Fifty years ago, I made my first appeared on the Earth. In celebration, we are going to take a look at the year-end Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for each year of my life and see what songs resonated with me at the time and if they continue to do so to this day.
Today, we enter my second decade on the planet and look back at the music of my lifetime with 1984. I am starting to become more familiar with the songs of the day, either from that time period or from later exposure. 38 of the Hot 100 are familiar to me now, with fourteen of them appearing in my collection in one way or another.
#89: Billy Joel – The Longest Time
iTunes stats: N/A
Written and recorded as a tribute to the music the influenced Joel as a child, the track peaked at #14 on the Hot 100.
#87: Ratt – Round and Round
iTunes stats: 25 plays
Reaching #12, the song is the band’s biggest hit and was ranked as the 20th greatest heavy metal song of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023.
#86: John Cougar Mellencamp – Pink Houses
iTunes stats: N/A
Inspired by a trip Mellencamp took from the airport in Indianapolis to his home in the godforsaken town of Bloomington, the song cracked the top ten, reaching #8 in early 1984.
#79: Madonna – Holiday
iTunes stats: N/A
Entering the Hot 100 in October of 1983, Madonna’s first big hit rose to #16, spending a total of 21 weeks on the charts.
#78: Michael Jackson – Thriller
iTunes stats: N/A
Peaking at #4 in 1984, the track re-enters the charts regularly around Halloween, giving Jackson a top 20 hit in seven straight decades.
#76: The Pointer Sisters – I’m So Excited
iTunes stats: N/A
Originally stalling out at #30 in 1982, this re-mix re-released in 1984 cracked the top ten, reaching #9.
#74: Wang Chung – Dance Hall Days
iTunes stats: 21 plays
A #1 smash on the Dance Club Songs chart, it hit #16 on the Hot 100.
#73: Bananarama – Cruel Summer
iTunes stats: N/A
Featured in The Karate Kid, the second most popular song with this name peaked at #9 in 1984.
#68: Quiet Riot – Cum on Feel the Noize
iTunes stats: 15 plays
Helping to bring national attention to LA’s burgeoning metal scene, this cover of an old Slade tune became the band’s biggest hit, reaching #5.
#66: Madonna – Lucky Star
iTunes stats: N/A
Madonna’s first top five hit, it peaked at #4 in the fall of 1984.
#64: Huey Lewis and the News – If This Is It
iTunes stats: N/A
The group’s fifth top ten hit, this throwback to the doo-wop of the 50s hit #6.
#60: ZZ Top – Legs
iTunes stats: N/A
Cracking the top ten and reaching #8, it remains the band’s highest charting single.
#55: Huey Lewis and the News – I Want a New Drug
iTunes stats: N/A
Peaking at #6, the song earned Lewis a second payday when he sued Ray Parker Jr. for plagiarizing it for his theme to Ghostbusters.
#51: Billy Ocean – Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)
iTunes stats: 13 plays
Ocean took home the 1985 Grammy award for Best Male R&B Vocal performance for this track, making him the first British artist to win in that category.
In June of 1954, a new sports magazine hit the shelves. Sports Illustrated quickly became the bible of the sports world, becoming the place to find long-form, in-depth articles about the games that Americans followed, or were about to follow. In 1964, they published their first swimsuit issue, helping to keep interest in the magazine in the down time between the end of football season and the start of baseball season. The magazine continued to be the leader in sports journalism until the late 1990s, when the type of stories long associated with the print world moved to the internet. In 2018, the magazine was sold and then sold again, to a venture capital firm that then licensed the brand name to a publisher that only wished to wring whatever value was left. Today, it all came to an end, as the licensing agreement was terminated and the entire staff of Sports Illustrated was informed they would be laid off.