Young MC - "Bust a Move"

(Debuted July 29, 1989, Peaked #7, 38 Weeks on the chart)

"Bust a Move" is a song that is definitely a product of its time. That's not necessarily a bad thing. The late 1980s were a "Golden Age" of  Hip-hop because it was allowed room to grow and expand in its own directions. In effect, there were few rules so experimentation was rampant. Occasionally, something showed up that was able to cross over to the pop chart.

With "Bust a Move," its rhythm is catchy, Young MC's rhymes are humorous and a deep bass line (provided by Flea of The Red Hot Chili Peppers) sticks in the listener's head after the song has ended. Not only that, but the song is simply about getting out on the dance floor, an element that has been part of music for long before there was rock & roll. Proof that its message was universal can be seen by the way it hasn't grown stale over the years or become the object of jokes (like "U Can't Touch This" or "Ice Ice Baby" from the following year).

Not only was "Bust a Move" the first hit Young MC managed to get, it was the biggest. He had previously written two monster hits for Tone Loc ("Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina"), which made 1989 a very good year for him.

Stevie Nicks - "Rooms On Fire"

(Debuted May 6, 1989, Peaked #16, 14 Weeks on the chart)

During the Summer of 1989, I was dating a girl named Valerie. It was a short relationship, though; she was a free spirit that couldn't be contained and it was silly for me at that age to try. She looked a little like a red-headed version of Stevie Nicks (in fact, she looked an awful lot like the shot of Nicks on the back cover of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours LP), and since "Rooms on Fire" was the current Nicks hit during our time together, I immediately think of her when I hear it.

"Rooms On Fire" was the only single from Nicks' The Other Side of the Mirror LP to hit the pop charts. It peaked at #16 and was #1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart as well. With lyrics that seem to be purposely opaque and partially biographical, it was comparable to much of Nicks' material, both solo and with Fleetwood Mac. However, the album was panned by critics. Nicks was fighting a tranquilizer addiction at the time (in fact, she has said in interviews that she has no memory of the tour she took to support this album), so that might account for the seeming decline in her musical output.

That said, I like the song. I liked it then, and it brings back memories that are good ones from my teen years, which weren't always a bowl of cherries. I haven't seen Valerie in over 20 years, so the song is a little like running into an old friend after a long time apart. That is always a good thing.

Tommy Conwell & the Young Rumblers - "If We Never Meet Again"

(Debuted December 17, 1988, Peaked #48, 10 Weeks on the chart)

I featured a song by Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers in this blog last April, during my first trip around the 1980s. The link above will give some background about Conwell and his group, but where "I'm Not Your Man" was a very unsubtle, in-your-face massage, the follow-up was surprisingly philosophical by comparison.

Thought it wasn't a #1 Rock Tracks hit like its predecessor (it stopped at #9 there), it reached #48 on the pop chart, which was a better showing than "I'm Not Your Man" managed. While sounding like a mix between the more introspective material that Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp had already been putting out, there's a story going on between the lines that is whatever the listener determines it to be.

Where "I'm Not Your Man" was a preemptive reminder that the narrator wasn't ready to settle down, in "If We Never Meet Again," he's finding that he's leaving part of himself behind as he travels farther down "life's highway." The lyrics (co-written by Jules Shear) don't say whether this was the result of a breakup or was simply the result of a missed connection, only that he's moving on alone and is carrying only good thoughts with him about what happened. it's an interesting counterpoint to the attitude expressed in the earlier single.

Cher - "Skin Deep"

(Debuted July 30, 1988, Peaked #79, 4 Weeks on the chart)

Cher was already an icon long before the 1980s, but spent much of the decade focusing on other pursuits beyond singing. Her main priority revolved around acting in films, and she was about to get her Oscar when she returned to the recording studio and released Cher, her first album in more than five years. Using a revolving door of producers including Michael Bolton, Desmond Child, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, the record represented her comeback and showed that -- given the right material -- she was as capable as ever of doing what earned her fame in the first place.

The album's first two singles ("I Found Someone" and "We All Sleep Alone") were Top 40 hits, but the third -- "Skin Deep" -- missed the Top 40 entirely. That may have been a surprise, given how popular dance-related music was in 1988. It was quickly forgotten in the wake of her future hits like "If I Could Turn Back Time," "Just Like Jesse James" and her Peter Cetera duet "After All."

Taylor Dayne - "Tell it to My Heart"

(Debuted October 10, 1987, Peaked #7, 24 Weeks on the chart)

"Tell it To My Heart" pretty much exemplifies the brand of dance-pop that ruled the pop charts during the late 1980s. Although her big voice is front and center in the performance, there is also a wall of synthesizer sound, drum machines and sequenced rhythms.

"Tell it To My Heart" was the first single and lead track of Dayne's major label debut LP, also called Tell it To My Heart. Straddling the line between pop and R&B, it was quite a first impression. It was also the first of the four Top 10 pop singles Dayne racked up on the album.

