PB & Julie + Julie C. Trivia

***** 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).

For more on Quartet – and other great albums from 1983 – click here:

63 Awesome Albums From ’83, Vol. 2

• Reckoning – R.E.M.

CHART POSITION: #27 in the US, #91 in the UK

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)

CHART POSITION: #182 in the US, #9 in the UK

SINGLES: “Locomotion”, “Talking Loud and Clear”, “Tesla Girls”, “Never Turn Away”

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

SINGLES: “Oh Sherrie”, “I Believe”, “She’s Mine”, “Strung Out”, “Foolish Heart”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above

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:

Warning: PMRC Advisory

• Hallowed Ground – Violent Femmes

CHART POSITION: #56 in Australia

SINGLES: “It’s Gonna Rain”

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’ Invisible Touch, Madonna’s True Blue, George Michael’s Faith, and Whitney Houston’s Whitney.

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 Fourth of 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 to Eternity.

• 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).

² You non-music nerds can learn more about time signatures here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature

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.

The updated playlist:

***** 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.

• Inflammable Material – Stiff Little Fingers

CHART POSITION: #14 in the UK

SINGLES: N/A

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Suspect Device”, “Wasted Life”, “White Noise”, “Rough Trade”

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 Material is 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 Risky Business, while a snippet of “Thru Metamorphic Rocks” was reworked as “Igneous” for Michael Mann’s Thief.

• 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:

The Pop Cultural Impact of 9/11

• Manifesto – Roxy Music

CHART POSITION: #23 in the US, #7 in the UK

SINGLES: “Trash”, “Dance Away”, “Angel Eyes”

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.

• Live at the Witch Trials – The Fall

CHART POSITION: N/A

SINGLES: N/A

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Frightened”, “Rebellious Jukebox”, “Industrial Estate”, “Two Steps Back”

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

SINGLES: “Protection”, “Discovering Japan”, “Local Girls”

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.

• 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:

These albums are all turning forty this year. This list is in chronological order by release date and covers albums released between January and April of 1984.

• 1984 – Van Halen

CHART POSITION: #2 in the US, #1 in Canada, #15 in the UK, #11 in Australia, top 15 in ten more countries

SINGLES: “Jump”, “I’ll Wait”, “Panama”, “Hot for Teacher”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, particularly “I’ll Wait” and “Panama”, plus “Drop Dead Legs”

FUN FACT: I was today years old when I learned that Michael McDonald co-wrote “I’ll Wait”. It seems that David Lee Roth was struggling to finish the song’s lyrics and melody; producer Ted Templeman, who had previously collaborated with The Doobie Brothers, brought McDonald in to help Roth complete the tune. “I’ll Wait”, my favorite track off the album, made it to #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 despite no music video accompanying the single.

• Learning to Crawl – The Pretenders

CHART POSITION: #5 in the US, #11 in the UK, #18 in Australia

SINGLES: “Back on the Chain Gang”, “2000 Miles”, “Middle of the Road”, “Show Me”, “Thin Line Between Love and Hate”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “My City Was Gone”

FUN FACT: “My City Was Gone”, one of the album’s most popular tracks despite never having been released as a single, is a scathing indictment of Chrissie Hynde’s home state of Ohio:

I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride

• Bon Jovi – Bon Jovi

CHART POSITION: #43 in the US, #71 in the UK

SINGLES: “Runaway”, “She Don’t Know Me”, “Burning for Love”

MY FAVORITE TRACK: “Runaway”

FUN FACT: “Shot Through the Heart” should not be confused with the opening refrain of Bon Jovi’s 1986 smash hit “You Give Love a Bad Name”.

• Footloose: Original Soundtrack of the Paramount Motion Picture – Various Artists

CHART POSITION: #1 in the US and Canada, #7 in the UK, top 10 in ten more countries

SINGLES: “Footloose”, “Holding Out for a Hero”, “Dancing in the Sheets”, “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”, “Almost Paradise”, “I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)”, “Somebody’s Eyes”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “The Girl Gets Around” by Sammy Hagar (which, disappointingly, is not available on Spotify) and “Never” by Moving Pictures – literally the entire album

FUN FACT #1: Footloose was nothing short of a juggernaut. “Footloose”, the first single released from the album, was an international smash and went to #1 in the US, where it was also the fourth-most popular song of the year. Six of the album’s seven singles made it to the Billboard Top 40, and the soundtrack was the ninth-most popular album of 1984.

