Hidden gems

Remember those songs you used to listen to all the time and now you never seem to hear anymore? I’m talking about those hidden gems on albums that never got released as singles and never had any radio play. Songs that you only know about because you used to listen to the album or cassette constantly. But now you don’t even have a record or cassette player anymore and if you haven’t replaced those albums on CD you probably haven’t heard these songs in years.
Here is a list I put together of hidden gems I still cherish from the early to mid ‘80s:

Dragon Attack - Queen (Play the Game)
Rage in the Cage - J. Geils Band (Freeze Frame)
It’s Your Life - Loverboy (Get Lucky)
I Got the Six - ZZ Top (Eliminator)
Carry Me Away - Rick Springfield (Working Class Dog)
Can’t Stop the World - Go Go’s (Beauty and the Beat)
Don’t Worry Baby - Los Lobos (Will the Wolf Survive)
Too Much Information - The Police (Ghost in the Machine)
I Can’t Take It - Cheap Trick (Next Position Please)
Through Being Cool - Devo (New Traditionalists)

1980s music continued

Here is the rest of my list of great music from the 1980s picking up with the year I went to college. The first part is here.
As you can see there is a precipitous decline in the number of songs each year as we move forward in time. Why is this? Did my musical tastes stagnate over time the further I got away from my high school years? Or was there something else going on? My friend Jose Johnson maintains that the early ‘80s were an unprecedented time when multiple genres of music were experiencing a renaissance and were all crossing over into mainstream pop at the same time. Today the music market is so fragmented that it is difficult for any artist to have that kind of mass appeal.


1984
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
Footloose - Kenny Loggins
Legs - ZZ Top
Like A Virgin - Madonna
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham
Dancing In the Dark - Bruce Springsteen
Jump - Van Halen
Panama - Van Halen
Hot For Teacher - Van Halen
All Night Long - Billy Squier
Rock Me Tonight - Billy Squier
Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
Jokerman - Bob Dylan
When Doves Cry - Prince
Pride (In the Name of Love) - U2
What’s Love Got To Do With It - Tina Turner
I Feel For You - Chaka Kahn
Against All Odds - Phil Collins
Sister Christian - Night Ranger
Karma Chameleon - Culture Club
Missing You - John Waite
Cover Me - Bruce Springsteen
Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr.
Let’s Go Crazy - Prince
I Want A New Drug - Huey Lewis and The News
99 Luftballoons - Nena
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
The Reflex - Duran Duran
Will the Wolf Survive - Los Lobos
Valotte - Julian Lennon
Pink Houses - John Mellencamp
Don’t Answer Me - Alan Parsons Project
Somebody’s Watching Me - Rockwell
Hold Me Now - Thompson Twins
We’re Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister
You Might Think - The Cars
Round and Round - Ratt
Better Be Good To Me - Tina Turner
I’m So Excited - Pointer Sisters
I’m Still Standing - Elton John
Nobody Told Me - John Lennon
On the Dark Side - John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band
You Look So Good In Love - George Strait
Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler) - Alabama
If You’re Going To Play In Texas - Alabama
Mama He’s Crazy - The Judds
Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper
Rock You Like a Hurricane - Scorpions

1985
All She Wants To Do Is Dance - Don Henley
Sea of Love - Honeydrippers
California Girls - David Lee Roth
Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and The Waves
Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Glory Days - Bruce Springsteen
Centerfield - John Fogerty
You Spin Me - Dead or Alive
Material Girl - Madonna
(Don’t You) Forget About Me - Simple Minds
The Heat is On - Glenn Frey
Summer of ‘69 - Bryan Adams
Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen
Money For Nothing - Dire Straits
I Want To Know What Love Is - Foreigner
We Are The World - USA for Africa
Some Like it Hot - Power Station
Everybody Wants To Rule the World - Tears for Fears
Shout - Tears for Fears
The Power of Love - Huey Lewis and The News
Life in a Northern Town - Dream Academy
One Night In Bangkok - Murray Head
Small Town - John Mellencamp
And She Was - Talking Heads
Don’t Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty
Sleeping Bag - ZZ Top
Dead Man’s Party - Oingo Boingo
Take On Me - a-ha
Raspberry Beret - Prince
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free - Sting
Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind - George Strait
Can't Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon
One More Night - Phil Collins
Sussdio - Phil Collins
Sun City - Artists Against Apartheid
Tonight It's You - Cheap Trick



