A few months ago, I wrote a commentary about ‘80s songs that were once huge hits but then faded away into oblivion. It was a popular essay, by the standards of this unpopular blog, so I’ve decided to follow it up with a similar list: five records that could have been million-sellers, but never got off the ground. Here I will autopsy these obscure ‘80s gems, in an amateurish effort to figure out why they didn’t catch on with radio programmers and the public at large.
“Love on the Airwaves” by Night (1980)
“Love on the Airwaves” had all the ingredients of a massive success. It was an instantly agreeable tune with skillful singing by Chris Thompson, who had already been to #1 on the charts in 1976 as the voice of Manfred Mann’s version of “Blinded by the Light”. Stevie Vann, who provided the female backing vocal, was equally talented. As if that wasn’t enough to grab disc jockeys’ attention and earn a spot on playlists, the upbeat lyrics celebrated the transformative power of radio. By all rights, this song should have been all over the AM and FM dials at all hours of the day.
Alas, it was not to be. I won’t tell you exactly where the song peaked on Billboard’s Hot 100, but here’s a hint: If “Love on the Airwaves” was on the periodic table instead of the music charts, it wouldn’t be up at the top with oxygen and helium. It would be at the bottom with the hazardous chemical elements that killed Marie Curie.
Why the disappointing performance? I’m not sure, but it was likely due to the hell-like condition of top 40 radio in 1980. Most of the love on the airwaves that year was coming from soft rock singers like Kenny Rogers and Barbra Streisand. The typical station allowed only a few minutes each day for up-tempo music, and those were reserved for superstar acts such as Queen and Blondie. The anonymous studio musicians in Night were at a disadvantage to the bands who were on posters in every teen’s room. The verse about masturbation probably didn’t help their song in the airplay department, either.
“Opposites Do Attract” by the All Sports Band (1982)
The chorus of “Opposites Do Attract” is a beautifully crafted bit of power-pop. “What was power-pop, Grandpa?”, youngsters today might ask, if they can look up from their phones long enough to do so. It was a lively genre of rock music that featured catchy hooks, tuneful vocals, and melodic guitar riffs. In the 1970s, it was epitomized by Eric Carmen’s band The Raspberries, Cheap Trick, and The Knack. Power-pop’s influence remains alive and well in popular (though aging) bands like Green Day, Weezer, and Bowling for Soup.
Granted, the verses weren’t nearly as catchy as the chorus, but this song should still have been a top twenty hit. What went wrong? Well, as with “Love on the Airwaves”, timing was part of the problem. After The Knack released their disastrous second album in 1980, power-pop fell out of favor in the music industry. A few oddballs in Athens, Georgia still experimented with the genre, but it was banished from the mainstream until acts such as Matthew Sweet led a revival in the early ‘90s.
The All Sports Band also did themselves no favors by basing their entire image on a stupid gimmick. The musicians dressed as participants of different sports, much like an athletic version of the Village People. It’s hard to say which was the most ridiculous: the lead singer’s martial arts robe, the bassist’s football uniform and shoulder pads, or the drummer’s boxing shorts.
“What Do All the People Know” by The Monroes (1982)
The San Diego band The Monroes made it just to the brink of a national breakthrough with the pleasant new wave-ish tune “What Do All the People Know”. One blogger has described this song as “Elvis Costello mixed with a tidge of Squeeze.” In other words, it kicked ass.
The Monroes were able to avoid the dreaded power-pop epithet, but the band’s name carried a different type of burden. The designation reminded many Americans of Monroe Ficus, a character on the top-rated early ‘80s TV show Too Close for Comfort. Monroe and the actor who played him were clearly gay, and this should have been a pioneering role except that the show’s writers balked at any overt mentions of his gayness. They instead turned Monroe into a hapless oaf and subjected him to a series of degradations, culminating with his kidnapping and subsequent rape by two corpulent women in a tub of Jell-O. The horrifying crime was treated as comedic fodder, and millions of viewers were traumatized.
The band might have overcome the Too Close for Comfort link if the musicians had a strong personal connection to the name they had chosen. But none of the members were named Monroe, they didn’t play bluegrass music like Bill Monroe, and their first paid gig wasn’t at a bar mitzvah on Monroe Street. The name came about only because one of the guys had a friend who was from Monroe, Louisiana. This tenuous association wasn’t enough to vanquish the stigma of the sitcom buffoon with the same moniker. To make matters worse, The Monroes’ record label decided to fold up its U.S. operations just as their song was starting to make inroads with listeners. And that’s how “Eye of the Tiger” became 1982’s biggest song of the summer, instead of “What Do All the People Know”.
“Hands Tied” by Scandal featuring Patty Smyth (1984)
Scandal had a major hit with “The Warrior”, and following up this energetic rocker with a slower moving track was a smart move straight out of the ‘80s playbook. It didn’t even need to be a great song. This was an era in which people with names like “Lionel” and “Phil” were constantly squirting formulaic ballads out of random orifices and smearing them all over radio playlists. A hauntingly beautiful hymn like “Hands Tied”, penned in part by elite songwriter Holly Knight, certainly deserved to be a bigger success than those other artists’ forgettable efforts.
I’m a little biased toward this tune because Patty Smyth once held my hand while singing a verse of it. I’d like to tell you that this was in a romantic private setting, but it wasn’t. I was in the front row at a Scandal concert, and I think she wanted to reward my good hygiene and cleanliness. All of the guys who were eating messy chili dogs during the show, or standing around with their hands down the back of their pants, missed out on getting to feel Patty’s rock star touch.
However, I’m not the only one who thought the song merited a better fate. Knight considered “Hands Tied” to be among her better compositions, and was disappointed when it stalled just outside the top 40 portion of Billboard’s chart. Columbia Records deserves most of the blame for this, due to its repeated (and ultimately successful) efforts to break up the band after the release of The Warrior LP. It’s unclear why Columbia was so determined to undermine its own promotional efforts and kill the goose that laid the platinum egg. My guess is that someone mistakenly thought that the band was on a different label’s roster, and didn’t realize their error until it was too late. (“That will show those jerks over at Atlantic! Oh, wait.... oops.”)
The single was also handicapped by Smyth’s unconventional wardrobe selection when she performed it on Solid Gold while wearing a coat that was bulkier than one of David Byrne’s suits. Patty looked good in almost anything, but here she might have been better off borrowing a baseball uniform from the All Sports Band.
“Shelter” by Lone Justice (1987)
Lone Justice was one of the few bands to experience two major commercial letdowns in the 1980s. In 1985, they were hailed as The Next Big Thing. Geffen Records heavily promoted their debut album, which contained a surefire hit track (“Ways to Be Wicked”) that was co-written by Tom Petty. Amid lofty critical praise, the group went on tour as U2’s opening act. Unfortunately, however, they didn’t fit into any of the niches that radio was looking for. Alternately classified as rockabilly, country rock, or even “cowpunk,” they didn’t sound much like Bryan Adams or Madonna. Their album and both singles from it flopped.
A couple years later, Lone Justice returned with a new lineup and a more economically viable sound. The result was the slick album Shelter, with its title track written – nay, expertly crafted – by lead singer Maria McKee and producer Little Steven.
This song was designed to push the right buttons with a broad swath of listeners, and indeed many people found it captivating. But now the band’s problem was that it was too commercial. Many of its earlier fans were disappointed in the lack of cowpunk, and the critics were no longer swooning in unison. “Shelter” far surpassed most of the music on top 40 radio, but it was impossible for it to meet everyone’s expectations. It went only halfway up the charts and then stopped, signaling the end of Lone Justice’s existence.
So that’s my personal list of ‘80s pop/rock songs that should have been successful but weren’t. I’ve chosen these five because they are especially obscure. They never seem to appear on lists like this, and none of them was a major hit outside of the U.S. (Hence, Nik Kershaw’s “Wouldn’t It Be Good” did not make the cut.) In nearly seven years of listening to the Sirius XM ‘80s station, which plays a “lost hit” every hour, the only one of the five that I’ve heard is The Monroes – and that was only once.
The public may decide which music wins and which loses, but what do all the people know? Their tastes usually stink.
(Edit: If you liked this list, check out my later post about even more obscure great songs that appeared on Billboard's "Bubbling Under" chart.)