Worst #1's of the 80's

Having now had a year to listen to countdowns from the 70's and 80's on Sirius XM, it's time to join some of the debates about best and worst songs.  I'll start with the easiest one to do...worst #1's of the 1980's.  It's easy because I give all my iTunes songs ratings, I'm only missing a couple 80's #1's in my collection, and only 11 #1's qualified for the lowest 1-star rating.  Just missing the cut-off was Bon Jovi's boring, overly earnest, way too slow, cliche-fest "I'll Be There for You."

I don't mind some cheese, some Yacht Rock, some country, or some disco, so the early 80's were largely safe.  Indeed, of the 77 #1's from the 80's I rated 2-star or below, a whopping 67 are from 1986 or later.  That's a lot of "meh" in 4 years.  I also don't ordinarily hold an artists' otherwise good choices against them when they put out an obviously commercial record (Bob Segar, Starship).  But I have a low toleration for songs that whine or are too slow, especially if it's a remake, and especially (it seems) if it's in a movie!

So, here they are:

10.  Kokomo (from "Cocktail") - The Beach Boys (1988)

Not the worst song ever, but just flat-out annoying.  It's made worse by being so catchy, and if it were just the chorus, it would be off this list.  But the verses have lots of phrases like "off the Florida Keys" that simply seem off-key to me and totally grate.  Given the caliber of the band, it hurts even more.  They had more top 40 hits in the 80's than you can name (5!), and this was the worst by far.

9.  Rock On (from "Dream a Little Dream") - Michael Damien

Here's one of two suffering from mis-placed bravado.  Take a singer with a serious lack of talent or originality, give him a classic 70's song, and have him plod his way through it, and how did this boring song even make the top 20?  It didn't even come from a hit movie.  It's not as embarrassing as the teeny boppers, but for sheer inexplicability combined with awfulness, it makes the list.

8.  If You Don't Know Me By Now - Simply Red (1989)

Just shoot me now.  Beautiful R&B ballad from the 70's that was awfully slow then.  During the pouring molasses period of the late 80's, this fit right in.  Here the verses have some energy and life, but the chorus is painful.  And when a song has an element about time and waiting in it, making the song itself REALLY slow only amplifies the effect!  Oh, and I hate it when artists sing around the tempo of the song and scrunch lots of words into one beat "when I come home a little late at night" (yes, Gloria Estefan!)

7.  Lean On Me - Club Nouveau (1987)

Yet another remake, another disaster.  Bill Withers' version is beautiful and moving.  Put it to a techno-reggae beat, add some out of place "We be jammin"'s, and you have a trainwreck of mixed styles and songs that don't match their tunes.  Terrible.

6.  Groovy Kind Of Love (from "Buster") - Phil Collins (1988)

The most boring #1 of the 80's...Phil was on a long run of hits, most of which I love, and some of his later songs sounded like retreads through a machine (Something Happened on the Way to Heaven...the Cliche song), but this was terrible.  It utterly plodded along in a remake of a fairly upbeat song.  The title featured a fun word, and the original was fun, but when you look up the phrase "suck the life out of" on wikipedia, this record jacket should appear.

5.  I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany (1987)

Debbie Gibson's songs aren't far off this list, and Tiffany's other #1 I can live with "Could've Been," as it was an earnest, original teen ballad.  But in general, the teen queen trend was yet another of the reasons late 80's music was so bad.   Remaking a classic, giving it a ridiculous little drum line, and then the half-growl on "night" -- ugh!  "I Saw Him Standing There" is even worse, but that's another list.

4.  Take My Breath Away (from "Top Gun") - Berlin (1986)

Simple enough...I'd always wished someone would have taken her breath away!  It starts off with an off-key series of notes and goes downhill.  "Watching in slow motion" through this glacial ballad is near torture.  It's the earliest song on this list, and one of MANY movie songs (my only explanation for why they hit #1!)...speaking of...

3.  Batdance (from "Batman")- Prince (1989)

By the end of the 80's and the end of my buying of singles, Prince was by far the biggest artist of the 80's that I'd never purchased ANYTHING by...no CDs, no albums, no singles.  But I recognized his genius, even when I didn't like the songs ("Purple Rain").  This late-80's monstrosity is the exception -- I don't get this one at all, even with the connection to the movie.  It's a mess, changing every minute.  It would've been a 2-star instrumental, but splicing in the weird spoken parts, it's terrible!

2.  Red Red W(h)ine - UB40 (1983 & 1988)

This song was so bad that they released it twice.  Caught up in a bizarre trend of older songs returning to the radio (even after the bands had broken up), this one was at least by a still-existing band (who even went on to another #1).  It was even written by Neil Diamond, whom I generally like (but who's live recording of this song is unlistenable).  The original in 1983 was a plodding, whiny song.  The remake added a rap interlude, and it was a terrible mess.

And at #1...

1.  Hangin' Tough - New Kids On The Block (1989)

The 80's music scene came to a wicked crash in 1989.  Milli Vanilli faked their way to #1, Paula Abdul was making money for singing, and a bunch of teenagers were having #1s, led by this monstrosity that clearly was not aimed at my demographic as a male college student.  Still, this song with the whistles and other stunts, plus utterly mis-placed bravado make this an embarrassment.  A terrible song -- the worst of the 80's!