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*** 1980's One Hit Wonders . . .​​​​ #1 - LIPPS, INC. - Funkytown *** (1 Viewer)

#30 - THE JEFF HEALEY BAND - Angel Eyes (#5 - 9/2/1989 - 22 Weeks)
Guitar virtuoso Jeff Healey claims the first spot in the overall Top 30 80's OHW's. His platinum debut album See the Light produced three radio friendly songs including Angel Eyes, Confidence Man, and the title track. It also contained the track Hideaway, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance (a cover of a 1961 Freddie King song). Angel Eyes was the 70th best selling song in the U.S. in 1989. John Hiatt, Gavin DeGraw, and Australian artist Paulini also recorded the song.

A study in courage and overcoming adversity, Healey lost his eyesight to a rare form of cancer when he was only a year old and later had to have his eyes surgically removed. That didn't stop him from learning to play the guitar at the age of 3. By the age of 15, he was playing club shows in the Toronto music scene. Healey was discovered playing in a blues club by blues guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins. Here is a performance of Healey and SRV jamming out on Look At Little Sister.

The Jeff Healey Band released 4 rock, rhythm, and blues albums and another of classic covers. His version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps received a lot of airplay (although from one of his other albums). Healey is also known for his appearance in the 1989 Patrick Swayze film Road House (SPOILER ALERT: Swayze will be making an appearance of his own in a few songs). Here is Healey's version of The Doors' Roadhouse Blues from Road House. 

Healey went on to release another 26 solo albums, compilations, and live releases in the 2000's, none of which did much commercially in terms of sales or chart appearances. His cancer worsened in 2007 and he had multiple surgeries. He died in 2008 at age 41. He remains a widely unappreciated guitar player.

Coming up, we switch genres back to a funk / R&B / dance track with S&M overtones from a band from Ohio that has remained active in the industry since 1977.

 
#29 - THE DAZZ BAND - Let It Whip (#5 - 7/17/1982 - 23 Weeks)
The final #5 entry, Dazz had been around for 5 years when they hit the jackpot with their 1982 album Keep It Live. The album hit #1 on the R&B chart and Let It Whip hit #1 on the R&B singles chart (and won a Grammy Award). They were fronted by vocalist Skip Martin, who split his time between Dazz Band and Kool & The Gang (after JT Taylor left the band . . . basically when they were no longer major artists).

Let It Whip was co-written by Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, who played drums on Michael Jackson's hits Billie Jean and I Just Can't Stop Loving You. The Dazz Band released 14 albums over a 20 year period and are still active today (with different musicians) and played a gig a few months ago. For you closet Justin Timberlake fans, JT released a remix of Cry Me A River sampling Let It Whip in 2003 (which I admit is pretty catchy). A less catchy version appeared in Pitch Perfect. Boys II Men also took a stab at it.

As we roll into the #4's, our first performer is an Indonesian-born Dutch singer that launched his career in Germany and whose name is a Mexican food item . . . covering a song by Irving Berlin written in the 1920's. How's that for global?

 
Anarchy99 said:
#29 - THE DAZZ BAND - Let It Whip (#5 - 7/17/1982 - 23 Weeks)
The final #5 entry, Dazz had been around for 5 years when they hit the jackpot with their 1982 album Keep It Live. The album hit #1 on the R&B chart and Let It Whip hit #1 on the R&B singles chart (and won a Grammy Award). They were fronted by vocalist Skip Martin, who split his time between Dazz Band and Kool & The Gang (after JT Taylor left the band . . . basically when they were no longer major artists).

Let It Whip was co-written by Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, who played drums on Michael Jackson's hits Billie Jean and I Just Can't Stop Loving You. The Dazz Band released 14 albums over a 20 year period and are still active today (with different musicians) and played a gig a few months ago. For you closet Justin Timberlake fans, JT released a remix of Cry Me A River sampling Let It Whip in 2003 (which I admit is pretty catchy). A less catchy version appeared in Pitch Perfect. Boys II Men also took a stab at it.

As we roll into the #4's, our first performer is an Indonesian-born Dutch singer that launched his career in Germany and whose name is a Mexican food item . . . covering a song by Irving Berlin written in the 1920's. How's that for global?
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Should be revealed on a Tuesday

 
Anarchy99 said:
#29 - THE DAZZ BAND - Let It Whip (#5 - 7/17/1982 - 23 Weeks)
The final #5 entry, Dazz had been around for 5 years when they hit the jackpot with their 1982 album Keep It Live. The album hit #1 on the R&B chart and Let It Whip hit #1 on the R&B singles chart (and won a Grammy Award). They were fronted by vocalist Skip Martin, who split his time between Dazz Band and Kool & The Gang (after JT Taylor left the band . . . basically when they were no longer major artists).

Let It Whip was co-written by Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, who played drums on Michael Jackson's hits Billie Jean and I Just Can't Stop Loving You. The Dazz Band released 14 albums over a 20 year period and are still active today (with different musicians) and played a gig a few months ago. For you closet Justin Timberlake fans, JT released a remix of Cry Me A River sampling Let It Whip in 2003 (which I admit is pretty catchy). A less catchy version appeared in Pitch Perfect. Boys II Men also took a stab at it.

As we roll into the #4's, our first performer is an Indonesian-born Dutch singer that launched his career in Germany and whose name is a Mexican food item . . . covering a song by Irving Berlin written in the 1920's. How's that for global?
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Such a good song.  It never gets old.  

 
DocHolliday said:
Such a good song.  It never gets old.  
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Indeed. This is right up there with anything Cameo ever did. The only reason I mention it is because the nasally vocals are similar in each of their big hits, Word Up and Let It Whip. The lyrics would make the older, less rapey, Bill Cosby blanch

So Let it whip (Let's whip it, baby). Child. Let's whip it right. Whip it baby. Whip it all night. C'mon let it whip, c'mon...

 
rockaction said:
Indeed. This is right up there with anything Cameo ever did. The only reason I mention it is because the nasally vocals are similar in each of their big hits, Word Up and Let It Whip. The lyrics would make the older, less rapey, Bill Cosby blanch

So Let it whip (Let's whip it, baby). Child. Let's whip it right. Whip it baby. Whip it all night. C'mon let it whip, c'mon...
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"Let It Whip" was the greatest song The Cars never wrote (mainly because The Cars didn't have a singer who could pull this one off). The Dazz Band had a couple of other good songs, but they shot their wad pretty quick. That said, they deserve their place in history for making one ###-kicking record.

Cameo was a whole 'nother ball of wax. They started out piggy-backing on hardcore '70s funk, then jumped into a Quiet Storm ballad phase, then popped up out of nowhere stealing from hip-hop and '80s phasing. In none of their iterations were they even remotely original - sorta like Yes did with prog, they just made inferior copies of what others were doing.

 
Uruk-Hai said:
"Let It Whip" was the greatest song The Cars never wrote (mainly because The Cars didn't have a singer who could pull this one off). The Dazz Band had a couple of other good songs, but they shot their wad pretty quick. That said, they deserve their place in history for making one ###-kicking record.

Cameo was a whole 'nother ball of wax. They started out piggy-backing on hardcore '70s funk, then jumped into a Quiet Storm ballad phase, then popped up out of nowhere stealing from hip-hop and '80s phasing. In none of their iterations were they even remotely original - sorta like Yes did with prog, they just made inferior copies of what others were doing.
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This is all interesting. I never would have thought of The Cars until you mentioned it. That's a crazily astute observation. I can hear the synth and guitar to a Cars version now. 

As far as Cameo goes, I really am speaking a bit out of my realm when it comes to them, so my comparison of the Dazz Band to them may be inapt. I did not follow Cameo's career arc. I just remember "Word Up" being ubiquitous enough to merit a Cherry Coke commercial. 

 
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#28 - TACO - Puttin' On The Ritz (#4 - 9/3/1983 - 21 Weeks)
Our first of three #4 songs. Taco's remake of the Irving Berlin classic appeared on his debut album, After Eight, which contained a mix of covers and originals. The other songs that received some radio airplay / MTV time were his versions of Cheek To Cheek and Singin' In The Rain. Apparently there was a different version of the Puttin' On The Ritz video that was concerned too offensive to be widely released.

Puttin' On The Ritz was an international hit, topping the charts in multiple countries and hitting the Top 5 almost everywhere. The song took almost a year to finally peak at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, which made Irving Berlin the oldest living composer to have a song hit the Top 5 at age 95 years old.

Taco put out 5 albums in the 80's, including an album of Glenn Miller covers. He emerged with a new album after 25 years in the 2010's and of course re-recorded Puttin' On The Ritz to try to recoup some additional interest. He still pops up in festival shows now and again.

Taco's version may have been a Top 5 hit, but IMO nothing can beat the version from Young Frankenstein.

Up next, the title track from a 1987 album, the fourth album released by an American synth/pop duo from New York.

 
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#27 - THE SYSTEM - Don't Disturb This Groove (#4 - 7/18/1987 - 21 weeks)
The System has had three stints as a band (80's, early 2000's, and the past 6 or 7 years). They are essentially an American synth pop duo from New York with vocalist/guitarist Mic Murphy and keyboardist David Frank. They're released 7 albums and 15 singles over the years. Don't Disturb This Groove reached #1 on the US Billboard R&B Singles chart,

They had a minor hit in 1982 with You Are In My System. Robert Palmer released his version less than a year later. The System won the Billboard battle, as the original hit #64 on the Hot 100, while Palmer's version only reached #78.

Not much else noteworthy about the band or the song.

Up next, a British band that hit the UK Top 40 eight times . . . but only once in the U.S. And their first single was the one that charted here (in the summer of 1987).

 
#26 - T'PAU - Heart And Soul (#4 - 8/8/1987 - 27 Weeks)
The last of the #4 entries in the chart. T'Pau features the voice and sound of Carol Decker. Their debut album Bridge of Spies went 4x platinum in their native Britain with 7 singles released across the pond. They released 3 Top 10 albums in 4 years in the UK (with 8 UK Top 40 hits) and then two other albums in the next 28 years.

Following in the footsteps of many others in this countdown, T-Pau's biggest hit was their first single. Not to be confused with the Huey Lewis & The New's hit of the same name, their Heart and Soul was notable for overdubbing and harmonizing that was impossible to recreate in a live performance without the need of multiple backup singers. The song charted in the U.S. for over 6 months and hit the Top 40 in at least a dozen countries.

They are still around and performing and just played the Let's Rock Liverpool Festival 3 nights ago. Here is a performance of the song from 2013. The song later appeared in one of the Graft Theft Auto video games, as well as in an episode of Black Mirror.

Decker has stuck with the band all through the years and hasn't ventured out on her own or released any solo material. The names and faces have changed, but even the members of T'Pau have mostly just stuck with the band.

Coming up, an instrumental from one of the biggest comedies of the 80's.

 
Anarchy99 said:
#28 - TACO - Puttin' On The Ritz (#4 - 9/3/1983 - 21 Weeks)
Our first of three #4 songs. Taco's remake of the Irving Berlin classic appeared on his debut album, After Eight, which contained a mix of covers and originals. The other songs that received some radio airplay / MTV time were his versions of Cheek To Cheek and Singin' In The Rain. Apparently there was a different version of the Puttin' On The Ritz video that was concerned too offensive to be widely released.

Puttin' On The Ritz was an international hit, topping the charts in multiple countries and hitting the Top 5 almost everywhere. The song took almost a year to finally peak at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, which made Irving Berlin the oldest living composer to have a song hit the Top 5 at age 95 years old.

Taco put out 5 albums in the 80's, including an album of Glenn Miller covers. He emerged with a new album after 25 years in the 2010's and of course re-recorded Puttin' On The Ritz to try to recoup some additional interest. He still pops up in festival shows now and again.

Taco's version may have been a Top 5 hit, but IMO nothing can beat the version from Young Frankenstein.

Up next, the title track from a 1987 album, the fourth album released by an American synth/pop duo from New York.
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I don't truly despise many songs but this song is awful.  

 
#25 - HAROLD FALTERMEYER - Axel F (#3 - 6/1/1985 - 19 Weeks)
Our first #3 entry, Axel F of course is the theme song from Beverly Hills Cop. BHC was the second highest grossing comedy of the 80's and the 7th highest grossing film of the decade. The film took in $316 million global and vaulted Eddie Murphy from star to superstar. BHC remained Murphy's highest grossing film until Shrek came out, a pan of 16 years and 19 films.

Faltermeyer has had songs appear in 27 films, most notably in Fletch and Top Gun. He will have another song appear in the Top Gun sequel next year. He earned Grammy Awards for his work on BHC and Top Gun. He co-wrote The Heat Is On by Glenn Frey, which actually charted one spot higher on the Hot 100 than Axel F did, hitting number two.

Another German performer that appeared in this countdown, Faltermeyer has worked in many capacities in the music industry, from songwriter to producer to collaborator to session musician. He has worked with a broad spectrum of performers including Rush, Billy Idol, Donna Summer, Laura Branigan, Bonnie Tyler, Pet Shop Boys, Barbra Streisand, Blondie, Cheap Trick, Bob Seger, and many others. I do not believe Faltermeyer ever recorded and released any albums of original material (ie, anything out there commercially available would be collections or compilations of previous works).

Up next, an English alternative band that carried on without their lead singer and had more success as a trio than a quartet.

 
Been busy with football stuff, but the next artist is a major part of the Anarchy story and has a long story attached to it. 

 
#24 - LOVE & ROCKETS - So Alive (#3 - 8/5/1989 - 20 weeks)
Back in 1978, the three members of what would become Love and Rockets and singer Peter Murphy formed an alternative / goth band in England called Bauhaus. The band released 4 albums in the early 80's  that generated significant buzz and a following. They are most known for their cover of Ziggy Stardust. The band toured regularly but friction developed between Murphy and the rest of the band, and before the last show of their 1983 tour, they decided to go their seperate ways. 

Bauhaus without Peter Murphy returned to the British music scene as Love and Rockets in 1985 with their Seventh Age of Teenage Heaven album, still somewhat goth and alternative, but with more of a dance / pop / less angst ridden sound. In 1987, they had a radio / MTV hit in No New Tale To Tell, but the single never really took off sales wise. Their second album, Express, from 1986 remains one of my all time favorite albums . . . not just from the 80's. Even now, I listen to it it regularly and will play songs from it multiple times each month (mostly for walks / hikes / workouts). I can say that there aren't many albums that I can say that for.

By the time their self-titled fourth album dropped in 1989, the music landscape in the U.S. had changed. Bands that prided themselves as being alternative / anti-establishment / underground suddenly were all the rage . . . The Cure, R.E.M., Depeche Mode, The Cult, The Replacements, Fine Young Cannibals, 10,000 Maniacs, Peter Gabriel, The B-52's, Eurythmics, Nine Inch Nails, and similar artists were suddenly mainstream, platinum selling artists. (I considered adding U2 to this list, but they really weren't considered alternative by then.)

The popularity of So Alive was a surprise and popped up out of nowhere. The other tracks on the album were either loud and booming or much more airy / ethereal / alternative. In many ways, So Alive doesn't really fit with the rest of the album. It's pretty much a pop song from a not very pop album. So Alive still was classified as an alternative song and stayed at #1 on the U.S. Alternative chart for 5 weeks. No Big Deal and Motorcycle also charted on the U.S. Alternative chart. If you listen to either of those songs, you can see what I mean that you couldn't get much further removed from So Alive.

The band released 3 more albums over the next decade, but they turned more into a dance band than their roots as a goth band and then an alternative band. They briefly reformed for a few shows in the mid- to late- 2000's. Around that time, they got back together with Peter Murphy and toured as Bauhaus for a year. Bauhaus went into the studio to record a new album together for the first time in 25 years in 2008. It is said that by that point they weren't really getting along, had a spat in the studio, and essentially released the songs / sessions recorded in one take (which I had never heard of an album recorded and released that way). That put an end to both Bauhaus and Love and Rockets.

I will work on my LONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGG Love and Rockets story, as their DNA is now permanently fused with my blood by this point. I apologize in advance for how long this story will take to tell. I will return to the countdown after, so once I post the story (in sections), people can skip over it if they are interested.

 
I’ve seen Love and Rockets, Bauhaus (reunion), Peter Murphy, and Poptone in concert. All iterations of Bauhaus are great imo. The Bubblemen rule as well.

 
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I’ve given a lot of thought of how best to present this story. Start at the beginning? Start at the end? Start in the middle? I settled on a basic introduction and then to start at the beginning.

A hundred years ago, George Mallory was a mountain climber who made it his life’s goal to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He led multiple attempts to reach the top of the mountain, none of which were successful, several which had fatalities, and ultimately he died trying to get to the peak. When asked by a reporter in 1923, "Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?" Mallory replied "Because it's there.” On his final excursion, he disappeared. His body was found on the mountain in 1999.

My story is certainly not as dramatic or death defying. What started out as a hobby turned into a school project. But the project then turned into an unhealthy obsession. Unlike Mallory, I finished what I intended to accomplish, although much of the time I can’t really say I had anything I had intended to accomplish.

This story starts 40 years ago, covers a 10-year period which bookmarked the 80’s as a decade, and hasn’t really been told for almost 30 years. Anyone in my current life and existence knows nothing about it, so I figured now would be the chance to reflect.

 
Chapter 1 - The Preface

On my first day of high school (circa 1980), a giant truck pulled up and unloaded a ton of boxes that became the school’s first ever TV production studio. Very few kids were interested in it, so I spent a lot of time learning how to use the equipment, putting together some material / shows, and recording a bunch of random stuff. I spent a lot of high school in either the school TV or radio stations. Since no one else wanted in, I created a weekly news show where I did everything associated with a newscast all on my own. I was the host, the person in the field, interviewed myself, covered sports and school concerts, etc. A lot of it was serious, but a lot of it was funny because I was the only one involved. I wrote the material, recorded it, edited it, and it ran on a loop in the cafeteria at lunch.

After high school, I ended up going to 4 schools (including a broadcasting school) and again recorded a quirky amount of random video of who knows what. Rinse and repeat for years and years. I had recordings of anything and everything . . . some stuff I had worked on, some I recorded on my home VCR . . . shows, documentaries, the evening news, etc. I had no logical reason to, but I kept all those raw recordings and videotapes. I had boxes / shelves / a closet full of them at home. I didn’t watch them, yet somehow I saved them all. By the time I entered the college I eventually graduated from, I already had 8 years worth of hands on experience in using radio and TV production equipment . . . and a boatload of randomly recorded video. I was a Communications major with an emphasis on Radio / Television / Film.

I was a work study student at my school’s AV Department, and the school offered a 1 credit class in video editing. Because I had so much experience, they would frequently have me teach that class. In the life-sometimes-makes-no-sense category, the school’s policy was that anyone in the Communications program MUST complete that 1 credit editing course, no exceptions. They didn’t care what I knew, what I had taken elsewhere, even if I had 10 taken other classes at other schools, I HAD to take THEIR silly 1 credit class that I was instructing.

