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broodings from the burrow

August 13, 2019


’80s pop trivia
posted by soe 1:27 am

After the jump, you’ll find the answers to Saturday’s ’80s music quiz.

Here are the 10 songs that hit the top spot of the pop singles list the first week of each August during the 1980s

1980: “Magic,” Olivia Newton-John
1981: “Jessie’s Girl,” Rick Springfield
1982: “Eye of the Tiger,” Survivor
1983: “Every Breath You Take,” The Police
1984: “Ghostbusters,” Ray Parker, Jr.
1985: “Shout,” Tears for Fears
1986: “Glory of Love,” Peter Cetera
1987: “Right Here Waiting,” Richard Marx
1988: “Roll with It,” Steve Winwood
1989: “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” U2

Congratulations to raidergirl3, who did a very good job matching up songs with their hit years!

My takeaway from the list (other than the white maleness of it) is that nearly half came from movies: “Magic” is from Xanadu, “Eye of the Tiger” is from Rocky III, “Ghostbusters” is obvious, and “Glory of Love” is from Karate Kid Part II.

My favorite of the songs is “Eye of the Tiger,” which will always get the volume boosted when it comes on the speaker, but I’m not actually sure I own any of the albums from which they came. (I may have some of them on ’80s compilations and I would guess Rudi has at least three, possibly four, of the original albums in his collection.)

An interesting note: “Roll with It” was the final number one hit of Casey Kasem’s tenure as host of American Top 40 (I cannot help but sing the name of the show, which I listened to faithfully on KC101 on Saturday nights in late elementary school and middle school), as well as the first of Shadoe Stevens’. I was most certainly listening to both of those airings.

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