Cheesy '80s Songs About Heart and Soul and Overcoming and Winning and Givin' it All That You Got (RIYL Action Movies and Training Montages and Cocaine)

Just fuckin' go for it, guys. Take it to the limit. Here, let me...Break the Ice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyNRmFxpbLU

https://youtu.be/SwrYMWoqg5w

aaaaargh phone

Also just songs of that era with that same spirit. Rallying cries for a vague undertaking which aren't entirely lucid but which certainly sound exciting and like something we should all aspire to be a part of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqED_NN5o3Y

And there's also a coked-out paranoid vibe of people trying to keep you down, man, but you just have to (sniff) rise above, turn up the heat, make a move, fight the streets or whatever. You're a winner, and you'll pass the test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oomCIXGzsR0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A52--FKUQgU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n3sUWR4FV4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D-QD_HIfjA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WZ6Vl5uBGw

to be honest, my favorite of these is probably the faux-80s inspirational song written for wet hot american summer

Every mid-'80s Stallone soundtrack is filled to the brim with these beautiful paeans to inchoate victory.

this entire genre could be called 'frank stallone' tbh

for songs actually from that period:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOXaPE6gklI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-5aCEteSk4

i wanna print out a collage of these youtube screencaps and put it up on my bedroom wall

Eye of the Tiger obv, I Need a Hero, etc.

But the thread title practically begs for

https://youtu.be/SwrYMWoqg5w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW3WYcnQj8I

One of my favorite examples of this comes from the godawful Space Mutiny, a longtime MST3K/Rifftrax punching bag. I give you...Steve McClintock's "Edge of a Dream"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fZnBVxNn6Y

Of course one cannot ignore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFWDGTVYqE8

The musical episode of Buffy lampshaded its parody of the genre by saying "I'm just worried this whole session is going to turn into a training montage from an '80s movie."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YKg6016rTQ

Obvious choice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOvMpND2OZY

here's that wet hot version. best part is that it's just a chorus amidst some epic guitar solos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR2Hm2mVO1I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwac6mRHF2A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Liw4Z6StgL8

that Karate Kid song is always the first thing to come to mind

i also enjoy Arrested Development's take on this trope, "Balls in the Air"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhpQLH1ZIe8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQHhqDRn4_c

a little more on the rock ballad side but the chorus lyrics definitely fit

there's crossover with this thread
Rolling Synthwave/Retrowave/Outrun 2017 Thread

tuned into community radio show recently that was just both these things, and i couldn't tell if a lick of it was old or new and it really kind drove me bonkers. IT WAS TOO MUCH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIAX72wLTe4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to2KasivROc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oHGgDhzRnE&list=PLuert5gRcKDuhy_csB5hdQPahcGA5Bo4X

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oHGgDhzRnE

not 80s but this thread dredged up a memory of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siwpn14IE7E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6mEeuehNc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpqAUtzWDuw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvYEdmW47gQ
(Y'all really need to watch this video if you haven't already. And probably even if you have.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B17RclyxQHg

in that video John Carpenter looks like he could be a character in his movie

Don't look back, look straight ahead, don't turn away, then the voice it said
Don't look back, yesterday's gone, don't turn away, you can take it on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNrbrhQknLQ

The lyrics to some of these songs read like someone feeding commands to a semi-sentient factory robot.

Like one that's starting to question its purpose and needs a pep talk so that it can get excited about grinding out camshafts again.

I want to arrange a mashup of "Holding out for a Hero" with "We Don't Need Another Hero."