Their intent was to make sure kids in the program were proficient enough to use all the equipment available to them to complete their production projects. The assignments were about as basic as you could get. For example, they had tapes of Gunsmoke and they wanted people to re-edit footage to tell a story and make a scene that never was in the show. At the end of the semester, kids were suppose to make a two minute video on their own showing that they could do certain technical things.

I had gotten word that I had to officially take the class I was teaching (with someone else listed as the teacher) and I needed to complete all the assignments just like everyone else did. Now, a smart person would have just done what was asked and be done with it. I could have completed the entire semester’s worth of work in about 4 hours and gotten an easy A. But that’s just not how I roll. I decided I wanted to make something that showcased what could be done with the equipment the school had available to illustrate just how fancy and sophisticated you could make something. In hindsight . . . DUMBEST . . . IDEA . . . EVER.

 
Chapter 2 - Enter Love and Rockets

I always liked the various incarnations of Bauhaus / Love & Rockets / Tones on Tail / Peter Murphy / future incarnations of those. In college, similar to in high school, I hung out a lot in the school radio station. I am always interested to hear stories of how creative people came up with a song, a story, an idea, and then how they turned that into something. In my case, I was listening to a live concert recording of Love & Rockets when I underwent an epiphany . . . a revelation.

Back when I was a kid, I liked the song Ball of Confusion by the Temptations. At the time it was written (1970), the country was in a state of flux. The lyrics were powerful, the music was soulful, and the message was essentially a story of keeping the man down with some racial overtones. I didn’t remember it well, but I remembers the song.

Love & Rockets recorded their take on Ball of Confusion (Studio Version) and released it as their first single in 1985. I liked their modernized version of the song and listened to it frequently. I played it a lot on my radio show, but it never really inspired me up until that point.

The concert recording I was listening to was performed COMPLETEY different than the studio version (A different live version . . . not the same as the one I used.). This version was ANGRY, this version was MEAN SPIRITED, this version featured a band that was ANGRY. Distorted guitars, faster tempo, filled with emotion. It was no longer a pop / dance song. It was almost transformed into a punk / thrash /heavy metal song with an attitude.

I don’t know what is says about me, but the proverbial light bulb went off in my head listening to that live show. I could use all that material I videotaped over the years to make a video to go with that SPECIFIC Love & Rockets performance. My brain was a buzz mapping out how I would make the video . . . matching up real world examples to go along with the lyrics and the angst driven live performance.

Here are the lyrics to the song . . .

People moving out, people moving in
Why? Because of the color of their skin
Run, run, run but you just can't hide
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
Vote for me and I'll set you free

Rap on, rap on, brother, rap on

Well, the only person talking about love today is the preacher
And it seems nobody's interested in learning but the teacher
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration
Aggravation, humiliation, devastation of our nation

Ball of confusion
That's what the world is today, hey, hey
Ball of confusion
That's what the world is today, hey, hey

The sale of pills are at an all-time high
Who put the fillin' in the pie in the sky
The cities aflame in the summer time
And the beat goes on
And the beat goes on
And the beat goes on

Economics, Reaganomics, birth control, the status quo
Shooting rockets to the moon, kids growing up too soon
The politicians say
And the band played on
 

So, 'round and around and around we go
Where the world's headed, nobody knows

Chorus

Fear in the air, tension everywhere
Unemployment rising fast (Rockets new record's a gas)
And the band played on
And the band played on
And the band played on
And the band played

Eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors
Solid gold in demand, population out of hand, suicide
Too many beers, hippies movin' to the hills
People all over the world are dying in the war
And the band played on
And the band played on
And the band played on
And the band played

Chorus

Chorus

Chorus

Suddenly I had a cause . . . a direction . . . a calling. THAT was going to be my video for the ONE CREDIT video editing class THAT I WAS INSTRUCTING and forced to take . . . which was mandatory to graduate. DUMBEST . . . IDEA . . . EVER.

 
Chapter 3 - Creating the Video

It would take forever to explain how I put the video together, but I had a road map in my mind about what I wanted to do. I will get into the content in the next segment.

I started going through hours and hours of video to find images that fit the spirit and lyrics of the song. Remember, the intent of what I was doing was to emphasize the capabilities and creativity involved in video editing. And to give you some added info, those were the days of VIDEOTAPE . . . not DVDs . . . not digital storage or streaming . . . no YouTube, etc.. So to find anything, I had to switch videotapes and fast forward and rewind to find things.

I am sure I am going to lose a lot of people with a technical description of what I did, but I mostly used footage shot by other people, but I blended together tiny video segments of isolated camera movements, frame composition, depth of field, movement in the frame, lighting, shading, zooms in, zooms out, pans left, pans out, etc., piecing together a visual mosaic that layered over each other.

Ultimately, the video not only went along with the lyrics and spirit of the song, what I edited went along with the individual instruments in the song. There were edits throughout that followed the drums, the bass, the guitar, and the vocals. All of that blended together in unison all at the same time.

Every edit went either WITH or AGAINST the shot before it. For example, someone would be seen on screen looking to the left then turning their head. But I EXACTLY matched the head turn in the video so when the head reappeared it was a completely different scene with someone else’s head. Or I had footage of water flowing down a stream from left to right, and I edited more video footage that flowed seamlessly with the same camera movements and screen composition . . . just completely different content and video.

From start to end, the video got much more frenetic in terms of pacing. For example, the individual shots in the video started at four seconds long . . . then over the course of the video down to 2 seconds . . . then 1 second . . . then half a second . . . all the way to fractions of a second. The final chorus of the song repeats over and over again. It totals over a minute of actual time.

By intent and design, my video editing and pacing accelerated all the material to an absolutely INSANE pace. How insane? That last section of the video (over a minute in duration) I got to the point of micro edits of footage. A single second of video has a frame rate of 30 frames per second. I edited footage to the point of having 30 images in a single second of video. Multiple that by 70-75 seconds and I put together a fabric of over 2,000 individually selected images that all fit together.

Since I worked in the AV Department, there were times I spent DAYS working on it in a row during school breaks. I never let anyone see what I was working on, so the only thing people knew was that I was working on a project. People would ask me how things were going and if I was making progress. At one point, I spent a week on school break to create three seconds of usable video (remember, I put together 180 images in that 3 seconds).

I worked on putting this together for almost two and a half years. I invested THOUSANDS of hours putting it together. I don’t know how frequently people can say they applied thousands of hours into something, but I am guessing it doesn’t happen all that often. I literally locked myself in the room the size of a closet for hours at a time.

