Someone once told me the 4th of July is the best holiday because there are no expectations. If you want to spend it with family, you can. If you want to spend it with friends, you can. If you want go off on vacation, you can. If you want to just do your own thing you can. We often go upstate around the 4th but this year we stayed close to home, and it was a mellow family party vibe. Jeannie’s brother and his family came to town, so we when out Long Island for a party on Saturday and her sister’s house, and next day everyone came up here for a barbecue. Oh, and it was my father-in-law’s 80th birthday. Woo-hoo!<\/p>\n
I decided to make a playlist of 80 favorite songs from the 80s for the party. The idea originated a few weeks ago with a conversation I had with Ken, the bass player in my jazz group, in which I put forth the proposition that Purple Rain was one of the all-time great albums of the 80’s, and he said he was never particularly into Prince. Josh, the piano player chimed in saying saw Prince on the Purple Rain tour, and it was one of the best shows he ever saw, and I related that I saw Prince a decade and a half later, and it was one of the best shows I ever saw. Santana even sat in.<\/p>\n
One reason I really dug Prince’s early stuff was his approach to drum machines and synthesizers. I was really fascinated with synthesizers back then, and in the early 80’s suddenly you didn’t have to play like Keith Emerson to do something the would work in a band and sound cool.<\/p>\n
Anyway, this led me to try and make a list of the 80 best albums of the 80s. I got off to a good start but once I got past 40 or 50 there was a long tail of maybes, and it started to feel kinda arbitrary. I went so far as google Rolling Stone magazine’s list of top 80’s, and let’s just say it’s … idiosyncratic.<\/p>\n
To me a great album has to have more than a few great songs. It has to have two great sides that flow from one song to the next without a clunker or weak spot in the mood and story that record is telling. So for example Ghost in the Machine is clearer a better record than Synchronicity. Even though Synchronicity had some great songs, it also had a few that you kinds wanna skip on repeated listening. Whereas GITM is a great journey from start to finish. Plus it has a great album cover.<\/p>\n
Maybe 80 songs would be easier. There were lots of great songs on the radio, and some came from great albums, some not, but it wouldn’t matter.<\/p>\n
The songs are a mix of genres including classic rock, prog rock, heavy metal, synth pop, jazz, Canadian content, early MTV, and others. I didn’t put much planning into it, but I made a rule not to repeat the same artist, and I put the songs in chronological order. There was also a bias toward summertime party vibe. The list contains some are one-hit wonders, some huge smash hits, some deep tracks that have stuck with me over the years. Many I’ve learned to play and sing of the years, and have done in bands. All made an impression on me of kind or another at the time.<\/p>\n
As you can see, things kinda started as a continuation of the 70’s, then seemed to to really heat up and get creative in ’81-’84, and maybe jumped the shark a little around ’85. After that the center moved over toward jazz, and when it swung back in the late 80’s the sound was pretty different. Or maybe my tastes just changed. I was only 11 years old when the 80\u2019s began.<\/p>\n
There’s a few songs I wanted to add there were not on spottily such as Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant, High Speed on Ice by Talas, and Got a Match? by Chick Corea Elecktric Band. Ah well. Of course there’s lots of other great songs I left out; once you start you realize 80 is not that many for a whole decade. If I were to put more time into this, I’d probably drop a few and add a few others. So if you don’t agree, go ahead and make your own list. Anyway with out further ado, here’s my playlist of …<\/p>\n
