Pop Top 40: Hot 100 week ending 12/8/84

My 14th birthday chart!

This is pretty much the most fucking 1984 chart imaginable. Playlist as always below.

[this week, last week, title, artist, weeks on chart, (peak to date)]
1 2 OUT OF TOUCH –•– Daryl Hall & John Oates – 11 (1) — Well well well, look who hit #1 on my birthday at last — “Maneater” was a couple weeks too late in ‘82, and “Say It Isn’t So” got stuck behind “Say Say Say” in ‘83. Their final #1 of six, as their Imperial Phase started drawing to a close — by summer ’85’s Live Aid, it was over. But it was so good while it lasted. This isn’t close to their best work, but it’s good enough. And Arthur Baker’s 12″ version is gleefully ridiculous.
2 1 WAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU GO-GO –•– Wham! – 14 (1) — Sure, it’s cheese — Velveeta, in fact. I don’t ever need to hear this song again. But frankly, there aren’t that many George Michael-penned songs about which I can say that, which says plenty.
3 3 I FEEL FOR YOU –•– Chaka Khan – 14 (3) — Back in 2004, I wrote: “Greater than the sum of its parts, and that’s really sayin’ somethin’. Grandmaster Melle Mel on the rap, Stevie Wonder on the harmonica (and in a very cleverly-used sample from “Fingerprints Pt. 2”), written by Prince (for which he won the Best R&B Song Grammy, a mere four years after it first appeared on one of his albums), and vocalized by the incomparable Chaka. Her strike rate, in terms of ‘80s [R&B] #1s, was 100%. Good enough to make your head hurt. A+” None of these words ring false today, nor will they ever, because this is one of the greatest singles of all time.
4 7 THE WILD BOYS –•– Duran Duran – 6 (4) — I’m glad this didn’t go the distance to #1 — both Hall & Oates (#1) and Madonna (#11) kept it stuck in the runner-up slot — because it’s pretty bad, even with Nile Rodgers remixing it for single release. Quite possibly their worst Imperial Phase single, an incoherent mess.
5 6 ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT –•– Cyndi Lauper – 10 (5) — The weakest, most annoying single from She’s So Unusual. Blame both Jules Shear’s original song (“stray cat is crying/so stray cat sings back,” what is this garbage) and the ill-advised decision to have Lauper sing it high and almost cutesy-poo. And most especially, blame the synthesizers pooping all over the record, courtesy of the Hooters’s Rob Hyman. When in doubt, always blame the Hooters.
6 10 NO MORE LONELY NIGHTS –•– Paul McCartney – 9 (6) — One of Paul’s loveliest solo singles ever, thanks to an incredibly sincere-sounding vocal and fine lyrics from Paul himself, pillowy backups from Linda McCartney and Eric Stewart, and most importantly and significantly, that guitar work. I’m not much of a Pink Floyd fan, but David Gilmour’s work on “Nights” is fucking awesome, all of it, his little filips and flourishes throughout the song and especially that epic coda he plays out against Anne Dudley (of the Art of Noise)’s synthesizers. In a chart loaded with great singles, this is one of my favorites.
7 11 SEA OF LOVE –•– The Honeydrippers – 9 (7) — Credit Atlantic boss Ahmet Ertegun for getting Robert Plant and friends, primarily Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Nile Rodgers, together to cut an EP of ’50s rock’n’roll, a marvelously fun idea — this is the kind of ’50s revival I can get firmly behind. Follow-up single “Rockin’ At Midnight” (#25 pop) is far better, but I love this Phil Phillips cover nonetheless; hearing Plant in full-on crooner mode (almost 30 years prior to his Grammy-winning Alison Krauss collab Raising Sand, not so terribly off-base when you think about it) is a joy. Plus the orchestration on this is absurdly lush for a late 1984 top 5 record.
8 8 PENNY LOVER –•– Lionel Richie – 10 (8) — Richie was thoroughly in his Imperial Phase here, with the fifth top 10 and final single from the monstrous Can’t Slow Down, which had been released over a year prior. This is a slushy ballad that never really gets moving, the kind of thing he can and does do in his sleep.
9 13 COOL IT NOW –•– New Edition – 12 (9) — Does bubblegum R&B get any better than this? No, no it does not. I’ll take this over most all of the early J5 tracks, even. And if you throw in “Mr. Telephone Man”? Then it’s not even close, to my ears.
10 14 WE BELONG –•– Pat Benatar – 7 (10) — A boring would-be-anthem that sounds as if it was written by Diane Warren, though it wasn’t. Benatar could do so much better, but as she aged, frankly, her records got softer, mostly to their discredit.

