So this is it!!
These are the most important songs of the 80s!!
You hear them on the radio, on the tv, at the club and instantly take you to that amazing decade.
For more than a month I've been designing this countdown and finally, thanks to your votes and an extreme research (including the web and countless visits to my favorite 80s music club), I give you:
THE ULTIMATE TOP 100 SONGS THAT DEFINE THE 80s
100
Let the music play - SHANNON, 1983
An energetic tune that is consider the first freestyle record in dance music history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpEGDXhu5oM
This megahit that combines latin rhythms with a heavy syncopated drum sound opened the door for important dance acts as Madonna, Expose, George Michael and many others.
Try to play it in your room... Impossible not to dance to it!!!!!!!
99
The promise - WHEN IN ROME, 1988
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_unHjRntc9I
The first of many one hit wonders included in this countdown comes from this british band and their beautiful song that found massive success for the second time after being featured over the end credits of the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite.
98
Fast car - TRACY CHAPMAN, 1988
The first time that I heard this song, I pictured a young folk singer sharing HIS social message on the radio. When I watched the video on tv, it took me by surprise the fact that it was a female black singer.
Accompanying herself with only a guitar and rarely addressing the audience, Tracy Chapman helped restore singer/songwriters music to the spotlight and shared her liberal politics with artist like 10,000 maniacs and R.E.M. proving an enourmous influence on American College Campuses of the late 80's.
Once a coffehouse performer, Ms. Chapman got the honor of Best New Artist of the Year and 2 additional Grammy Awards for her debut album that includes this meditation tale.
97
What I like about you - THE ROMANTICS, 1980This song was only a moderate success at the time of its release back in 1980. It was only towards the end of the 1980s, after the song had been licensed for use in television commercials for Budweiser beer, that "What I Like About You" grew to become one of the most popular rock anthems of all time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp5GhTty_TQ 96
Walking on sunshine - KATRINA AND THE WAVES, 1985
Once a popular and catchy tune of the 80s, the song took a more positive direction during the events of Hurricane Katrina. The song was, in fact, widely played in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast in the months after the storm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eONhto0x_nI95
We are the world - U.S.A. FOR AFRICA, 1985The song that was inspired by the British Band Aid project and raised more than $63 millions to help famine-relief efforts in Ethiopia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcrwu6WGoMs
The supergroup of popular american musicians includes the most important artist of the time with the exception of Prince and Madonna. The first allegedly wasn't comfortable in a room with so many other big stars and the Queen of Pop turned down the offer while promoting her first tour. Ironically her song CRAZY FOR YOU (#110) succeeded the charity single from the #1 position.
94
I can go for that (No can do) - HALL & OATES, 1982
A little bit of soul, a little bit of blues, and the perfect pop tune was born!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vouDK-LELEU
I can go for that is one of few songs that have achieved the #1 spot simultaneously in the pop, dance and the R&B chart, a rare fact for a non-African American act. The popularity of this tune in the urban contemporary music charts has been samplered in the work of important R&B and hip-hop groups over the past twenty-five years (De La Soul, Heavy D, Notorious B.I.G. among others)
93Head over heels - THE GO-GO'S, 1984
This is the only song of the Californian female rock band included in the countdown and also the first of two songs that share the same title. The Tears for Fears track will be charted later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9nqCM8Ito892Should I stay or should I go? - THE CLASH, 1981
The song that featured Mick Jones on lead vocals became the band's only number-one single in the UK thanks to a Levi's tv commercial a decade after it was originally released.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqCkLHwUkV8When Joe Strummer decided to do the backing vocals in spanish, Ecuadorian born Eddie Garcia, the tape operator of the recording studio, called his mother in Brooklyn Heights and helped translate the lyrics over a phone conversation.
Even when LA BAMBA (#164) and LA ISLA BONITA are not included in this countdown, this song is not the only one that features spanish words in its lyrics. There's more to come...
QUE VIVA EL ESPAÑOL!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqH21LEmfbQ91
Back on the chain gang - THE PRETENDERS, 1982
Originally related to the Chrissie Hynde - Ray Davies (leader of The Kinks) couple, the meaning of this song changed after James Honeyman-Scott, the Pretenders guitarist, died of a drug overdose at the age of 26 in 1982.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YARxccf0Uno
One of the most memorable songs of The Pretenders. It was inspired by the chain-gang chant heard during the chorus of the Sam Cooke's song "Chain Gang":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmZdvVnMXCc
TO BE CONTINUED...
