Travelling back in time via jukebox circa 1976 to 1984 with videos!

I recently got nostaglic for music that literally takes me back to my early teens and I decided that I would hunt down these songs, a project that I'd thought would be an easy one, but proved to be difficult now that many of these songs don't get as much air play on the radio.  There was a time when you couldn't miss hearing the following songs on the radio.  Most of these songs are now only to be found in compliations of 80's music, usually miss matched with even more crappy songs from the 80's, but if you're gonna have the best compliation of good crappy pop music from the 80's, it's best to fall back on your own favorites and burn them on a CD of your own mixing.  Here's my list, in no order of importance, with commentary as to why I love the song.

"I Die, You Die" Gary Numan (1980)

This man's music really does fill up my early years with imagination.  I can't say enough.  Fantastic.  This song is probably my most favorite out of all his early songs... If you want to know what all my fiction and illustration was inspired by, watch this video and listen to this song. Gary may have been talking about something else, but for me I imagined a lot of horror movie scenarios out this one.

"Girls on Film" Duran Duran (1981-2)

Duran Duran was the one band that I got emotionally attached to back when I was only 12 and just getting into pop music.  The video to this song was my introduction to the very adult world of erotica.  Heavily edited for air play on MTV, "Girls on Film" was only on late on Friday nights which was the perfect time for me to watch it while sleeping over at a girlfriend's house.  It also helped that all of the members of Duran Duran were very attractive men, men I still admire, if at first for their cuteness, much later for their musical and lyrical talents.  Duran Duran was also the very first band I feel really had a cinematic sense of adventure, romance, and high style.  After discovering their music and videos, I rented "Barberella" from the video store and was forever afterward hooked on sleazy sci-fi and Italian horror films!

"Don't Answer Me" and "Eye in the Sky" Alan Parson's Project (1984/1981)

Maybe not all the cool kids on the block had Alan Parson's Project T-shirts, but I listened a lot to this progressive rock band and still count them one of my favorites.  The first song mentioned here reminds me of all the time I spent outdoors while growing up in Springfield, Missouri.  The lyrics go "If you believe in the power magic, I can change your mind/ And if you need to believe in someone, Turn and look behind/ When we were living in a dream world, Clouds got in the way/ We gave it up in a moment of madness, And threw it all away..." perfert words to set my imagination soaring.  And how can ya not be moved by the lyrics to "I am the eye in the sky .../Looking at you, I can read your mind /I am the maker of rules /Dealing with fools, I can cheat you blind /And I don't need to see any more /To know that I can read your mind, I can read your mind..." Even now I can dream up a dozen or so ideas for a sci-fi thriller kind of story or movie premise!

"Play the Game Tonight" Kansas (1982)

I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the band, Kansas.  The year this song was most popular I lived only a cross the street from the Missouri state fair.  Even back then Kansas was working the fairgrounds circuit, and just this summer they were here in central Wisconsin.  This song also reminds me that in between the years 1981-2 I had my first introduction to Dungeons and Dragons; a game that filled many a boring night for me while I was stuck sharing a trailer home with my Born Again Christian mother (who, once she found out about my roleplaying, grounded me from visiting the public library -- of all places -- because that's where I'd go to meet other kids playing the game).

"Don't Fear the Reaper" Blue Oyster Cult (1976)

Not necessarily an 80's song, however it reached new popularity during the summer of 1981 right while I was having lots of fun spelunking (cave exploring).  Whenever I hear this song, I think of the experiences I've had in caves.  It's funny how your imagination takes over when you're in an atmosphere of complete darkness.  The darkness underground is a different kind of dark than the one you experience above ground.  I like the darkness below as opposed to the dark above because there's something comforting about it, like being sealed up in a big, damp room.  Whereas when you're in a dark woods, you get the feeling that anything can jump out at you at any moment, but in a cave you can feel more alone.  I've actually listened to this song while being several miles underground.  It's a strange feeling to hear it there.

"Heat Of The Moment" Asia (1982)

For some reason this song really takes me back to Junior High School when pop music, more than at any other time, really means something.  If I had heard this song at any other time in my life, I'd just ignore it, but since I was actually 13 years old when it was most popular, I'm immediately reminded of myself at that age.  This was the time when I was most rebelling against my family and school.  I'd come to class dressed all in black and be sent home for being too much of a distraction for the other students.  Yes.  All for wearing black!  So I'd skip class sometimes and hang out with older teens in a little patch of woods where we could be secluded from adults to smoke weed and play ninja by tossing throwing stars into trees.  This was also the first year that I really got into boys and had more than a couple make-out sessions with them in the woods!

