Fave 100 songs 1980s


Growing up, I was a voracious music video junkie. Like many teens, I binged on all the video shows. 

Starting in junior high during the early 80s, we watched Switchback with Stan the Man and that cool ASN program on Saturday nights, Atlantic Canada's Choice (Thanks, Katrina!). On high school weekdays before supper we turned on CBC's Video Hits with Samantha Taylor, and on weekends, Good Rockin' Tonight hosted by Terry David Mulligan and eventually Stu Jeffries. For the night owl, the U.S.-based Friday Night Videos kept us entertained. 

The best and worst part in life before content-on-demand was having to wait then hope your favourite song made the cut.

The weekend programs played a top thirty countdown and typically showed a four or five second clip of the chorus with a graphic display depicting its current chart ranking compared to last week. 

Long before discovering Excel spreadsheets, I compiled my own favourite fifty songs of the week in Hilroy scribblers as a response to Huey and the News and Starship topping the charts with mediocre gack. 

Motivated partly to correct the egregious countdown 'errors,' these personal charts also represented a small way I could exert a little control and order in my life.

Let's start the journey with my fave 100 songs from the 80s as of now. 

I created two 'rules' for some context: 

1. Songs must have been released as singles and/or have an official video. No deep tracks; we'll save that for another time.

2. A maximum of 5 songs per artist. Otherwise I would have added 23 New Order songs, ha!. 

For each post, I've added a video link for each song, as well as added a few facts, observations and a smattering of personal anecdotes. I hope to make you smile and cringe, but above all enjoy the ride down sentimental street.


Other countdowns on this site:


4 comments:

  1. I think that ASN show was called Atlantic Canada's choice and was hosted by a dj from C100. It was definitely low in production values but I too watched it every week. Look forward to seeing your list (I have way too much nostalgia for the music videos of the 80s)

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    1. Thanks for your contribution Katrina, great memory! I'll tweak my post with that update. The list is more or less complete except for a little jostling in the top 20, a tougher exercise than expected!

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  2. Really a top 100 list on 80's music would just need to be 100 Duran Duran songs :). I didn't get ASN so never watched that.

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    1. Thanks for chiming in, I enjoyed your top 100 Duran blog and you'll be pleased that Duran et al. will represent here too with a couple of slots + maybe a side project or two.

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