WLS Music Survey - September 27, 1980 (Part One: Thirty-threes)

Welcome to a look at another WLS Music Survey from our collection. By September 1980, I was spending more and more time enjoying WLRW and its rich stereo FM sound. WLS was still my station of choice, though, as they continued to play music that appealed to me. There was some overlap between the playlists of the two stations, but I don't remember hearing many songs on both stations. Most of it probably occurred during American Top 40, which WLRW ran on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Another thing I don't remember is ever hearing Art Wallis on the weekends. Maybe I was all WLRW then. The experience of listening to FM was twofold:

• I heard songs that were new to me, with nearly all of them sounding amazing
• I heard familiar songs in a new way, and after we moved to Tucson in 1981, I never listened to another AM station until I helped launch KDRI in 2019

Just a year after playing the same venue on their Tormato Tour, Yes returned to the International Amphitheatre for a couple of dates on the Drama Tour. Based on the few reviews I read, Yes fans were not happy. Many had purchased tickets when they went on sale six months before the gig, unaware of the drama going on behind the scenes of Drama. After a few difficult recording sessions, Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman walked; The Buggles were brought in to fill in the holes. Though it sounded far-fetched on paper, both bands were managed by the same man, so it was a matter of convenience. Drama moves up from 23 to 19 on the Thirty-threes list this week.

Paul Simon was touring behind One-Trick Pony, the album and the film he starred in. The album was not a soundtrack album, though it contained different versions of some songs featured in the film, recorded with the same musicians. The album's first single, "Late In The Evening", sits at number 12 for the second week in a row on the Forty-fives. Despite featuring Tiny Tim, Lou Reed, the B-52's, and Spinal Tap's bassist on camera, the film  One-Trick Pony somehow bombed at the box office.

Barry Manilow was playing The Horizon behind his Barry album. He had played 4 nights in Chicago just two months prior, back in July; his Fanilows just couldn't get enough. My favorite fan story of this tour was the teen who snuck out of her house to attend the show only to run into her folks there.

Sabbath was touring with new vocalist Ronnie James Dio after recording Heaven and Hell with him. Ozzy Osbourne was out and at points during the album's recording, both drummer Bill Ward and bassist Geezer Butler were out dealing with personal issues, though the latter two eventually returned to the studio and finished the album. Ward had left the tour before its Chicago stop, replaced by Vinny Appice. Blue Öyster Cult shared a manager with Black Sabbath, with their respective albums both produced by the same man. The two bands were co-headlining The Black and Blue Tour, but were not getting along.

By the time Pat Benatar took the stage for the first of her two shows at Park West, two singles from her recently released album, Crimes Of Passion, were out, though you wouldn't know it listening to WLS. The station apparently took a pass on Benatar's cover of "You Better Run" and only added "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" eight weeks after it had been released, well after her shows. In December, Pat Benatar and her band would completely enthrall me with their appearance on Fridays! performing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" and "Hell Is For Children".

There are a pair of live albums from a pair of veteran Sixties rockers who had survived the Seventies on the list of Thirty-threes this week. Dropping four spots, we have Eric Clapton's Just One Night at number 33. Despite the double album's title, the performances were recorded across two nights at the same venue that Cheap Trick put on the map with their live album a couple of years prior. Up at number 20, down one place from last week, is One For The Road, another double album. Taken from several nights on the band's tour behind Low Budget, there are songs from throughout The Kinks' career.

Surprisingly, WLS featured an album put out by a rival station on this week's list of albums. The Loop's Chicago Rocks - Volume One features ten songs from ten Chicago-area artists who never really broke through, as far as I can tell. I'm guessing that most decent-sized towns issued one or more of these compilations.

Honeysuckle Rose is one of four soundtrack albums on our list of Thirty-threes this week. Moving up from number 33 to number 22, this double album features tracks from Willie Nelson & Family with a little help from his friends. Honeysuckle Rose was one of three albums Willie Nelson released in 1980, and WLS didn't seem to play the album's single "On The Road Again". Ever the Willie Nelson fan, Dad bought the album and took us to see the movie. The only thing I recall about the movie is Dyan Cannon looking like Farah Fawcett's older sister. 

The Blues Brothers drops a couple of spots to number 9 this week. It would be a few years before I finally saw the movie on cable, while the album came into my life even later. "Gimme Some Lovin'" from the album is down six spots to number 20 this week on the Forty-fives list.

Falling down the list of Thirty-threes by one spot to number 7 is the soundtrack album for Urban Cowboy. Several singles were spun off the album and are featured on this week's list of Forty-fives. Johnny Lee jumps up six to number 17 with "Looking For Love", while "Love The World Away" from Kenny Rogers drops one to number 35. Another song from the album, dropping three positions down to number 39, is Joe Walsh's "All Night Long". The double album was so popular that a sequel album, Urban Cowboy II, was released quickly, with nine songs that weren't included on the original soundtrack album.

The Xanadu soundtrack moves up five spots to number 3 on the Thirty-threes this week. The album has an ONJ Side devoted to songs by Olivia Newton-John and songs by Electric Light Orchestra on the ELO Side. Both artists can be heard together on the album's title track, the final song of the ten on the album. With four of the album's six singles on the list of WLS's Forty-fives this week, the album ultimately only moved up one place to number 2 over the next two weeks, stuck behind Queen's The Game at number one. (We'll cover those four singles in Part Two: Forty-fives.)

Queen's The Game, our featured album this week, spent 40 weeks on WLS's list of Thirty-threes, including eighteen weeks in the Top 10. The album debuted at number 26 the week of July 19, 1980, with its final week on the Thirty-threes list coming the week of April 18, 1981, when it was number 30. For the week ending September 27, 1980, The Game is at Number One for the first of four consecutive weeks. Maybe it's no coincidence that the band had just played the Rosemont Horizon a week prior, driving album sales and single requests. No less than five singles were spun off the album, with two of them topping the Forty-fives chart on WLS: "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Another One Bites The Dust"; the latter sits atop the list this week. The funky "Dragon Attack", one of our favorite tracks on The Game, was the lone track on side one of the album not to be released as the A-side of a single. Our favorite song of the ten tracks on the album is "Need Your Loving Tonight", sandwiched between "Another One Bites The Dust" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" in the album's tracklist.