FUN FACT #2: A 1998 re-release of the album included four songs that were used in the film but not included on the original soundtrack – John (Cougar) Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good”, Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl Like You”, Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” and a remix of Shalamar’s “Dancing in the Sheets”.

• All the Rage – General Public

CHART POSITION: #26 in the US, #19 in Canada

SINGLES: “General Public”, “Tenderness”, “Never You Done That”, “Hot You’re Cool”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Anxious”

FUN FACT #1: General Public was something of a British new wave supergroup, which included members of The Beat (known as The English Beat in the US), The Specials, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and The Clash. Mick Jones, recently booted from the latter by Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon, left midway through production on All the Rage and was replaced by Kevin White. Though White appears on the back cover, Jones actually performed most of the guitar work heard on the album.

FUN FACT #2: “Tenderness”, General Public’s biggest hit by far, is the band’s only single to make the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #27. “Tenderness” has remained in the public consciousness for forty years thanks to appearances in Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Clueless, The Goldbergs, and The Deuce.

• Sparkle in the Rain – Simple Minds

CHART POSITION: #64 in the US, #1 in the UK and New Zealand

SINGLES: “Waterfront”, “Speed Your Love to Me”, “Up on the Catwalk”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “White Hot Day”

FUN FACT: In 1984, Simple Minds were a year away from their US breakthrough but wildly successful in their UK home (the band is Scottish). Around this same time, I was introduced to Simple Minds by my nephew’s dad; I’ve been a fan ever since.

• It’s My Life – Talk Talk

CHART POSITION: #42 in the US, #35 in the UK

SINGLES: “It’s My Life”, “Such a Shame”, “Dum Dum Girl”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above

FUN FACT: “It’s My Life”, Talk Talk’s highest-charting single in the US, failed to make much of an impact in the band’s native UK until a 1990 reissue. A 2003 cover by No Doubt achieved even greater success than the original, reaching the top 10 in 23 countries.

• Declaration – The Alarm

CHART POSITION: #50 in the US, #6 in the UK

SINGLES: “Marching On”, “The Stand”, Sixty Eight Guns”, “Where Were You Hiding When the Storm Broke”, “The Deceiver”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Blaze of Glory”

FUN FACT: In 1984, I was already a big fan of the arena rock coming out of the UK at the time – U2, Simple Minds, and Big Country, to name a few – so The Alarm was right up my alley. It helped that I was also a fan of the I.R.S. label, whose artists included R.E.M. and The Go-Go’s (more on both of them later). While The Alarm was never as successful in the US as in their native UK (Wales, to be precise), I adored them.

• Mister Heartbreak – Laurie Anderson

CHART POSITION: #60 in the US, #93 in the UK

SINGLES: “Sharkey’s Day”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Sharkey’s Day”, “Gravity’s Angel”, “Excellent Birds”

FUN FACT: Mister Heartbreak features appearances by William S. Burroughs (“Sharkey’s Night”) and Peter Gabriel (“Excellent Birds”). A version of the latter, titled “This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)”, appears on Gabriel’s 1986 masterpiece, So.

• Out of the Cellar – Ratt

CHART POSITION: #7 in the US, #12 in Canada

SINGLES: “Round and Round”, “Wanted Man”, “Lack of Communication”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: I was never a huge fan of the glam metal genre, but “Round and Round” is such a banger.

FUN FACT #1: Tawny Kitaen, the model on the Out of the Cellar album cover, was in a relationship with Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby for six years. She went on to famously (infamously?) star in the video for Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again”, as well as marry (and divorce) its lead singer, David Coverdale.

FUN FACT #2: The video for “Round and Round”, which stars the legendary Milton Berle (uncle of Ratt manager Marshall Berle), was in regular rotation on MTV that summer (the clip also features Lisa Dean, who would later appear in Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana”). The song charted again in 2020 after the band appeared in a GEICO commercial. “Round and Round” has been used in a number of films and television series, including Supernatural, Stranger Things (a PBandJulie fave), Cobra Kai, and The Wrestler.

