Welcome back to our unorthodox countdown of the 1984 Hideaway 200. We're glad you're here. If you've missed the first two parts click HERE. This is the third random list of ten songs from our ranked list of 200 favorite songs from 1984. No charts were harmed in our rankings. Some of our 1984 songs may be on your 1983 or 1985 lists. We're still cool, right?
127
Loved John Waite as the voice of The Babys and his initial solo album Ignition with the high-powered single "Change" but never really warmed up to anything else he went on to do. The main reason "Missing You" is here on the 1984 Hideaway 200 is because the woman who would become my wife has really liked it since 1984 when she bought the No Brakes tape. Our favorite version of the song is the country-fried duet with Alison Krauss from 2007 (much like Norah Jones, Krauss makes everything better), Still, our favorite-sounding version is the 3:30 single edit found on the 10th Anniversary Edition of Now That's What I Call Music! 1984 released in 1993.
69
We positively obsessed over the title track of the Undercover album when we picked it up in November 1983, playing it over and over in our brand-new record player. (Yeah, we said "in" and not "on".) We let the album play on past the first track one day and discovered "She Was Hot" just before KLPX added the song to their playlist in December. It's only raunchy rock and roll like "Naughty Naughty" and "Hot For Teacher" but we like it like it yes we do. The best-sounding version of "She Was Hot" in the HERChives is on the 2012 Undercover SHM-SACD from Japan.
177
We never watched Star Search and so had no idea who Sam Harris was until we heard "Sugar Don't Bite" one day on the radio in her car. The song is a gloriously funky concoction dated by all the synth drums with Harris's sassy sweet voice poured all over it. We bought the 12" in 1985 but were disappointed in the New Dance Mix. Don't think we ever picked up the self-titled album or CD. Nearly forty years later, we dropped $10 on a digital download of the 10-track album with five bonus tracks from Qobuz. Where we found our best-sounding and only version of the 3:44 single edit of "Sugar Don't Bite".
12
Seeing Maurice Starr's name in the liner notes of Jeff Lorber's In The Heat Of The Night album made sense. The song of the same name that opens the album has that funky feel and sound of Jonzun Crew and New Edition's "Candy Girl" but the synthtastic solo is unmistakenly all Jeff Lorber. For years the 2013 CD of In The Heat Of The Night proved impossible to find but we finally scored a near-mint copy for less than $25 bucks and have been enjoying it ever since. The Wounded Bird disc is the only digital version we have of "In The Heat Of The Night" so by default, it is our favorite-sounding version.
31
"I Do' Wanna Know" absolutely rocks right from the start and was more than welcome after the weak and hurried songwriting of Good Trouble, their follow-up to the Diamond-certified Hi Infidelity. Gary Richrath's scorching riffs and keyboardist Neal Doughtry's organ solos are the best anyone can hope for in a song from REO Speedwagon. The song is our second favorite from the group behind the mighty "Back On The Road Again" penned and sung by bassist Bruce Hall. Our collection's best-sounding version of "I Do' Wanna Know" is on the initial U.S. release of Wheels Are Turnin' on compact disc.
115
To our knowledge, Deep Purple is one of the first and the few groups to reunite and sound just like they used to sound like they just picked up where they left off 10 years prior. The title track from their 1984 reunion album is unique among the group's discography as it is one of the few not to feature a guitar solo. "Perfect Strangers" still rocks hard and heavy, thundering along like a harder-hitting version of Zeppelin's epic "Kashmir". Our favorite-sounding version of the track "Perfect Strangers" is found on the 1993 Japanese release of Perfect Strangers.
124
Not one of the twenty-five Howard Jones CDs in the HERChives is the original Human's Lib album from 1984 before it was later remastered and expanded. We have our original copy of the album on the Vinyl Wall and it sounds wonderful. The dense layers of Howard's vocals on the chorus are a delight. While we imagine an early CD pressing of Human's Lib would sound mighty fine, the best-sounding version of "What Is Love?" we have is on 1993's The Best of Howard Jones.
139
We were big fans of Scandal's self-titled 1982 EP. One day in the Summer of 1984, we heard "The Warrior" on KLPX and after it was over the jock announced it was by Scandal featuring Patty Smyth and we realized it was the same Scandal and more importantly the same voice as that earlier EP. If you ask us to name another song from the Warrior album, we can do it - Scandal covered Journey's "Only The Young" and got it out before Journey's own version was released on the Vision Quest soundtrack in 1985. The best-sounding version of "Warrior" in the HERChives can be found on the Japanese CD pressing for the U.S. of Warrior.
155
Lights Out was Peter Wolf's first solo album since leaving the J. Geils Band. His former band would release their final studio album in 1984 as well. We went in whole-hog on both albums and their accompanying 12" singles. It was only recently that I connected many of my favorite-sounding records to one man: Greg Calbi, mastering engineer. He mastered Lights Out. Check your liner notes, people. Our favorite-sounding version of "Lights Out" is from the 1986 U.S. re-issue of Lights Out on compact disc.
125
Another KLPX discovery, the mellow sounds of the music provide the bed for some angry lyrics in "If I Had A Rocket Launcher". More importantly, the song and attendant album Stealing Fire opened up the works of Bruce Cockburn for this listener, revealing several more treasures including his 1979 single "Wondering Where The Lions Are" and the Holiday cut "Mary Had A Baby" from 1993. The recording and production of "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" is stellar and we chose the version of the song that appears on both the 1989 Canadian pressing of Stealing Fire and the 1987 compilation Waiting For A Miracle, Singles 1970-1987 as the best sounding versions to our ears.
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We're thirty songs in. How's everybody doin'? We'll return with ten more tunes as we continue our journey through the 1984 Hideaway 200. For those of you playing the home game, your cards should match the ones below.
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