Heart and Soul did you say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oSB-MDt_10

Pokemon theme is pretty much this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wxyN3z9PL4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueRzA9GUj9c

The Beyond Yacht Rock guys did a great ep on this kind of music, they baptized it Heavy Medal:

http://www.yachtrock.com/podcast/2016/9/22/heavy-medal

I didn't realize until quite recently that there's a song on the Rocky IV soundtrack which is literally entitled 'Training Montage'.

sorry for another parody but 10-15 years ago in Atlanta there was a band called Rump Posse that was all about this aesthetic. they used to cover the Top Gun theme song and the song from Mike Tyson's Punch Out. for stage clothes they wore Hanz N Franz style workout costumes and in between songs they would blast a techno track while working out. needless to say some of these guys work at Adult Swim nowadays:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg70NlyXb0Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2hPtN8rFyE

E.G. Daily's "Mind Over Matter". I actually went to see this movie in the theatre when it came out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XB1DDiu5c

Pat Benatar's "Invincible" is probably my favorite of these. I felt so powerful after seeing that movie as a pre-teen haha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crIZ_hgKlAg

^Good one!

I just realised Katy Perry looks exactly like the actress from Billie Jean when she cut her hair short at 1'23".

I've never seen Billie Jean but in the summer of 1985 when my cousin and I were 11 we spent about a month yelling "WHERE IS SHE?" at each other, and you had to reply "EVERYWHERE" in a shitty southern accent because of this trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMzTItRnx4k

Sammy Hagar might be the godfather of heavy medal.

"Top of the Rock" (HSAS) + whole 'VOA' album

This record was a thrift store punt. It's... not good, but maybe it fits here. Actually it's so earnest I wonder if it's a Christian Rock thing.

Tony Carey - We Wanna Live

https://youtu.be/_So6i9bFI8I

If only a bona fide rock star took a pass at this maligned genre. Imagine how great it could be. Maybe for a movie that captured the electric energy of bike messengering. Break from the pack. Shoot for the stars. Trade your chains for wings.

My friends, submitted for your pleasure, Roger Daltrey's theme for Quicksilver. Can you dig it? I know that you can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5gDgoyNaa8

on the other hand, why trade those chains for wings when you can take these broken wings and learn to fly again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKhN1t_7PEY

or, for that matter, throw off your mental chains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fjg7N_mGaU

This song has been discussed in detail on another thread, but it deserves a spot here. Jefferson Airplane: Planes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0gnnVcOLNc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRzjVFyrQjk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsFbpWQOMWU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur8ftRFb2Ac

verging on power-pop/synth-pop but I think this qualifies...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofL-ePVAshs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n5U_UExIu4

How did this thread last two weeks without anyone mentioning the roughly 500 times that "Only the Young" appears in Vision Quest?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9hWqa4xxZY

Well if we're talking that film then we have to nominate this song, which my sister, without a shred of irony, has insisted we play at her funeral.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApZ1aD8nYEk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ymEXHefjMc

This thread recreates the trauma of watching music videos waiting for The Cure or Prince to show up, but all you got was endless this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UvAu4Tb33Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o_vCHOfb1I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGsMXefOq-w

I dunno, guys, I...I just don't feel like I have what it takes. I think I'm just gonna throw in the towel, hang it up, call it quits.

Ah, who am I kidding? I've got heart, I've got the fever, it's time to take it higher, it's time to give it my all. It's time to reach for the sky!

(clicks play on boombox)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uzGmcRN114
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVZzXgMdXs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JjSC1r_zsM

Hey Old Lunch, if you like John Farnham's motivational BMX jams from RAD, you might also enjoy the soundtrack to BMX Freestyle which features a bunch of otherwise unreleased tunes by Michael Sembello

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/9121--XwVKL._AC_SY445_.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYUSDghZh6M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbXnUr-K50U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uABkEr3UyIA

I posted these on the Sembello thread earlier this year, but now it's time to bring them to the people of Cheesy '80s Songs About Heart and Soul and Overcoming and Winning and Givin' it All That You Got.

Sweeeeeet.

When Michael Sembello began to fade from pop stardom (despite his steady work in soundtracks), did he give up? No, reader, he did not.

He applied his Heart and Soul. Grit, even. He Overcame Great Odds, whilst Givin' His All.

He jumped headlong into a burgeoning, hot new art form, destined to take the music world by storm: videotapes of people riding bicycles.