• Into the Gap – Thompson Twins

CHART POSITION: #10 in the US, #1 in the UK (where it was the twelfth-most popular album of the year), top 10 in seven more countries

SINGLES: “Hold Me Now”, “Doctor Doctor”, “You Take Me Up”, “Sister of Mercy”, “The Gap”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Day After Day”

FUN FACT: After experiencing their breakthrough in 1983 with Quick Step & Side Kick (simply titled Side Kicks in the US) – and with synth-pop’s popularity at a peak – Thompson Twins were poised for chart success with the release of Into the Gap. The band – whose name was inspired by bumbling detectives Thompson and Thompson in the English language version of The Adventures of Tintin – achieved their greatest chart success with Into the Gap, selling five million copies and yielding three UK Top 5 singles.

For more on Quick Step & Side Kick – and other great albums from 1983 – click here:

63 Awesome Albums From ’83, Vol. 1

• The Smiths – The Smiths

CHART POSITION: #150 in the US, #2 in the UK, #77 in Australia

SINGLES: “What Difference Does It Make?”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Reel Around the Fountain”, “Pretty Girls Make Graves”, “This Charming Man”, “Hand in Glove”, “What Difference Does It Make?”

FUN FACT: The Smiths, the band’s debut, was an instant hit in their native UK (they formed in Manchester in 1982). The Smiths achieved only cult status in the US – none of their albums cracked the Billboard Top 50, and none of their singles made the Hot 100 – but my friends and I were among the devotees.

• Keep Moving – Madness

CHART POSITION: #109 in the US, #6 in the UK

SINGLES: “Michael Caine” and “One Better Day” (UK), “Wings of a Dove (A Celebratory Song)” and “The Sun and the Rain” (US)

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus the title track and “Victoria Gardens”

FUN FACT #1: “Michael Caine” features an appearance by the two-time Oscar winner, as well as backing vocals by Afrodiziak. Comprised at the time of Caron Wheeler and Claudia Fontaine, Afrodiziak also provided backing vocals for The Jam’s “Beat Surrender” and Elvis Costello’s “Everyday I Write the Book” (and with the addition later of Naomi Thompson, “Free Nelson Mandela” by The Specials). If Wheeler’s name sounds familiar, it’s because she found success in the late ’80s as a member of Soul II Soul with hits like “Keep on Movin'” and “Back to Life”.

FUN FACT #2: Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger of General Public, who appeared earlier on this list, provided backing vocals for “Waltz Into Mischief” and “Victoria Gardens”.

• Dead Can Dance – Dead Can Dance

CHART POSITION: N/A

SINGLES: None

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “The Fatal Impact”, “The Trial”, “Ocean”, “Threshold”, “Wild in the Woods”

FUN FACT: Dead Can Dance vocalist Lisa Gerrard, who would later share a Golden Globe win with the legendary Hans Zimmer for their haunting Gladiator score, utilizes a unique vocal style known as glossolalia (literally, speaking in tongues). A talented multi-instrumentalist (her signature instrument is a Yangqin, a Chinese hammered dulcimer), Gerrard and her Dead Can Dance partner Brendan Perry helped usher in a musical style known as neoclassical dark wave or ethereal wave. They were joined in that musical movement by their 4AD labelmates Cocteau Twins; more about them in volume three of this post.

WARNING: The following video contains a strobe effect, in case you’re sensitive to that sort of thing.

• Human Racing – Nik Kershaw

CHART POSITION: #70 in the US, #5 in the UK

SINGLES: “I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, “Wouldn’t It Be Good”, “Dancing Girl”, “Human Racing”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above

FUN FACT: Kershaw, vastly more popular in his native UK, is the definition of a one-hit wonder in the US; “Wouldn’t It Be Good” made it to #46 on the Billboard Hot 100. Two years later, Danny Hutton Hitters performed a cover version of the song for the Pretty in Pink soundtrack. In the UK, “I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” was the bigger hit, peaking at #2.

• The Works – Queen

CHART POSITION: #23 in the US, #2 in the UK, top 10 in ten more countries

SINGLES: “Radio Ga Ga”, “I Want to Break Free”, “It’s a Hard Life”, “Hammer to Fall”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Keep Passing the Open Windows” and “I Go Crazy”

FUN FACT #1: Lady Gaga, whose birth name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, took her stage name from “Radio Ga Ga”.

FUN FACT #2: David Mallet, a legend in the music video industry, directed the clips for both “Radio Ga Ga” and “I Want to Break Free”. I could write an entire post about Mallet’s work; among the videos he’s directed are Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays”, Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers”, David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”, Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face”, and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”.

FUN FACT #3: Stranger Things fans will recognize “Hammer to Fall” from the season two episode “The Spy”.

• “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D – “Weird Al” Yankovic

CHART POSITION: #17 in the US, #61 in Australia

SINGLES: “Eat It”, “King of Suede”, “I Lost on Jeopardy”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “The Brady Bunch” (sung to the tune of “Safety Dance”) and “Polkas on 45”

FUN FACT #1: “Theme from Rocky XIII“, a parody of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, suggested a possible thirteenth film in the Rocky series. He wasn’t that far off; a fourth Creed film (in development now) brings the franchise’s grand total to ten.

FUN FACT #2: “Polkas on 45”, a riff on Stars on 45 (IFKYK), contains snippets of seventeen different songs, including Berlin’s “Sex (I’m a …)”, The Beatles’ “Hey Jude”, The Doors’ “L.A. Woman”, Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe”, Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House”, and The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”.

• This Is Spinal Tap – Spinal Tap

CHART POSITION: N/A

SINGLES: None

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Hell Hole”, “Tonight I’m Going to Rock You Tonight”, “Big Bottom”, “Stonehenge”, “Christmas with the Devil”

FUN FACT: Though all the tracks were written by Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKean (along with director and co-star Rob Reiner), the album is credited to their Spinal Tap alter egos Nigel Tufnel, Derek Smalls, and David St. Hubbins.

• About Face – David Gilmour

CHART POSITION: #32 in the US

SINGLES: “Blue Light”, “Love on the Air”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Murder”, “Love on the Air”, “Blue Light”, “All Lovers Are Deranged”, “You Know I’m Right”

FUN FACT: “Love on the Air” and “All Lovers Are Deranged” were co-written with The Who’s Pete Townshend, whose version of the latter appeared on his 2001 solo album Scoop 3. Among the musicians who performed on About Face are Steve Winwood, TOTO’s Jeff Porcaro, and classical pianist Anne Dudley. Dudley, who won an Oscar in 1998 for her The Full Monty score, has worked extensively as a session musician and was also a member of the art-rock outfit Art of Noise (more on them in volume two of this post).

• Human’s Lib – Howard Jones

CHART POSITION: #59 in the US, #1 in the UK (where it was the sixteenth-most popular album of the year)

SINGLES: “New Song”, “What Is Love?”, “Hide and Seek”, “Pearl in the Shell”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Conditioning”

FUN FACT: I bought this album the same day I saw Sixteen Candles in the theater, so the two are inextricably linked in my mind.

• Love Life – Berlin

CHART POSITION: #23 in the US

SINGLES: “No More Words”, “Now It’s My Turn”, “Dancing in Berlin”, “Touch”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Beg, Steal or Borrow” and “Pictures of You”

FUN FACT: “No More Words,” co-produced by the legendary Giorgio Moroder and supported by a Bonnie and Clyde-inspired music video, was Berlin’s first Top 40 hit, peaking at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100. I was mildly obsessed with Terri Nunn; I thought she was the sexiest, most confident woman I’d ever seen, and my little fourteen-year-old mind was blown.

• Heartbeat City – The Cars

CHART POSITION: #3 in the US, #25 in the UK, #5 in Canada

SINGLES: “You Might Think”, “Magic”, “Drive”, “Hello Again”, “Why Can’t I Have You” (UK only), “Heartbeat City”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above

FUN FACT #1: Driven by the album’s six singles, Heartbeat City is the band’s best-selling album. Accompanied by a music video directed by actor Timothy Hutton and starring Ric Ocasek’s future wife Paulina Porizkova, “Drive” was the album’s biggest hit.