11 21 LIKE A VIRGIN –•– Madonna – 4 (11) — More like when she touched all of us for the very first time. Don’t misunderstand: I love her first, self-titled album, and think it’s one of her finest full-lengths. But “Virgin” was when Madonnamania really started, and for good reason: this is a killer single, and it took a personage like MLVC to sell it. In the hands of a lesser someone, this would’ve been a #18 single, not the world-beating colossus it became. But Madonna knew exactly what she was doing, and how to sell the fuck outta this. And the video! And the MTV VMAs performance! And the rest, as they say…
12 5 BETTER BE GOOD TO ME –•– Tina Turner – 13 (5) — Rupert Hine produced Howard Jones, Saga, The Fixx, and a bunch of similarly workmanlike acts; his work was nothin’ fancy, but it got the job done. But with Tina Turner, somehow, there was magic. Of course a lot of that is due to Tina herself, but goddamn if Hine didn’t make “Better” sound great — I mean, this record legit rocks. And that note Tina hits at the end of the bridge can still make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and take notice.
13 15 I CAN’T HOLD BACK –•– Survivor – 13 (13) — Survivor made firmly not-great pop/AOR, and this will not disabuse you of that notion.
14 9 STRUT –•– Sheena Easton – 16 (7) — The dry run for “Sugar Walls.” Sexy, but not too sexy.
15 4 PURPLE RAIN –•– Prince – 10 (2) — The greatest rock ballad of all time? Probably. I’ve always resented that Wham! kept this from becoming the third consecutive single from Purple Rain to hit #1. And when I saw the Revolution play this live in 2017, of course we all wept.
16 18 VALOTTE –•– Julian Lennon – 8 (16) — I feel strongly that this limp pop single wouldn’t have come anywhere near the top 40 were it not for a) the last name attached to it and b) the eerie similarities between Julian’s voice and that of his late father. At least follow-up “Too Late for Goodbyes” has a little tempo; “Valotte” is just crap.
17 17 IT AIN’T ENOUGH –•– Corey Hart – 11 (17) — Already coasting on his daytime soap-star looks.
18 19 WALKING ON A THIN LINE –•– Huey Lewis & The News – 8 (18) — Like “Penny Lover” (#8), this was the fifth single from a multi-platinum album which had been pumping out hits for over a year. Unlike “Penny Lover,” it’s actually one of the album’s better singles, a little tougher than the rest.
19 12 CARIBBEAN QUEEN (NO MORE LOVE ON THE RUN) –•– Billy Ocean – 18 (1) — Great, oil slick-like production — you can’t escape it. Ocean’s vocal is fine enough.
20 24 ALL I NEED –•– Jack Wagner – 8 (20) — On its way to a #2 peak (!), the daytime soap star thought he was a musician, but really he was a soap star who just got lucky once. This sounds like it.

21 27 BORN IN THE U.S.A. –•– Bruce Springsteen – 5 (21) — “Dancing in the Dark” is the ace pop song from Born in the U.S.A., but it’s the title track that’s absolutely majestic.
22 25 DO WHAT YOU DO –•– Jermaine Jackson – 7 (22) — Pillow-soft keyboard-driven pop, but it’s a slightly damp, sweaty pillow.
23 29 RUN TO YOU –•– Bryan Adams – 6 (23) — The first single from Reckless is arguably the one that kickstarted Adams into stardom, the first of six top 15 singles, including a trio of top 10s. He was perfect for MTV, as a “rocker” who was also dreamy enough to be seen as a teen idol. It didn’t hurt that he and partner in crime Jim Vallance wrote some pretty sturdy songs, “Run” foremost among them. That guitar riff, and Adams’s breathless vocal, are the impeccable keys here.
24 26 HELLO AGAIN –•– The Cars – 7 (24) — Synth-heavy AOR that does less and less for me as the years go by.
25 16 I JUST CALLED TO SAY I LOVE YOU –•– Stevie Wonder – 17 (1) — With a better arrangement, perhaps, this song wouldn’t be so universally loathed. I mean, sappy sentiment isn’t exactly something Wonder’s ever really steered clear from. But its “Casio preset” sound detracts badly from its set of not-awful-I-guess lyrics. That said, this isn’t anywhere near a patch on the likes of his ’70s funk output, or 1982’s “That Girl” and “Do I Do.”
26 28 WE ARE THE YOUNG –•– Dan Hartman – 10 (26) — One notch away from its peak, Hartman’s final hit is obviously heavily indebted in its keyboard sound to Paul Hardcastle’s superior “19,” only without the cut-up aspect. He sings it urgently, and its throb would’ve been a Donna Summer record five years prior. I love it.
27 34 UNDERSTANDING –•– Bob Seger – 5 (27) — It’s midtempo Seger — you know what you’re getting.
28 36 YOU’RE THE INSPIRATION –•– Chicago – 4 (28) — There’s a half-decent David Foster/Peter Cetera song buried under all of this synth glop. Foster’s production does “Inspiration” no favors, actually; previous singles “Hard Habit to Break” and “Stay the Night” are far superior, yet this peaked at the exact same position as “Break” on the Hot 100 (#3) — though it did make it to the top of the AC chart, which none of the other Chicago 17 singles did, so there’s that.
29 31 I DO’WANNA KNOW –•– REO Speedwagon – 7 (29) — I do’wanna listen.
30 32 CENTIPEDE –•– Rebbie Jackson – 10 (30) — What a surprise: the only taste of success had by eldest Jackson sister Rebbie was from a song written, produced, and with backing vocals from her little brother — perhaps you’ve heard of him. Fun fact: the Weather Girls are also on backing vocals! This is one funky little trifle, isn’t it?

