Theme: Hits from the 80’s
A video collection of hits from 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989. “The Eighties.”
Vnertia Music and Artist Project
Hits of the 1980’s on vnertia “Video’s in Motion” highlights many of the artist and songs popular during the years of 1980 through 1989.
Like many “music revolutions”, the 1980’s music scene was a backlash against a social norm, in this case: Disco music. (Similar to the 90’s grunge’s backlash to glam rock).
The 1980’s began with a movement away from the funky sounds and ensemble arrangements of Disco that flooded the music and theatrical mainstream during the 1970’s. In many ways, one could argue that the 1980’s, with its invent of MTV, the walkman (and later CD’s) popularized music media and was the forefront of our interactions with music today. At no time before were music lovers able to affordably record music (cassette tapes) for home listening or portable players. Add this new freedom to create music ‘tapes’ aka “mix tapes” to the fact that America was changing as well and you have a new mainstream – the 1980’s.
In a nutshell the 1980’s saw:
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The synthesized notes and drum beats of pop music becoming the standard on the airwaves,
the transformation of rock to glam rock,
the emergence of speed metal / heavy metal from its underground hangout,
the alternative music scene known as “New Wave”
and the cross-culture success of innner-city rap
– all of it finding a niche of new listeners and viewers on MTV and discussed over an Orange Julius or at the arcade in sub-urban malls.
At 12:10 A.M. on August 1, 1981 - The very first video to be aired on MTV was “Buggles- Video Killed The Radio Star”. Play Video
The irony of this choice escaped few people, but rather than kill radio, MTV and other music channels have helped boost its popularity while increasing music sales and developing a new form of entertainment.
Unfortunately, it also made producing music far more expensive - culminating in the very bland bland music of recent years. It is also interesting that one of the biggest criticisms leveled at MTV now is that it doesn’t play enough music video and it has become more of a mainstream music lifestyle channel. From most reports this is occurring with all the MTV networks.
Blondie an American rock band that first gained fame in the late 1970s, and has so far sold over 60 million records. The band was a pioneer in the early American punk rock and New Wave scenes. Its first two albums contained strong elements of these genres, and although successful in the United Kingdom and Australia, Blondie was regarded as an underground band in the United States until the release of Parallel Lines in 1978. Over the next three years, the band achieved several hit singles and was noted for its eclectic mix of musical styles incorporating elements of disco, pop and reggae, while retaining a basic style as a New Wave band.
Lead singer Deborah Harry achieved a level of celebrity that eclipsed other band members, leading to tension within the group. Following a poorly received album and with core member Chris Stein diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease, the group disbanded in 1982. As members pursued other projects, Blondie’s reputation grew over the following decade and the group reformed in 1997, achieving renewed success and a number one single in the United Kingdom with “Maria” in 1999. The group toured and performed throughout the world over the following years, and was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the RockWalk of Fame in 2006.
Pink Floyd are an English rock band that initially earned recognition for their psychedelic or space rock music, and, as they evolved, for their progressive rock music. They are known for philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative cover art, and elaborate live shows. One of rock music’s most successful acts, the group have sold over 200 million albums worldwide including 74.5 million albums in the United States alone.
Pink Floyd had moderate mainstream success and were one of the most popular bands in the London underground music scene in the late 1960s as a psychedelic band led by Syd Barrett; however, Barrett’s erratic behaviour eventually forced his colleagues to replace him with guitarist and singer David Gilmour. After Barrett’s departure, singer and bass player Roger Waters gradually became the dominant and driving force in the mid-1970s, until his eventual departure from the group in 1985. The band recorded several albums, achieving worldwide success with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), and The Wall (1979). In 1985, Waters declared Pink Floyd “A spent force”, but the remaining members, led by Gilmour, continued recording and touring under the name Pink Floyd. Although they were unsuccessfully sued by Waters for rights to the name, they again enjoyed worldwide success with A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987) and The Division Bell (1994). Eventually they reached a settlement out of court with Waters allowing them use of the name.
Waters performed with the band for the first time in 24 years on July 2, 2005 at the London Live 8 concert.
Kim Carnes (born July 20, 1945 in Pasadena, California) is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter. She is noted for her distinctive, raspy voice which she attributes to many hours spent singing in smoky bars and clubs.
In 1981, she recorded the Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss song “Bette Davis Eyes”. As the first single released from the album Mistaken Identity, it spent nine weeks at number one on the US singles charts and became a worldwide hit. The song’s success propelled the album to No. 1 for four weeks. The single became the No. 1 song of 1981 and is second only to Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” as the biggest hit of the 1980s. The song earned both the Record of the Year and Song of the Year awards at the 1982 Grammys and Carnes was nominated for Best Pop Female.
