Ten Yards)
Inside ManErin BrockovichThe Sixth SenseA League of Their Own
Panic RoomFatal Attraction
The Big ShortThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
I haven’t done a pop quiz in a long time! This time around, I’m giving you four words from song titles by the same musical artist; your job is to name the artist. These are—for the most part—very well-known artists, with a couple of my personal favorites thrown in just for fun. Come back to the blog on Tuesday for the answers – you can subscribe to be notified of new content immediately!
***** CONTENT WARNING – THIS POST CONTAINS A REFERENCE TO 9/11 *****
These albums are all turning forty-five this year. This list is in chronological order by release date and covers albums released between January and April 1979.
Armed Forces – Elvis Costello & the Attractions
CHART POSITION: #10 in the US, #2 in the UK, #8 in Canada, #9 in Australia
SINGLES: “Oliver’s Army”, “Accidents Will Happen”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Goon Squad”, “Busy Bodies”, “Two Little Hitlers”, and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding”
FUN FACT #1: Costello’s label, Radar Records, opted to release the album in the US with different cover art; the original cover (above left), showing a herd of elephants running straight towards the camera, was replaced with a pastel-colored pop art paint drip (above right).
FUN FACT #2: Working titles for Armed Forces, which re-teamed Costello with producer Nick Lowe, included Cornered On Plastic and Emotional Fascism. Armed Forces is the first album to be credited to Costello’s backing band, The Attractions (keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas, and drummer Pete Thomas).
FUN FACT #3: In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, older brother Michael sings a snippet from “Accidents Will Happen” as he comes home from school and looks for a snack in the fridge (just before he meets Elliott’s pet alien). The single is also featured in The Simpsons episode “Treehouse of Horror XXVI”.
FUN FACT #4: “Sunday’s Best” was left off the US version of the album in favor of Costello’s cover of Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding”, the B-side to Lowe’s 1978 single “American Squirm”. “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding”, the rare cover to eclipse the original, was written by Lowe in 1974 and recorded with his band Brinsley Schwarz (link below). Costello’s version has become one of his signature songs.
We Are Family – Sister Sledge
CHART POSITION: #3 in the US, #7 in the UK
SINGLES: “He’s the Greatest Dancer”, “We Are Family”, “Lost in Music”, “Thinking of You”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: We Are Family was written and produced by the powerhouse team of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards (of CHIC fame). The vocals for the title track, Sister Sledge’s biggest hit and signature song, were recorded by a then-19-year-old Kathy Sledge in a single take.
Look Sharp! – Joe Jackson
CHART POSITION: #20 in the US and Australia, #40 in the UK
SINGLES: “Is She Really Going Out with Him?”, “Sunday Papers”, “One More Time”, “Fools in Love”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Happy Loving Couples”, “Baby Stick Around”, “Look Sharp!”, “(Do the) Instant Mash”, “Got the Time”
FUN FACT #1: The Look Sharp! cover is one of the most celebrated ever; in fact, Rolling Stone placed it at #22 on their list of all-time greatest album covers. With photography by the legendary Brian Griffin, the cover art received a nomination for Best Recording Package at the 21st Grammy Awards (it lost, rightly, to Supertramp’s Breakfast in America, an album we’ll talk more about later in this post). For his part, Jackson was disappointed in the cover because you couldn’t see his face, and he vowed to never work with Griffin again.
FUN FACT #2: A debut album for the ages (and a personal favorite), Look Sharp! announced the arrival of a brash, brainy new artist. Jackson has been one of the most consistently inventive artists of the past five decades, ever-evolving through genres as diverse as reggae, ska, jazz, swing, and even classical.
FUN FACT: Inflammable Material was released during the height of “The Troubles” (click here for more info – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles), and every note is imbued with the anger, violence, and brutality of life in Northern Ireland. Although Stiff Little Fingers never achieved the commercial acclaim of their UK punk contemporaries like The Clash and The Sex Pistols, Inflammable Materialis one of the most influential punk records ever.
