And the year I graduated from high school.

I followed a thread on Twitter (I still can’t call it X) started by @PreetBharara in which he posed the question “What was the best song of 1984?”. Impossible to choose.  I have been meaning to write about the music of 1984 for a while now in honor of the 40th anniversary of my high school graduation. I’m actually going to combine 1983 with 1984 here because as a school teacher,  I always counted September 1 as the beginning of the year, not January 1. And also because a lot of the hits from 1984 were actually from albums released in 1983.   I’d been procrastinating and  Preet’s post was exactly what I needed to get motivated.  The responses to the tweet were absolutely awesome and of course because I am a Taurus I have a hard time not being sentimental about the past. 

Here I am in all my glory in the summer of 1984, sitting on the hood of my friend’s Z28. Thanks TW!

1984. A year fraught with so much symbolic meaning. Do young people read George Orwell’s novels any more? My classmates and I did of course because we were smart and sassy and wanted to impress each other with our book knowledge. And because it was a monumental predictor of the future with things that maybe didn’t materialize  in that exact year, but the foundations for what eventually  became “Big Brother”  were certainly laid in the 80s. But let’s focus on the music.

As I wrote previously, the 80s were the heyday of a vast variety of music that was easily and readily accessible. I wrote before about going record shopping and the sheer pleasure of going into a music store to look at, feel, and listen to records before you bought them, where you could peruse different genres of music, and maybe find something you didn’t know about before you bought it.  There is something to be said for the serendipity of finding a random treasure, discovering something different from the usual.  Maybe it’s because I’m old but I think it’s more difficult today to find out about different styles of music and new artists.  Radio is dead and despite there being hundreds of stations on XM, there is a kind of  homogeneity to them, yes? No?  Where does one go to find and listen to really good new music?

Let’s list some of the music we were listening to in 1983-84.

-Prince Purple Rain

-My loves The Cars Heartbeat City

-U2 The Unforgettable Fire

-Madonna Like A Virgin

-REM Reckoning

-WHAM! Make It Big

-Billy Idol

-Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA

TheTalking Heads’ iconic album Stop Making Sense was released in 1984.

–Mirror Moves by the Psychedelic Furs- saw them in Pittsburgh on this tour at the Syria Mosque my first year of college when I attended Chatham College.

-The Police. Synchronicity came out in 1983 and the album spawned songs that were huge in 1984. Saw them at the Aud in Buffalo that February.  This album was such a huge part of the soundtrack to my senior year of high school. At the time I felt like I was not a kid anymore.  Many of my friends and I attend classes at SUNY Fredonia- we had one foot in high school and one in college.  King of Pain in particular reminds me of crisp nights in the fall of 1983,  trees branches nearly bare, partying at the home of a friend who’s parents moved away and left him to live alone in a gorgeous Georgian brick three story beautiful home with a cool Widow’s Walk on Central Avenue. He did not live alone for long.  Several classmates essentially moved in.  This was our very own Animal House. 

You know you can name and/or sing at least one song that came out in 1984 from each of these following groups or performers:

Corey Hart

The Smiths

Metallica

The Replacements

The Cure

Van Halen

Rush

Tina Turner

Talk Talk

Alphaville

Bryan Adams

Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Bronski Beat

Cyndi Lauper

Style Council

Los Lobos

Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel released White Lines in October ‘83 but gained huge popularity in ‘84.

Willie Nelson had a few hits in 1984- one with Julio Iglesias.

And Thriller came out in 1983 but Michael Jackson was riding that wave all the way through 1984.

I am literally getting chills reminiscing about the musical bounty from this particular year.  I feel both happy that there was so much music and all the good memories it elicits,  and yet sad that it isn’t like that anymore.  Sometimes I just want to turn on the radio and hear something fucking awesome and play it loud while I’m driving in my car.  In order to hear something mind blowing today you have to already know it exists and where to go to specifically find it.  I want to be surprised and elated and thrilled- without having to work so hard for it.  I want someone else to share it with me. I want to hear a DJ talk about a record, and maybe interview the singer and talk about its origins and influences.  I want my MTV!

Actually, I think MTV was one of the components that led to the downfall of the music industry in general, and my loves The Cars in particular.  But that is a topic for another day.

Here’s more:

Hall and Oates

Bananarama

Ghostbusters

Honeymoon Suite

Huey Lewis and The News

Rick Springfield

Wang Chung

You’re humming their songs in your head aren’t you?

Have to meander off this path for a bit to talk about another Boston based band,  Aerosmith.  The news that they canceled their farewell tour due to Steven Tyler’s vocal damage is a bummer of an ending to a pretty storied and amazing 50 year career, despite rumors and revelations of Steven Tyler’s possibly iffy relationships with young women. They really were an amazingly great Rock and Roll band- totally from a different era when the conditions by which a band could form and become famous were so different from today.  They also figure prominently in my favorite movie Dazed and Confused.  If you recall,  Randall “Pink” Floyd  refused to sign his football contract the morning after the epic party at the Moon Tower and instead took off with Wooderson to go buy Aerosmith concert tickets at the end of the film.  Classic!

AND Aerosmith was “discovered” and promoted by famed Boston DJ Maxanne Sartori,  the very same DJ who promoted the early Cars and gave their cassette single Just What I Needed heavy airplay before they had a record deal.  She was very influential for setting Aerosmith on their path to fame. If you haven’t heard of her, look her up. She was legendary.  She also lived with, wrote songs with, and helped Billy Squier in his early days. 
And I had a musical love affair with pre-Run DMC (and then with Run DMC) Walk this Way and ohmygod did the song Sweet Emotion stir up all my emotions.  I remember a teen dance at the Grange one night during the annual Farm Festival in the summer of 1980 and my crush du jour was there and everyone was dancing to that song. It was glorious and thrilling and titillating all at the same time.  Kind of funny because you wouldn’t think an event at a Grange Hall could be those things. LOL!  Maybe I should have written about this in my 1980 blog- but sometimes all the memories of the 80s kind of blur together- so much fun and so much to remember.  Anyway, Aerosmith was such a freaking big deal and so damn sexy and dangerous looking and sounding.  I saw them exactly once, in 1990 in Erie, Pennsylvania with my bestie at the time.  She graciously bought my ticket.  It was a winter night- thank goodness the weather wasn’t bad.  We had a blast. Skid Row opened for them.  I was hoping to go see them on this farewell tour as their last show was scheduled to be in Buffalo.  But alas, not gonna happen.  Word to the wise- if there is a show/band/singer/performer you are dying to see- GO!  You never know when you will lose the chance forever.

And here I am 40 years later at the R & R HoF which has an entire exhibit dedicated to the music of 1984!