And the rest, folks, is history. The BMX VHS-tape craze captured the imaginations of a generation. We laughed, we cried, we strove for bitchin' amounts of Air and difficult one-handed wheelies.

Yeah, Sembello could have released these epic anthems of human persistence and achievement in the usual way, like having a record company attempt to get radio play and album sales. But that's not Our Michael. He's not one to take the easy path to fame and groupies and epic amounts of cocaine. Nope.

These Sembellograms, these Mike-a-paloozas, these Jambellopuses are not for everyone. Just for the chosen few, just the connoisseurs. The REAL fans. Those with a working VCR or access to YouTube.

An inspiring story for the ages.

cf. "This is It"

Legendary Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton released this in 1986:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoMkMCCtIzY

Nice, but I prefer his work with the Shufflin' Crew.

the lamest butt cheese of the 80s! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_E2EHVxNAE

I have been listening and relistening to Jim Steinman's songs from Streets of Fire for like half a year now so my heart and soul are so supercharged that I could shatter the night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClnN_s2VGV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eln48BCELk

cross-posted to the Meatloaf thread. A Time For Heroes by Meatloaf, Brian May, and Tangerine Dream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR_dk7iyGFA

^theme song for the 1987 Special Olympics

Tim Cappello - I Still Believe, obviously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P23c9KO5uY

Been working on my personal playlist of this stuff because it's a really great way to start the morning. Titled it Motivational Dudes in an attempt to channel some of that positive masculinity that is a hallmark of the genre. No offense to Pat Benatar, of course. This thread has been very helpful.

I see that we have Stan Bush's The Touch, but let's not forget Dare, which I honestly think is his better song from the Transformers soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUhB1O8Le0Q

John Parr's Restless Heart (closing theme from The Running Man) is kinda like this. It's more about overcoming romantic problems than winning the big race or whatever (even though it does actually contain the lyric "and now the race is won).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdglEovz3Z0

And wait! Speaking of John Parr - St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx7vNdAb5e4

And final update, some people might want to make their own spotify playlist of such hits and include Push 1t T0 the L1m1t by Paul 3ng3mann. "Damn," they might say. "That song is not on Spotify and all I can find are cheesy cover versions!" Well, I was a/b-ing the cover versions trying to find the best one and discovered that someone uploaded the actual original song under the artist name Y0ung4n Y0ung4n. Don't know how long it will stay up, but thank god for them.

I've seen that lost boys clip referenced a lot lately and the most confusing thing about it is trying to imagine a bunch of teenagers in any era, vampires or otherwise, being excited about seeing that song performed in that manner.

Yeah, I hear you. Although apparently the gyrating and thrusting his standard saxophone move (his main gig was as Tina Turner's sideman). Here's a couple quotes from an interview he did in Gizmodo:

In the end, the look of the character may have been the most complex and thoughtful thing about the character, and it was all Cappello. “There was nothing,” he says when I ask about directions from the filmmaker. “I made my own clothes and just showed up with them. So they gave me no wardrobe. There was just nothing.” All he knew was it was a big party scene and he wanted the character to pop. “I knew that I wanted it to be a little wrong,” Cappello said. “I’d like to make this, like, a little bit funny. Take this a little too far. So I did the tie-dye, which was pink and purple on the pants...[then] I went a little further with the Home Depot chains.”

He added, “There’s gotta be something wrong about anything that you do, otherwise it’s just plain old cliché.” The result was a look nearly as memorable as his performance. Oh, and don’t forget the oil.

“You always oiled up,” Cappello said “Every night with Tina, I would oil up. It’s just always what you did...It was kind of like you were wearing a shirt. You were wearing a flesh shirt that was shiny.”

I'll be honest - I'd been so busy looking at his shiny flesh shirt that I didn't notice the pink and purple tie-dyed pants.

Fun fact, you can get a shareable video message from Cappello via Cameo.