FUN FACT #2: The video for “You Might Think,” which utilized (for the time) cutting-edge computer graphics, won five awards at the inaugural VMAs, including Video of the Year. The clip was parodied, along with David Lee Roth’s “California Girls”, Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing”, and The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”, in the video for “Don’t Lose My Number” by Phil Collins.

FUN FACT #3: Andy Warhol directed the video for “Hello Again”. It’s…something.

• Café Bleu – The Style Council

CHART POSITION: #56 in the US, #2 in the UK

SINGLES: “My Ever Changing Moods”, “You’re the Best Thing”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “The Whole Point of No Return”, “The Paris Match”, “My Ever Changing Moods”, “You’re the Best Thing”

FUN FACT: Café Bleu (which was retitled My Ever Changing Moods in the US to capitalize on the single of the same name) was the studio debut for The Style Council, which was co-founded in 1982 by The Jam’s Paul Weller and Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ Mick Talbot. “The Paris Match” features guest musicians Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt of the English pop duo Everything But the Girl.

• Talk Show – The Go-Go’s

CHART POSITION: #18 in the US

SINGLES: “Head Over Heels”, “Turn to You”, “Yes or No”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “You Thought”, “Beneath the Blue Sky”, “I’m the Only One”

FUN FACT: Talk Show was The Go-Go’s’ final album until a 2001 reunion. Simmering tensions over royalties, personal conflicts, and creative differences led to Jane Wiedlin’s departure in October 1984 and the band’s breakup the following May.

• The Swing – INXS

CHART POSITION: #52 in the US, #1 in Australia

SINGLES: “Original Sin”, “I Send a Message”, “Burn for You”, “Dancing on the Jetty”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Melting in the Sun”, “Love Is (What I Say)”, “Face the Change”, “All the Voices”

FUN FACT #1: INXS didn’t achieve their commercial breakthrough in the US until 1985’s Listen Like Thieves, but thanks to their 1982 album Shabooh Shoobah and a slot as the opening act on Men at Work’s 1983 Cargo tour, I had already fallen for the Ozzie sextet.

FUN FACT #2: “Original Sin”, the band’s first (and only) #1 in their native Australia, was produced by the iconic Nile Rodgers and features Daryl Hall on backing vocals.

FUN FACT #3: With over 15 million copies sold, INXS is the third-best-selling Australian artist in US history behind AC/DC and Bee Gees. That’s pretty great company.

• The Icicle Works – The Icicle Works

CHART POSITION: #40 in the US, #24 in the UK, #20 in Canada

SINGLES: “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream”, “Love is a Wonderful Colour”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above

FUN FACT: In the US, The Icicle Works (named for Frederik Pohl’s sci-fi short story “The Day the Icicle Works Closed”) is a legitimate one-hit-wonder; “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)” is their only appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 (it topped out at #37).

• Run-D.M.C. – Run-D.M.C.

CHART POSITION: #53 in the US

SINGLES: “It’s Like That”, “Hard Times”, “Rock Box”, “30 Days”, “Hollis Crew (Krush Groove 2)”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Sucker M.C.’s (Krush Groove 1)

FUN FACT: The hugely influential “Rock Box” is considered to be the first song in the rap-rock genre. The single features session musician Eddie Martinez on guitar; in 2015, his contribution to “Rock Box” topped Guitar World’s list of “The Top 10 Uses of Guitar in Hip-Hop” (https://www.guitarworld.com/features/top-10-uses-guitar-hip-hop).

• Love at First Sting – Scorpions

CHART POSITION: #6 in the US, #17 in the UK, #6 in the band’s native Germany

SINGLES: “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, “Still Loving You”, “Big City Nights”, “I’m Leaving You”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above

FUN FACT: “Rock You Like a Hurricane” is somehow both completely of its time and utterly timeless. It rocks times infinity. Appearances in film and television – Stranger Things, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, to name a few – have kept the song in the limelight for forty years.

Here’s the 1984 playlist, which will be updated for volumes 2 and 3: