The Sixth P&J Singles Poll!

Were the earlier polls only a day long?

"Free Nelson Mandela," by the way.

Two days, for the most part.

"When Doves Cry"/"17 Days" for me, btw.

That Top Ten is just brilliant, but I like John Waite's "Missing You" a lot more than "Eight Miles High," so I'll substitute that.

Some favorites missing:

H&O - "Out of Touch" or "Adult Education"
KC – "Give It Up"
Romeo Void – "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing")
Bronski Beat - "Smalltown Boy"
New Order – "Thieves Like Us"
Christine McVie – "Got A Hold On Me"
Cameo – "She's Strange"

the list is endless....

Hüsker Dü easy.

My two favorites are the last two songs on the list! ("Rock Box" would be third. No idea why people would think "Unity" is brilliant, though. Always thought people liked the idea of that more than the reality of it.) At any rate, I went with "Missing You" too.

I don't totally disagree about "Unity," xhuxk (though I enjoy the acapella on the 12" oddly enough), but would say it's even more true perhaps of "World Destruction," the only song on this list I actively can't stand.

I'll vote for "Missing You" or (maybe even) "Better Be Good to Me" but I don't cream my jeans over this year as some do. I mean, it's very good and all, but...

Great year for (especially Top 40/CHR) singles, I'd say, but the list, now that I see it again, isn't nearly as great as the year. (Maybe I'll expand on that sometime; don't have time right now though.)

no Billy Ocean no credibility.

my favorite 84 single was Don't Look Any Further by Dennis Edwards.

so Prince's all-time best song is ez choice tho Chaka Khan is tempting

Maybe it's one of the great years for hits aligning up with critical tastes? It is a very Top 40 list for P&J, maybe moreso than other years (including other years I prefer).

Which Billy Ocean? I love two or three by him, but don't know which came out when. "Carribean Queen"?

xp "I Will Dare" never seemed all that amazing to me, either, to be honest. Ditto that R.E.M. single. They just seem like random tracks by those bands -- okay album tracks, but hardly great singles. And the Lydon/Bambaataa is almost as much a more-interesting-idea-than-a-song as the Brown/Bambaata. And the Fogerty single was kinda so-what in the first place.

Either "Loverboy" or "Caribbean Queen (No More Love On the Run)."

The Year Popism Broke.

no, don't...

xp I will admit, though, that "World Destruction" holds up better than I would have thought at the time. (When it came out, it hit me as really corny. But it was used in some TV series a couple years ago -- Sopranos, maybe? -- and I was pleasantly surprised.) But it's still nowhere near as transcendent as much (if not most) of what its two principal parties had done earlier, including Bam's previous singles under the Time Zone monicker.

WHY THE FUCK WERE CRITICS SO BESOTTED WITH MALC MCLAREN??

Also, better than almost anything on the P&J singles list, from Christgau's video ballot that year:

Righiera: "Vamos a la Playa"

And here are his singles (more of which seem to have made the main list than usual), for what it's worth:

Run-D.M.C.: "Rock Box" (Profile)
Bruce Springsteen: "Born in the U.S.A." (Columbia)
Thompson Twins: "Hold Me Now" (Arista)
Romantics: "Talking in Your Sleep" (Nemperor)
Newcleus: "Jam on It" (Sunnyview)
Aztec Camera: "Jump" (Sire import 12-inch)
John Waite: "Missing You" (EMI America)
Cyndi Lauper: "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" (Portrait)
Time Zone: "World Destruction" (Celluloid)
Time: "Jungle Love" (Warner Bros.)
Ashford & Simpson: "Solid" (Capitol)
Hüsker Dü: "Eight Miles High" (SST)
Prince and the Revolution: "When Doves Cry" (Warner Bros.)
Bruce Springsteen: "Dancing in the Dark" (Columbia 12-inch)
Bruce Springsteen: "Pink Cadillac" (Columbia)
Herbie Hancock: "Mega-Mix" (Columbia 12-inch)
Van Halen: "Jump" (Warner Bros.)
Afrika Bambaataa & the Godfather of Soul James Brown: "Unity" (Tommy Boy 12-inch)
World's Famous Supreme Team: "Hey D.J." (Island)
Shannon: "Give Me Tonight" (Mirage)
Tina Turner: "What's Love Got to Do With It" (Capitol)
Deniece Williams: "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (Columbia)
Chaka Khan: "I feel for You" (Warner Bros.)
Malcolm McLaren: "Madam Butterfly" (Island 12-inch)
Earons: "Land of Hunger" (Island 12-inch)
Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers: "We Need Some Money" (D.D.E.T. 12-inch)
Gil Scott-Heron: "Re-Ron" (Arista 12-inch)
Pointers Sisters: "Automatic" (Planet)
Mighty Wah: "Come Back" (Beggars Banquet import)
Staple Singers: "Slippery People" (Private I 12-inch)

Shannon – Give Me Tonight
Thompson Twins – Hold Me Now"

Definitely in mine too.

