DISQUS

WHarrisBullzEye · 5 months ago

I love Stephanie Mills' "Bit by Bit," as will anyone else who has seen "Fletch" a thousand times or so. It's an integral part of the film's soundtrack.

I cannot imagine what on earth possessed Joni Mitchell to record "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care," but more importantly, I can't think of why on earth her version ever charted. It's ridiculously limp. But I do like "Good Friends," however, which I'd never heard until this. Can anyone testify to how the rest of her work with Mr. Dolby is?

TheCloneRanger · 5 months ago

Wow! Great selection this time around! Lots of old time favorites of mine to be found (“Each Word’s a Beat of My Heart”, "Destination Unknown", "Hunters of the Night", and of course "Go for Soda").
Even the ones I haven't heard before sound great:never heard of Mistress at all but I like the sound, enjoyed "She Loves My Car" for it reminds me of the goofier Utopia tracks. And finally His Majesty Mr. McDonald singing alongside Joni Mitchell without even being mentioned in a Popdose article! :-)

By the way: Fine feathers make fine birds! Kim Mitchell only looked like Diamon Dave once he started to wear baseball caps on his album covers. Earlier in the '80s he looked more like a Riff-Raff impersonator (see: http://cover6.cduniverse.com/msiart/large/00000...)

DavidMedsker · 5 months ago

< I hear Mr. Mister get their shit handed to them in so many ‘80s conversations it’s just not funny. >

And then there's this Chartburn exchange from 2007, where one of our distinguished alumni accused Mr. Mister drummer Pat Mastelotto of slumming...when he played for XTC.

http://popdose.com/chartburn-72707/

steed · 5 months ago

Ha. Now that is funny. Personally, I agree with him and I'm happy someone else enjoys them.

MichaelFortes · 5 months ago

Generally I like Stephanie Mills, but I have to say, "The Medicine Song" is pretty terrible. "Sweet Sensation," on the other hand, oooh yeah!

Yet another shocker here, re: Missing Persons. It's criminal how neither "Words" nor "Destination Unknown" went top 40. The latter especially was one of my favorite 45s when I was a kid. You just made me feel like a 6 year-old again!

Matt · 5 months ago

Kim Mitchell was a god here in Cleveland, folks loved the hell out of him for this tune for sure, and also his work with the Canadian "supergroup" Max Webster...good stuff as always, Dave!

thefxc · 5 months ago

Oh, snap, I have to stand up for Minor Detail--a fine Irish(!) synthpop band. Well, more "pop" than "synth;" there's a lot of interesting stuff one their one album.

Have you been following Ms Dale Bozzio lately? Sounds like some heavy shit fell on her head too...

I remember the Millions Like Us record being promoted to death in our local record store--deep discounts, posters all over the place, mandatory in-store airplay, the works. I can see why--they're not good, not at all, but it is the sort of bland chart fare that evokes the late 80s rather nicely. Nevertheless, FAIL.

My pick for worst song on the list would be Mills's "The Medicine Song," a song I hate so much that I forgot why I hated it in the first place.

steed · 5 months ago

I'm sorry - I'm a vocals guy - and if I can't stand the voice, it's rare I can stand the music.

As far as Dale goes - I know about the animal cruelty stuff - but past that I've had no desire to follow her. Is there more than that?

The Medicine Song is really taking a beating this week - it is pretty bad, I admit.

Jeff · 5 months ago

Missing Persons is the one group from the 80's that I am having a lot of fun 'discovering' now - they seem to get pretty heavy play on most of the New Wave stations that I listen to on iTunes while I idle the hours away at work.

the only song that I really recognized by them until recently was 'Destination Unknown', but I think that was only because the image of Dale Bozzio in her plastic bustier really. . .uh. . .excited me. . .as a 13 year old. . .

tvh · 5 months ago

Great to see the Kim Mitchell love. Akimbo Alogo is killer all the way through.

I always thought it was interesting how the Zappa alums in Missing Persons (Bozzio, O'Hearn, Cuccurullo) did such a 180. From FZ's complex-then-vulgar-then-silly-then-even-more-complex cadre to New Wavism. I dig it all.

kingofgrief · 5 months ago

Looks like the peanut gallery's in agreement over what this week's worst song should be. "The Medicine Song" has already been deleted from my BF playlist; I'd heard it once in the '80s and now I know why it barely registered. As for "Canvas of Life", I picked up the Minor Detail album last year, and while nothing else made an impact, I'm looking forward to spinning "Canvas" on my forthcoming Bottom Feeders A-M special. (How many weeks are we away from that now, Steed? BTW, the track is "Canvas of LIFE" and John Hughes manages the CORRS. You must have some serious vitriol for Minor Detail when you commit two unchecked typos. Or you need a beer.)

