Introducing Hit Parade from Slate: "What’s 1984 Got to Do with It Edition Part 1"

26:22By late 83 and early 84, dance music, which is what we called it then, pop fans were careful never to say the other five-letter D word, was doing better on the charts than it had since 1979. Sleek club styles were finding their place on the radio, like the electro dance music of the Pointer Sisters.

26:59The explosive freestyle of Shannon.

27:12And, of course, the nouveau post-disco of a newcomer named Madonna.

27:24Celebrate Holiday All discussions of what made 1984 great have to start with the disco backlash and the comeback from the backlash, because this informs virtually everything that brought pop music back to life. Even if no one was saying the word disco, dance music production tropes and black-informed styles were infecting all manner of hit music. Not just club music or R &B, but also straight-up rock like ZZ Top.

28:18UK synth-pop, like Bronski Beat.

28:32And even metal. This 1984 Motley Crue hit, their second single ever to make the Hot 100, is basically disco slowed down and rocked up.

28:56All of this ersatz disco, from Madonna to Motley Crue, came packaged with glossy music videos. Which brings us to another development that happened a few years before 1984, that reached its apotheosis that year. Reason two for the awesomeness of 1984, the peak of first-wave MTV.

29:26It's only a movie. It's not funny. You were scared, weren't you? I wasn't that scared. Yeah, you're scared.

29:44You could say 1984 kicked off in spirit on December 2nd, 1983, when Michael Jackson's cinematic thriller video, directed by John Landis and modeled after his horror film An American Werewolf in London, premiered on MTV. Jackson's clip gave the fledgling video channel, which had launched just two years earlier, its highest ratings ever. Jackson and MTV were good to each other. When Thriller, The Song, was issued as a single in January 1984, a full 14 months after Thriller, The Album, came out, it became the LP's record seventh top 10 single, peaking at number four on the Hot 100 in March of 84.

30:57You can divide early MTV history into before Michael Jackson and after Michael Jackson. Legend has it that the channel largely refused to play videos by black artists before CBS Records threatened to withhold all of their videos unless MTV played Jackson's early 1983 hit, Billie Jean. By 1984, MTV was regularly rotating clips by Jackson, Prince, Donna Summer, and Lionel Richie.

31:36All night, all night long. All night, all night long. But MTV was also reinventing rock bands that had been around for years as video stars. The Cars, the Boston New Wave rockers who'd released their debut album back in 1978, were rebooted in 1984 by their shimmering pop album Heartbeat City and its string of kitschy videos. Their special effects-heavy clip for You Might Think not only made that song a top 10 hit, the video upset Michael Jackson's Thriller for Video of the Year at the first MTV Video Music Awards.

32:28When you flash that fragile smile You might think it's foolish But what you put me through You might think you're crazy Similarly, Huey Lewis and the News, a San Francisco band that had been around since 1979, played a brand of unpretentious barroom rock and roll. Nothing about the band was hip. Indeed, these were the guys who years later recorded a song called Hip to be Square. But for their LP Sports, the telegenic Huey Lewis and his band recorded a string of high-concept, comical, and plot-heavy videos.

33:31And they were rewarded with four straight top ten singles on the Hot 100. Heart and Soul, I Want a New Drug, The Heart of Rock and Roll, and If This Is It. They never believe if this is it. Please let me know. If this ain't love, you better let me know. By the time If This Is It cracked the Hot 100 in the summer of 84, the sports LP had topped the Billboard album chart and sold 5 million copies. Videos transformed Huey Lewis's career, and they arguably spurred rock acts of all kinds to up their game, to make songs worthy of video treatment. Of course, the bands that had benefited the most from the rise of the music video in America were British New Romantic and New Wave bands, who, starting in 1982 and 83, went from curios in America to video superstars.

34:49By 1984, these bands, led by video demigods Duran Duran, were also chart conquerors in America. As the year began, the band's union of the snake was lodged in the top three on the Hot 100. But what made 84 doubly exciting was that not only were these UK acts still innovating, the US acts had been taking notes. Reason three for the awesomeness of 1984, the second British invasion, and America catching up. As we discussed in our British Invasions episode of Hit Parade, by the spring of 84, 40 % of the Hot 100 was British acts. Fueled in America by MTV, the UK's post-punk, new romantic, and synth-pop movements redefined the cutting edge of cool, as personified by acts like synth-soul duo Eurythmics.

35:51Here they are with their ghostly number four hit, Here Comes the Rain Again.

36:11Now, just for comparison, here's another number four hit from just a couple of months later, American Laura Branigan, with her ghostly synth-pop hit, Self Control. It's not a copy of Eurythmics or really any specific act. In fact, it's a cover of an Italian pop song. But you might say that Team Branigan was taking notes on British New Wave.

36:47Or further down the chart that same summer, here's a top 20 hit from British duo Wang Chung, their lush techno-pop bop, Dancehall Days.

37:08Which doesn't sound far removed from this top 20 hit from a few months earlier. Ray Parker Jr.'s lush techno-pop ballad, I Just Can't Get Over, Loving You.

37:33Or a few spots further down the chart, here's British progressive rock veterans, Yes, with their quirky, cacophonous electro-rock track, Leave It, a number 24 hit in the spring of 84.

37:57About six months later, here's a number 23 hit by American guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, veteran of Fleetwood Mac, with his quirky, cacophonous electro-rocker, Go Insane.

38:20In short, let's call this positive transatlantic peer pressure. Three years of British acts setting the bar for hip, smart, mass-appeal pop had rubbed off on the Yanks. Everybody was bringing their A-game. So, by 1984, it had become expected that a British blue-eyed soul group like Culture Club would blend guitars, synthesizers, and clattery sound effects on a hit like Miss Me Blind.

39:01But the same week that song was climbing into the top ten, right next to it were Americans Daryl Hall and John Oates, with their own blend of guitars, synths, and clatter, adult education.

39:20What we need is no education. And the rub-offs weren't just happening across borders. They were happening across genres. Reason four for the awesomeness of 1984. Everybody was crossing over. Let's play a little Name That Tune. Here's the intro to a song that broke on the Hot 100 in December 1984. It would eventually peak at number two. Who's the artist?

40:03Sounds like moody new wave guitar rock. Is it Duran Duran, The Police, Tears for Fears? Nope. It's R &B singer Billy Ocean with Loverboy. Yeah. I wanna be your lover, lover. Wanna be your lover, lover, lover boy. A song that, by the way, was co-written and co-produced by famed rock producer Robert John Mutt Lang, who'd also produced hits earlier in 84 for The Cars and Def Leppard. Let's play again. Whose dance floor breakdown is this?

41:05Sounds like hard electro-funk club music, right? So, who is this? Chic? The Gap Band? Rick James? Guess again. It's British punk-turned-pop star Billy Idol with his fall 84 hit Flesh for Fantasy. It made the top 30 not only on the Hot 100, but also Billboard's rock tracks and dance disco charts.

41:45At a time when popular music was coming out of a very segregated period in the 70s and early 80s, with rock and R &B and disco staying in separate lanes, the hits of 1984 were all over the genre map. Virtually no one was staying in their lane. Whether it was Lionel Richie, who wrote and recorded a straight-up country song called Stuck On You that made the pop and R &B top 10 and even the country chart's top 25, an unprecedented chart crossover at the time.

42:35Or Pat Benatar. She'd spent years building a reputation as the leading woman on album rock radio. She kicked off 1984 with a post-disco club-rock hybrid, whose video featured Benatar leading a troupe of dancers in a syncopated shimmy, the number five hit Love is a Battlefield.

43:11Or Bruce Springsteen, who, as we discussed in our Springsteen episode of Hit Parade, wrote Cover Me for disco queen Donna Summer. Bruce wound up keeping it for himself, but maintained its torchy melodrama. The florid operatic rock song was a number seven hit for Springsteen and the E Street Band in the fall of 84. Come on baby, cover me Well, I'm looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me There were also improbable team-ups. A year after Michael Jackson topped the charts with guitarist Eddie Van Halen on Beat It, his brothers, the Jacksons, upped the ante by teaming with the Stones' Mick Jagger.

44:03Mick and Michael yowled over a hard guitar riff on the number three summer 84 hit, State of Shock.

