{"id":18105,"date":"2013-03-22T15:28:28","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T19:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=18105"},"modified":"2013-03-22T16:42:55","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T20:42:55","slug":"mr-moderator-too-coo-for-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/mr-moderator-too-coo-for-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Man Standing: Help Mr. Moderator Identify His List of Actual Hits From the 1980s That He Liked, Even During Those Days When He Was “Too Cool for School”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"humanleague2-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As I may have mentioned a few times over the years, I HATED THE 1980s!<\/p>\n

I hated ’80s style and culture in general, but as a music-obsessed person, I especially hated “’80s” music, which I typify as synth-pop featuring Yahmaha DX7s and strained vocals. I hated hair gel and guys with dyed hair. I hated\u00a0asymmetric\u00a0hairdos and shirt collars. I hated shirts with shoulder pads and epaulets. I hated puffy socks and women wearing jeans with high-riding waistbands. I even hated Madonna, although stripped of her iconic ’80s style she was my idea of a Hot Woman. Thankfully Madonna provided some opportunities to confirm that suspicion.<\/p>\n

I hated what the ’80s did to Michael Jackson<\/strong>. I hated the bright colors. I never aspired to androgyny. I even hated much of the “cool” underground music of the ’80s: hardcore, shitcore, REM<\/strong>,\u00a0that goth stuff like Bauhaus<\/strong> coming out of England… I even hated bands that were making music fairly similar to my own band’s aspirations because I was jealous of their relative success.<\/p>\n

I think I hated myself as much as anything.\u00a0I grew up in the 1970s, feeling pretty much out of place but certain that I would develop into a well-rounded hipster in my early ’80s college years only to be unleashed in a world where I fit in even less.\u00a0Damn you, 1980s!<\/p>\n

Today, my wiser, kinder, gentler self occasionally hears Human League<\/strong>‘s “Don’t You Want Me Baby” on the radio and thinks to himself, “At least I always liked that song. There must have been another 24 hit songs in the ’80s that I liked, right?”<\/p>\n

Well, were there? I am calling on you, my trusted Townspeople, to help me recall whether I liked 25 hit<\/strong> songs from the 1980s. The rules for submission follow…after the jump<\/em>!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My wiser, kinder, gentler self has been pondering this question for a good half dozen years or so. Thinking about it again today I can only recall the following characteristically ’80s songs that I like AND, more importantly, liked then.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Human League, “Don’t You Want Me”<\/li>\n
  2. Spandau Ballet, “True”<\/li>\n
  3. John Waite, “Missing You” (Yeah, I know he was slightly established as part of The Babys, but they weren’t major artists in the 1970s. Who would have spotted John Waite walking down a street before his 1984 solo hit?)<\/li>\n
  4. Madonna, “Like a Virgin” (Does a way better job with the riff from Prince’s “1999” than the Purple One himself.)<\/li>\n
  5. New Order, “Temptation”<\/li>\n
  6. INXS, “???” (the song with a soaring sax riff that sets up each chorus)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That leaves at least 19 songs for you to help me recall and assess in my wiser, kinder, gentler effort to show that I actually had some connection to that era’s popular music culture.<\/p>\n

    A few exclusions to my reassessment of ’80s music should be taken into consideration:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Songs with an ’80s tinge by previously established ’70s artists like Bruce Springsteen<\/strong>,\u00a0Hall & Oates<\/strong>, and Van Halen<\/strong> don’t count. Same goes for synth-colored hits by artists from my New Wave high school roots, such as Talking Heads<\/strong>,\u00a0Blondie<\/strong>, The Cars<\/strong>, Tom Petty<\/strong>, and the like.<\/li>\n
    • Hit songs from the 1980s that don’t really sound like ’80s songs, such as Dexy’s Midnight Runners<\/strong>‘ “Come On Eileen,” don’t count. (And yes, I was already cool enough to have purchased the band’s first, cool album before they broke bigtime, but I don’t count early Dexy’s under the “previously established” exclusion rule.)<\/li>\n
    • Songs I hated in their time but now practically love, such as Eddy Grant<\/strong>‘s “Electric Avenue,” don’t count.<\/li>\n
    • Songs that I now realize I didn’t know upon their original release and only learned about in the early ’90s, after a remix version appeared on European MTV with a funny Sid and Marty Kroft-style video (eg, the 1990 remix of The Cure<\/strong>‘s “Close to Me”) don’t count.<\/li>\n
    • Songs that I liked for the opening 2 minutes in the 1980s but that eventually bored me by going on way too long, such as the 3 Prince<\/strong> classics I almost fully like\u2014”Little Red Corvette,” “1999,” and “When Doves Cry”\u2014don’t count.<\/li>\n
    • Unmemorable (to me) songs by bands that even I could tell were good compared with their contemporaries, such as ABC<\/strong> and Yaz<\/strong>, don’t count.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      I will only consider ’80s-style songs that I knew and, possibly, actually liked when they were popular. For purposes of this exercise I am also excluding the couple of Sugarhouse Gang rap songs from the early ’80s that I liked. They were so early in the decade and I was so deep in my brief “This Is Radio Clash” acceptance of the new genre that my critical faculties were essentially disabled. The 5 or 6 songs I like from that scene are still fun to hear on my Sugarhill Gang’s Greatest Hits<\/em> collection.<\/p>\n

      Please help me fill out a list of 25 hit songs from the 1980s that I actually liked. Thank you.<\/p>\n