That Earons single is great, too. But who or what was Mighty Wah?

Also, here are 1984's poll-winning videos:

Videos
1. Art of Noise: "Close (to the Edit)" (Zbigniew Rybczynsky) 35
2. Cyndi Lauper: "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" (Ken Walz) 34 *
3. Van Halen: "Hot for Teacher" (Peter Angelis) 29
4. The Cars: "You Might Think" (Charlex/Jeff Stein) 28
5. Frankie Goes to Hollywood: "Two Tribes" (Godley & Creme) 20
6. Van Halen: "Jump" (Peter Angelis) 18
7. ZZ Top: "Legs" (Tim Newman) 16
8. Cyndi Lauper: "Time After Time" (Edd Griles) 12
9. Bob Dylan: "Jokerman" (George Lois) 11
10. Lou Reed: "I Love You Suzanne" (Tim Newman)

Maybe it's one of the great years for hits aligning up with critical tastes?

Scott OTM. I definitely hold '84 in high esteem for terribly not-very-critical reasons: I was nine years old and the radio was fucking glorious. The fact that lots of great albums came out that year that I didn't know about till way after the fact was just icing.

I voted "When Doves Cry"/"17 Days" of course, his best B-side to my ear. But there are acres of great songs neither of the polls touch. As far as Christgau's singles that aren't on the P&J list, "Jungle Love,""Mega-Mix," "Give Me Tonight," "Automatic," and "Slippery People" are all ones I like a lot-to-love.

In retrospect, this does seem like a particularly good year for commercial pop radio. The list would have been better with "Like a Virgin", "Boys of Summer", "The Reflex", "Owner of a Lonely Heart", "Karma Chameleon", "All Night Long (All Night)", "99 Luftballons", "Uptown Girl", "Sister Christian", and lots of other tunes that were inescapable that year. Embarrasingly enough, I think my favorite song at the time was "Ghostbusters", but in my defense, I was about 11 years old.

"Ghostbusters" is awesome! No apologies necessary.

I talked a bit about 1984 as a pop year here: http://idolator.com/tunes/project-x/project-x-living-in-the-eighties-256187.php -- those Top 10s from that year (the earlier of them features some '83 cuts as well) are good indicators of what was happening radio-wise.

Nothing bad on that list, but yeah, there's plenty of surprising snubs, as well as some unsurprising ones. Only Prince and a coupla other folks up there get their B-sides explicitly identified. Either of the two Cyndi Lauper singles could conceivably have been my choice, had I known what the B-sides were. Whereas "When Doves Cry" would've been my choice if I didn't know what any of the B-sides on that list were. However, finally, based on that limited knowledge, no A-&-B tandem can quite match "Let's Go Crazy/Erotic City" for quality, so that's where I vote. (And just to complicate things further, my REAL favourite was most likely Xgau's #4, "Talking In Your Sleep". Whatta year.)

"Eight Miles High" for me, even with my mild Hüsker Dü blockage. Gotta stick it to the 1960s whenever possible.

Maybe it's one of the great years for hits aligning up with critical tastes?

Yes, dead on, Scott. 1984's always been slightly overrated for that very reason. The radio was indeed the one, Orgasmatron, at the time. But in retrospect, these great songs/hits just seem too natural. And I'm no nature boy.

M.I.A.:

Bananarama: "Robert De Niro's Waiting" (London 1984) - Rob Sheffield fucked up the lyrics in Spin Alternative Record Guide.The correct ones are: "I don't need a boy/I've got a man of steel." But Rob's are better!: "I don't need a boy/I've got a magazine." (P.S. The Loverboy Paul Dean was so not in X-Ray Spex.)

Can someone pretty please xplain to me what's so flapjack flippin' great about Aztec Camera's version of "Jump?" I love AC (Aztec Camera, that is) but "Jump" seems an utter throwaway. Far too B-side.

And speaking of B-sides, that's pretty much the only way I can hear Prince as a singles artist and thus "Erotic City"-not-"Let's Go Crazy" will always be my favorite single by him.

The only version of "Dancing in the Dark" for which I'd have voted is the Arthur Baker "blaster" mix.

