Hey faithful readers! This is the first list actually created at the end of the given year. All of the previous Top Tens were created in the last few years. So now you’ll REALLY be getting my favorite songs at the time they were released! Some will be embarrassing, others will be representative of what popular culture deemed “a hit” or “cool” or whatever other “hip” words apply at those times and others may be in a world of their own (like me!)
I was totally into the disco scene. Not just the music but actually going out and shaking it up at different clubs. I wasn’t very good at hooking up (which was part of the lure as Cher so eloquently expresses in Take Me Home), but I did enjoy the excitement of the dancing and flirting. Good times. My Top 10 from that year would include the aforementioned Take Me Home as well as Don’t Cry Out Loud. Lotta Love is one of my all-time favorites. In fact, at a Top 10 of All Time party I once went to, it was my #1.
In 1979, my taste started moving off the 'Top 10 Countdown'. My older brothers probably had something to do with the shift. If you recall, and per WLUP (The Loop), disco sucked (and blew up Comiskey Park)
Songs from 1979 that always take me back:
Electric Light Orchestra - Shine A Little Love
The Knack - My Sharona (honorable mention to Good Girls Don't)
Yes! I liked al lof those songs, particularly Supertramp's releases that year. ELO was always a lot of fun in that era. I was also on the "My Sharona" bandwagon even though it wasn't in my Top Ten.
Oh yeah! I like a lot of these songs! "Atomic" is still really cool sounding. It should have been a bigger hit here! I agree about the "Off the Wall" songs! I particularly liked "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You."
That Sister Sledge album is great too!
It took me a few years to get into the Cure but yes, "Boys Don't Cry" is a great song too! Thanks for sharing!!
1979. I remember it well. Ok, no, I don't. But I do vividly remember seeing my childhood rock and roll heroes, Kiss in 1979. I was 10 and it was my first concert. Of course, I loved it. However, they also released 'Dynasty' in '79 and I knew the wheels of my Kiss train fandom were starting to come off. I was moving in other directions with UFO's 'Strangers In The Night', AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell', and Van Halen. I also remember hearing Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' in 1979, but it went way over my 5th-grade head. That was definitely an album I needed more maturity and life experience to fully grasp.
Wasn't '79 the year Kiss released their "disco" hit "I Was Made for Loving You?" I think that was the beginning of the end for a lot of fans! I kind of liked it though...
UFO, AC/DC, Van Halen were all very big in my high school. I particularly remember there being an onslaught of AC/DC songs on the radio from "You Shook Me All Night Long" to "Big Balls" and "Dirty Deeds!" I found them all a lot of fun!
"The Wall" was huge! So many great songs on that album! A really cool concept album for its time.
* a very cold line: “When I gave you time, to make up your mind, you turned your back on me, and now I’ve got to turn my back on you”
On The Radio - Donna Summer
* I didn’t really like a lot of disco but this one was a fav!
Don’t Stop Me Now - Queen
Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
* Don’t you Mess Around With Me!
Cruel to be Kind - Nick Lowe
* You gotta be cruel to be kind BUT in the right measure!
Dance Away - Roxy Music
I don’t like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
* This song gives me chills and makes me sad. It was written in ‘79 about a school shooting!
45 years later and school shootings are still in the news with little progress.
One Way or Another - Blondie
* Love that your friend sang the lyrics. Gotta love a person that can speak in lyrics 😉
Pilot of The Airways - Charlie Dore
* ANYBODY who ever listened to those late night radio request shows … whether or not they called in … can appreciate this song
Runners up: London Calling, All of My Love, Chuck E’s in Love, In The City, Lovin Touchin Squeezing (Steve Perry’s high notes), Good Girls Don’t (I didn’t like My Sharon’s all that much), What I Like About You, Where Were You When I Was Falling In Love, No More Tears (Enough is Enough), The Mary Ellen Carter (it’s a maritime folk song and it was a pick-my-mood-up song when work would get to me
“And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
Rise again, rise again—though your heart it be broken
Or life about to end.
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Another great one, Dan! I’ll post my list next, but I wanted to comment about Don’t Cry Out Loud. Given the timing, probably around the time more women were getting into previously male dominated professions(?), I could see that being advice that women were getting! Never show emotion in the workplace, never show what could be perceived as a weaknesses, fake it til you make it, pick your battles. Heck, women are STILL being told this.
Also, your call-in radio request! One of my top ten songs is about that! But, it also reminded me about a radio request show called The Power Line. I remember listening to it with a little transistor radio under my pillow (it must have been on past my bedtime!). I just looked it up and it was a radio show. The article I saw said most Top 40 stations aired it. Apparently it had a religious undertone to it but I don’t remember that part of the show.
I don’t remember Take Me Home or Daytime Nighttime Suffering at all. But that video is classic Cher. I’ll have to Google the other song to see if hearing it triggers my memory
I was totally into the disco scene. Not just the music but actually going out and shaking it up at different clubs. I wasn’t very good at hooking up (which was part of the lure as Cher so eloquently expresses in Take Me Home), but I did enjoy the excitement of the dancing and flirting. Good times. My Top 10 from that year would include the aforementioned Take Me Home as well as Don’t Cry Out Loud. Lotta Love is one of my all-time favorites. In fact, at a Top 10 of All Time party I once went to, it was my #1.