1986
Addicted To Love - Robert Palmer
Kiss - Prince
ROCK in the USA - John Mellencamp
Walk This Way - Run DMC/Aerosmith
Walk Like an Egyptian - The Bangles
You Give Love A Bad Name - Bon Jovi
The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades - Timbuk3
Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel
Higher Love - Steve Winwood
Word Up - Cameo
Why Can’t This Be Love - Van Halen
Everybody Have Fun Tonight - Wang Chung
Walk of Life - Dire Straits
Rock Me Amadeus - Falco
Like A Rock - Bob Seger
Got My Mind Set On You - George Harrison
Invisible Touch - Genesis
Land of Confusion - Genesis
Amanda - Boston
The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby and the Range
Press - Paul McCartney
You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon
Graceland - Paul Simon
When the Heart Rules the Mind - GTR
Spirit in the Sky - Doctor and the Medics
What You Need - INXS
Manic Monday - The Bangles
Tuff Enuff - The Fabulous Thunderbirds
Diggin’ Up Bones - Randy Travis
She and I - Alabama
Honkey Tonk Man - Dwight Yoakum
Guitars and Cadillacs - Dwight Yoakum
Sara - Starship
Living in America - James Brown


1987
Livin’ On A Prayer - Bon Jovi
Fight For Your Right (To Party) - Beastie Boys
La Bamba - Los Lobos
Faith - George Michael
Big Time - Peter Gabriel
With Or Without You - U2
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Lookin’ For - U2
Bad - Michael Jackson
Touch of Grey - Grateful Dead
Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes - Paul Simon
Funky Town - Pseudo Echo
Keep Your Hands To Yourself - Georgia Satellites
(I Just) Died In Your Arms - Cutting Crew
U Got The Look - Prince
We’ll Be Together - Sting
One I Love - REM
Brilliant Disguise - Bruce Springsteen
Ocean Front Property - George Strait
All My Ex’s Live In Texas - George Strait
Am I Blue - George Strait
Forever and Ever, Amen - Randy Travis
Little Sister - Dwight Yoakum
Everybody Have Fun Tonight - Wang Chung
Big Love - Fleetwood Mac
Is This Love - Whitesnake


1988
Sweet Child O’ Mine - Guns N Roses
Red Red Wine - UB40
Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard
Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N Roses
Paradise City - Guns N Roses
KoKoMo - Beach Boys
Need You Tonight - INXS
Devil Inside - INXS
The Way You Make Me Feel - Michael Jackson
Bad Medicine - Bon Jovi
Don’t Worry Be Happy - Bobbie McFerrin
What I Am - Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians
Cult of Personality - Living Color
It’s the End of the World As We Know It - REM
Don’t Believe the Hype - Public Enemy
Tomorrow People - Ziggy Marley
Simply Irresistable - Robert Palmer
Dirty Diana - Michael Jackson
Desire - U2
Don’t Be Cruel - Cheap Trick
Fast Car - Tracy Chapman
When It’s Love - Van Halen
Streets of Bakersfield - Dwight Yoakum/Buck Owens
Love Bites - Def Leppard
Handle With Care - Traveling Wilburys
Beds Are Burning - Midnight Oil


1989
Love Shack - B-52s
Bust A Move - Young MC
Paradise City - Guns N Roses
Wild Thing - Tone Loc
Funky Cold Medina - Tone Loc
She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals
Closer To Fine - Indigo Girls
Love In An Elevator - Aerosmith
We Didn’t Start the Fire - Billy Joel
Batdance - Prince
Stand - REM
Sowing the Seeds of Love - Tears for Fears
I Won’t Back Down - Tom Petty
One - Metallica
Straight Up - Paula Abdul
The House is Rockin’ - Stevie Ray Vaughn
Crossfire - Stevie Ray Vaughn
Cathy’s Clown - Reba McEntire
Killin’ Time - Clint Black
High Cotton - Alabama
Ace In the Hole - George Strait
OPP - Naughty By Nature
End of the Line - Traveling Wilburys

Dixie Chicks sweep Grammies!