"Africa" Toto (1982)

This song always reminds me of "The Empire Strikes Back" because I remember waiting in line to see it with a family friend while this song kept playing on the radio.  I saw Empire at the Mill Road Cinema in Milwaukee and it was quite an adventure.  I'm convinced that they don't make enough films anymore where it's an event to not just see the movie, but to wait for it.  Then, shortly after the movie, we travelled back to Springfield and I imagined it to be something of a mythic journey.  I then began to dream up my own little sci-fi stories and started to write a book called "The Mage of Albania" which was a tale about a sorceror from the Middle Ages who time travelled to the space age.  I wish I still had that notebook of mine!  I had designed this entire future past world, but it all came crashing down when my brother decided to get nasty on me and destroyed all my notes, maps, and drawings.  To this day he feels bad that he did that to me because it really did make me feel terrible.  Maybe someday I'll return to those stories, except now with a more mature intent which I didn't have before while first writing them.

"Separate Ways" Journey (1981)

Okay, I know, but this song forever sings of spending time at the local rollerball rink.  It's a toss up between this song and "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen.  This and that song were the ones I always requested the DJ play the most while I was rollerskating.  I miss roller rinks, but don't miss the blisters I'd get from skating. This song also reminds me of staying up late and watching "Bladerunner" on a very small portable TV I used to have. Watching this video makes me want to run away into another direction!

"Fantasy" Aldo Nova (1981)

This song and video truly captures that low budget New Wave feel and look to early music videos. Believe it or not, I still like to blast this song and sing it at kareoke.  Aldo Nova could've been Jon Bon Jovi if he wanted to, but instead he went on to help produce music for Bon Jovi and Celine Dion.  Weird because he first really came on the music scene like a bloody rock god!  This song is begging to be redone by some metal or goth rock band out there.  "Can't you see, What this crazy life is doing to me?/ Life is just a fantasy / Can you live this fantasy life?"  It would make even a great techno song now but with killer guitars.  Heck, even I have to admit I still love the original version of this song as well.  It's a classic.  Too bad Aldo Nova only really had one hit song and that was it.

Oh, yeah, and many years later, in 1991, I had a roommate who was once a groupie. She once gave Aldo Nova head and took a polaroid of him naked. Or so she swore it was his penis! She had a whole collection of polaroids of famous cocks. So now when I look at pictures of Aldo Nova, I remember those pictures as well... I will not comment on what his naked body looks like. It's one of those kinda things I shouldn't have been exposed to, but since I was a fan, and my roommate was kinda begging for attention, oh, well! But at least I got to meet Joan Jett through that roommate. That's another story for another time.

 "Jukebox Hero" Foreigner (1981)

One of my guiltiest of pleasures, this song still rocks me and reminds me of the many times I wasn't allowed to go with other kids to see concerts, so I'd wait outside and just listen to the echoes of the band...

"Rapture" Blondie (1981)

Before there was rap, there was this...
When this song burst on the scene, every kid on my block was rapping along with it.  Some of us even created new verses to go along with "the man from Mars" and the video featured artist Basquiat whose work introduced me to gallery art.  This was the year I decided I wanted to grow up to be an artist myself.  And this was the first song lyrics I used to scribble on the backs of chairs and restroom stalls (complete with little cartoon men from Mars):

"And you get in your car and drive real far.
And you drive all night and then you see a light.
And it comes right down and it lands on the ground.
And out comes the man from Mars.
And you try to run but he's got a gun.
And he shoots you dead and he eats your head.
And then you're in the man from Mars.
You go out at night eating cars.
You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too.
Mercurys and Subaru.
And you don't stop.
You keep on eating cars.
Then when there's no more cars you go out at night
And eat up bars where the people meet..."

 "Don't You Want Me" Human League (1982)

Soap opera drama time.  I first heard this song while watching "The Young and the Restless" which happens to be my mother's favorite day time soap.  It has forever been stamped in my mind as the song that most expresses luxury and excess to me.  If I were to pick a song that represents the 80's over all, it would be this one.  The Human League were just one set of individuals who made up the New Romantic look slowly making a comeback in today's fashion.  I will now forever believe that men look even better in eyeliner than I do!