"Guaranteed for Life" was another entry I heard once back when. It was courtesy of VH1 and as our backwoods neighborhood didn't have cable in '87, I assume I saw it at my grandparents' house.

My mother bought the cassette of Ronnie Milsap's One More Try for Love because of "She Loves My Car". The whole album was a crossover job, in case the album jacket didn't give that away (http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/ronnie_milsap/one_more_try_for_love/) I remember seeing the oh-so-COOL! video for "Car" on the syndicated Rock-N-America program, which also turned me on to The Rubinoos, The Bongos, and, er, Suicidal Tendencies.

"Words" was one of my absolute favorite songs at the time, and yet I never seemed to have the spending money whenever I saw the 45 (which wasn't often). So I'm partially responsible for shutting it out of the upper 40. (There's a challenge for you, Steed...a mental medley of songs entitled "Words"...Missing Persons, F.R. David, The Monkees, The Bee Gees, and Low for a wild card.)

I owned Joni Mitchell's Dog Eat Dog for all of two days. I figured, "Hey, I like Joni, 'Good Friends' was a pretty good tune, and it was released in '85 and produced by Dolby, just like Two Wheels Good!" Fortunately, I bought it used and could claim a defective copy.

kingofgrief · 5 months ago

Oh, and hooray for "Go for Soda". Our classic-rock station pulls that out every four years or so. One for the special, most def.

steed · 5 months ago

Wait - it says "Canvas of Life" unless one of the editors jumped in an re-did it - what did it say before? And I probably was drinking a COORS at the time of the writing. Guess I should have went for a soda instead.

Ronnie Milsap and Suicidal Tendencies in the same sentence. Breaking new ground here.

That's a worse mental medley than is in my head now. I'll stick with this one, thank you.

kingofgrief · 5 months ago

"Canvas of Love" appears in the Quick Hits. Shoulda clarified, soory...er, SORRY.

steed · 5 months ago

Yikes. Must have been a bad week for me.

JonCummings · 5 months ago

Growing up in the South during the "Urban Cowboy" country-pop period, we were fed a steady diet of Ronnie Milsap on pop radio through the early '80s (alongside Alabama and Eddie Rabbitt and Mickey Gilley and the entire "UC" soundtrack). Ronnie was easily the best of the lot--which was always surprising, since he never looked the part. Steed, you should go back and listen to the Top 40 hits--especially my fave, "Stranger in My House," which has the added benefit of including the line in the chorus, "Somebody here that I can't see." (Which is funny for the same reason that Lionel Richie's "Hello" video is a laugh riot.)

Re: Missing Persons: Dave, your comment was interesting about that band getting more recurrent airplay than any other that never made the Top 40...but I would guess that one of next week's bands gets more airplay with ONE non-Top 40 song than MP gets for all its hits combined.

kingofgrief · 5 months ago

I bet I know the song of which you speak...but I'll refrain from speculation and just leave the future open wide.

JohnHughes · 5 months ago

I've seen the future and it's getting better all the time.

steed · 5 months ago

You know, I wrote that comment in there about Missing Persons and then the first one of the post next week is what you are talking about - and I thought the same thing. I hear both so much that I think I gave the nod to MP only because they have at least three songs that get play, while said future band only gets one. But it's gotta be close.

And yes, I'm totally going back to listen to Milsap's 80's output at some point in the near future.

DwDunphy · 5 months ago

Now prepare for the next shower karaoke mash-up: Get Out Of My Dreams, She Loves My Car, And Baby, I Love You, Beep-Beep, Beep-Beep, Yeah.

jabartlett · 5 months ago

"Stranger in My House": Ronnie Milsap meets Foreigner, and Foreigner wins.

Sharon · 5 months ago

Even growing up in So California, I also got caught up in that "Urban Cowboy" period and acquired some Milsap, Rabbitt and Gilley albums and 45s. They're probably responsible for my early influences(excluding Mr Denver) to the Country genre (Contemporary & Traditional). And I agree, Milsap was the better of the bunch, but Gilley did/does have the bar thing going for him.

I cannot believe that Missing Persons didn't chart higher. "Words", "Destination Unknown" and "Walking in LA" are all huge favorites and I hear them constantly. Of course, that may be just my internal music player. "Walking in LA" tends to be referenced here in LA, because it's true, nobody walks in LA.

