From The Archives: The Year In Song, 1985 Edition

Today is the first day of finals at my place of employment.  In less than a week, my grades for the semester will be submitted, after which I can devote my energies toward the holidays and then planning for the spring.

Exams started a little later than this at my college, though (at least in the mid 80s). Thirty-two years ago this week, James and I would have been putting the finishing touches on a year-end awards show for broadcast on WTLX. Each of us had definite thoughts about what should be included, and in our brainstorming we no doubt came up with additional categories and “winners.” We even wrote up an announcement to go in the weekly student events newsletter. Here’s what I have of our efforts.

I’d stand by most of this. Boy, we sure tended to focus on the negative, though!  Some notes on what might be errors, along with music to accompany commentary:

–I had to watch “Four in the Morning (I Can’t Take Anymore)” earlier this week to recall why it was such the subject of our wrath.  The special effects are terrible and it’s darn silly (I remember now that back in the day I watched the members of the band follow the alien women like puppies back to the rocket at the end of the vid).  However, I suspect we still could have come up with a more optimal choice for Worst Video.

–I’ve also got strong doubts about “Walk those legs right over here” as Worst Lyric.  It’s interesting to look back now and see that even in 85 they were trying to avoid overt recognition of Ann Wilson’s weight gain.

–The award I’d REALLY like to take back is “19,” at least for anything resembling what we’re noting.  I hope we can chalk this up to the follies of youth.  I’d like to think that I better get now what Hardcastle was after here.

–Make no mistake: we were unhappy to assign Cheap Trick its award—I’d much rather given them the other Comeback honor (of course, they might have gotten it three years later if I’d still been in college).  This is one of my favorite songs from the summer of 85; I thought it should have been a monster hit.

It was a fun show to do.  I bet all three (if that many) of our listeners agreed!