1984 in Review

The 1984 Bottom Five crop was stuff I mostly remembered. I think the most pleasant surprise was discovering Joyce Kennedy’s hard-rock past, even if I didn’t care much for her actual hit single.

Surprisingly, the window where I know these songs fairly well has just ended, and has turned out to be shorter than I thought. I’m looking at the list of 1985 Bottom Five songs, and I can count on one hand the ones I was familiar with before starting the project. I attribute this to A) MTV and Billboard figuring each other out, so there are fewer discrepancies between “big video hits” (say, ‘White Wedding”) and the charts; and B) by 1985 I’m just less beholden to Top-40 radio. I’m getting myself around town solo, have discovered the indie radio stations, and have a teen job, so I’m able to listen to more of what I like.

And here’s a 1984 playlist: