PLAYLISTICLE: My 100 Favorite Singles from 1982 (Part 1 of 5)

You and I both know that lists like these are exercises in frustrating futility and immediate obsoletion - just because I think I like one song more than another today doesn't necessarily preclude I won't love yet another song more than both of them tomorrow.  And what does it all matter anyway. That being said, this is the umpteenth version of my 100 favorite songs from my favorite year in music, 1982, and the first one to be published.  The criteria of eligibility was as convoluted as was the judging process and the best that I can hope is you and I share a few songs in common and we can be friends.  Or if we are already friendly, maybe we can become better friends as we discover we have more in common, sharing confidentialities and forming trusts that transcend the many miles between us.  Hell, I don't know, its just a list.  But it is my list, a labor of love, so indulge me if you will.  As we usually do round these parts, we're starting from the bottom so here are numbers 100-81 aka the bottom twenty.

I was oblivious to "A Penny For Your Thoughts" before hearing it for the first time ever just a few months ago. Moments like that are both exhilarating (woohoo, a favorite new song!) and maddening (how many more songs have I missed along the way?).  Have always been a fan of previous Tavares songs including their takes on "She's Gone" and "More Than A Woman" so this one makes sense though it is a slightly different style.

Ghost In The Machine is probably my second favorite album from Sting and the boys and it is truly haunted by many great tunes.  "Secret Journey" sadly was the fourth and final single released from the album.  Their next album would prove to be my favorite.

In addition to the two AOR FM stations I was listening to back in 1982, there was a third source of radio music, an AM station at 1330 on the dial with the call letters KHYT, though they advertised as K-Hit.  They played all the R&B, dance and burgeoning hip-hop songs of the time before evolving into just another Top 40 station. Skyy's "Call Me" was a favorite of mine that I only could hear on KHYT.

"Cutie Pie" was another KHYT favorite though it was popular with the Cholos and low rider culture at my high school as well and could often be heard in the school parking lot both before and after school.  Sometimes during school.

Never was as much into "Gloria" as everyone else seemed to be.  I do appreciate the driving beat and the soaring dynamics more than Branigan's raw & ragged voice though I always sang along with the mob chorus on the verse like we were accusing her of a crime. GLORIA!

rank		song title	artist	Hot 100	debut on Hot 100
100		A Penny For Your Thoughts	Tavares	33	9/18/1982
099		Secret Journey	The Police	46	4/10/1982
098		Call Me	Skyy	26	1/16/1982
097		Cutie Pie	One Way	61	5/29/1982
096		Gloria	Laura Branigan	2	7/10/1982

"Take It Away" sounded somewhat like some of my favorite Wings songs in parts, just not enough of those parts to rank higher in this list. Suppose I am more of a Seventies McCartney man rather than an Eighties one.

No one saw the mash-up of Devo backing Jermaine Jackson coming but I dug it.  Still surprised at how many fans of both acts have never heard "Let Me Tickle Your Fancy".

Martha Davis's voice is an acquired taste and after listening to Elvia O's tape during class one day, I was hooked.  I put the album All Four One at number 21 on my list of 100 favorite albums from 1982.

Though I didn't find 1982's Talking Back to The Night as accessible as 1980's Arc Of A Diver, the singles "Valerie" and "Still In The Game" were rarely-heard favorites.  Which kind of explains why "Valerie" peaked at number 70... the first time around.  Dun-dun-duh!

Evelyn King sings one of my all-time favorite disco jams with her captivating contemplation on "Shame" and she would return in 1982 with another dance-floor hit in "Love Come Down".   Much to my own shame, those are the only two Evelyn King songs I know, with or without Champagne.  And momma just don't understand.

095		Take It Away	Paul McCartney	10	7/10/1982
094		Let Me Tickle Your Fancy	Jermaine Jackson	18	7/24/1982
093		Take The L	The Motels	52	9/4/1982
092		Valerie	Steve Winwood	70	11/13/1982
091		Love Come Down	Evelyn King	17	8/28/1982

Moving Pictures?  Who in the heck are Moving Pictures? They sang this really awesome song "What About Me" that I first heard on American Top 40 around Thanksgiving 1982. Taped it off the following week's countdown because none of the stations I listened to played it at all.  Picked up the album a couple years later when they had another song ("Never") featured on the Footloose soundtrack.  Had just about forgotten the song until I got the wonderful Australian Pop of the 80s set of five double disc albums, where I rediscovered the song a few years back.