For my silly ONE CREDIT course, I took an incomplete over and over and over again on my report card until I finished my video. And I couldn’t graduate without it. Ultimately, I was running out of time and my final semester of my senior year was coming to a close and I wasn’t done yet. DUMBEST . . . IDEA . . . EVER.

 
Chapter 4 – Wrapping Up the Video

In terms of telling a story, the video I made echoed the message and lyrics in the song. I picked out news stories, TV shows, movies, and footage from the 80's. I started the video with a sperm fertilizing the egg and ended the video with the world's smallest premature baby that had ever been born squirming in an incubator. The material in between was a lot of death, carnage, and destruction, scandals, frauds, disease, pollution, etc.highlighting all the key story lines of the decade. The song ended with a clock ticking and the video ended with the mature baby crying and squirming.

We had a student film festival night where student projects from that year were shown to the public. I was the one responsible for coordinating everything for the festival and was the one in the production room showing the all the videos. I finished my video about 20 minutes before the film festival. As a general rule, no video was supposed to be screened for the public without prior viewing and consent of the school. No one had ever seen what I put together and my video, sight unseen, was scheduled to close the film festival in front of a standing room only crowd. At this point, no one had any inclination of what I had been working on for all that time. No one really knew much about it.

To give people some insight, most of the other projects I had worked on were funny / satirical and usually not serious. They were a whimsical look at things in the vein of Saturday Night Live or Seinfeld. What I put together was 180 degrees polar opposite to that. Imagine Will Ferrell making Platoon.

What I put together really was pretty remarkable. It was a technical masterpiece and pushed the limit of what you could do given the technology of the time and the equipment the school had to work with (remember this part, as it becomes a big part of the story later on).

I coordinated the Film Festival from the production control room in the theater. Most of the student works were pretty basic. I am sure people can imagine what a student film is like. OK concepts, not a ton of technical proficiency, bad acting, and basically videos one or two cuts above home movies. There were a few that were pretty good with some both creativity and technical production value. After about 2 hours, it was time for the unveiling of my video. Just like the end of Bohemian Rhapsody, I maxed out the volume of the sound system in the theater, put my video in the machine, and hit play. Then in those few seconds while it took to get queued up a giant sense of doubt overwhelmed me. This was the DUMBEST . . . IDEA . . . EVER.

 
Chapter 5 – The Reaction

I couldn't really get a sense of what was going on while my video was playing as I was not in the crowd and it was dark. After my video finished, I stopped the tape, turned on the lights, and looked through the control room window into the auditorium to try to gauge people’s reactions. Absolute, total SILENCE. You could hear the lights buzzing it was so quiet. No one moved. No one said a word. For all the other videos, people applauded when they were done. Some they clapped loudly and cheered. For mine . . . nothing. DUMBEST . . . IDEA . . . EVER.

Since I was basically the producer and technical coordinator of the festival, it took me a few minutes to put some things away and shut off the equipment. I came out of the control room and I noticed that some people were crying. Or trembling. Or sniffling. Then it became contagious and almost everyone started crying: students, parents, faculty, even the president of the college. When I came out of the booth, people started clapping. And cheering. And whistling. It turned into a standing ovation.

After that, they had all the students come on stage to answer questions about their projects. Right away I knew this was going to be a problem. Every question that was asked was directed at me. I deferred and deflected by saying there were plenty of other great student works to talk about (many of which I helped out on), so please ask questions of all of the students not just me. It didn’t do any good. Everyone only wanted to hear about my video. When the other kids on the stage asked if they could ask me questions and had no interest in talking about their videos, I felt a lot better.

People begged me to play it again, which I did. Twice. They finally pulled the plug on the questions after two hours and announced that there were refreshments and snacks in the hall and people could meet and talk to the student filmmakers. People I never met of all ages came up and hugged me. It was like a receiving line at a wedding. Someone described watching the video as a complete stranger walking up to them and slapping them hard across the face but in a good way like it was knocking some sense into them.

Everyone asked me how on earth did I ever come up with the idea, get all the video, and how on earth did I put it all together. I told the story that I am retelling here. People asked why I made the video, why did I spend so much time on a project that clearly covered 100 marathons for what only needed 100 yards of energy and effort. I never could really come up with a good answer as to what drove and inspired me to do what I did. Similar to my George Mallory example several posts ago, my answer was basically because it needed to be done.

In the span of one evening, my entire existence had changed. I had gone from someone on campus that hardly anyone knew . . . an anonymous face in the crowd . . . to basically a rock star. I generally am a quiet, reserved person and keep to myself, so the last thing I wanted was a ton of attention.

 
Chapter 6 - Short Term Post-Script

The next morning, completely unknown to me, one of my professors made a copy of my video, filled out an application, and over nighted everything to a prestigious national student video competition that had an entry deadline closing the next day. He didn’t tell me, he didn’t ask me, and he forged my signature on the paperwork. Imagine my surprise when I was notified that out of thousands and thousands of student films and videos, I was the winner of the competition. By winning, my video would be shown nationwide over the summer across the country on public broadcasting stations under the PBS banner. It ended up being played between shows or to fill up a few minutes to get their shows to align schedules properly.

Also of note is that they showed my video as part of many other classes on campus. Unfortunately for me, they scheduled those class viewings when I was working work study, so they basically assigned me to those classes to set up the equipment and stay and answer the same questions over and over again. I didn't have a choice, I was on the clock.

Again, without even asking me, the college scheduled essentially the student film festival night all over again, but this time it was being advertised and promoted as “An Evening Featuring the Collected Works of Award Winning Student Filmmaker Anarchy.” There was no one else but me on the schedule. None of my classmates, just little old me. This time it was different. The original night had snacks and soft drinks. This one had catered food, servers in uniform, and beer and wine. The first one was casual. This one was formal. They wanted me in a suit. Anyone from the school / faculty was there in a tux or a suit.

They dragged out all the different video projects I had worked on over the years, culminating in the Love and Rockets video. The school picked what they wanted shown whether I felt like it was worthy or not. They also picked through some stuff I had at the school that I had put together and never turned in for a class and showed a couple of those too.

Even though it was MY NIGHT, I was ready to be done and move on. Again, none of this was optional. Instead of me being in the control room the first time, I was on the stage all by myself and had to answer questions about each project they showed. I really was uncomfortable with what they did, and I really didn’t feel like answering questions on stuff no one had seen before that wasn't even made for a class.