31 20 DESERT MOON –•– Dennis DeYoung – 14 (10) — He fronted a massive late ’70s rock band, but really wanted to sing showtunes, as the mediocre pop of “Desert Moon” makes clear.
32 35 STRANGER IN TOWN –•– Toto – 7 (32) — Toto hit the jackpot with Toto IV, earning six Grammy awards including Album of the Year, and notching a pair of top 2 singles from the album in “Africa” and “Rosanna.” So of course when it came time for the follow-up, they fired lead vocalist Bobby Kimball and went in a more generic direction, sounding kind of like a Journey manqué. “Stranger,” the album’s lead single, made it only two notches higher than this, and nothing else even came close. Just like that, they were back to being session musicians — albeit some of the greatest session players of all time, but still.
33 40 JAMIE –•– Ray Parker Jr. – 4 (33) — This. Is. SO. Hooky. Like, I actually get this song stuck in my head randomly. All jokes about his “Ghostbusters” lawsuit aside, Parker actually has a long career of writing really hooky, sticky songs. This followed up his #1 smash and made it to #14 pop, his last visit to the top 20, and it’s a damned solid pop/R&B record — I love his vamping over the song’s end. And it may be the least creepy of his songs about women, so thank goodness for small favors?
34 42 THE BOYS OF SUMMER –•– Don Henley – 5 (34) — Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers wrote the music, Henley wrote the lyrics, and it’s pretty perfect as singles of the era go. That amazing Jean-Baptiste Mondino-directed video helps, of course, but the song does such an incredible job of invoking longing and wistfulness that you can almost ignore that it’s by, y’know, the head and probably grossest Eagle.
35 39 (PRIDE) IN THE NAME OF LOVE –•– U2 – 7 (35) — Try, just try, to imagine a time when U2 were not the biggest band in the world, had yet to appear on any US magazine covers, and were considered “new wave” since they were Irish and it was the early ’80s. There really was such a time, and it was from 1980-84. “Pride” was U2’s first-ever US hit, scraping its way to #33 on the pop chart, going all the way to #2 on Hot Rock Tracks, a/k/a the AOR chart, and garnering substantial MTV play. Those chiming chords the Edge opens the song with sounded like nothing else on top 40 radio in late 1984, and the same can be said for the way Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois produced it. And then of course there’s Bono, who is one in a million as singers go: no one can be him, or even be like him (though plenty have tried), because he’s so unique, so utterly himself. In 1984, to a just-turned-14-year-old in the midwest, this sounded kinda like the future.
36 33 WHAT ABOUT ME? –•– Kenny Rogers with Kim Carnes and James Ingram – 13 (15) — A month prior, this topped the AC chart (in a smokin’ hot 8 weeks), spending a fortnight there and giving co-writer Richard Marx his first-ever #1 on any Billboard chart. If you can’t tell from listening to it, the other writers here are Rogers, and Yacht Rocker extraordinaire turned soft rock king David Foster. Foster and Rogers produced, but really, this is a David Foster record all the way, the natural step on from his smash hits for Chicago on their 16 and 17 (cf. #28) albums. Absurdly creamy for a soft pop record, but it fucking gets to me — not just the sad love triangle lyrics, but those voices — and those harmonies! — and the warm bath production of Foster. The latter makes it all the more impactful when, 3:10 in, Foster brings up the snare and catches you by surprise.
37 45 EASY LOVER –•– Philip Bailey & Phil Collins – 3 (37) — Well, I mean, come on. Isn’t it a scientific fact that this song is amazing? Check out these wacko chart stats: #2 pop (kept from the top by Foreigner’s execrable “I Want to Know What Love Is”), #3 R&B, #5 Hot Rock Tracks, #15 AC. Name me another song to hit the top 20 of all those charts! But beyond that, this is a superb marriage of producer, singers, and song, co-written by Bailey and Collins with bassist extraordinaire Nathan East. I absolutely love the way Collins put this song together.
38 43 THE BELLE OF ST. MARK –•– Sheila E. – 7 (38) — I mean, it’s fine and all, but it’s no “Glamorous Life.” But then, not much is.
39 46 TENDER YEARS –•– John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band – 9 (39) — Much the same way that you can blame Nirvana for the shitty likes of Candlebox, even if it’s not actually their fault, Springsteen is directly attributable for the brief, odd phenom that was Eddie and the Cruisers. Cafferty and his band of merry men are the essence of “bar band breaks big.”
40 56 LOVERBOY –•– Billy Ocean – 2 (40) — Co-produced by “Mutt” Lange, and it sounds like it: it’s got that gallop. I find a tougher track better fits Ocean’s fair-to-middling voice.

[Originally written in 2017; heavily edited in 2024.]