Some friends of mine did so recently and it was everything one could hope for. Shirtlessness, chains, saxophone, believing, giving it your all, going the distance, overcoming obstacles, not giving up, etc.

https://www.cameo.com/dolcevito

If you ever need inspiration to help you win, or complete a training montage, or defeatsome vampires. Message this dude. He still believes and he will give his all, just for you. Definitely worth a hundred oily dollars.

the Pokemon theme song is heavily influenced by this genre.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3wpqrg

Glenn Frey: "Livin' Right"

Put on your bandoleers and your necklace with a hand grenade, it's time to 'Remember the Heroes' go back to 'NAM and bring our boys home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSoDTHDI_aU

https://w.notrecinema.com/images/filmsi/uncommon-valor_226614_3311.jpg

Titled it Motivational Dudes in an attempt to channel some of that positive masculinity that is a hallmark of the genre. No offense to Pat Benatar, of course

Okay, I did have to add Pat Benatar because that song is just so good. But can anyone name any more of these by women?

We don't need another hero

Cause I am the warrior

And this is my fight song

Good ones. Yeah, I thought about Fight Song and Katy Perry's Roar, which both fit the bill to a certain extent, but they're definitely not 80s.

Right, just riffing.

80s training-montage music does seem to have been a sausagefest

We must not, however, stop thinking about tomorrow

I feel like Kim Mitchell's cheesy '80s song about heart and soul and overcoming but compromising and not partying too hard should be here as a cool down number.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXnTbmPxv5g

I feel like Sammy Hagar's "Winner Takes It All" and Queen's "I Want It All" are the harder-edge of this idea

lol that Bryan Adams has a song called "We're Gonna Win" that sounds like he's trying to do Green Day

Irene Cara - Flashdance...What A Feeling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILWSp0m9G2U

the cheeziest and worst of them all! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_E2EHVxNAE

I don't want to bring negativity to this thread, but that doesn't match the feel at all. Right Here Waiting is just a ballad.

I do think "What a Feeling" fits the thread topic though, good pick.

If I ever have a chance to select music for a bitchin' 80s training montage, that will be a contender.

Yeah, the thing that I notice about all the women's contributions that I've found is that they are much more individualistic. Like, the Irene Cara song is definitely disco-influenced pop. We Don't Need Another Hero is like a pop-rock ballad anthem thing? And I was just sitting around trying to decide whether The Goonies 'R' Good Enough would qualify, and that's squarely in the 'Cyndi Lauper' genre.

But the songs by dudes that make up the heart and backbone of this list that I think Old Lunch was trying to get at - your John Farnhams, your Stan Bushes, your Jean Beauvoirs and Larry Greenes - they all played this this weird, interchangeable kind of arena rock.

They were men in motion. They were the best around. Nothin' was gonna break their stride. Because they had what it takes and they gave it all they had. They were the champions, my friend.

"We Don't Need Another Hero" is more about surrendering and losing than overcoming and winning.

Your point is well taken, but isn't it nobler to rise up to the challenge of their rivals?

They did their time and took their chances. Regrets? Perhaps they had a few, but they gave their all and overcame the odds.

regrets
I've had a few
but then again
i gave my all and overcame the odds

I heard "we don't need another hero" the other day on the radio for the first time in ages, and divorced from its context and video it was cracking me up that this iconic pop-rock ballad anthem has totally earnest lyrics about Thunderdome

Yeah, that's definitely a little jarring.

I was just the other day thinking about starting a thread for songs like that, when I was half consciously listening to an old Bobby Brown jam and had briefly forgotten about the part where he randomly starts rapping about the plot of Ghostbusters 2. See also 'Man in Motion' (which isn't a bad selection for this thread, assuming it isn't already in here somewhere).

But can anyone name any more of these by women?

Oh duh, Amy Holland's 'She's On Fire' from Scarface is an even better one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e03_Mk53OhQ

This thread inevitably reminds me of my middle school chorus teacher, a man with the unfortunate name of Mr. Fenicle, who wore a horrible toupée and still lived with his mother. Barely closeted, in other words, but a very sweet and kind man.