I got what they were doing. This was a huge night for the school. It got tons of publicity and media coverage, it got a boatload of alumni donations, and it put their program on the map with a bullet. The other thing difference was by the end of the evening when they showed the video, it wasn’t a big reveal. SPOILER ALERT: everyone already knew all about it. Even so, it got the same reaction (standing ovation), plenty of well wishers, and I had to do a meet and greet all by myself. That is SOOOOOO not me.

Afterwards, I got cornered by my professors, who wanted to take me out for a night on the town. I don’t know how I was supposed to react to all of this, but I basically said I appreciated what they had done but I really was uncomfortable with how things had worked out. From my perspective, I did this entire project by myself. No one else helped me, instructed me, or had anything to do with it. I made it for me and I didn’t really intend for it to be viewed by the masses.

Collectively, these folks had taught at multiple Ivy League schools. They basically told me my video was singularly the greatest student work any of them had ever seen (across any discipline). They said the response from people was so outstanding, so shocking, that in the span of five minutes I had changed people’s lives forever. They went on to say people live their entire lives trying to make an impact and change the world . . . and I had done that with one video in five minutes of someone’s time. They showed me letters the school had received about how my video impacted them, that it was a call to arms, that we as people needed to unite and come together to fix the world, and not leave a mess for the next generation.

Being young and naive, I said they were really inflating the impact of what I had done. They insisted that this one video project was going to be the best thing I would ever do in my entire life. I told them I hoped not . . . I was 23 years old. For months, I got flooded with letters and phone calls over the video. Even the director of Purple Rain contacted me.

Shortly after that, I graduated. Graduation was noteworthy for me because that was the last time my parents were at the same place together (they had been split up for 15 years) and were able to tolerate each other long enough to get through the ceremony. As they called my name and I accepted my diploma, the entire faculty stood and gave me a standing ovation. Then the rest of the staff and then the students followed suit. Then everyone stood up and applauded for almost two minutes. That was the weirdest feeling, looking out among a gigantic crowd and everyone cheering for you. I can’t even imagine what athletes or musicians go through in stadium environments.

Underclassmen still in the communications program went crazy over the video. One kid told me he had watched the video over 100 times and every time he saw something different. He played it over and over in slow motion to see how I made it. He also tried to decipher all the people in the video and why they were there. I even had people tell me they were switching majors because they initially were in it to make money but were switching to a science or health major to try to make a difference with their lives. I thought these people were nuts. It was just a video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was my 15 minutes of fame. I hit my peak at 23 years old. And IMMEDIATELY things took a turn in the wrong direction. That’s it for today, but the story continues with my actual real live interaction with Love & Rockets the band. I will continue the story when I can. Not to leave things on a cliff hanger, but the band basically wanted to buy the video.

 
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Anarchy99 said:
If I can somehow get this posted for people to watch, remember I am not the one that said it would change anyone's life. Other people said it changed their life. To me, it's just a video.
Click to expand...
This a truly amazing story. Love it. 

And Rockets it.

 
Anarchy99 said:
[scooter] said:
:popcorn:

Ready for my life to be forever changed........
Click to expand...
If I can somehow get this posted for people to watch, remember I am not the one that said it would change anyone's life. Other people said it changed their life. To me, it's just a video.
Click to expand...
It's okay, I'm only (half) joking.

Your story resonates with me because I've done something similar; it was an extensive biography/analysis of a particular artist which started off as a college webdesigning project and eventually turned into a "hobby" that occupied my idle time for the greater part of 10 years. The small group of people who have seen the project have raved about how amazing it is and that I should publish it, yada yada yada. But those people are all fanboys like me. (I've also shown the project to potential publishers and their collective response has been, "Well, that's nice, but who would ever buy a copy?")

 
[scooter] said:
It's okay, I'm only (half) joking.

Your story resonates with me because I've done something similar; it was an extensive biography/analysis of a particular artist which started off as a college webdesigning project and eventually turned into a "hobby" that occupied my idle time for the greater part of 10 years. The small group of people who have seen the project have raved about how amazing it is and that I should publish it, yada yada yada. But those people are all fanboys like me. (I've also shown the project to potential publishers and their collective response has been, "Well, that's nice, but who would ever buy a copy?")
Click to expand...
In my case, the band and the record label offered me a huge sum of money for the rights to my video (six figures). I didn’t have to try to drum up interest . . . the interest was already there. They already had things worked out for the video to be in regular rotation on MTV (back when they were a force in the music business). The band and the label planned on re-recording the track in the style they performed it live in the video and planned on adding it to their album with So Alive on it, which ended up hitting the Top 15 on the U. S. album chart. People should be able to figure out pretty easily why that didn’t happen. 

 
To continue on with my video / Love and Rockets story, the video started getting played on national TV on PBS. The band saw it and really loved it. They had their team try to work out a deal to buy it. So far so good, but things turned quickly.

For starters, The Temptations wrote the song, so I heard from their legal team. I had "borrowed" about 98% of video and material shot by and belonging to other people. I got TONS of cease and desist notices and threats of lawsuits for using stuff without permission and without having any compensation agreements in place. Pretty much every media, TV, and film company reached out to me and none were happy about it. Even PBS was hearing from the same places and wanted my video taken off the air. I worked with my school to try to navigate through things. Ultimately, there was no way for me to secure the rights to everything I had used. I got a 50/50% split of mail . . . half from people I never met or heard from that found out how to get a hold of me praising my work and half from law firms sending me tons of legal documents looking for money or trying to get me not to show the video.

Several people / places / companies wanted me to redo the video. They wanted me to shoot all original video and negotiate the rights to use the song with The Temptations and Love & Rockets. The problem was, all the images I used featured prominent people, real life news events, or footage from movies and shows. Bottom line, it would have been impossible for me to re-create the video with homegrown video. So ultimately no deal could be made and I didn't remake the video.

Next up, due to the success of my video, my professors pushed me to apply to NYU graduate film school. They all "knew people," and it was presented to me as a foregone conclusion that I would get in (as a national contest winner and school valedictorian). NYU has a screening committee that reviews the applications and student work to determine who gets in. The problem was one of the people on the screening committee ran one of the biggest TV stations in NYC. He INSISTED that there was 100%, absolutely NO WAY a student made my video. As it was described to me, he commented that he could put a team of 25 of his best people working around the clock for 3 months and they couldn't put together what I did. On top of that, he contacted my school to find out what editing equipment they used, and he was even more convinced that their equipment could not make the precise edits that I had made in the video. (In realty, I knew the limitations of the equipment when I used it, so I calculated that into setting the editing points / codes when I made the video). This one guy had such a bug up his keister that he tried to have my selection for winning the student video competition vacated. Bottom line, I didn't get into NYU and essentially I got black listed for future consideration. They wanted only "original" pieces of student work.