One Saturday night on the community radio station KXCI during their mix show they played "8th Wonder", a new song from Sugarhill Gang which means I was looking for the twelve inch single the following Monday.  Didn't find the single but found the album of the same title which led to the discovery of "Apache" which has proven to be, in my own little world at least, nearly as popular as "Rapper's Delight".

Elton John's ode to his pal Johnny Lennon is a downer but that chorus ("I've been knockin'/but no one answers") gets me every time.

If it's wrong to like Loverboy's unique dated brand of Eighties synth rock then I don't wanna be right.  Fell for them after seeing "Turn Me Loose" on American Bandstand one Saturday and liked their second album even better than the first. The local rock stations played them often but with the exception of "Working For The Weekend" they get no love these days.

Encroaching on Jimmy Buffett's $acred waters, Bertie Higgins had two hits with "Key Largo" and "Just Another Day In Paradise" from his Just Another Day In Paradise album which I picked up in 1982 despite the serial killer picture on the cover.  (Sorry, Bertie, I calls 'em as I sees 'em.) So this batch we got an Aussie power ballad, a rap party jam, a eulogy, a Canadian rocker and a laid back Key West romantic ballad.  Sounds about right.

090		What About Me	Moving Pictures	29	9/18/1982
089		Apache	Sugarhill Gang	53	2/13/1982
088		Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)	Elton John	13	3/20/1982
087		When It's Over	Loverboy	26	4/10/1982
086		Just Another Day In Paradise	Bertie Higgins	46	5/1/1982

As I had been with Branigan's "Gloria", I was in the minority as far as Donna Summer's "Love Is In Control" - EVERYBODY loved it but it wasn't the Donna Summer I was expecting to hear after The Wanderer.  Donna's follow-up to that album was rejected and shelved by her record company which also advised her to lose her writing and production partner from the past five years, some guy named Giorgio Moroder.

One of the surprise highlights on the Heavy Metal soundtrack for me was Donald Fagen's "True Companion", which stood out among all the other loud tunes in the movie and on the album.  I was disappointed that there was not a Fagen album I could dive into after getting my feet wet with that one tune, both a continuation and an evolution of his work in Steely Dan.  My prayers were answered in early November when I picked up The Nightfly and fell for the album's opening cut "I.G.Y."

Take my word for it - in 1982, Glenn Frey's "Partytown" rivaled ZZ Top's "Party On The Patio" as Old Pueblo's Official Party Song.  You heard that song everywhere back then and now its like it has been buried in a time capsule out in the desert, replaced by the timeless, sexist decadence that is Mötley Crüe's "Girls, Girls, Girls" or Guns N Roses "Paradise City".

There are a few rules I follow that make me a happy grocery shopper:  I rarely shop hungry; I usually stick to the list my wife and I carefully made and shared via AnyList app; I never go to the store on the first Wednesday of the month which is Senior Day and I sing along or whistle if I don't know the words with whatever song is playing overhead between product announcements and store business.  The most heard song in my grocery store visits last year was Squeeze's "Black Coffee In Bed" and I didn't mind one bit. Its got a great bassline and a sweet organ running through it.

AC/DC's follow-up to the mammoth selling Back In Black, For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) was my favorite album for about a month shortly after it came out as 1981 became 1982.  It was all I listened to on a daily basis as I rode the bus to and from school, nearly an hour each way.  All these years later, I listen to just two songs from the album with any frequency: the slow-building, bombastic title track and "Let's Get It Up" which sounds like a leftover from the Back In Black sessions.  I was so excited, I almost had a small heart attack in the mall one day when I came across the UK import twelve-inch of the song with two live songs on the flip side.  Bought it on the spot, rushed home and played it loud until Dad burst into my room later that night and said "that was about enough of that" and "dinner was ready."  I turned everything off and headed down the hall, past the living room and into the kitchen. There was no dinner on the table.  I asked Mom, who had her head in the open fridge, what was for dinner and without turning around she said "I don't know - you got any ideas?"  Dad won that round.

085		Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)	Donna Summer	10	6/26/1982
084		I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World)	Donald Fagen	26	10/9/1982
083		Party Town	Glenn Frey
082		Black Coffee In Bed	Squeeze
081		Let's Get It Up	AC/DC	44	1/16/1982