Rick Springfield (born Richard Lewis Springthorpe on August 23, 1949 in Sydney) is an Australian-American songwriter, musician and actor. As a musician, he is most famous for the 1981 #1 single “Jessie’s Girl”, which became a Grammy Award-winning landmark of 1980s pop-rock and helped establish the emerging music video age. Also an actor, Springfield’s best known role is that of the character Dr. Noah Drake on the daytime drama General Hospital. He originated the character from 1981-1983, and then returned to play him again from 2005 until present.
Rick Springfield Official Site
Joan Jett (born Joan Marie Larkin on September 22, 1958 in Ardmore, Pennsylvania) is an American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer and actress.
She is best known for her hit single “I Love Rock N’ Roll”, which was #1 on the Billboard charts from March 20 to May 1, 1982, as well as for her other popular recordings including “Crimson and Clover”, “Do You Wanna Touch Me”, “Light of Day”, “Love is All Around”, “Bad Reputation,” “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” and “Little Liar.”
Jett has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Her musical and song-writing approach is heavily influenced by the hard-edged, hard beat-driven rhythms common to many rock bands of her native Philadelphia, often featuring lyrics surrounding themes of lost love, criticisms of insincerity, the struggles and resolution of the American working class, and the quest for authenticity.
The J. Geils Band
The J. Geils Band was an American rock band who were formed in 1967 in Worcester, Massachusetts, that had a successful R&B-influenced blues rock sound in the 1970s, before moving towards a more pop-influenced sound in the 1980s, which brought them MTV airplay and their 1982 international hit single “Centerfold”.
The Police are a three-piece rock band consisting of bassist/lead vocalist Sting (Gordon Sumner), guitarist Andy Summers, and drummer Stewart Copeland. The band became globally popular in the early 1980s, playing a style of rock that was influenced by jazz, reggae, and punk music. Their 1983 album, Synchronicity, was number one in the UK and the US and sold over 8,000,000 copies in the US. The band broke up in the mid-1980s, but reunited in early 2007 with the announcement that they are undertaking a world tour.
The tour is scheduled from the middle of that year on until mid-2008, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of their hit single “Roxanne” and also, to a lesser extent, that of their formation as a group. To date The Police have sold over 50 million albums worldwide. Rolling Stone ranked The Police number 70 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Men at Work was an Australian reggae-influenced rock band which achieved international success in the 1980s. They are the only Australian artists to reach the Number 1 position in album and singles charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom with Business as Usual and “Down Under” respectively. The group won the 1983 Grammy Award for Best New Artist and sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
Nu Shooz was a 1980s electronic dance music group fronted by husband and wife duo John Smith and Valerie Day, based in Portland, Oregon. They released three albums in the U.S. during the 80s, but it was their second album, Poolside, that brought the group’s sound to a wider audience. Nu Shooz originally released the single “I Can’t Wait” in Portland during the winter of 1985 on Poolside Records. The original recording was done at Cascade Recording in Portland in the fall of 1984. “I Can’t Wait” was a big hit on Portland radio stations at the time, and this got the attention of Atlantic Records who signed them to their label. Atlantic had Nu Shooz re-record “I Can’t Wait” and issued the new version in February 1986.
They scored two major pop / R&B / dance hits. “I Can’t Wait” climbed to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June of 1986 and spent 15 weeks in the Top 40, and it also hit #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart earlier that year. Its follow-up, “Point Of No Return”, was remixed by Shep Pettibone and also topped the dance chart in September of 1986; the song peaked at #28 on the Hot 100. Both singles were on their album Poolside, which charted on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart as high as #27 and sold a half million copies in the U.S., garnering gold record RIAA certification on October 2, 1986.
In 1987, Nu Shooz was nominated for a Grammy award in the category Best New Artist, based on their breakthrough success the previous year. They lost the award to Bruce Hornsby & the Range; the other nominees that year were Glass Tiger, Simply Red and Timbuk3. In 1988 they released the album Told U So, which had their final chart entries to date: “Should I Say Yes?” hit #41 on the Hot 100, and the track “Are You Lookin’ For Somebody Nu,” topped out at #2 on the dance charts. The album itself climbed Billboard’s Top 200 Album chart to #93.
Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958), often referred to as MJ and also known as The King of Pop is an American musician and entertainer. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene at the age of eleven as a member of the Jackson 5 and went on to become a pop icon as a solo artist. Five of his studio albums, Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous and HIStory remain some of the worlds best selling pop records. His successful career and controversial, enigmatic personal life have been a part of pop culture for almost four decades. Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music in the late 1970s, becoming the first black entertainer to amass a strong cross-over following on MTV. He transformed the music video into an art form and a promotional tool through complex story lines, dance routines, special effects and famous cameo appearances. The popularity of videos aired on MTV such as “Beat It” and “Billie Jean” helped to put the relatively-young channel “on the map”, while videos such as “Black or White” and “Scream” made Jackson a dominant staple on MTV into the 1990s. Jackson popularized physically-complicated dance techniques such as the robot and the moonwalk, along with a distinctive musical sound and vocal style that have influenced a generation of hip hop, pop, and R&B artists.
Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 as a group act and 2001 as a solo artist, becoming one of a few to be inducted twice. In 2006, Jackson received eight Guinness World Records; these included “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time”, and best-selling album ever for Thriller. Jackson has received thirteen Grammy Awards (eight on a single night in 1984), and two of his solo albums have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Jackson has charted thirteen number one singles in the United States, more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era. In November 2006, the World Music Awards announced that Jackson had sold 750 million units worldwide and has given several hundred million dollars to charity. However, Jackson’s controversial appearance and actions have damaged his reputation amongst some of the public, and album sales have declined since the mid-1990s.
Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is best known as the lead singer and drummer of English progressive rock group Genesis and as a Grammy and Academy Award-winning solo artist. He has also starred in numerous films.
Collins sang the lead vocals on eight American chart-toppers between 1984 and 1989; seven as a solo artist and one with Genesis. His singles, often dealing with lost love, ranged from the drum-heavy “In the Air Tonight”, to the dance pop of “Sussudio”, to the political statements of his most successful song, “Another Day in Paradise”. His international popularity transformed Genesis from a progressive rock group to a regular on the pop charts and an early MTV mainstay. Collins’ professional career began as a drummer, first with obscure rock group Flaming Youth and then more famously with Genesis. In Genesis, Collins originally supplied backing vocals for front man Peter Gabriel, singing lead on only two songs, namely “For Absent Friends” from 1971’s Nursery Cryme album and “More Fool Me” from Selling England by the Pound, which was released in 1973. On Gabriel’s departure in 1975, Collins became the group’s lead singer. As the decade closed, Genesis’s first international hit, “Follow You, Follow Me”, demonstrated a drastic change from the band’s early years. His concurrent solo career, heavily influenced by his personal life, brought both him and Genesis commercial success. According to Atlantic Records, Collins’ total worldwide sales as a solo artist, as of 2002, were over 100 million.
Wham! (often written WHAM!) was a pop band formed in 1981 by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. They were briefly known in the United States as Wham! UK due to a naming conflict with another band.
The first record to be released by the band was “Wham Rap!”. It was a double-A side with a Social Mix and Anti-social Mix. The record was banned for general release in the UK due to the profanity in the Anti-social Mix. In October 1982, their song “Young Guns (Go For It!)” was issued. The song was an appeal from one youthful lad to his friend to not throw his life away so early on marriage. It stalled outside the UK Top 40 but then Wham! got lucky when Top of the Pops scheduled them. Ridgeley convinced a reluctant George that Wham! needed to change their image and sound frequently, from the leather-clad moody singers of “Bad Boys” and “Young Guns (Go For It!)” to the more fashionable pop superstars of “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.”
Wham / George Michael Official Site
Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie (born August 16, 1958) known artistically as Madonna, is a multiple Grammy Award winning American superstar, singer-songwriter, dancer, musician, record producer and Golden Globe-winning actress. She is known for the use of sexual, social and religious themes in her work and has been dubbed the “Material Girl” and “Queen of Pop” by the media.
Since her debut in 1982, Madonna has released many chart-topping albums and singles, and has sold over 200 million copies worldwide. According to Guinness World Records she is the “World’s most-successful female musician” and the top earning female singer in the world with an estimated net worth of over $400 million. The RIAA named her the “Best Selling Female Rock Artist of the Twentieth Century”, the 2nd most successful top selling female artist in the U.S. and 15th biggest selling artist overall. Billboard reported that her 2006 Confessions Tour holds the record for the highest grossing concert tour by a female artist. She is also the most successful singles artist on the United World Chart with thirteen #1 and twenty-three Top 10 singles. On March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Chaka Khan (born March 23, 1953) is a multiple Grammy Award-winning American singer known for hit songs such as “I’m Every Woman”, “I Feel For You” and “Through the Fire”. Khan was first featured as a member of the funk band Rufus before beginning her solo career. Though regarded as an R&B singer, she has performed numerous musical genres including funk, disco, jazz, ballads, hip hop, adult contemporary, pop and blues standards.
