Music that Hooked Me: 1970s-83/84

Possibly My Favorite Music Year (1983)

My earliest music memories are of AM pop music in the '70s. I remember really digging "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." And "Love Will Keep Us Together." Begging coins from my Dad to play Captain & Tenille on the jukebox.

Then I remember the "Rumours" album at summer camp. Side 1 over and over and over again.

Cut through the Disco era cuz that's worthy of another post and to the late 70s/early 80s.

I listened mostly to a combination of Casey Kasem's Top 40 on Sunday mornings and the harder rock of my older brother's friends (like AC/DC.)

My first "favorite group" was Blondie. I loved the "Eat to the Beat" album. And Cheap Trick. "Surrender" and Robin Zander were too cool.

Then groups like REO, Rush, Asia, Genesis and Journey dominated. Yet simultaneously I was listening to Pat Benatar & Billy Joel.

All in all, though, nothing really did it for me.

Then one day, a song called "Don't You Want Me?" by The Human League popped up on the Top 40 and it hooked me instantly. It sounded so different, so new. Right around then I also heard Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" for the first time and that totally grabbed me too. There was something so fresh about this music.

(Sidebar: My grandma used to watch "Merv Griffin" on TV every night and one night he had Soft Cell on. Surreal: Merv's shining 70s set and Marc Almond...God knows who booked them)

Not long after, I was flipping the radio around and I came across "WLIR." The reception was a little tentative but I got it.

They were playing a totally new sound and it hooked me immediately. This was what I had been looking for. This was my music.

Sometime in 1983 I heard this amazing imported version of "West End Girls" on LIR. That song to me was like an orgasm. I remember listening to it again and again and again on my Walkman. But to this day I have yet to hear it again. WEG was re-released a year or so later, after the US caught on to New Wave and the Second British Invasion. But it was a different version and always bummed me out.

There were so many good songs then: Thompson Twins: "Love on Your Side," Psych Furs: "Love My Way." The Cure: "The Walk." Romeo Void: "Never Say Never." Peter Godwin: "Images of Heaven." I could (and will, with little encouragement) go on.

Anyway, I was digging it all until about 1984/85 when it all started to get too mainstream. Something about MTV, Pop Radio, American "versions" of Euro New Wave Hits, formerely cool bands getting all Top 40 on me (Berlin and The Thompson Twins to name a couple) killed any lingering coolness. And then there were the "Hair Bands" to contend with.

In about 1986, I turned my attention to House Music & Rap, but that's a future post...