Spirits Having Flown – Bee Gees
CHART POSITION: #1 in thirteen countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia
SINGLES: “Too Much Heaven”, “Tragedy”, “Love You Inside Out”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Spirits (Having Flown)” and “Search, Find”
FUN FACT: Spirits Having Flown was the first album released by the brothers Gibb since their contributions to the blockbuster Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Though it only sold half as many copies as its predecessor, Spirits Having Flown was a huge success nonetheless, shooting to the top of the charts in thirteen countries, selling 20 million copies worldwide, and winning the American Music Award for Best Pop/Rock Album of 1979.
George Harrison – George Harrison
CHART POSITION: #14 in the US and Canada, #39 in the UK
SINGLES: “Blow Away”, “Love Comes to Everyone”, “Faster”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Here Comes the Moon” and “Soft-Hearted Hana”
FUN FACT: George Harrison, the former Beatle’s eighth solo album but his first to be self-titled, was written during a period of personal contentment for Harrison (in 1978, he married Olivia Aras and she gave birth to their son Dhani). Guest musicians on the album included Steve Winwood, Gary Wright, and Harrison’s BFF Eric Clapton.
Rickie Lee Jones – Rickie Lee Jones
CHART POSITION: #3 in the US, #18 in the UK, #1 in Australia, #11 in Canada
SINGLES: “Chuck E.’s in Love”, “Young Blood”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “On Saturday Afternoons in 1963” and “Easy Money”
FUN FACT #1: “Chuck E.’s in Love” was inspired by Los Angeles musician Chuck E. Weiss, with whom Jones and her then-boyfriend Tom Waits spent time at the Tropicana Motel. Weiss once called Waits from Denver to announce that he had fallen in love with a woman there; after hanging up, Waits announced to Jones, “Chuck E.’s in love!”
FUN FACT #2: At the 22nd Grammys, Jones took home the Best New Artist Award, beating out The Blues Brothers, Dire Straits, The Knack, and Robin Williams.
Force Majeure – Tangerine Dream
CHART POSITION: #26 in the UK and Australia
SINGLES: N/A
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Force Majeure”, “Cloudburst Flight”, “Thru Metamorphic Rocks” (that’s the entire album)
FUN FACT: Remixed excerpts of “Force Majeure” and “Cloudburst Flight” – titled “Lana” and “Guido The Killer Pimp” respectively – were utilized in Tangerine Dream’s score for 1983’s RiskyBusiness, while a snippet of “Thru Metamorphic Rocks” was reworked as “Igneous” for Michael Mann’s Thief.
Off-topic, but “I’ve got a trig midterm tomorrow, and I’m being chased by Guido the killer pimp!” is just *chef’s kiss*
No. 1 in Heaven – Sparks
CHART POSITION: #204 in the US, #73 in the UK, #63 in Australia
SINGLES: “La Dolce Vita”, “The Number One Song in Heaven”, “Tryouts for the Human Race”, “Beat the Clock”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Academy Award Performance”
FUN FACT: After the disappointment of their previous two efforts, the wonderfully weird Sparks—brothers Ron and Russell Mael—were ready to move their music in a new direction. They called upon the legendary Giorgio Moroder to co-write, produce, and perform on the album, and a synth-pop classic was born. Joy Division has named “The Number One Song in Heaven” as a primary inspiration for their single “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. And Paste magazine placed No. 1 in Heaven at the top of their list of the greatest synth-pop albums ever.
Breakfast in America – Supertramp
CHART POSITION: Top five in fourteen countries, #1 in the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada (in the US, it was the fifth-most-popular album of 1979)
SINGLES: “The Logical Song”, “Breakfast in America”, “Goodbye Stranger”, “Take the Long Way Home”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Gone Hollywood” and “Oh Darling”
FUN FACT #1: Breakfast in America, Supertramp’s biggest-selling album, spent six weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 and has sold an estimated 20 million copies worldwide.