44:22I know you like the team. Please, baby, please. And Phil Collins, who'd been adding Earth, Wind & Fire's horn section to his tracks for years. He finally returned the favor by teaming up with EWF singer Philip Bailey. Their duet, Easy Lover, which exploded with Colin's booming rock drums and Bailey's fluttery soul vocals, went to number two on the Hot 100, number three R &B, and number five on the album rock chart.

45:13And I haven't even mentioned Prince, whose guitar, vocals, and very persona obliterated genre boundaries all over 1984. We'll talk more about him a little later.

45:44In the 21st century, genres increasingly seem like quaint relics of a bygone time, and artists record in whatever idiom they like, from Lil Nas X to Steve Lacey, Taylor Swift to Post Malone, Beyonce to Shabuzi. But in the 80s, this kind of promiscuous genre mixing was revolutionary, and 1984 was ground zero for all of it.

46:25More in a moment.

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49:06Terms apply. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers, the pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50 % of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, pull this, pull that, turn this. It's just like doing my eyes closed. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, No Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence.

49:43Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the runway. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to No Such Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back with the rest of this episode of Hit Parade. Besides all this crossover between genres, there was one genre that really went out of its way to become more accessible in 1984. Reason 5 for the awesomeness of 1984, Metal Goes Pop.

50:40Okay, hold on to your hairnet. I, Chris Melanthe, am about to say something nice about Bon Jovi. Runaway, their debut single, a number 39 hit in April 1984, is a really good song. Maybe because it sounds the least like a Bon Jovi song. On it, Jon Bon Jovi fronted a group of journeymen session musicians he never played with again.

51:20Runaway was emblematic of glam metal in 1984. And yes, as we discussed in our Hit Parade episode about Bon Jovi, they really were considered metal at that time. After they began topping the Hot 100 a couple of years later, the term hair metal was coined. This brand of metal was frothy, catchy, laced with hooks, and piled with synthesizers. Van Halen, whose LP 1984 was the year's top-charting hard rock album, did as much for the synthesizer that year as any techno-pop act.

52:09But even when 1984 metal avoided synths and stuck to guitars, it was shamelessly catchy. Like everything else that year, metal was helping to define the bounds of mass-appeal pop.

52:30Panama! Panama! Panama! Panama! Van Halen scored three top 20 hits in 84, including I'll Wait and Panama, and a massive number one hit that we'll discuss later. But they were not alone. They were joined in the top 40 that year by Germany's Scorpions, with the number 25 hit Rock You Like a Hurricane.

53:08LA band Rat with their metallic love song Round and Round. The single reached number 12, and their LP, Out of the Cellar, went top ten and double platinum.

53:34And the garish, flamboyant, and deliberately cartoonish Twisted Sister. Their music videos, featuring Bugs Bunny-style comic violence against parents and principals, made Twisted Sister MTV stars. But it must also be said that their number 21 hit, We're Not Gonna Take It, written by outspoken Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider, was a heartfelt, melodic, and stirring anthem.

54:14So, even the most meat-and-potatoes rock bands were going the extra mile in 84. On the other end of the spectrum, America's most cutting-edge new genre was infiltrating the zeitgeist. Reason six for the awesomeness of 1984. Hip-hop culture becomes pop culture. Bass.

54:51By 84, hip-hop had existed for over a decade, since DJ Kool Herc's legendary 1973 Rec Room Party. And rap had been a recorded medium for more than four years, since 1979's Rapper's Delight. The full-pop breakthrough of rap was still a couple of years away, but you could feel it getting closer. At the start of the year, Melly Mel's irresistible anti-drug jam, White Lines, was something like a phenomenon, bubbling under the Hot 100 and peaking just outside the top 40 on the R &B chart.

55:41Run! Free! Run! Free! Famously, the first rap group to break into the top 10 on the Hot 100 would be Run DMC, with their Aerosmith cover Walk This Way. That wouldn't happen until 1986. But in 84, Run-DMC were already making waves with their self-titled debut album and a string of Black radio hits, including the rock-rap fusion Rockbox, a number 22 R &B hit.

56:27And in the summer of 84, Brooklyn rap troupe Nucleus scored a national hit with their zany electro-funk classic, Jam On It. It reached number 56 pop, number 9 R &B, remarkable for a rap single on an independent label. And speaking as a native Brooklynite, I can tell you Jam On It was as huge on the radio that summer as anything by Madonna or Duran Duran. You rock this rock, that, and that's a fact for the Jam On crew. Rock your body, rock, rock, from hill to hill, from zee to zee. And when Jam On's rockin', everybody screams. Jam On it! Jam On it! Jam On it, on it, on it, on it. And if you're feeling like you wanna dance all night.

57:13The way you could tell hip-hop culture was really going overground was how elements of the culture, scratching, rapping, and especially breaking, were infecting middle-of-the-road 1984 pop records. Actress and pop star Irene Cara, one year past her number one hit, Flashdance, What a Feeling, returned to the top ten with the single Breakdance. As guileless as this song was, it probably did more to introduce breaking to middle America than most rap singles did.

57:57Breakout.

58:03And famously, 1984 was the year Breaking hit the big screen. Canon Films released two back-to-back teen-sploitation dance movies in 84, in quick succession. The hit, Breakin', and the insta-sequel, say it with me now, Breakin' 2, Electric Boogaloo. The first Breakin' generated a top ten hit from electro-soul duo Ollie Brown and Jerry Knight. Ollie and Jerry's Breakin', There's No Stopping Us, reached number nine in August of 84.

58:54But possibly rap's biggest pop culture moment of 84 came on a single by an R &B veteran. Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan. Let me rock it. Let me rock it. Chaka Khan. Let me rock it. It's all I want to do. Chaka Khan. Let me rock it. Let me rock it. Chaka Khan. Let me rock it. Chaka Khan. Let me rock it. Chaka Khan's I Feel For You was a cover of a song by Prince with guest harmonica playing by Stevie Wonder and samples of Wonder's early hit, Fingertips, punctuated most famously by rapping from Melly Mel and up to the minute scratching and hip-hop style production. I feel for you.

59:39I, I, I think I love you. I feel for you reached number three on the Hot 100 and number one on the R &B chart in November 84. Chaka Khan's biggest pop hit ever served as a mainstream ambassador to hip-hop culture. Rap was also becoming famous for beefs. The diss records Roxanne, Roxanne and Roxanne's Revenge also dropped in late 84. But the biggest beef of the year happened in the pop world, between two female newcomers. It was concocted entirely by the media. Yet, even there, something positive emerged. Reason 7 for the awesomeness of 1984. Cyndi Lauper plus, not versus, Madonna. But girls, they wanna have fun.

1:00:47Oh, girls, just wanna have fun. That's all they really want. Not fun. Cindy Lauper and Madonna, two dance pop singers nurtured in New York's downtown arts and club scene, released their solo debut LPs, She's So Unusual and Madonna, respectively, just weeks apart in the second half of 1983. By 1984, both LPs were spinning off strings of hits.

1:01:26Feels like I'm going to lose my life You just keep on pushing my love over the waterline Because the patriarchy won't allow two accomplished women to coexist without trying to start a fight, by mid-84, the press and the music industry positioned Cyndi Lauper and Madonna as would-be rivals. As we discussed in our Lopper episode of Hit Parade, neither woman actively engaged in this imagined rivalry. The fact that the media even called it a catfight was depressing. I wanna be the one to walk in the sun. Oh, girls, you wanna hug? Oh, girls, you wanna hug? But here's the thing. This was a happening.

1:02:23Not since the early 60s girl group era had two women launched careers simultaneously and had this much chart impact out of the box. By the end of 84, Lauper became the first woman to pull four top five hits from a single album. The number two hit, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. The number one, Time After Time. The number three, Shebop. And the number five hit, All Through the Night.

1:03:07Madonna's success took, believe it or not, a bit longer to get rolling. Holiday was only a number 16 hit, Borderline a number 10 hit. But by the time Lucky Star reached its peak in October of 84...

1:03:35Madonna had kicked off a six-year streak of 16 consecutive top five hits, a still unbroken Hot 100 record. And she matched Lauper's daring from the start, just weeks after Cindy peaked with her ode to the joys of female masturbation, She-Bop.