"Magic" Olivia Newton-John (1980)
I used to rollerskate to this song as well.  This song reminds me of Olivia's movie "Xanadu" as well.  Even though that movie and this song are sickeningly sweet, it about sums up my girlhood.  I believe in magic to this day.  And I'm looking forward to seeing Wonder Woman come back to the big screen next year, too!

"Too Shy" Kajagoogoo (1983)
A classic song for me.  Again, boys in make-up are fine!   This song also reminds me of flavored lip gloss, too.  My favorite back then was Dr. Pepper lip gloss by Bonnie Bell.  You could wear the lip gloss on a string around your neck, the tube of the gloss was BIG as well.  Nothing better for a girl than wearing a case of flavored wax around her neck and smacking her lips with it every chance she got!

 "Sweet Dreams (are made of this)" and "Here Comes the Rain Again" Eurythmics (1983)

These songs remind me of my first dabblings into Witchcraft.  There's something hypnotic and altogether silly about these songs and the experiences I first had with the Occult.  I discovered that Witchcraft really wasn't that omnious or creepy and I really longed for it to be something like out of the pages of my favorite fantasy novels.  But then I grew to have a deeper appreciation for spiritualities other than the one I was brought up with and this opened the doors to understanding the rest of the world.  When the world is new like that to you, and when you discover you're not going to hell for converting to another religion, there's this uplifting feeling of enlightenment and "magic without tears" that helps speed you into adulthood without as much fear as you were programmed to have.  In my mind I was a sorceress but in reality I was becoming a woman, and that was something very magically awkward for me, but magical nonetheless!

"Centerfold" J. Geils Band (1981)

"It's okay, I understand, this ain't no never-never land..." Who can't listen to this song and think of "Porky's" or any number of silly sex crazed romantic comedies of the early 80's?  That's what this song sums up for me; my first looks at porn, curiousity and horny spells, my first encounters with cock, etc.  This song is all about the sexual fantasies of boys and how some of us girls tried to live up to them!

 "Do You Wanna Touch Me" Joan Jett & the Blackhearts (1982)
This song was playing on the radio the first time I touched a penis!  I'm serious.  I was curious.  My babysitter was a gay guy desperately trying to prove to himself he could be straight.  He was sixteen and I was thirteen.  I guess you could say he molested me, but not really.  I like to think it was a mutual molesting!  I was even really surprised to see a penis get an erection.  It was magical to me and I wanted to see it happen again and again, but I was NOT prepared for the ejaculation!  It was then that I decided men were these strange alien creatures and I couldn't possibly imagine having intercourse with them.  I remember squealing "ewwwww!" which I think terrified the guy a lot.  Many years later he'd tease me and tell me that I was the reason why he stayed liking boys!

"Abracadabra" Steve Miller Band (1981)

This is another horny song.  It reminds me of going to see movies in this dusty old theatre in downtown Springfield, Missouri where we'd watch old movies and bats would dart back and forth across the screen.  I don't remember the name of the theatre, but it was there that I had some serious make-out sessions with boys and got my bra straps snapped by several idiots who loved to get a rise out of me.  Now that I think about it, it my mother had known what was going on while I was that young, she'd of kept me locked in my bedroom for months!

"Let's Dance" David Bowie (1982)
I hadn't yet discovered David Bowie until this song and I really fell in love with him. His was the perfect image of the blonde male diva every young girl wants to grow up to marry.  Or at least I felt that way.

"Wrapped Around Your Finger" The Police (1983)

The other blonde male diva was Sting. I still love the dance he does in the video to this song, knocking down all those gothic candles, just makes me swoon!  Come 1983 and I was fully a teenager fully in love with the music being produced at the time.

"Betty Davis Eyes" Kim Carnes (1981)

Check out the vintage New Romantic fashions in this video! This feels just like yesterday... This song really deserves to be rediscovered.  Kim Carnes voice was so raspy and mysterious, like a more hard core Stevie Nicks.  I remember that Kim and Betty Davis made the front cover of People magazine when this song hit the charts.  Can you imagine someone today with those Betty Davis eyes? 

Now, if only I could find or make this compliation, I'd have the best, most perfect soundtrack for my early years as a teenager...  all I need is a CD burner...  but I don't have one.  So the search for the best 80's compliation continues!