Heart - "There's the Girl"

(Debuted November 7, 1987, Peaked #12,18 Weeks on the chart)

When the group Heart gets brought up, most of the focus is given to the Wilson sisters: Ann on vocals and Nancy on the guitar. However, that totally discounts the fact that Nancy is also a very good singer in her own right. She handled the vocals on Heart's first #1 single "These Dreams" and does them again on "There's the Girl."

Nancy Wilson also co-wrote "There's the Girl" with Holly Knight, who had previously penned the songs "Love is a Battlefield," "Better Be Good to Me" and others. It was the only single released from the Bad Animals LP that one of the Wilson sisters had written, which was unusual for them.

While infused with the sythesizer lines that seemed to be de riguer by 1987 and the hard-edged guitar that found its way into a lot of that era's music, "There's the Girl" is a song that seems to have aged really well regardless.

Squeeze - "853-5937"

(Debuted December 19, 1987, Peaked #32, 11 Weeks on the Chart)

The telephone has been a popular device for song lyrics throughout the years. Whether the telephone line itself, the operator, telephone servicemen, numbers and even answering machines have been included in popular songs throughout the years. It's even been used in songs to heighten a sense of anticipation, as well as fear and paranoia.

In the case of "853-5937," the song began as a message for an answering machine, which can be heard in the refrain. That refrain also includes the English colloquialism "she'll give you a ring when she gets home," a term few Americans are ever heard saying. A lady named Angela, it seems, isn't able to answer the phone after several tries (this was before Caller ID was widespresad), but her failure to pick up is only making the narrator worried that she is no longer interested in him.

"853-5937" was the secong single from Squeeze's LP Babylon and On, a pun that could also be applied to a telephone conversation. Following the group's biggest American hit "Hourglass," it reached into the Top 40 briefly. They never made the U.S. pop chart again.

The Georgia Satellites - "The Hippy Hippy Shake"

(Debuted October 22, 1988, Peaked #45, 13 Weeks on the chart)

"Hippy Hippy Shake" was a tune that was originally recorded in 1959 by Chan Romero and had been a hit in 1964 by The Swinging Blue Jeans. In 1988, it was re-recorded by The Georgia Satellites and included in the soundtrack for the Tom Cruise film Cocktail. How that soundtrack saw both "Kokomo" and "Don't Worry, Be Happy" go to #1 while this song and The Fabulous Thunderbirds' "Powerful Stuff" both stiffed is an unfortunate commentary on the music business as it was in 1988.

While the 1988 hit single was performed by Dan Baird, the original lead singer of The Georgia Satellites, the video below is from a performance of the band after they reformed in 1993. Rick Richards handles the vocals here, but it matches up with the original hit quite nicely. As a straightforward rock tune that features the basic instruments, there really isn't a bad way to do the song.

Europe - "Cherokee"

(Debuted November 28, 1987, Peaked #72, 10 Weeks on the chart)

One of the benefits of writing a blog is that sometimes you can just toss something out simply because you feel like it. And that's what brings me to the song featured here today. "Cherokee" wasn't Europe's biggest hit, nor was it the best or even the most memorable song they ever recorded.  A historian could rip apart the video below, as the Cherokee tribe didn't live in the high Plains and didn't use tepees as the natives shown.

That said, the video was taped in Spain, not far from where Sergio Leone filmed some of his famous "Spaghetti Westerns" with Clint Eastwood two decades earlier. And Europe was from Sweden anyway, so their exposure to American Indians came through Western movies and TV shows, which weren't exactly noted for their attention to detail.

"Cherokee" was written by Europe's lead singer Joey Tempest as the final song for the band's LP The Final Countdown. It was their fourth charted single from that album in the U.S., fizzling out at #72. At the time it came out, I was living in eastern Tennessee (the original home of the Cherokee tribe), a place where many people -- myself included -- have Cherokee in their bloodline. There, it received more radio airplay than might have been expected.

The Robert Cray Band - "Smoking Gun"

(Debuted February 7, 1987, Peaked #23, 14 Weeks on the chart)

As a blues guitarist, Robert Cray didn't have the same look and feel of what was then considered to be the norm. He was young and his voice didn't carry that world-weary experience. However, "Smoking Gun" was about dealing with a lover's adultery, which is a very common topic in blues songs. Despite the depressing nature of the subject, the music is given an uptempo arrangement.

Among the lauded "new generation" of blues artists, Cray's influences ranged from the old-time bluesmen but also from Jimi Hendrix, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and even The Beatles. Despite his relative youth, he had been performing with his own band for more than a decade before his major-label debut Strong Persuader, and was even part of Otis Day's band in the movie Animal House.

"Smoking Gun" would be Cray's only Top 40 pop single. He managed to get two more songs into the Hot 100 through 1988. Despite having no hit singles in more than 20 years and failing to chart any albums on Billboard's LP charts since 1999, he is still recording and touring and remains a big draw on the concert circuit.