1:04:10Madonna dropped her meditation on reinvigorated virginity. We'll get to that song in more detail a bit later in the show.

1:04:26I choose to remember the Cindy-Madonna confluence of 1984 as a next-level moment for women on the charts, rather than a rivalry. Two great artists, each with totally original pop personae, were dropping first-rate bops every few weeks. As the meme says, why not both?

1:05:06When they broke in 84, Madonna was over 25 years old, Lauper 30 years old, fairly mature for brand new pop stars. But they were both kids compared with some of the year's big hitmakers, which brings up one last X-Factor about the year. Reason 8 for the awesomeness of 1984. Old dogs learn new tricks. You better be good. That time's gotta be nice. Cause I don't have no use for what you lose my car. As I said at the top of our show, Tina Turner pulled off a major comeback in 1984, becoming a bigger hitmaker than she'd ever been at the ripe old age of 44. And she was in good company. A wave of pop veterans scored major hits in 84, not just keeping up with the whippersnappers, but totally reinventing themselves.

1:06:14You might say Tina Turner wasn't the only elder superstar with legs.

1:06:33Oh, yeah. Legs, ZZ Top's first ever top 10 hit in the summer of 84, peaked just as the bearded Texas trio's members turned 35. As we discussed in our Legacy Hits episode, after spending the 70s as electric blues craftsmen, ZZ Top rebooted themselves on their Eliminator album as electro dance rockers, retrofitting their guitar crunch with sequencers and synthesizers. And they rebooted themselves as MTV stars in a series of cheeky videos. Or let's consider a very different but just as senior rock band, Chicago.

1:07:30They'd been recording since the late 60s. In 1984, as Chicago's members were all between 35 and 40, the horn-inflected troupe went multi-platinum with Chicago 17, their most hit-packed LP ever. Four of its hits cracked the top 20, and two of them reached the top five, including the number three hit Hard Habit to Break. And those were just the groups. Veteran soloists were also scoring in 84.

1:08:19David Bowie, who had just turned 37, kept up his hot streak that he'd kicked off the year before on the Let's Dance LP with his glossy 84 single Blue Jean, a number eight hit in November. Even some of the apparent youngins were older than they looked. Two men who both turned 35 in 1984 had each just recorded his biggest, most hit-packed album ever. Lionel Richie, whose Can't Slow Down LP produced five top ten hits, including two number ones.

1:09:14and Bruce Springsteen, who's Born in the USA, would produce a record seven top ten hits across 1984, 85, and 86.

1:09:29Born in the USA Now we got in a little hometown change For Bruce, the only bad news was none of those seven hits reached number one on the Hot 100. But several veterans did go all the way on the big chart, along with avatars of the new pop, from Boy George to Madonna, Duran Duran to Wham. Let's spend part two of this show walking through all of these number one hits.

1:10:11Coming up in part two, we take a spin through the 20 songs that reached number one on the Hot 100 in 1984. They embody all the hallmarks that made 84 pop's greatest year. They were cinematic and charismatic, ballads and bops, old school and next wave. And the only artist who repeats is, let's call him the kid, who maybe was just too bold. Broken Record listeners, thanks for listening to Part 1. You can listen to Part 2 right now. Just find Hit Parade in your favorite podcast app. Thanks to everyone at Broken Record for the chance to share this look at an amazing year. for pop. Our show was written, edited, and narrated by Chris Melanfey.

1:11:00That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Derek John is executive producer of Narrative Podcasts, and we had help from Joel Meyer. Alicia Montgomery is VP of audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows at slate.com slash podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to leading the hit parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one.

1:11:41I'm Chris Melanfi.

1:11:57This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Traveling is one of life's greatest joys. Honestly, can anything be more exhilarating? Well, actually, yeah, with Chase Sapphire Reserve. It's your gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. First, you will earn eight times points on all purchases through Chase Travel. And the card gets you into Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide and access to one-of-a-kind experiences. Whether you are booking a once-in-a-lifetime trip or your next week in Escape, discover more with Chase Sapphire Reserve at chase.com slash sapphire reserve.

1:12:35Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval, terms apply. Why are TSA rules so confusing? You got a hoodie on? Take it off! I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming at me? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. No such thing. This is an iHeart Podcast.