EightE1 · 5 months ago

"She Loves My Car" TOTALLY was an MTV exclusive video for a bit -- I remember seeing the World Premiere (not that I was waiting for it or anything -- we had cable remote controls even back then). So Ronnie Milsap had some hip cred … for about 30 seconds. Until they, you know, actually played the video.

Matt · 5 months ago

She Loves My Car......even though I'm blind. Loved Milsap for Lost In The Fifties Tonight....always have wanted to get into more of his stuff!

steed · 5 months ago

I honestly can't fathom why anyone thought Ronnie Milsap needed to have an MTV exclusive. And then, my lord how far MTV has strayed from that mold.

And yes, the blind man with the car is a funny thought. I've always wondered about things like this - I mean, it's a great song and I'm glad he recorded it, but didn't he "see" how weird this was - or was he in on the joke too?

Chris X · 5 months ago

the thing about alphabetizing Mr. Mister...while you normally would indeed spell out the abbreviation in a situation like this, because Mr. Mister is the actual name of the band (abbreviated, not spelled out) I'm pretty sure you should have filed it under MR instead of MI. There's a chance I could be wrong, so if there are any English majors out there in popdose readerland, here's your chance to get your money's worth for that expensive tuition you paid! On to the band itself, and not the spelling...I have the record that has the hits on it. I LOOOOVE those songs. The rest of the tracks, I haven't listened to the record in awhile, but I remember thinking the album as a whole was just ok. Nothing special, but certainly not something I'd turn off were it to come on a random iPod mix. This is speculating, since I don't actually own an iPod, but hey.

The only other input I can offer for this week's offering is that i love Missing Persons. And yeah, it would seem they get the most airplay out of the non-Top 40 bands. It's funny seeing every one of their popular songs on this list. They certainly get a lot of airplay at my DJ gigs. Those songs have staying power, and I love them just as much now as I did back then. And yeah, Dale Bozzio was a babe.

Oh, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with your "Amanda"/"Babe" mental medley, though I may write you an angry email in a few hours when it has become obsessively repeating in MY head, because all this talk about it is starting to put the needle down on the record player that is my brain.

steed · 5 months ago

Hey, gotta share my dementia with you all.

And I spoke to my chief editor at the day job and he also mentioned I should have put Mr. Mister under Mr. Such is life. Next time, asking before rather than after would be the better choice as well.

Jack Feerick · 5 months ago

They were named after a brand of spray bottle. You know, for "misting" your plants. I didn't figure that out 'til years later.

thefxc · 5 months ago

The opinion of a PhD candidate in English lit:

It's an arbitrary decision. You can safely put it under "MR" or "MI" so long as you're consistent (so, so long as you also put, say, Dr. & the Medics under "DO," you're OK.)

That said, at least in the US the inclination would be to do it under "MR." Alphabetizing "Mr" under "MI" is of those quaint and unnecessary grammar/usage conventions, akin to "never end a sentence with a preposition" or "always avoid the passive voice." These kinds of rules don't really help your writing, they just show that you know a lot of useless grammar trivia...

MatthewBolin · 5 months ago

It may be kismet, but I was just telling Jeff this past week that the video for "She Loves My Car" may be the greatest thing ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY8MrSUf5VQ

It includes:
-About 4 seconds of Ronnie Milsap. The rest of the time, the male lead is played by a guy who looks like a cross between Milsap and a young Gary Busey.
-The featured "video babe"? A 20 year old Mariska Hargitay.
-Cameos from Tattoo from Fantasy Island, the lady mechanic from Knight Rider, and Swedish 70s B-Movie babe Britt Ekland.
-Special Cameo by Exene and John Doe from X(!) Driving beside the lead characters in a convertable(!!) while Doe mimes the guitar solo(!!!)
-The combination of funk dancing while wielding nunchucks made of tools.

I told Jeff that this video goes beyond Captain Video--that an in depth review of it should be the first in a series titled "My God....It's Full of Awesome!"

jefito · 5 months ago

Make it so, Mr. Bolin. Make it so.

Matt · 5 months ago

During the four seconds that he is on camera, does Mr. Milsap trip and fall in a Chevy Chase like, yet completely unintentional moment of visual comedy?

steed · 5 months ago

Holy crap - this really is an awesome video. Very well might be the first time I've seen it.

Chris X · 5 months ago

I just watched the "She Loves My Car" video. Holy shit, this might be the greatest thing ever put to film. And Detective Olivia Benson as a big-haired, car-hood-rolling, rock video babe? AMAZING.

mojo · 5 months ago

I had never seen moonwalk in high heels before I watched this right now. Awesome indeed!!!!!!!!!

