This last weekend, for whatever reason while I was browsing my YouTube homepage on my TV, and it started showing me some 80s music videos. First, it showed me a quiz, a "name that tune" kind of thing. I did very well. 80s pop culture, especially 80s pop music, is really kinda my thing, and there are very few songs that I don't know. Out of a good 50 or so songs, I missed one, although I know both the one that I should have picked and the one that I did pick; I just don't really care for either so I didn't recognize them on just a deliberately vague five second sample. And I completely whiffed a Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers duet that I don't remember ever hearing, but I had little to no interest in Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers or anything country during the 80s. Although I'm sure this was a crossover on the charts.
I listened to some Wang Chung and The Cars, including the entirety of the Hearbeat City album, by far the Cars' best work. Then I got a recommendation for The Hooters "And We Danced." I didn't think that the Hooters were an 80s band at all; I probably was mixing them up with Hootie and the Blowfish. But for whatever reason, I played it, and the song seemed quite familiar, and certainly very 80s. I was shocked to find that, even at this point, there are still 80s bands who actually had genuine hits even, that were kind of not on my radar.
Coincidentally, they're originally from Philadephia, and I spent the week last week in Lehigh Valley myself, having flown into Philly and traveled by rental car to Macungie.
I listened to a number of their songs, and "And We Danced" was the only one that sounded familiar to me, and the only one that I thought good enough to make sure that I grabbed and and added to my collection. What a great song! I doubt that I actually missed this one, but it had fallen through the cracks and I forgot about it in the meantime. The nostalgic, even at the time it was filmed in 1985 or so, music video, with its kind of pseudo-50s Americana at the drive-in vibe is also fantastic. Just a great song all around. I can't believe that didn't already know about it and didn't know who the Hooters were, even... even though I recognized the song when I heard it.
Another great song that I think has been overlooked, although at least I hadn't forgotten it, because I had it on an old Rhino collection, is Charlie Sexton's "Beat So Lonely", which has a similar kind of sound to me, even though it's not really the same kind of song. You can hear it in Some Kind of Wonderful even though it's not on the soundtrack album released for the movie, oddly. He recorded that thing when he was 16, co-written by him, sung by him, and great guitar licks performed by him too. Talented guy. And a fellow Texan! I won't even gripe about his Austin upbringing; it was early enough that Austin wasn't too crazy yet in the 70s and early 80s, and he wouldn't have been in the music industry if he hadn't been in Austin, no doubt.
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