After I graduated, the whole entertainment / broadcast / TV / film / creative arts industry had a giant purge and workforce reduction. Like 40% of the industry lost their jobs. So there were no jobs to be had anywhere. Ultimately I could not get a job in the industry and had to start doing something else for work.

After all this, unbeknown to me, my college started using my video as a fundraising and recruitment video. They showed it to potential students. They showed it to benefactors, They showed it to media companies to show that they were an up and coming program. They ended up getting millions and millions of dollars of cash and leading edge equipment donated to them and built an enormous media center and school of communications. I read about the groundbreaking in the paper . . . and they hadn't even told me about it, let alone invited me to it.

When I contacted them about all this, they cited a clause in their standard student application fine print (aka the Terms and Conditions section that no one ever reads) that all work developed by students as students becomes the property of the school and they can use it as they see fit. So I have the pleasure of knowing that I put their communications program on the map. The school just redid and expanded the school of communications building and got all new equipment again.

After all of this, my video didn't get purchased, I couldn't find a job in the industry, my school made out like bandits, and I had to move on. I met my first wife right after this and had kids early on and "real life" took over. After all that, I never made another video again . . . which if anyone had told me that that would be the outcome at the time, I would have said you would have been crazy. As I said when I started telling the story in this thread, all this happened a lifetime ago and it's hard to even envision it as my life since then has been 180% doing anything and everything as far away removed from video production as you can get.

I recently looked for the video but haven't found it yet. If I can find it, I will try to figure out how to post it somewhere.

 
#23 - THE S.O.S. BAND - Take Your Time (Do It Right) (#3 - 8/16/1980 - 21 weeks)
The S.O.S. Band hailed from Atlanta and was formed in 1977. They technically are listed as being an active band, but the majority of the performers bowed out long ago. The song is from their debut album, which hit #2 on the R&B album chart and #12 on the pop album chart. The single also topped the R&B singles chart. Like many of the artists on this chart, it was all down hill from there. The band released 8 studio albums in their 10 year run and none of their other 25 singles hit the Hot 100 singles chart. The song ended up as the #36 biggest hit of 1980.

Up next, a pop song that would be used 13 years later in the film Love & Basketball (which oddly enough I just watched for the first time last week).

 
Wu-banger said:
@Anarchy99 are we nominating songs or is this your personal list? 

I need some Eddie Murphy Party All The Time  https://youtu.be/iWa-6g-TbgI
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This is a list of the most popular "official" one-hit wonders of the 80's. I outlined that in the OP. But to recap, a song only qualifies here on this list if it was the only song by an artist to crack the Billboard Top 40 of the Hot 100 singles chart from 1980 through 1989. Other charts don't count. And songs that didn't chart don't count. That's what I'm doing in here. Clearly I have no control of what people post. No nominating songs to get on the list. It's not me posting favorites. The list is the list based how the songs ranked on the Billboard chart.

But since you brought up Eddie Murphy, Party All The Time hit #2 . . . while Put Your Mouth On Me hit #27. So he wouldn't make the official one hit wonder list.

 
Anarchy99 said:
This is a list of the most popular "official" one-hit wonders of the 80's. I outlined that in the OP. But to recap, a song only qualifies here on this list if it was the only song by an artist to crack the Billboard Top 40 of the Hot 100 singles chart from 1980 through 1989. Other charts don't count. And songs that didn't chart don't count. That's what I'm doing in here. Clearly I have no control of what people post. No nominating songs to get on the list. It's not me posting favorites. The list is the list based how the songs ranked on the Billboard chart.

But since you brought up Eddie Murphy, Party All The Time hit #2 . . . while Put Your Mouth On Me hit #27. So he wouldn't make the official one hit wonder list.
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Thanks for the clarification !! 

I could I forget about Put Your Mouth On Me's success :eyeroll: 

 
Wu-banger said:
Thanks for the clarification !! 

I could I forget about Put Your Mouth On Me's success :eyeroll: 
Click to expand...
Yeah, the way history remembers songs / bands / artists has gotten skewed over the years. It's so far in the future now that "the big hit" from the 80's will be the one that still gets played and everyone will remember. But that doesn't mean the band / singer didn't have other popular songs at the time.

I started this thread 6 months ago because there were a couple other one hit wonder threads at the time. In one of them, the song that was included was from someone that had multiple #1 songs and 12 songs that hit the Top 40. I said at the time that there is no way that counts as a OHW, which is why I started another thread outlining the "official" list.

For example, I hear Your Love by The Outfield pretty much every day on the radio where I live. They actually had five songs that charted, but I never hear the other ones.

That being said, I certainly won't argue with anyone if the song somebody really likes was really popular and the follow up single hit #40 that no one remembers. As far as that person is concerned, that was the band's one hit. Close enough.

 
#22 - ROGER - I Want To Be Your Man (#3 - 2/13/1988 - 21 weeks)
Roger Troutman (who simply performed as Roger) came from Ohio and hit the charts with this song from his third album Unlimited! He falls into a bit of the gray zone for one hit wonder status, as he was listed as a co-titled artist on California Love, the #1 hit by 2Pac and Dr. Dre in 1995. That song samples or uses snippets from the 1982 song by Zapp called Dance Floor (the band Roger was in before he went solo). Tupac died 9 months after California Love was released.

Zapp released 5 albums before Roger went solo, and he released 4 albums as a solo artist. Between Zapp and his solo efforts, Roger ended up with 8 other songs that hit the Hot 100 (but no other song cracked the Top 40).

I Want To Be Your Man ended the year as the #59 song of 1988. The song was used in 3 movies: Love & Basketball (2000), Pootie Tang (2001), and Soul Kitchen (2009) and also was used in an episode of the television show Everybody Hates Chris. Roger died in 1999 of an apparent murder-suicide when his brother is said to have shot him (and then the brother shot himself).

Warming up in the bullpen is another deceased artist, this one from an actor turned singer with a song from a movie soundtrack that has sold over 32 million copies.

 
#21 - PATRICK SWAYZE - She's Like The Wind (#3 - 2/27/1988 - 21 Weeks)

Actor / dancer / singer Patrick Swayze hits the charts with a song from the 4th best selling album from the 80's (behind only Thriller, Back In Black, and Bad). The Dirty Dancing soundtrack spawned 3 Top 5 singles and the re-release of Do You Love Me by The Contours even hit #11. The album spent 18 weeks at #1 and then an additional 9 weeks several months later. She's Like The Wind topped the Adult Contemporary charts.