Can someone pretty please xplain to me what's so flapjack flippin' great about Aztec Camera's version of "Jump?" I love AC (Aztec Camera, that is) but "Jump" seems an utter throwaway. Far too B-side.

David Lee Roth turns into Morrissey.

The Mighty Wah! was the successor band(?) to Wah! Heat a late 70s group from Liverpool I think led by Pete Wylie. I do not remember what either group sounded like though just the names.

A bunch of them would win any other year, but "I Feel For You" is basically my favorite single of the '80s.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The only version of "Dancing in the Dark" for which I'd have voted is the Arthur Baker "blaster" mix.

that's the one Christgau specifies on his list. Rickey/Timi Yuro has plenty to say about it as well (counting down . . . )

BOOM BOOM BOOM

YOU SIT AROUND GETTING OLDER OLDER OLDER . . .

Rolling Stone (Kurt Loder, maybe) asked Bruce how he came to hook up with Arthur Baker. He said he'd heard the "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" 12-inch (which C. Eddy once described as "Cubist") on the radio and thought "it sounded like fun."

Great moment: when everything but Bruce's voice and guitar and this HUGE ECHO falls out at the "Stay on the streets of this town" verse.

Baker also added a glockenspiel solo!

Heh, but I voted for "Erotic City."

Alfred OTM on "Out of Touch," particularly the (Baker-remixed) 12-inch.

Xposts to O. Nate: "Like a Virgin" was very late '84, so maybe that's why it didn't make much of an impact on the poll. "All Night Long" was '83, as were Yes and Billy Joel.

Does anyone else remember Twilight 22's "Siberian Nights"? More nuke-paranoia, but electro-rap this time.

Great moment: when everything but Bruce's voice and guitar and this HUGE ECHO falls out at the "Stay on the streets of this town" verse

For being a mix marketed to discos Baker foregrounds Springsteen's great guitar riff with surprising resourcefulness.

maybe the guitar riff is pretty disco--I haven't heard it in a long time (and have never heard the 12-inch), so feel free to laugh at this if I'm wrong

"Jump"!
But where oh where is Limahl's "Neverending Story"?

maybe the guitar riff is pretty disco--I haven't heard it in a long time

You can really concentrate on it in the Baker mix. It's more straightforward electric rhythm strumming than "Skunk" Baxter-esque prickly lead type of thing. There's a nice friction between the singer/songwriter trope of alone-ness and the frenetic rhythm; Bruce's ordinary-guy persona has never been more naked (he evokes Bernard Sumner, of all people: what's this human voice doing trapped in this machine?).

David Lee Roth turns into Morrissey.

Yeah but how great is that?

he evokes Bernard Sumner, of all people: what's this human voice doing trapped in this machine?

This is really lovely. I gotta pull out this remix again since it never did anything for me. But hearing it as a faux New Order song might work.

Well, I wouldn't say it's faux New Order; what Baker gets out of Bruce is that pathos Sumner could project without putting too much effort. If you stretch it, I think there's a correspondence between this mix and the Baker-produced "Thieves Like Us."

I say more here.

I voted Born in the USA because I'm a sad and broken bastard. But there were at least a few other songs I could have just as easily voted for.

I say more here.

That's a great piece, Alfred! I just heard the remix again and it made me laugh out loud. Twice. I love it! I guess more chutzpah went into the mix than I remembered. Which means that even though I hear the vocal-mix mismatch you're describing, I dig it primarily for the punky spirit dance music/remix culture frequently visits upon other music. In short, similar to "I Saw HIM Standing There," I dig it because I know it would've given some Sprinsgteen hardliners apoplexy.

Both the A & B of "Let's Go Crazy"/"Erotic City" are better than the A & B of that overrated other Prince single. So sez I.

xpost

Yeah, Kevin, Bruce knew what he was doing. In all the meanings of that phrase.

x-post

College rockers prefer AC's Morrissey style on "Jump"

It's the only Aztec Camera I haven't thrown away over the years. Which isn't to say that they might not have other great songs; just none that I've ever bothered to take the time to connect with. Anyway, I still have the 12-inch single, which has always reminded me of the Velvet Underground, and which I always thought was way better than the Minutemen's Van Halen cover from the same year.

Toward the end of 1985 I wrote a long Voice lead music section piece about how pop radio that year was nowhere near as great as pop radio had been in 1984, in which I ran down a laundry list of songs that made the latter so amazing. I'll dig it out soon if I have a chance, but I'm pretty sure "If I'd Been the One" by .38 Special and "Foolish Heart" by Steve Perry were on the list, along with many songs mentioned above and probably some others that have slipped everyone's mind. (Though "All Night Long [All Night] scored in '83 not '84, incidentally.)

