A few weeks before Christmas, I bought myself an XM satellite radio - the Pioneer Inno. I wasn’t too familiar with XM, but I noticed that a few of the venues that I work at had been using it for background music. I was also growing tired of my iPod, because I knew every song that was on it (even with 15,000 songs on shuffle mode, things got predictable). So, I found a great deal on the Inno, and I’ve been hooked on XM ever since. Great programming and DJs, and best of all, no commercials. Incidentally, my stress level has dropped considerably; I think it’s because I haven’t had to listen to a single Bob’s Furniture or Ernie Boch Jr. commercial in the past month or so.
My favorite XM station (and apparently, I’m not alone on this) is 80s on 8. Although I like just about every song that I heard in that decade, some of my most favorites come from 1985:
“Never Surrender” - Corey Hart
Sure, the guy’s known for “Sunglasses At Night”, but this one’s my favorite because of the instrumentation and tempo changes. I saw Corey Hart when he opened for Celine Dion in 1999 and was disappointed when he only played half of this song (and a really poor arrangement, at that). Seeing as I’m not much of a Celine fan, I was really hoping for better. Still, I love this song. Always have.
“All Through The Night” - Cyndi Lauper
I’ve only started enjoying this one in the past few years, although I’ve been hearing it for the past 22. It’s written by Jules Shear, an oft-overlooked artist who also wrote “If She Knew What She Wants” for the Bangles. Good stuff.
“I Feel For You” - Chaka Khan Written by Prince and produced by the great Arif Mardin - he’s produced everyone from Streisand to the Bee Gees, Aretha to Hall & Oates to Norah Jones. Mardin once called this one of his favorite productions, because there was so much involved - Stevie Wonder’s harmonica, Melle Mel’s rap, and effects created by stopping and fast-forwarding the tape reels. I can’t imagine how they managed to meld all of the different parts together, but they did, and it’s magical.
“St. Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion)” - John Parr
John Parr probably deserved more than the two hits he had in the 1980s, but a lot of his work was on soundtracks to movies that didn’t really need big soundtrack hits (think “Three Men & A Baby)”. I like this one because it’s got a big, anthemic sound courtesy of David Foster. And although it doesn’t really have much to do with the brat-pack movie in which it appeared (it was actually written to honor a wheelchair athlete), it’s a great song.
“Would I Lie To You?” - Eurythmics
Admittedly, Eurythmics just didn’t do much for me at first. Annie Lennox was just too weird, and their first two big radio hits (”Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” and “Here Comes The Rain Again”) sounded stiff compared to some of the other, more lively pop hits of the time. What I liked about this one is that it rocked, way more than I thought Eurythmics actually could. Everything about it is huge, and none of it sounds electronic like the previously mentioned Eurythmics hits. If I could put together a band and find a song to demonstrate what it should sound like, this might just be it.
Anybody need a keyboardist? :)