Embracing Christianity, Khan participated in a live all-star gospel concert recording for artist Richard Smallwood’s new album Journey: Live In New York. Khan is featured on the song “Oh, How Precious.” On her official website, Khan credits singer Karen Clark Sheard with being “the voice that helped me find the Holy Ghost”. Khan performed a cover version of Sheard’s “A Secret Place” along with Richard Smallwood on TBN’s show Praise The Lord in October 2006.
In December 2006, Chaka recorded “Do You Hear What I Hear” on the Christmas compilation Breaking For the Holidays produced by Eve Nelson (who also produced Classikhan). The album also featured Vonzell Solomon, Sandra Bernhard, Ben Jelen and many more.
Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an Academy Award and Grammy award-winning American singer, songwriter, record producer, and occasional actor, who has sold more than 100 million records.
He released his self-titled debut in 1982. The album hit #3 on the music charts and sold over 4 million copies. His 1983 follow up album, Can’t Slow Down, sold over twice as many copies and won the Grammy Award for the Album of the Year in 1984. His third album, Dancing on the Ceiling, which was released in 1986, spawned such hits as “Say You, Say Me”, “Dancing on the Ceiling,” and “Se La”, but it also signified the end of his large commercial success.
In 1983, he released Can’t Slow Down, which shot him into the first rank of international superstars. The album also won two Grammy Awards including Album Of The Year. It spawned the #1 hit “All Night Long”, a Caribbean-flavored dance number that was promoted by a dazzling music video produced by former Monkee, Michael Nesmith.
Several more Top 10 hits followed, the most successful of which was the ballad “Hello” (1984), a sentimental love song that showed how far Richie had moved from his R&B roots. Now described by one critic as ‘the black Barry Manilow’, In 1985 Richie wrote and performed a suitably soothing theme song, “Say You, Say Me”, for the film White Nights, winning an Oscar for his efforts. He also collaborated with Michael Jackson on the charity single “We Are the World” by USA for Africa. In 1986, Richie released Dancing on the Ceiling, another widely popular album that produced a run of US and UK hits.
Patti LaBelle (born May 24, 1944) is an American R&B, soul singer and songwriter. She fronted two groups, Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles and Labelle. She is best known for her passionate stage performances, wide vocal range and distinctive high-octave belting. Her biography, Don’t Block the Blessings, remained at the top of the The New York Times best-seller list for several weeks.
Success eluded LaBelle until late 1983 when she released her first charted hit album, I’m In Love Again. The album featured LaBelle’s first #1 R&B hit with “If Only You Knew” and a radio hit with “Love, Need and Want You.” In 1984, after an eighteen-year estrangement, she reconciled with Cindy Birdsong while she was on stage in Los Angeles. By 1985, LaBelle was on her way to pop stardom after her songs, “New Attitude” and “Stir It Up” (recently re-recorded by Patti and Joss Stone) from the soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop (1984), which peaked at #17 and #41 on the pop charts respectively.
By the time of her rise to pop stardom in the mid-1980s, LaBelle was infamous for her wild hairdos, kicking off her shoes in a “Holy Ghost”-like rage, rolling over the floor while singing, putting the microphone stand down and then yielding it up in the air and choreographing the famous “spread my wings” move that she incorporated during her performances of “Over the Rainbow.” Patti’s appearance at the Motown Returns to the Apollo and Live Aid concert in 1985 introduced her to a whole new audience. During the finale of Live Aid, Patti took to the microphone for “We Are the World,” during some points of which Patti’s voice is the only one audible. She was also accused of taking the spot light from Diana Ross as revenge in a rumoured rivalry during a performance of “I Want To Know What Love Is”. As a result, Patti was often accused of grandstanding. In 1986, she released her best-selling album to date with Winner in You. The album yielded her first solo #1, “On My Own” with pop balladeer Michael McDonald, the Top 40 Billboard Hot 100 hit, “Oh, People,” the moderate pop chart hit, “Kiss Away The Pain” and the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart hit, “Something Special Is Gonna Happen Tonight.”
Mr. Mister was a popular American atmospheric pop rock band of the 1980s. The band’s name came from an inside joke about a Weather Report record called Mr. Gone where they referred to each other as “Mister Fister” or “Mister (insert word here).” Mr. Mister may be considered as representative of the melodic and sophisticated sound of ’80s pop rock. The band consisted of Richard Page on vocals and bass guitar, Steve George on keyboards, Pat Mastelotto on acoustic and electronic drums and Steve Farris on guitars.