I don't think I ever heard Wah! Heat, either.

Oh yeah, one more great '84 single I mentioned in that piece, I'm pretty sure:

"Authority Song"/"Pink Houses (Acoustic)"

And probably "Round and Round," by Ratt.

Which also reminds me that the overall absence of John Cougar (who was making way better records than Bruce Spingsteen at the time, and whose American Fool was both one of the biggest-selling and one of the best albums of the era) from '82 and '83 P&J singles and LPs lists borders on criminal. (Critics never much cared about him 'til Scarecrow, which was great, but was also a pretty blatant bid for critical respectability in certain ways.)

(Okay, "way better" is an exagerration. I have no problem with Nebraska or Born in the USA; they're great. But given the choice, I'd still easily take American Fool and Uh-Huh.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Lookitthat! John Waite singing in the ear of Prince, and loud enough to make the gay boys in the 'Du nervous.

I'm genuinely interested in why anyone voted for that Replacement's song.

Either me or Rickey forgot to actually vote.

I voted. I think.

I forgot to vote. Hmmm, Prince or Husker Du. Prince.

Don't worry about it, Rickey. I wouldn't put it above myself to be the forgetful one at all.

"All Night Long" was '83, as were Yes and Billy Joel

They were still charting in '84 I think, so they could be arguably included, especially if they were late '83 and didn't show up in the '83 Pazz & Jop (as I don't think any of them did). I found them all on this chart, which is unofficially the Billboard Hot 100 of 1984:

http://www.cylist.com/List/400300145/

That link ain't working.

Strange, it works when you click from the Google search results page, but not from here. Try the first result from here:

http://www.google.com/search?q=1984+hot+100

Thanks!

1. When Doves Cry - Prince
2. What's Love Got To Do With It - Tina Turner
3. Say Say Say - Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson
4. Footloose - Kenny Loggins
5. Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) - Phil Collins
6. Jump - Van Halen
7. Hello - Lionel Richie
8. Owner Of A Lonely Heart - Yes
9. Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr.
10. Karma Chameleon - Culture Club
11. Missing You - John Waite
12. All Night Long (All Night) - Lionel Richie
13. Let's Hear It For The Boy - Deniece Williams
14. Dancing In The Dark - Bruce Springsteen
15. Girls Just Want To Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
16. The Reflex - Duran Duran
17. Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper
18. Jump (For My Love) - Pointer Sisters
19. Talking In Your Sleep - Romantics
20. Self Control - Laura Branigan

My goodness..the only ringer is Lionel Richie's.

"All Night Long" was '83, as were Yes and Billy Joel

They were still charting in '84 I think, so they could be arguably included, especially if they were late '83 and didn't show up in the '83 Pazz & Jop (as I don't think any of them did)

"All Night Long" did chart Pazz&Jopwise in '83, actually.

Another dozen as-yet-unmentioned classix that charted in '84:

Easy Lover
Careless Whisper
I Want to Know What Love Is
Whisper To A Scream
Head Over Heels
Drive
Eyes Without A Face
We're Not Gonna Take It
Solid (as a Rock)
They Don't Know
Sugar Walls
I Want a New Drug

...and I'm overlooking songs that didn't chart outside of Canada, superior AOR/corporate metal crap that I tend to hold in higher regard than most, and anything that may possibly have not charted until '85. And for the record, I liked "Ghostbusters" almost as much as "New Drug". There was room enough for both of them that year. There were a few hits I never liked at all ("Illegal Alien", "The War Song") but they were far more exception than rule.

They Don't Know

Very strong contender for my favourite single of the year.

(I mean, it's the Tracey Ullman, right?)

Yep

Other as-yet-unmentioned 1984 singles I wound up mentioning in my Voice essay two years later about how bad radio was in 1986 after being so great in 1984:

Diana Ross - "Swept Away"
Bryan Adams - "Run To You"

Other good to great singles that other people voted for on Boston Phoenix ballots that year:

Lime Spiders - "Slave Girl"
Elton John - "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues"
Robin Gibb - "Boys Do Fall In Love"
Elton John - "Sad Songs (Say So Much)"
Eurythmics - "Here Comes The Rain Again"
Alphaville - "Big In Japan"
Rick Springfield - "Love Somebody"
Sheila E - "The Glamorous Life"
Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It"
J Blackfoot - "Taxi"
X- "Wild Thing" (kinda marginal, as are the Elton and Eurythmics songs above maybe, but what the heck)

