Pina Colada song

[huedell]

Funny side note-- You guys were talking about Hall And Oates earlier...I love them, great songwriters and they always had primo musicians backing them up. Ironically, the guy who produced some of their biggest albums was a british producer named Neil Kernon, and he wound up producing our fourth album!

DUDE----SIGN IN PLEASE by AUTOGRAPH (Turn Up The Radio) is one of my favorite
albums of the hair metal era (Its A Kernon production job)-----that's awesome

[MarkStalcup]

Yeah, that and Y&T are kind of below Bon Jovi and Poison - maybe on a par with Warrant - in the metal genre in terms of most people's respect...but hearing that or "Summertime Girls" will still make many of us actually...well...turn up the radio. I was hugely into punk rock when that came out, and still liked those songs...

[MarkStalcup]

Also don't mean to double post, but it is INSANE how many Hall & Oates best-ofs I have somehow managed to buy on CD. They actually have some fairly new stuff - well "Somebody Like You" is actually a remake of Hall's solo song...but still...that stands up to the originals.

And do you know "Live at the Apollo With David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks" is out of print on CD, despite being a No. 1 album at the time it was released? Weird. All I can figure is one of the Temptations wasn't happy with the royalty rate or something.

[huedell]

Autograph fans were a dying breed from the get go Mark
(kinda like Y&T, but it seems at least Y&T has more of the "serious" metallers in their
corner, due to their solid chops coupled with their more "middle of the road" approach)

The reason I liked Autograph so much besides some nice poppy/cheesy hair metal songs
was basically the singers voice...the guy had a real "wild" different sounding voice...
THAT and many of his lyrics help accentuate that "out there" vocal performance...rarely
did hairbands have the wit to name songs with titles like: "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend Isn't Me"
----its that kind of mindframe that makes me favor AUTOGRAPH over many other
hairbands---along with the (aforementioned) singers' odd, charismatic voice.

[nvmbrsdoom5]

Buk, I totally dig 10CC, haha. "I'm Not In Love" and "Things We Do For Love" are both cool songs, and yes they do remind me of roller skating!!

I remember Autograph quite well, I always liked "Turn Up The Radio", still do. I don't remember Neil telling me any Autograph stories, but he did alot of work with Dokken and I heard plenty about them. They never had any hits as big as Autograph did but Dokken had some great melodic hard rock tunes.

On the subject of Rupert Holmes, he was indeed a very talented guy, and he was one of a bunch of artists who briefly benefitted from being Pre-MTV. Alot of these guys like Rupert, Christopher Cross, Robert John (remember "Sad Eyes"?), and their ilk kind of got shoved aside once MTV took hold, because you had to really have an image and style that would be "marketable" to the youth.

[grayhank]

It's funny that Christopher Cross never really went away though. He has continually recorded since his debut in 1980. He's put out 8 studio albums and currently working on the 9th. His popularity is still huge but unfortunately mostly overseas (which is an oddity for an American singer/songwriter). He came along at the right time at the end of the disco era when most people would have welcomed anyone who wasn't making disco music (he has said this on numerous occasions himself).

Which also explains the sudden popularity of similar artists: Paul Davis, Steve Forbert ("Romeo's Tune") Rupert Holmes, Robert John, John Stewart ("Gold" "Lost Her In the Sun"), Walter Egan ("Magnet & Steel"), Andrew Gold ("Lonely Boy" "Thank You For Being A Friend") and most notably the late Dan Fogelberg (although he had been around for several years earlier, his career didn't really peak until about 1979-80).

It's too bad that Cat Stevens had called it quits around this same time since he was basically one of the best Singer/Songwriters of that genre of music. It took him over 25 years to return to the style of music he was famous for when he released "An Other Cup" in 2006 under his current name of Yusuf. If you haven't heard this album I would stongly suggest picking it up. It has some reworkings of some of his earlier songs as well as some great new songs and a brilliant cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". The man sounds just as great on this album as his earlier masterpieces "Tea for the Tillerman" and "Teaser and the Firecat".

[Joe90]

Interesting thread. Sort've a guilty pleasure, yeah. But those guilty pleasures go sideways and become a bad addiction...

Oh yea........
...Now it's gunna be stuck in my head for the next 3 days ...
THANKS A LOT !!!

It's like the Barry Manilow song Copacabana... I was cycling in the foothills of the French Alps back in 1987. Alone, hours and hours of just riding my bicycle, and Copacabana was stuck in my head for 2 days... Seriously. It drove me crazy!

It. Just. Wouldn't. Go. Away...

Wasn't the whole Punk movement a conscious rebellion against the giant conglomerate record industry?

And look what Malcolm McLaren turned into. I guess there's no escaping commercial success.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'round the old oak tree...

[nvmbrsdoom5]

Actually Grayhank it doesn't surprise me to hear that Christopher Cross is more popular overseas now. That winds up being true of so many American artists. I think perhaps because so much of what is played on radio and tv is based on current trends, moreso than overseas. I'm not saying that they don't have trends and such overseas, obviously they do. But I've just found that, for example, Europeans tend to be much more adventurous and open-minded musically than over here. When grunge came along in the '90s and "killed" most hard rock/heavy metal here in the States, it still remained fairly strong throughout the rest of the world. Same goes for other kinds of music, it seems.

I love reading Classic Rock magazine, from the UK, because they report on all kinds of different artists and bands that you don't hear about too often especially in NA. I saw in there recently that the lead vocalist of Dr. Hook, Dennis Locorriere, still tours in Europe and plays those great old songs.

And you mentioned Paul Davis, that's another one I really like! "'65 Love Affair" was a bigtime roller skating song for me in the early '80s! I still listen to that tune alot.

[grayhank]

Wasn't the whole Punk movement a conscious rebellion against the giant conglomerate record industry?

I think Punk was a rebellious reaction to disco. Similarly, as the easy listening songwriters like Christopher Cross (as discussed above) were a reaction. But Punk was at the other extreme end of it. The music became angrier with far more aggression than the simpler repetitive disco music. The way punkers dressed was a statement to the Studio 54 well dressed crowd in "John Travolta" white suits etc. It was the first time that I believe music seemed to go to war so to speak. And standing in between both sides was Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock & Roll" which was the rallying cry for "Disco Sucks". When Punk and Disco finally clashed it became "New Wave" as kind of a compromise and headed straight into the MTv 80s generation.

How else do you explain this:

[HardyGirl]

I pretty much love all 70s Top 40, easy Rock, and R&B. I had an older sister into Donovan, Seals & Crofts, America, Traffic, Blood Sweat & Tears, 5th Dimension, all that stuff. My brother (her twin) was into Motown, Stylistics, Delfonics, the Five Stairsteps, that kinda thing. So I grew up loving all that stuff. I rarely listen to regular radio anymore, I mostly listen to my records & tapes, (no CDs or Ipods) and the 70s station on my cable Music Choice channel.

[Hector]

ABBA is the best .........

If someone don't like ABBA, stay far away from me.

I also LOVE ABBA...great catchy songs and great singers.