#but Lionel sometimes feels a bit like a Mickey Satellite | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nerianasims · 3 years

Text

Billboard #1s 1982

Under the cut.

Daryl Hall & John Oates -- "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" -- January 30, 1982

"Use the body/ Now you want my soul" is about the pop music industry. Hall & Oates had been around for a long time, and did best when they did their own thing rather than what the execs wanted. What's really great about this song, though, is the music. It's the sort of stripped-down Hall & Oates stuff at its best. I absolutely love the -- bells? Synth thing, I'm sure, but the little partial scale that comes in sometimes. And the bassline is great (Michael Jackson apparently used it later.) This music makes my brain happy.

J. Geils Band -- "Centerfold" -- February 6, 1982

Blech. This song disgusts me. He had a crush on a girl and so he thought she was his homeroom angel, only existing sexually for him and never for herself. So when he saw she had decided to pose naked for a magazine, his blood ran cold. Because how dare she be anything but that angel. Then he has a fantasy that later he'll take her to a hotel and take her clothes off. And he buys the magazine. Maybe by the end he gets over his virgin/whore dichotomy bullshit, but I doubt it.

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts -- "I Love Rock 'n Roll" -- March 20, 1982

"I could tell it wouldn't be long till he was with me yeah ME." I've never understood the women who complain that men don't like them to be the aggressors. In my experience, they love it. Channel Joan Jett, my dears. I love rock n' roll.

Vangelis -- "Chariots of Fire" -- May 8, 1982

This instrumental is the Olympics' anthem, so you've heard it an awful lot. It was written for a movie about two British men running in 1924. It looks very inspiring and all, as it's a true story, and one of the men was a Jewish guy who ran to overcome prejudice. It also looks kind of British triumphalist. I dunno, I'm not being fair as I haven't seen it, nor am I likely to. The song is very heartlifting and it's no wonder the Olympics chose it as theirs. Now I expect to see some ice skating.

Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder -- "Ebony and Ivory" -- May 15, 1982

It's a song about racial harmony. Those are out of style these days. Considering my extended family is multiracial and multireligious (is that a word?) and very much like any other family (but bigger), I'm fine with it. It's a pop song, so whatever. I'm not as forgiving of the simplistic music as I am of the simplistic lyrics. I wish there were more Stevie Wonder here musically and less Paul McCartney.

The Human League -- "Don't You Want Me" -- July 3, 1982

This song inspired the backstory of Lana and Rich Mann in my Sims 2 game. We know how that ended. Though the man in this song is much more attached to the woman, who's about to leave him. Scarily attached. I hope she has control of a satellite or two. It's an excellent New Wave story song. Which is interesting; New Wave had just as much potential with story songs as country music does.

Eye of the Tiger -- "Survivor" -- July 24, 1982

I can never hear this song the same way again after seeing the video. These nerdy guys striding downtown like they're on their way to a gang fight. To see who can code better, I'm guessing. Though at the time, what would it be? BASIC? The original C? Leaving the video behind, this is not a song I'm able to come to fresh. It's been used ironically in pop culture too much. I still like it, taken as seriously as I can, but that's not all that seriously.

The Steve Miller Band -- "Abracadabra" -- September 4, 1982

The Steve Miller Band never took themselves seriously, and that made them good. They were an excellent bar band. They're trying to be a synth band here, oddly along with love song lyrics that are more straightforward than usual for them. It doesn't work. If Dead or Alive had done this, with bigger production and Pete Burns' gutpunch of a voice, it could have worked. I don't know if Steve Miller really sounds uncomfortable, or if I'm projecting, but this is a mess.

Chicago -- "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" -- September 11, 1982

Even Catra eventually said she was sorry. What's this guy's excuse? He has no problem saying he'll make it up to the woman he's singing to, but seems to have no idea what "it" is anyway. And never actually says he's sorry. He also only really seems to care because he'll miss her body and sees her as "a part of me I can't let go." Musically it's uninteresting, but not terrible, and if the lyrics were okay the song would be okay. The lyrics are not okay. What's with people who won't say they're sorry, anyway? I need a research paper on this.

John Cougar -- "Jack and Diane" -- October 2, 1982

As time goes on in this list, and I can remember the songs better, I am going to get more and more unfair. I have heard this song, at minimum, three billion times. And not in 1982 -- no, it got constant radio play in the 90s. I cannot listen to it or think about the lyrics in any kind of even vaguely objective way. I hate it so very much.

Men At Work -- "Who Can It Be Now" -- October 30, 1982

This song, about being bothered so much by other people that you become paranoid, feels even more apt in the NSA era. But as someone who needs a lot of alone time, I've felt this a lot. "If he hears, he'll knock all day." My early 20s were especially rough, because you're expected to want to go to parties and clubs and stuff all the time at that age, and argh. I also really like the music in this song. It's different.

Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes -- "Up Where We Belong" -- November 6, 1982

It's a lovely romantic duet that has an actual beat and some real emotion. It always makes me think the people singing are middle-aged, and have seen a lot and been hurt a lot, but they're trying again anyway, and it's gonna work this time.

Lionel Richie -- "Truly" -- November 27, 1982

Lionel Richie's singing always sounds completely insincere to me. I wouldn't like his music anyway, but I'd find it more tolerable if it didn't all sound like such bs. It'd still be too slow, bland, and directionless though. So yeah, this is bad.

Tony Basil -- "Mickey" -- December 11, 1982

This is a cheerleading chant. I had to do aerobics to it at least once a week in 8th grade (it felt like more.) Since it's a cheerleading chant, I can't muster any feelings toward it. Tony Basil is awesome and she's had an amazing career in dance, including working with David Bowie. I'm sad that her music was like this.

Daryl Hall and John Oates -- "Maneater" -- December 18, 1982

When I was a little kid, I thought this was literally about a woman who ate men. Probably a werejaguar. I loved it. When I got a bit older, I realized what it was really about -- and I still loved it. I still do. Women get to be the bad guy in fiction too (and it's not like none of us are irl.) See also, from the woman's perspective, Pistol Annies' "Hell On Heels."

BEST OF 1982 -- "I Love Rock n'Roll" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts WORST OF 1982 -- "Centerfold" by the J. Geils Band

#billboard number ones

7 notes · View notes