FUN FACT #2: “The Logical Song”, the band’s highest-charting hit, was inspired by Roger Hodgson’s time in English boarding schools. Paul McCartney named “The Logical Song”, which won Best Song at the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards, his favorite single of the year. And Paul Thomas Anderson later used “The Logical Song” and “Goodbye Stranger” in his 1999 opus Magnolia.
FUN FACT #3: Breakfast in America‘s cover was designed by Mike Doud and Mick Haggerty, who won the Grammy for Best Recording Package. After 9/11, a bizarre conspiracy theory posited that the album’s cover art predicted the tragic events of that day; for more on this theory, click here:
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Manifesto” and “Ain’t That So”
FUN FACT: “Dance Away,” the album’s biggest single, reached #2 on the UK charts; Blondie’s “Sunday Girl” kept it out of the top spot. The Manifesto cover was designed in part by lead singer-songwriter Bryan Ferry; the typography was inspired by the early-20th-century literary magazine Blast.
FUN FACT: One of the best bands you’ve probably never heard of, The Fall was hugely influential in the post-punk era and beyond, inspiring artists like Sonic Youth, Pavement, Franz Ferdinand, and LCD Soundsystem.
Evolution – Journey
CHART POSITION: #20 in the US, #35 in Canada
SINGLES: “Just the Same Way”, “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'”, “Too Late”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “City of the Angels”
FUN FACT: “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'”, Journey’s first top-twenty hit, was inspired by Sam Cooke’s “Nothing Can Change This Love”.
Van Halen II – Van Halen
CHART POSITION: #6 in the US, #23 in the UK
SINGLES: “Dance the Night Away”, “Beautiful Girls”, “Somebody Get Me a Doctor”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “D.O.A.” and “Women in Love”
FUN FACT: In Van Halen II‘s liner notes, the band thanks the Sheraton Inn of Madison, Wisconsin. The band had stayed at the hotel during their first tour and essentially destroyed the entire seventh floor, throwing television sets out the windows and engaging in fire extinguisher fights in the hallways (and blaming it all on their tour mates, Journey).
Just a Game – Triumph
CHART POSITION: #48 in the US, #19 in the band’s native Canada
SINGLES: “Lay It On the Line”, “Hold On”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Movin’ On”, “American Girls”, and “Just a Game”
FUN FACT: Just a Game‘s inner sleeve features an actual game designed by Triumph’s bassist and keyboardist Mike Levine – though he intentionally made it impossible to win.
Secondhand Daylight – Magazine
CHART POSITION: #38 in the UK, #41 in New Zealand
SINGLES: “Rhythm of Cruelty”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Feed the Enemy”, “Rhythm of Cruelty”, “Talk to the Body”, “I Wanted Your Heart”, “Permafrost”
FUN FACT: The album cover’s super cool typography was designed by Malcolm Garrett, an absolute legend who has created iconic covers for ’80s artists like Duran Duran, Culture Club, Heaven 17, Buzzcocks, and Simple Minds. British engineer Colin Thurston, who went on to work with Duran Duran, Talk Talk, Kajagoogoo, and Gary Numan, made his producing debut on Secondhand Daylight.
Overkill – Motörhead
CHART POSITION: #24 in the UK, #17 in France
SINGLES: “Overkill”, “No Class”, “Louie Louie”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Overkill”, “No Class”, “Damage Case”, and “Tear Ya Down”
FUN FACT #1: Metal band Overkill, formed in New Jersey in 1980, named themselves for this album.
FUN FACT #2: Motörhead’s version of “Louie Louie” was released as a standalone single in 1978 but not included on the album because Bronze Records founder Gerry Bron called it “about the worst record I’d ever heard”. “Louie Louie” was included on a 1996 reissue of Overkill, and I’m including it here.
Desolation Angels – Bad Company
CHART POSITION: #3 in the US, #10 in the UK
SINGLES: “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy”, “Gone, Gone, Gone”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Crazy Circles”, “Oh Atlanta”, and “She Brings Me Love”
FUN FACT: The album’s title, named for the 1965 Jack Kerouac novel of the same name, was almost used ten years earlier for the second album by Paul Rodgers’ previous band, Free (that album’s eventual title, imaginatively enough, was Free). Desolation Angels was Bad Company’s final top-ten album in the US and the UK.
Squeezing Out Sparks – Graham Parker and the Rumour
CHART POSITION: #40 in the US, #18 in the UK, #22 in Australia
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “You Can’t Be Too Strong”
FUN FACT: Squeezing Out Sparks, which topped that year’s Pazz & Jop critics poll in The Village Voice, was a musical departure for Parker, whose previous work utilized a horn section for a more soulful sound. Producer Jack Nitzsche wanted the album to have a raw sound, which left Parker’s rhythm & blues section free to play on The Clash’s masterpiece London Calling (more on that in volume three of this post).
Replicas – Tubeway Army
CHART POSITION: #124 in the US, #1 in the UK, #11 in Australia
SINGLES: “Down in the Park”, “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Me! I Disconnect from You”, “The Machman”, and “You Are in My Vision”
FUN FACT #1: I am OBSESSED with this album. When I first heard “Down in the Park”, my tweener mind was blown. Tubeway Army frontman Gary Numan went solo after the release of Replicas, which was heavily influenced by the work of Philip K. Dick (specifically, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the basis for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner). His solo debut, The Pleasure Principle, was also released in 1979, and we’ll discuss it in undoubtedly great length in part three of this post.
FUN FACT #2: Musically, Replicas was inspired by David Bowie’s Low and Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine, among others. In turn, industrial artists like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson have listed Replicas as an influence on their work.
Cool for Cats – Squeeze
CHART POSITION: #45 in the UK, #18 in Australia
SINGLES: “Goodbye Girl”, “Cool for Cats”, “Up the Junction”, “Slap and Tickle”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Hop, Skip & Jump”
FUN FACT: In 1979, Squeeze was two years away from their US breakthrough East Side Story, which contains the iconic single “Tempted”. But on the strength of four UK hits, including the title track, Cool for Cats is my favorite of the band’s albums. In 1995, Chris Woodstra called Cool for Cats a “pure pop masterpiece” for the All Music Guide to Rock.
“Cool for Cats” is tied with “Up the Junction” as Squeeze’s highest-charting UK single
Voulez-Vous – ABBA
CHART POSITION: #19 in the US, #1 in the UK, the group’s native Sweden, and five more countries
SINGLES: “Chiquitita” (in both English and Spanish), “Does Your Mother Know”, “Voulez-Vous”, “Angeleyes”, “As Good as New”, “I Have a Dream”, “Kisses of Fire”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT #1: Voulez-Vous, ABBA’s first full-fledged disco album, made the year-end top ten in four countries, including the UK and Japan (where it was the 17th most popular album of the DECADE).
FUN FACT #2: For their 1992 EP Abba-esque, Erasure recorded a kick-ass cover of “Voulez-Vous”, which is French for “Do you want?”
Bad Girls – Donna Summer
CHART POSITION: #1 in the US, Canada, and Finland
SINGLES: “Hot Stuff”, “Bad Girls”, “Dim All the Lights”, “Sunset People”, “Our Love”, “Walk Away”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT #1: A disco masterpiece, Bad Girls was a critical and commercial success. It went to #1 in the US and Canada (it made the year-end list in both countries) and sold four million copies worldwide. At the 22nd Grammys, Bad Girls received five nominations – including Album of the Year – and garnered Summer an award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for “Hot Stuff”.
FUN FACT #2: On June 30, 1979, Summer became the first female artist to have two songs in the top three of the Billboard Hot 100 (“Bad Girls” and “Hot Stuff”).
As always, here is the playlist, which will be updated to coincide with future volumes:
PB & Julie + Julie C. Trivia 