Guitarist Steve Farris left around 1989, replaced by Buzz Feiten and later Trevor Rabin. The band began working on a fourth album, Pull, with session guitarists, but were dropped by their label before it could be released, and the band decided to break up. The album remains unreleased to this day, although one track (”Waiting in My Dreams”) later appeared on a 2001 greatest hits collection by the band.
The Bangles are an all-female band that originated in the early 1980s, scoring several hit singles through much of the decade. The Bangles’ full-length debut album on Columbia, All Over the Place (1984), captured their power-pop roots, featuring the singles “Hero Takes a Fall” and the Kimberley Rew-penned “Going Down To Liverpool” (originally recorded by Rew’s band Katrina and the Waves). The record attracted good critical notices, and the video for “Liverpool” featured Leonard Nimoy, which helped to generate further publicity.
All this went some way to attracting the attention of Prince, who later wrote “Manic Monday” for the group. “Manic Monday” went on to become a #2 hit in the US, the UK and Germany, outsold at the time only by another Prince composition, his own “Kiss”. The band’s second album Different Light (1986) was more polished than its predecessor and, with the help of the worldwide #1 hit “Walk Like an Egyptian”, saw the band firmly in the mainstream as radio and MTV stalwarts.
Heart is a rock band which came out of Bellevue (a suburb of Seattle, Washington), and Vancouver, British Columbia. Going through several lineup changes, the only constant members of the group are sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. The group rose to fame in the 1970s with their music being influenced by hard rock as well as folk music. After diminishing in popularity by the mid-eighties, the band created a major comeback in 1985, experiencing further success with their power ballads throughout the rest of the decade. By the mid-1990’s, Heart left their eighties sound and went back to their hard rock roots which they continue to play today. They have sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
In 1984, Ann Wilson recorded a duet with Mike Reno of Loverboy called “Almost Paradise”. The song was featured on the soundtrack of the movie Footloose and hit number 7 on the pop charts. Then, the group’s first album for Capitol, simply titled Heart (#1, 1985), sold five million copies on the strength of four Top-10 hits: “What About Love?” (#10, 1985), “Never” (#4, 1985), “These Dreams” (#1, 1986), and “Nothin’ at All” (#10, 1986). By that time, the group had abandoned their earlier hard-rock aspirations to make slick, radio-friendly pop. Heart was ranked #57 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.
INXS (pronounced “in excess”) are an Australian rock and new wave group. The band was formed on 16 August 1977, in Sydney, Australia. INXS began under the name The Farriss Brothers, which was created at Davidson High School, New South Wales, and originally consisted of Michael Hutchence, Andrew Farriss, Garry Gary Beers, Tim Farriss, Kirk Pengilly, and Jon Farriss. The band changed their name to INXS prior to the release of their self-titled debut album in 1980, which featured “Just Keep Walking,” their first Australian hit single. Its follow-up, 1981’s Underneath the Colours (produced by Richard Clapton), became a hit-album in Australia.
In 1982, Shabooh Shoobah was released successfully internationally, reaching #52 on the Billboard 200 and #46 on the Hot Pop Albums chart. The single “The One Thing” brought them their first Top-30 hit in United States, and was also a Top-20 hit in Canada. INXS played alongside many of their contemporaries on New Wave Day at the 1983 US Festival. Many songs from Shabooh Shoobah were featured prominently in the 1984 film Reckless.
With the Nick Launay-produced fourth album, The Swing in 1984, the band received more significant attention from around the world, as “Original Sin” (produced by Nile Rodgers) became their first #1 single and a highly popular song worldwide with fans and reviewers. During that year the song was #1 in Australia (for two weeks at the start of 1984) as well as in Argentina and France, #11 in Canada, #23 in Switzerland, #31 in the Netherlands and #58 in the U.S. Yet “Original Sin” was largely ignored in the UK, where INXS didn’t have any success in the charts until 1986 with the album Listen Like Thieves. INXS, which had started out as a Funk act, gradually moved in a more straight-ahead rock-oriented direction through the first half of the 1980s.
INXS performed five songs for the 1985 Oz for Africa concert; “Original Sin”, “Listen Like Thieves”, “Kiss the Dirt”, “What You Need”, and “Don’t Change”. It was broadcast in Australia on both Seven Network and Nine Network, and on MTV in the US. Two INXS songs (”What You Need” and “Don’t Change”) were also in the BBC broadcast and are contained on Live Aid’s four DVD boxed set released in 2004.
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