80 Favorite Songs from the 80s<\/b><\/p>\n
https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/7DQq0mGUzBfCjmPXSDcHEB?si=ac7ea145a2a9484d<\/a><\/p>\n 1. Gaucho – Steely Dan (1980) 9. Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads (1981) 20. Run to The Hills – Iron Maiden (1982) 34. Billy Jean – Micheal Jackson (1983) 47. Hot for Teacher – Van Halen (1984) 59. We Are the World\t(1985) 67. Big Time – Peter Gabriel (1986) 72. Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley (1987) 75. When We Was Fab – George Harrison (1988) 78. Fight the Power – Public Enemy (1989) 81. Epic – Faith No More (1990, bonus track)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Someone once told me the 4th of July is the best holiday because there are no expectations. If you want to spend it with family, you can. If you want to spend it with friends, you can. If you want go off on vacation, you can. If you want to just do your own thing … Continue reading “Firecracker on the Fourth of July”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n2. (Just Like) Starting Over – John Lennon
\n3. It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me – Billy Joel
\n4. Turn It On Again – Genesis
\n5. Back in Black – AC\/DC
\n6. Battle Scar – Max Webster
\n7. Mr. Crowley – Ozzy Osbourne
\n8. The Electric Co. – U2<\/p>\n
\n10. Three Views of a Secret – Jaco Pastorius
\n11. Stone In Love – Journey
\n12. The Voice – The Moody Blues
\n13. Burnin’ for You – Blue \u00d6yster Cult
\n14. Fight the Good Fight – Triumph
\n15. On the Loose – Saga
\n16. I Can’t Go for That – Hall and Oates
\n17. Lunatic Fringe – Red Ryder
\n18. Elephant Talk – King Crimson
\n19. Waiting on a Friend – The Rolling Stones<\/p>\n
\n21. Rio – Duran Duran
\n22. Steppin’ Out – Joe Jackson
\n23. Take It Away – Paul McCartney
\n24. Dance Hall Days – Huang Chung
\n25. Africa – Toto
\n26. Rock The Casbah – The Clash
\n27. Somebody’s Baby – Jackson Browne
\n28. Sirius \/ Eye in the Sky – Alan Parsons Project
\n29. Subdivisions – Rush
\n30. She Blinded Me With Science – Thomas Dolby
\n31. Always Something There to Remind Me – Naked Eyes
\n32. Sole Survivor – Asia
\n33. Eminence Front – The Who<\/p>\n
\n35. Photograph – Def Leppard
\n36. Gimme All Your Lovin’ – ZZ Top
\n37. Let’s Dance – David Bowie
\n38. Pride and Joy – Stevie Ray Vaughan
\n39. In a Big Country – Big Country
\n40. Other Arms – Robert Plant
\n41. One Thing Leads to Another – The Fixx
\n42. Synchronicity I – The Police
\n43. Road Games – Allan Holdsworth
\n44. Rockit – Herbie Hancock
\n45. Relax – Frankie Goes to Hollywood
\n46. City of Love – Yes<\/p>\n
\n48. I Want a New Drug – Huey Lewis & the News
\n49. New Girl Now – Honeymoon Suite
\n50. I Would Die 4 U – Prince
\n51. The Last In Line – DIO
\n52. Magic – The Cars
\n53. She Bop – Cyndi Lauper
\n54. One Night in Bangkok – Murray Head
\n55. Take On Me – A-ha
\n56. Perfect Strangers – Deep Purple
\n57. Boys of Summer – Don Henley
\n58. Just a Gigolo \/ I Ain’t Got Nobody – David Lee Roth<\/p>\n
\n60. Walk of Life – Dire Straits
\n61. Guerilla Soldier – Gowen
\n62. Something About You – Level 42
\n63. Dream of the Blue Turtles – Sting
\n64. Freeway of Love – Aretha Franklin
\n65. Miami Vice – Jan Hammer
\n66. Human Nature – Miles Davis<\/p>\n
\n68. Song X – Ornette Coleman
\n69. Trains – Steps Ahead
\n70. Billy’s Saloon – Gamalon
\n71. Master of Puppets – Metallica<\/p>\n
\n73. My Heart Declares a Holiday – Bill Bruford’s Earthworks
\n74. Minuano (Six Eight) – Pat Metheny<\/p>\n
\n76. In the New Age – King’s X
\n77. Bonin’ in the Boneyard – Fishbone<\/p>\n
\n79. Subway to Venus – Red Hot Chili Peppers
\n80. Wicked Game – Chris Isaak<\/p>\n