Swayze co-wrote the song in 1984 for the film Grandview, U.S.A., but it ended up not being used. Swayze suggested it for Dirty Dancing and it became his one and only charting song. Swayze wasn't much of a recording artist, as he only released 6 songs . . . all from soundtracks from his films (Dirty Dancing, Road House, Next of Kin, One Last Dance).

In one of the few commonalities between my wife and my mother, Dirty Dancing is / was their favorite movie, so needless to say I have seen the film dozens of times. We've watched several documentaries on Swayze and he was a pretty talented guy. The one time Sexiest Man Alive was said to be quite a football player in high school and was on track to earn a scholarship but suffered a knee injury that cut short his football career. Instead, he earned a college gymnastic scholarship. He ended up dropping out of school to become a dancer and suffered another knee injury. Eventually he settles on acting and appeared in 35 films.

For the younger crowd, he ended up with pancreatic cancer and died 10 years ago, but he remains a heart throb for women from the 80's and 90's era.

Coming up, the final #3 song in the countdown . . . a song written and recorded in 1976 that barely cracked the Hot 100 the first time around but became hugely popular upon its re-release in 1982.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Anarchy99 said:
PATRICK SWAYZE - She's Like The Wind (#3 - 2/27/1988 - 21 Weeks)
Actor / dancer / singer Patrick Swayze hits the charts with a song from the 4th best selling album from the 80's (behind only Thriller, Back In Black, and Bad). The Dirty Dancing soundtrack spawned 3 Top 5 singles and the re-release of Do You Love Me by The Contours even hit #11. The album spent 18 weeks at #1 and then an additional 9 weeks several months later. She's Like The Wind topped the Adult Contemporary charts.

Swayze co-wrote the song in 1984 for the film Grandview, U.S.A., but it ended up not being used. Swayze suggested it for Dirty Dancing and it became his one and only charting song. Swayze wasn't much of a recording artist, as he only released 6 songs . . . all from soundtracks from his films (Dirty Dancing, Road House, Next of Kin, One Last Dance).

In one of the few commonalities between my wife and my mother, Dirty Dancing is / was their favorite movie, so needless to say I have seen the film dozens of times. We've watched several documentaries on Swayze and he was a pretty talented guy. The one time Sexiest Man Alive was said to be quite a football player in high school and was on track to earn a scholarship but suffered a knee injury that cut short his football career. Instead, he earned a college gymnastic scholarship. He ended up dropping out of school to become a dancer and suffered another knee injury. Eventually he settles on acting and appeared in 35 films.

For the younger crowd, he ended up with pancreatic cancer and died 10 years ago, but he remains a heart throb for women from the 80's and 90's era.

Coming up, the final #3 song in the countdown . . . a song written and recorded in 1976 that barely cracked the Hot 100 the first time around but became hugely popular upon its re-release in 1982.
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This song is turrible. Even worse than Heartbeat by Don Johnson imo.

 
#20 - CHARLENE - I've Never Been To Me (#3 - 5/22/1982 - 23 Weeks)
Born Charlene Marilynn D'Angelo, she started out as a singer in 1973 using her married name (Charlene Duncan). She released a few singles that did next to nothing and then switched to just Charlene. Her debut album dropped in 1976 and generated a single that hit #97 in the Hot 100. The lead single from her follow up album in 1977 made it to #96. I've Never Been To Me was the second single off that album and reached #97 on the Hot 100 in 1977.

Charlene didn't really release much over the next 5 years and lost her recording deal. The girlfriend of Scott Shannon (then a DJ in Tampa) always liked the song and encouraged him to play it on his show. The song grew in local popularity, and Shannon and his girlfriend tracked down Charlene. By that point, she had divorced, remarried, mostly given up the music business, moved to the UK, and was working in a candy store.

She was previously signed to the Motown label, who renewed her contract, and the song became Motown's first Top Ten hit by a white female singer. The song turned into a global hit, topping the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the UK. Her follow up single Used To Be (with Stevie Wonder) made it to #46 on the singles chart, but nothing else she released charted. I've Never Been To Me gave Charlene some short-term success, as the label put out 4 of her albums in a two-year period from 1982-1984 (but none after that). Even without any additional major label support, she's remained active in music (now going by Charlene Oliver).

For those that will cast shade on I've Never Been To Me, the song was listed as the #3 worst song of all time in Jimmy Guterman's 1991 book "The Worst Rock n' Roll Records of All Time: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate."

Up next, the last remaining rock song in the countdown (sad face) . . . for those of you with a little change in your pocket, the story about free milk and a cow.

 
Anarchy99 said:
#20 - CHARLENE - I've Never Been To Me (#3 - 5/22/1982 - 23 Weeks)
Born Charlene Marilynn D'Angelo, she started out as a singer in 1973 using her married name (Charlene Duncan). She released a few singles that did next to nothing and then switched to just Charlene. Her debut album dropped in 1976 and generated a single that hit #97 in the Hot 100. The lead single from her follow up album in 1977 made it to #96. I've Never Been To Me was the second single off that album and reached #97 on the Hot 100 in 1977.

Charlene didn't really release much over the next 5 years and lost her recording deal. The girlfriend of Scott Shannon (then a DJ in Tampa) always liked the song and encouraged him to play it on his show. The song grew in local popularity, and Shannon and his girlfriend tracked down Charlene. By that point, she had divorced, remarried, mostly given up the music business, moved to the UK, and was working in a candy store.

She was previously signed to the Motown label, who renewed her contract, and the song became Motown's first Top Ten hit by a white female singer. The song turned into a global hit, topping the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the UK. Her follow up single Used To Be (with Stevie Wonder) made it to #46 on the singles chart, but nothing else she released charted. I've Never Been To Me gave Charlene some short-term success, as the label put out 4 of her albums in a two-year period from 1982-1984 (but none after that). Even without any additional major label support, she's remained active in music (now going by Charlene Oliver).

For those that will cast shade on I've Never Been To Me, the song was listed as the #3 worst song of all time in Jimmy Guterman's 1991 book "The Worst Rock n' Roll Records of All Time: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate."

Up next, the last remaining rock song in the countdown (sad face) . . . for those of you with a little change in your pocket, the story about free milk and a cow.
Click to expand...
@timschochet, who does this song service like no other. 

 
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