Hello and welcome to Part X! At the end of this post we will be 100 songs into the 1984 Hideaway 200.
Click HERE to catch up on any posts you may have missed. Let's get on with the countdown...
134
Ratt, Dokken, Scorpions, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Judas Priest, and Whitesnake were huge album rock acts for us in 1984. Second-tier rockers like Honeymoon Suite, Great White, and Autograph were good for a song or two as well. Autograph grabbed our attention with "Turn Up The Radio" featuring a throbbing beat, melodic sing-along vocals in more of an everyman voice rather than a banshee screech or hoarse shout, and tuneful guitars. Our favorite-sounding version of "Turn Up The Radio" is found on the 1985 Japan pressing for the U.S. compact disc of the album Sign In Please.
33
Teena Marie's "Lovergirl" has grooves for days. If you've heard it you know and you want to hear it again. The best-sounding version of the special 12" dance mix of "Lovergirl" is found on the 1990 U.S. pressing of Club Epic (A Collection Of Classic Dance Mixes) Volume 1. The entire CD is a funky groove-packed R&B remix collection with the only weak track, a pointless Ben Liebrand remix of Ram Jam's "Black Betty", tacked on at the end of the disc.
157
We appreciate Jermaine Jackson as the funky Jackson brother, especially after "Let's Get Serious" and "Let Me Tickle Your Fancy". The smooth groove of "Do What You Do" took us by surprise. The song is so swanky, so romantic, and so easy to sway to. There's even a bit of a tropical or Latin feel to it as well. Our favorite-sounding version of the "Do What You Do" can be found on a hit-filled 1985 German pressing for the Netherlands compilation Now, This Is CD Music.
109
Previously known for her hyper-shimmying volcanic performances, Tina Turner successfully transitioned to a more subtle but nonetheless sultry image, first with her cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" and the follow-up "What's Love Got To Do With It". She was hot in every sense of the word. This might be the most surprisingly and disappointingly low-ranked song on the whole 1984 Hideaway 200. To our ears the best-sounding version of Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do With It" is on the 1993 U.S. pressing of the soundtrack album What's Love Got To Do With It.
119
The intro is inviting (it briefly gives us a "Relax" vibe) though the song's aggressive funk-ish rock groove comes on strong. There is a dizzying, off-kilter effect to the music but we always crank it up when it comes on. Rod's vocals are clipped and bothered; he's a man under stress. He's lovesick and this girl has him flustered. In interviews, Rod Stewart has said that it was about Kelly Emberg, his girlfriend at the time. Our favorite-sounding version of "Infatuation" is the 2013 24-bit digital download of the Camouflage album. There is something unique in the mastering of all the 2013 Warner Brothers high-resolution downloads we've heard. We have no idea what it is but across the board, the mastering is exquisite.
170
Night Ranger enjoyed a small hot streak at AOR from late 1982 up through 1989 with a dozen tracks. All of their singles got airplay on KLPX, our local rock station, so we heard them all. Their 1983 tape Midnight Madness got more than a bit of play at work. The four songs on side 1 especially. The second song on the tape, following "(You Can Still) Rock In America" is "Rumours In The Air", the great lost Night Ranger single. The best-sounding version of the latter track is a CD-only bonus track on the 1989 U.S. pressing of the compilation Greatest Hits.
28
Another one of those both-sides-are-great maxi-singles like Madonna's "Borderline" b/w "Lucky Star" up at number 43 on the 1984 Hideaway 200. While we enjoy both "Dance Hall Days" and "Don't Let Go" as they appear on the Points On The Curve album, these extended remixes are the ones we prefer to listen to regularly. Our favorite-sounding versions of "Dance Hall Days" and "Don't Let Go" are the digital files ripped from the original 1984 U.S. twelve-inch single.
129
While there are a few good songs on the soundtrack album for Hard To Hold (aka the other semi-autobiographical rock movie of 1984), the only track to make the 1984 Hideaway 200 is "Love Somebody". We've been fans of Springfield's music since Christmas 1976 when we found K-Tel's Hit Machine album under the tree with "Take A Hand" as the sixth track on Side 2. Never heard it on WLS but loved it enough to snag the Chelsea 45 when I came across it in early 1977. Then came "Jessie's Girl", Working Class Dog, "I've Done Everything For You", Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet, Living In Oz, and "Love Somebody", the "Baby, I'm A Star" of the film Hard To Hold. The best-sounding version of "Love Somebody", with a bottom-end that kicks you in the chest, is on the 1997 budget-priced compilation The Encore Collection compact disc.
158
"All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" followed 1981's bigger hit "All My Friends (Have Settled Down)" though most folks know it as "All My Rowdy Friends Are Here on Monday Night" the long-running Monday Night Football theme song. We slept on the track in 1984 as it just wasn't played anywhere we were listening and actually didn't add it to the HERChives until 1992 when it showed up in our mailbox on Contemporary Country: The Mid-'80s - Pure Gold, the seventh compact disc in Time Life's Contemporary Country series. Though we later added Hank Williams, Jr. discs to our collection that had that song on them, the single version with slightly altered lyrics on that Time Life CD remains our favorite-sounding version.
78
The pairing of Bryan Adams with Tina Turner, their similar-sounding voices blending effortlessly on "It's Only Love", is one of the best duets of all time. With guitarist Keith Scott reeling off strong riffs and distinctive solos, the song has a harder edge than most of the songs on Bryan's Reckless album. Thematically, the song seemed to tie in neatly with Turner's big comeback hit "What's Love Got To Do With It" from a few months earlier. The best-sounding version of "It's Only Love" we've heard is on the 2012 Japanese SHM compact disc Reckless.
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We are now 100 songs into the 1984 Hideaway 200, the halfway point. We also have our first BINGO!
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