However, because it was a public school and religious music wasn’t allowed, we had to sing a lot of choral arrangements of pop songs, so that my first exposure to many iconic songs was through chorus— we did “Man in Motion,” “What a Feeling,” and “Eye of the Tiger,” so basically the sorts of songs this thread is about. Also, tho, some others, including “La Isla Bonita,” “The Rose,” and “Allentown.”

I was in his classes for three years, and it was my time spent in those classes that made me realize the juvenile nature of so much cruelty— I would be sitting red-faced in the corner as some other kid would keep asking Mr. Fenicle if he’d seen “Deez” that day. It made me so sad for him.

Then he would start pounding away at the piano and we’d be singing “Tropical the island breeze.” This was suburban Philadelphia.

The 1989 Gillette jingle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThDBf14qPsc

cosign Flashdance

I think this

“Man in Motion,” “What a Feeling,” and “Eye of the Tiger,” so basically the sorts of songs this thread is about. Also, tho, some others, including “La Isla Bonita,” “The Rose,” and “Allentown.”

Would be a pretty fly set for my 80s cover band. I could even just do this as an acoustic open mic set!

Not in that order, though. I would probably alternate the inspirational anthems with the soft pop jams, and add like three flute solos

I know at least two separate dudes who specialize in doing 80s/90s pop diva stuff as middle-aged male acoustic-guitar songs.

Nothing compares (ahem) to a tipsy middle-aged white dad who will totally play yr Pat Benatar, Paula Abdul, Miley, Mariah, etc., in a sparsely populated suburban brewpub on a Monday night

Tbh Mr. Fenicle had reasonable taste, I’ve wondered in retrospect what sort of music he was really into.

An avenue worth exploring: I've noticed that there are a few of these songs where they've been used more than once, but by different artists. For instance, many people know the song Nothing's Gonna Stand In Our Way as performed by Spectre General (aka Kick Axe) on the Transformers the Movie soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVkytQtvBWM

But here is it being performed in 1984 by John Farnham (aka RAD dude) for the soundtrack of something called Savage Streets*:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8B7RLEslMc

*"Crossbow-armed Brenda (Linda Blair) hunts down a Hollywood gang led by a punk (Robert Dryer) with a razor-blade earring."

Oh fuck, just discovered that Sue Shifrin, one of the writers on John Farnham's Break The Ice, also co-wrote Robbi Robb's In Time from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Definitely more on the ballad side of things than most of these montage songs, but what do you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTYcOQnJaSI

An avenue worth exploring: I've noticed that there are a few of these songs where they've been used more than once, but by different artists. For instance, many people know the song Nothing's Gonna Stand In Our Way as performed by Spectre General (aka Kick Axe) on the Transformers the Movie soundtrack.

Ok, so this isn't quite the same, but here's Stan Bush doing John Farnham's Thunder In Your Heart. This is a newer recording from 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGSSuziWX3A

Here's more Joe "Bean" Esposito. Cry of the City, from the 1986 film Knights of the City. Co-written by Stan Bush's The Touch collaborator Lenny Macaluso.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kvKD5kG9z8

Not cheesy or eighties, but relevant to the interests of this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lttMHEdpZM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWO_dNQLehM

Shooting Star by Sylvie Vartan, a Euro-Pop singer from Bulgaria. It was written by Gloria Sklerov, who along with Lenny Macaluso wrote Thunder In Your Heart and Cry of the City.

Exemplary! Every note of the guitar solo was exactly as expected.