Wow. You know it’s going to be a bad next few years for conservatives.
The Dixie Chicks swept the Grammies last night taking all five of the awards they were nominated for including best album and best record of the year.
No. 1 Chicks fan Atrios has the video link here.
It is very likely that we will soon see Al Gore win an Oscar for his remarkable film An Inconvenient Truth.
And all of this just a couple of months after Republicans got spanked in the 2006 mid-terms losing control of both the House and Senate. Bush’s popularity is at an all-time low, the war in Iraq is the quagmire that every level-headed American said it would be, the deficit is out of control due to Bush’s fiscally irresponsible tax cuts for the rich (just as every level-headed American predicted it would be). And on and on.
Who would have thought that just a few years after the Dixie Chicks got trashed for mouthing off about Bush, that they would be back on top of the world and Bush would be in the doghouse.

1980s music

I was born in the mid-’60s so I pretty much missed out on that decade musically. I was a child of the ‘70s and got my first real taste of music during that period. But the ‘80s is where my musical tastes matured and where it still seems to be anchored.
I was looking at the Billboard charts for the most recent years and I can barely identify many of the performers much less claim to have even heard the music. It’s really sad. Was the music better back in the ‘80s or is that just the way it is with everyone - that they tend to like the music they heard in high school/college and pretty much stick with that?
Today when I go to the mall or a restaurant I am liable to here piped in music playing the hits of the ‘80s. I realize what is going on. They are targeting my demographic group because we are now at the age where we have most of the spending power. But I can’t help but think at these times that the music from that period was just better in some ways.
Here are the songs that I think were the best from my high school years starting in 1980 through 1983:

1980
Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
What I Like About You - Romantics
Call Me - Blondie
Whip It - Devo
Another Brick in the Wall - Pink Floyd
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me - Billy Joel
Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar
Brass in Pocket - The Pretenders
(Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon
Coming Up - Paul McCartney
Master Blaster (Jammin) - Stevie Wonder
You May Be Right - Billy Joel
Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen
Cars - Gary Numan
I Love A Rainy Night - Eddie Rabbit
Coward of the County - Kenny Rogers
My Sharona - The Knack
Stomp - Brothers Johnson
Magic - Olivia Newton John
Emotional Rescue - Rolling Stones
Drivin’ My Life Away - Eddie Rabbit
Sailing - Christopher Cross
I Can’t Tell You Why - The Eagles
Lookin’ For Love - Johnny Lee
Don’t Do Me Like That - Tom Petty
Refugee - Tom Petty
Tennessee River - Alabama
On the Road Again - Willie Nelson
Good Ol’ Boys (Dukes of Hazzard Theme) - Waylon Jennings
Smokey Mountain Rain - Ronnie Milsap
Don't Stand So Close To Me - The Police
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da - The Police
Crazy Train - Ozzy Osborne
Ant Music - Adam Ant
Fame - Irene Cara
Could I Have This Dance - Anne Murray
Turning Japanese - The Vapors



1981
Start Me Up - Rolling Stones
Jessie’s Girl - Rick Springfield
Love Is Alright Tonight - Rick Springfield
Waiting For A Girl Like You - Foreigner
Don’t Stand So Close To Me - The Police
Back in Black - AC/DC
Elvira - Oak Ridge Boys
Super Freak - Rick James
Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey
Our Lips Are Sealed - The Go Go’s
Urgent - Foreigner
The Stroke - Billy Squier
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police
Spirits in the Material World - The Police
Invisible Sun - The Police
The Waiting - Tom Petty
Woman - John Lennon
Watching the Wheels - John Lennon
Keep On Loving You - REO Speedwagon
Take It On the Run - REO Speedwagon
Physical - Olivia Newton John
All Those Years Ago - George Harrison
Celebration - Kool and the Gang
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads
Under Pressure - Queen/David Bowie
Bad to the Bone - George Thorogood
Abacab - Genesis
You Make My Dreams - Hall and Oates
Private Eyes - Hall and Oates
Shake It Up - The Cars
Rapture - Blondie
Tempted - Squeeze
Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) - Christopher Cross
America - Neil Diamond
Too Much Time On My Hands - Styx
You Better You Bet - The Who
Old Flame - Alabama
Feels So Right - Alabama
Love In the First Degree - Alabama
9 to 5 - Dolly Parton
Texas Women - Hank Williams Jr.
Unwound - George Strait
Kiss On My List - Hall and Oates
For Your Eyes Only - Sheena Easton
Angel in the Morning - Juice Newton
Queen of Hearts - Juice Newton
The River - Bruce Springsteen
All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down - Hank Williams Jr.
Louisiana Saturday Night - Mel McDaniel