The rest would be (in no order)
What a Fool Believes-Doobie Brothers
Boogie Wonderland-Earth Wind & Fire and The
Emotions
September-Earth Wind & Fire
Strange Way-Firefall
Sunset People-Donna Summer
Come To Me-France Jolie
Voulez-Vous-ABBA
In 1979, my taste started moving off the 'Top 10 Countdown'. My older brothers probably had something to do with the shift. If you recall, and per WLUP (The Loop), disco sucked (and blew up Comiskey Park)
Songs from 1979 that always take me back:
Electric Light Orchestra - Shine A Little Love
The Knack - My Sharona (honorable mention to Good Girls Don't)
Supertramp - Take The Long Way Home
Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
Robert Palmer - Bad Case Of Loving You
Rickie Lee Jones . Chuck E.'s In Love
Yes! I liked al lof those songs, particularly Supertramp's releases that year. ELO was always a lot of fun in that era. I was also on the "My Sharona" bandwagon even though it wasn't in my Top Ten.
The year I was born! Thanks for this great list. Here's what I would add:
"I Feel For You" - Prince
"I Need Somebody to Love Tonight" - Sylvester
"Boys Keep Swinging" - David Bowie
"Atomic" - Blondie
Literally any song from Michael Jackson's Off the Wall
"Knee Deep" - Funkadelic
"He's the Greatest Dancer" - Sister Sledge
"Dancing Barefoot" - Patti Smith
"Boys Don't Cry" - The Cure
"Death or Glory" - The Clash
Oh yeah! I like a lot of these songs! "Atomic" is still really cool sounding. It should have been a bigger hit here! I agree about the "Off the Wall" songs! I particularly liked "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You."
That Sister Sledge album is great too!
It took me a few years to get into the Cure but yes, "Boys Don't Cry" is a great song too! Thanks for sharing!!
1979. I remember it well. Ok, no, I don't. But I do vividly remember seeing my childhood rock and roll heroes, Kiss in 1979. I was 10 and it was my first concert. Of course, I loved it. However, they also released 'Dynasty' in '79 and I knew the wheels of my Kiss train fandom were starting to come off. I was moving in other directions with UFO's 'Strangers In The Night', AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell', and Van Halen. I also remember hearing Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' in 1979, but it went way over my 5th-grade head. That was definitely an album I needed more maturity and life experience to fully grasp.
Wasn't '79 the year Kiss released their "disco" hit "I Was Made for Loving You?" I think that was the beginning of the end for a lot of fans! I kind of liked it though...
UFO, AC/DC, Van Halen were all very big in my high school. I particularly remember there being an onslaught of AC/DC songs on the radio from "You Shook Me All Night Long" to "Big Balls" and "Dirty Deeds!" I found them all a lot of fun!
"The Wall" was huge! So many great songs on that album! A really cool concept album for its time.
I see some of your move away from Top 40 here Bernie! Yes, I definitely remember Pilot of the Airwaves and had the 45!
Ok now for my list (not in order)
Dog & Butterfly - Heart
* an advice song: keep trying!
When I wanted You - Barry Manilow
* a very cold line: “When I gave you time, to make up your mind, you turned your back on me, and now I’ve got to turn my back on you”
On The Radio - Donna Summer
* I didn’t really like a lot of disco but this one was a fav!
Don’t Stop Me Now - Queen
Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
* Don’t you Mess Around With Me!
Cruel to be Kind - Nick Lowe
* You gotta be cruel to be kind BUT in the right measure!
Dance Away - Roxy Music
I don’t like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
* This song gives me chills and makes me sad. It was written in ‘79 about a school shooting!
45 years later and school shootings are still in the news with little progress.
One Way or Another - Blondie
* Love that your friend sang the lyrics. Gotta love a person that can speak in lyrics 😉
Pilot of The Airways - Charlie Dore
* ANYBODY who ever listened to those late night radio request shows … whether or not they called in … can appreciate this song
Runners up: London Calling, All of My Love, Chuck E’s in Love, In The City, Lovin Touchin Squeezing (Steve Perry’s high notes), Good Girls Don’t (I didn’t like My Sharon’s all that much), What I Like About You, Where Were You When I Was Falling In Love, No More Tears (Enough is Enough), The Mary Ellen Carter (it’s a maritime folk song and it was a pick-my-mood-up song when work would get to me
“And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
Rise again, rise again—though your heart it be broken
Or life about to end.
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.”
Another great one, Dan! I’ll post my list next, but I wanted to comment about Don’t Cry Out Loud. Given the timing, probably around the time more women were getting into previously male dominated professions(?), I could see that being advice that women were getting! Never show emotion in the workplace, never show what could be perceived as a weaknesses, fake it til you make it, pick your battles. Heck, women are STILL being told this.
Also, your call-in radio request! One of my top ten songs is about that! But, it also reminded me about a radio request show called The Power Line. I remember listening to it with a little transistor radio under my pillow (it must have been on past my bedtime!). I just looked it up and it was a radio show. The article I saw said most Top 40 stations aired it. Apparently it had a religious undertone to it but I don’t remember that part of the show.
I don’t remember Take Me Home or Daytime Nighttime Suffering at all. But that video is classic Cher. I’ll have to Google the other song to see if hearing it triggers my memory
Great point about what those lyrics represented in 1979! I hadn't thought about it from that perspective.
I don't remember The Power Line. Was it on a specific Chicago station?
Daytime Nighttime Suffering wasn't a hit on its own - although I liked it better than it's more popular flipside: Goodnight Tonight!
Take Me Home was Cher's first return to the pop Top Ten since Dark Lady in '74 - a bit of a void in those post-Sonny years!
I don’t remember which station … it would have been either WLS or WCFL.