Maybe Lee Aaron fits in here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbMAai64t9Y

Trying to find my way into more fitness/sports video soundtracks. Here's Bobby Caldwell - Don't Quit from 1984's Body By Jake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b00L5_WJS6U

Bonnie Tyler with another entry for the ladies: Breakout, from 1990 German action sports drama Fire, Ice and Dynamite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nlWeTL4dtk

Going just on the song titles, I bet there are several more "givin' it all you got" tunes on the soundtrack:

Bonnie Tyler– Breakout
Chris Thompson / Marietta*– Never Give Up
Connie De Groot– Win It All
Moses P.*– Muscles
Chris Thompson– Wire It Up
Deep Purple– Fire, Ice & Dynamite
Roger Chapman– Eye To Eye
Rockafella (2)– Get Ready
Bruce Ingram– Out Of Control
Dominoe– Rock Noon
Isaac Hayes– Fly
Jennifer Rush– We Are The Strong
Marietta*– Thunder & Lightning

Was “Man in Motion” used recently in a show or something? I hear it a LOT, like last Saturday, where I heard it in both a CVS and a smalltown bar within an hour or so. It didn’t used to be this popular, what gives?

Featured in Stelmo Things iirc

ever heard the version he did for Tim Tebow?

i've been playing St Elmos for years, since basically it was popular, so I welcome this

Did anyone mention Secret of My Success by Night Ranger?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUcRFTD_KEE

Keep an eye on their horn section, which is comprised of 0.5 Motley Crue + 1 Weird Al Yankovic.

Thanks— I was wondering whether it had been featured in the 80s throwback show of the moment. Fwiw, I also welcome it, because I love it.

Pokemon theme is pretty much this

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, July 18, 2018 11:22 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

the Pokemon theme song is heavily influenced by this genre.

― peace, man, Saturday, April 30, 2022 6:50 AM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm sorry, Adam. I didn't mean to bite your post.

Having watched at least part of every single Pokémon show and movie when my daughter was into them a few years back, I was certain that the main 1990s theme was not the only example of a Givin' it All That You Got song.

Stand Tall, from Pokémon the Movie: Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel (2016) composed by Ed Goldfarb and performed by Ben Dixon and The Sad Truth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hzzdzj-pD4

Stay Together, originally from the episode Time Warp Heals All Wounds (2006) and on the Pokémon X: 10 Years of Pokémon CD (2007). Written and performed by Nini Camps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBebZa0UiwI

I'm sure that there are more heart and soul songs in Pokémon, but I will need to do further research.

While y'all are posting actual great songs, I'd like to make a nomination for the category of Worst Example of This Subgenre: the mind-bendingly terrible song from The Garbage Pail Kids Movie - "We Can Do Anything (By Working With Each Other)". Hooooly shit, this may be the most garbage (ha ha) song in movie soundtrack history.

Imagine the don't-expect-to-sleep-for-a-month-after-watching-this visuals of the creepy life-size anthropomorphic Garbage Pail Kids (one of whom is not a kid, but a freaking alligator) attempting a just ghastly rap-adjacent synthed-up Smurfs theme. And hey, that's a non-union sweatshop in which they are working!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeeQ41VS2S0

That is terrible. That movie was such a disgrace to the Garbage Pail Kids.

my mom took me when I was 7. I loved it, but I also loved Superman IV at that age so little Neanderthal was stupid

Have we talked about John Waite's "Change" yet? It was on the Vision Quest soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vLQdsQsq68

Tangent: seeing the word "duchy" in the news led me to think of Musical Youth, and I went down the rabbit hole of their fate, and got tangled up in that of John (no relation) Waite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vLQdsQsq68

I've never heard it but damn, that's the fun cheese that I would expect from that soundtrack.

was the movie it was attached to any good

I like how worried he is about losing his hat

he does lose his hat, that's what "Missing You" is about

Quite the plot twist at the end of that video.

This seems to fir the bill. From the movie of the same name with Michael J Fox and Helen Slater. Straight up banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z6lUn4XTzY

Also this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4pg6Jh94Lo

I posted the Secret of My Success like a month ago - it's such a wild song!

Also, I'm pretty sure that John Waite's Change was in here previously, but I think it's one of the Youtube links that has died. Important to add a title to your links!

I can't remember if Never Surrender was on here before, but I love that one.

"It's like the sound of E-LEC-TRIC GUI-TARS!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3cLKmHSuv8

I don't think we've posted this yet-- Rick Derringer's "Real American" Long Hulk Hogan's theme song.