Rebecca · 5 months ago

While it goes into a McDonald-esque b-side, the beginnning of the Millions Like Us song just reminds me way too much of TTOMO from Mr. Show. "Ewwww, girl. Ewwwww." Awesome.

mojo · 5 months ago

the mister mr dialog here is what defines popdose as the most interesting place for music discussion on the web.

I had help a couple years ago organizing my 8 billion CDs when dumping the jewel boxes and archiving them as hardcopy in sleeves in dj cases because we only listen to MP3s here anyway and I can't find anything (like, Cannonball Adderley quintet is in the C's not A's, WTF?)

I need a music freak with a library science degree to sort this crap out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can rip anything you want if you just make sense of it!

steed · 5 months ago

The two that have always confused me are numbers - I suppose you're supposed to spell those out as well, but if you look at my collection, 10,000 Maniacs, .38 Special, 702 - they are all right up front. Numbers before letters. But in the series I spell them out.

And Comps and Soundtracks? Soundtracks I've always filed under the name of the movie....but Various Artist comps, I've always filed under VA - then in order of the name of the album.

mojo · 5 months ago

yeah and then there's the blues jazz and folk issue because there's a lot of VA comps in all those subcategories.

We ended up just combining everything into one stew of 2 categories: Compilations and not. We have some stuff stuck in the end (a few classical CDs...because composer, conductor, orchestra...too much sort criteria, some spoken word stuff) but for the most part it's comps+soundtracks first (By name of the album or movie unless it's Batman, in which case it's Prince) and then individual artists.

The main issue is trying to comprehend the interpretation of the sorter when going back to the stacks to get a disc out: For instance is Elvis Hitler a band or a person, and did the person sorting care anough to google or did he/she just guess...or did I send that one to the used store and I don't have it anymore?

mojo · 5 months ago

so is .38 the first because it's the smallest number, as in 0.38, or does it go with the 3's?

steed · 5 months ago

I completely understand the Elvis Hitler situation, I mean that's why Tiggi Clay showed up for a brief minute within C in this series.

Funny that I have Batman under B instead of Prince - and Prince is my favorite artist so you'd think I'd lump that together. Maybe I really have no order at all.

That damn "." I'd just call it "38" but that brings up an interesting point as well - what to do with them when they called themselves Thirty-Eight Special. Do I split the catalog of the group? And does it really matter because frankly, when will I ever be looking for the Thirty-Eight Special records anyway?

jefito · 5 months ago

Wasn't it just one Thirty-Eight record? I thought they made the switch for 1988's Rock & Roll Strategy and then moved back for 1991's platinum-in-Bulgaria Bone and Steel, or whatever it was called. (I'm too lazy to look.)

steed · 5 months ago

My knowledge of .38 special ended on 12/31/1989.

MichaelFortes · 5 months ago

I always treat numbers as words when sorting, so 10,000 Maniacs would be filed under T (if I owned any of their stuff). And the jazz records, i.e. "Miles Davis Quintet," last name of the band leader. Comps I file at the end of each genre, and soundtracks get their own section. It's not perfect, but it has been working for me for a good number of years now.

10over9 · 5 months ago

"Might as well go for a soda" became quite the linguistic currency in my high school for the brief period. The classic "complete the sentence" ending to "oh, well" -- the more people tossing in a word or phrase like a verbal hot potato, the better. Kinda like our own "c'est la vie" and "que sera sera" rolled into one only better.

steed · 5 months ago

I honestly didn't realize that so many people knew "Go For Soda". I had never heard the song before building my collection and now I can't get enough of it.

Ray · 4 months ago

Missing Persons has always been a favorite. Love all five of the singles, as well as the entire SPRING SESSION M album and their first EP. The dance mix version of "GIVE" that appears on their Classic Masters CD compilation is killer! I'm chomping at the bit for the 1981 movie LUNCH WAGON to be issued on DVD, although I'm not holding my breath (they appeared in this cheesecake comedy flick before they hit it big).

Not only did Kim Mitchell's "GO FOR SODA" get a bit of airplay on the rock stations in Chicago back in the day, but his (obviously non-charting) song "PATIO LANTERNS" did as well... both cool tunes!

jim · 4 months ago

check out the first two max webster albums. they totally stand up to anything done today.
Kims ego kinda ruined them after that but he always had the guitar skills.

Nifty · 4 months ago

I own the CD by Millions Like Us. It was one of my favorites back in my teen years in the 80s. (My neighbor had it and I'd listen to it non-stop when I was over there babysitting his kids.) A few years ago I searched out my own copy and when I was listening to it, something about one of the singers kept reminding me of Julia Fordham. I dug a little deeper and discovered that he had sung on one of Julia's albums!