Also curious about these (some of which I probably heard before but what the heck):
Folk Devils - "Beautiful Monster"
Jocelyn Brown - "Somebody Else's Guy"
Amanda Lear - "Assassino"
I.R.T. - "Watch The Closing Doors"
Flirtations - "Eathquake"
Hoodoo Gurus - "I Want You Back"
M + M - "Black Stations/White Stations"
Tyrone Taylor - "Cottage In Negril"
Kid Creole and The Coconuts - "My Male Curiosity"
Dominatrix - "Don't Dominate"
Force MDs - "Tears"

M+M's "Black Stations/White Stations" - This is Martha & the Muffins, post-"Echo Beach" and post-fun. One of Daniel Lanois's earliest big time (or semi-big time) productions. Song, interestingly enough, about radio segregation, but it's an incredibly stodgy attempt at "dance music" from what I recall.

Kid Creole and The Coconuts - "My Male Curiosity" - One of their best singles, even though "they" were pretty much a done deal by that point. Maybe if I listened to it again, I'd find the music kind of lacking? But melodically speaking, it's pretty great.

Strangely, give or take a single or two (e.g., "No Fish Today") I considered any Kid Creole and the Coconuts album after their debut (which I still love) August-Darnell-post-fun, but over the years I've started to wonder why exactly I thought that.

And speaking of which, I already put that Phoenix page back in the file cabinet, but I'm pretty sure someone also voted for "A Girl In Trouble (Is A Temporary Thing)" by Romeo Void on one of those lists (unless that was 1986, which list I also just looked at.) Honestly have no memory of ever hearing that song, but I've always assumed that was Deborah Iyall (or however it's spelled) post-fun as well. And again, I no longer recall what gave me that idea.

Hmmm, I would have broken the tie for "Eight Miles High"...

I prefer "A Girl in Trouble..." to "Never Say Never," especially in its 12" version!

"A Girl in Trouble" is Romeo Void's only top 40 hit, and it's a Roxy Music-circa-Avalon kinda deal - nice enough but nothing major - I like it better than "Never Say Never", though.

"Watch the Closing Doors" is a fun kiddie-rap dance thing about public transportation.

"Black Stations White Stations" doesn't sound un-fun at all to me - it's a pretty lively dance number, with a cool screech-guitar solo followed by a talking-drums breakdown.

"My Male Curiosity" is very a catchy semi-Latin dance thing and was a big hit on Montreal top 40 radio at the time, as were (to a lesser extent) "Watch the Closing Doors" and "Black Stations White Stations". What a glorious year 1984 was.

Songs with 0 votes that can be empirically proven superior to 8 Miles High:

Girls Just Want to Have Fun (seriously, 0 votes!?!)
Let's Hear It For the Boy
Both Tina Turners
Possibly Middle of the Road

I remember Chuck saying that one reason 1984 was so great is that everyone sounded like The Cars, which is pretty much true, but I'd also add that all pop and rock performers seemed to be releasing dance songs, and all dance artists were coming up with pop songs. Performers who hit the Billboard *dance* chart in 1984: The Cars, The Cure, The Go-Gos, Hall and Oates, Herbie Hancock, Billy Idol, Joe Jackson, Konk, David Lasley, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, Barry Manilow, Hugh Masekela, Malcolm McLaren, Olivia Newton-John, The Pretenders, Psychedelic Furs, Queen, Lou Reed, The Romantics, Scritti Politti, Jules Shear, Sparks, Rick Springfield, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, UB40, Van Halen, John Waite, Peter Wolf, Yes, ZZ Top.

"Black Stations White Stations" doesn't sound un-fun at all to me - it's a pretty lively dance number, with a cool screech-guitar solo followed by a talking-drums breakdown

Patrick, I'd need to relisten to the song, and maybe I'd have a change of heart, but even though I don't disagree with the parts you're pointing out (I remember the screech-guitar and the talking drums), I just find the chorus itself so emptily sloganeering ("Black stations/white stations--break down the door!") and not at all melodic. And the sound of the record (that wide open, made-for-the-dancefloor vibe) reminds me too much of Parachute Club. But I'll go back and check it out.

The Parachute Club! Haha, I was looking for the "Rise Up" video on YouTube just yesterday. Also heard Rough Trade's "High School Confidential" for the first time in 20+ years (and saw the video for the very first time) - holy shit, I can't believe that was a hit!

actually, I didn't make the connection while posting that, but Lanois also produced Parachute Club, which I guess just kind of makes me dislike what he does even more... no offense, Patrick, but "Rise Up" is a song that positively creeps me out! Maybe my all-time least favourite Canadian single.

Worst pronunciation of the word "FREEdom" ever.