Ooh, that's good! I went through a phase where I was looking for good songs related to wrestling but that passed me by. Maybe I just assumed from the title that it wasn't a fit.

Kenny Loggins - I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEvuQE6t5c

"Change" is one the decade's best songs.

This only marginally relates to the thread, but I'll mention it – I recently watched Mystic Pizza (terrific movie), and was smitten by the Super Generic 80s Song™ playing in the background of this scene.

Turns out it's "Is It Hot in Here," by Renée Geyer – and apparently can't be heard anywhere but in that clip (per one of the YT comments - Spoke to the producer on LinkedIn. He said their recording studios were flooded and he thinks the original is gone. This song was never released on the soundtrack.)

Also only marginally related – I rewatched St. Elmo's Fire, and the whole thing with Rob Lowe's "hot saxophone playing" is so funny/bizarre. Especially the scene where he's onstage, as a band's "lead saxophonist." Why didn't they make it a guitar or something? (He doesn't even keep it in a case! When he's leaving town at the end, he just has the sax hanging from his shoulder as he gets on a Greyhound bus.)

That said - when it was time to choose an instrument to play in elementary school (and beyond), I chose the alto sax... that's how hottt the sax was in the '80s, that aura rubbed off for sure.

Morrisp, the moment in SEF where he says "let's rock" and starts clapping is like one of the least rocking moments in the history of non-rocking.

And I unapologetically love that movie. It was set in my home town during my teenage years; I can still recognize where various scenes were filmed. When I was in minth grade, my sister drove me to school, and she would take a longer route when the sax-driven instrumental love theme came on the radio.

When I was 15 years old that movie was one of my main sources of information about what being an adult was going to be like. I have no regrets.

Loggins has so many of these. I love "I'm Free".

"Meet Me Halfway" though is my real Loggins jam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlQsM9mS4pk

Mickey Thomas - Stand in the Fire
from 1986 Rob Lowe/Patrick Swayze hockey movie Youngblood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dskBv2_mzqc

Jon Butcher Axis- This Raging Fire
Iron Eagle Soundtrack

Morodor, Daltry, Kevin Bacon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApLAUYYEILM

Quicksilver Lightning from Quicksilver

This one is a banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlDlJTPEbOo

John Farnham- "Break the Ice" from "Rad"

same artist & film, nearly as good...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGFAjwtjlPc

lol already Farnham in the first post I see now

Peace, man, I need to tell you that I just walked through a room in which my child is watching a trivia show called "Mental Samurai," hosted by... Rob Lowe.

I can go a LONG time without encountering or thinking about Rob Lowe. Like, it's one of my superpowers. Between first seeing "St. Elmo's Fire" in 1985 and today, I have thought about Rob Lowe maybe eleven times, so an average of approximately three times per year.

Because of you I have thought about Rob Lowe twice in one day. That's my quota for the year. One more and will will somehow have to avoid any mention of him for a while, or it will skew my average.

Wouldn't it be once every three years? So you're actually good for your Rob Lowe fix until 2028 now (or 2031 if you count this post as #3)

Rob Lowe was really good in Behind the Candelabra from 2013, fwiw

Outside of the realm of DX7s and searing electric guitars, but I was thinking this morning about how the theme song to Laverne and Shirley is a lyrical antecedent to this stuff. There's probably a rabbit-hole to go down of other television themes about overcoming and winning, etc. If I find some free time in the near future, that's my plan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAnecJl_Z1A

Making Our Dreams Come True (performed by Cyndi Grecco, written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel)

I always considered the L&S theme a more lighthearted homage to the Mary Tyler Moore theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNKOt2k7Pm4

There is also a Husker Du version, because of course there is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFyy3XB_3Y4

See also: Diff'rent Strokes, Good Times, Family Ties, One Day at a Time, Alice, Gimme a Break.

All those themes had uplifting messages in spite of difficulty.

Southern Pacific - Shoot for the Top (from Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH5DlVAo23Q