1982
Mickey - Toni Basil
Maneater - Hall and Oates
I’m So Excited - Pointer Sisters
We Got the Beat - The Go Gos
Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
I Love Rock and Roll - Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
Jack and Diane - John Mellencamp
Hurt So Good - John Mellencamp
Working For the Weekend - Loverboy
Lucky Ones - Loverboy
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
Get Down On It - Kool & the Gang
Who Can It Be Now - Men at Work
Rock This Town - Stray Cats
Don’t You Want Me - Human League
Centerfold - J. Geils Band
Freeze Frame - J. Geils Band
Always On My Mind - Willie Nelson
I Can’t Go For That - Hall and Oates
867-5309 (Jenny Jenny) - Tommy Tutone
I Ran - A Flock of Seagulls
Abracadabra - Steve Miller Band
You Got Lucky - Tom Petty
Steppin’ Out - Joe Jackson
Ebony and Ivory - Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
Take It Away - Paul McCartney
Tom Sawyer - Rush
Red Barchetta - Rush
Juke Box Hero - Foreigner
She’s Tight - Cheap Trick
If You Want My Love - Cheap Trick
Heat of the Moment - Asia
Only Time Will Tell - Asia
Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant
I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow
Hold Me - Fleetwood Mac
Love Plus One - Haircut 100
The Look of Love - ABC
Black Coffee in Bed - Squeeze
Rock the Casbah - The Clash
Twilight Zone - Golden Earring
Allentown - Billy Joel
Goodnight Saigon - Billy Joel
Our House - Madness
Only the Lonely - The Motels
Shakin’ - Eddie Money
It’s Raining Again - Supertramp
Rosanna - Toto
I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do) - Hall and Oates
Pass the Dutchie - Musical Youth
Africa - Toto
Words - Missing Persons
Kids In America - Kim Wilde
Shake It Up - The Cars
Chariots of Fire - Vangelis
You Can Do Magic - America
Think I’m In Love - Eddie Money
Do You Believe In Love - Huey Lewis and The News
Mountain Music - Alabama
Take Me Down - Alabama
Close Enough To Perfect - Alabama
Always On My Mind - Willie Nelson
Fool Hearted Memory - George Strait
I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton
A Country Boy Can Survive - Hank Williams Jr.
Listen To the Radio - Don Williams
Up the Ladder to the Roof - The Nylons
Shock the Monkey - Peter Gabriel
Open Arms - Journey
You've Got Another Thing Coming - Judas Priest



1983
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
Beat It - Michael Jackson
1999 - Prince
Little Red Corvette - Prince
Come On Eileen - Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Flashdance (What a Feeling) - Irene Cara
Rock of Ages - Def Leppard
White Wedding - Billy Idol
Uptown Girl - Billy Joel
Electric Avenue - Eddie Grant
Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top
Got Me Under Pressure - ZZ Top
Let’s Dance - David Bowie
Modern Love - David Bowie
Every Breath You Take - The Police
King of Pain - The Police
She Blinded Me With Science - Thomas Dolby
Everybody Wants You - Billy Squier
New Year’s Day - U2
Jeopardy - Greg Kihn Band
Down Under - Men at Work
Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me - Culture Club
Burning Down the House - Talking Heads
Radio Free Europe - REM
Tell Her About It - Billy Joel
One Thing Leads To Another - The Fixx
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics
Say Say Say - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson
True - Spandau Ballet
Back on the Chain Gang - The Pretenders
She’s A Beauty - The Tubes
In A Big Country - Big Country
Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran
You Can’t Hurry Love - Phil Collins
Der Kommissar - After the Fire
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ - Michael Jackson
Affair of the Heart - Rick Springfield
Come Dancing - The Kinks
I’m Still Standing - Elton John
Always Something There To Remind Me - Naked Eyes
Marina Del Ray - George Strait
Amarillo By Morning - George Strait
The Closer You Get - Alabama
Swingin’ - John Anderson
I've Got a Rock-n-Roll Heart - Eric Clapton


Next up, the college years.