::start transcript::

Welcome to The Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show. I’m your host, Christopher Verdesi. Every week, we dive deep into a year in Pop music and culture and count down the top ten hits according to our exclusive recap of the weekly Pop charts published at the time in Billboard, the music industry’s top trade mag. This week we’re turning the clock back to 1981, a pivotal year in American culture, politics and music, as the world mourned the loss of former Beatle and counterculture icon John Lennon and watched former Movie Star and California Governor Ronald Reagan take the oath as President. And then he got shot.

Lennon and Reagan, both targets of assassin’s bullets only four months apart. Reagan survived, Lennon didn’t, but both shooters were deranged fans. That was new. And Reagan’s would-be assassin didn’t even have anything against the President; he was just trying to impress the young Actress he was obsessed with, Jodie Foster!

Now all segments of Pop Culture grew by double digits in the ’70s as media flooded the zone, but none more than the music biz, which nearly doubled as Boomers continued to engage with albums and performers not just for passive entertainment, but as extensions of their own identities: one of the striking features of the Baby Boom generation. The downside, though: with all that next-level showbiz fame, wealth and adoration, the creeping awareness among fans that their idols lived in a completely different world from them. And some fans needed to be reminded that “hey, you’re a spectator, not a participant.”

The wall in between? Well, the best-selling album of 1980 grappled with that exact issue. Pink Floyd’s epic The Wall, inspired by a incident that couldn’t be more emblematic of the growing separation between audience and performer in the ’70s: Floyd’s Roger Waters luring a loud, unruly fan to the edge of the stage while trying to play a quiet song, and contemptuously spitting in his face. In his ensuing angst about actually having done that, Waters imagined a literal wall across the stage separating Band and crowd.

So changing dynamics between fans and celebs, very much on fans and celebs’ minds, especially after Lennon and Reagan were shot, but just add that to the already long list of concerns as the ’80s began: inflation, soaring prices, unemployment, urban decay, moral decline.

“There was Vietnam, then Watergate, then the hostages in Iran,” Bruce Springsteen summed up in a Rolling Stone interview. “We were beaten, hustled, then humiliated, and I just think people need to feel good about their country.”

So in politics we got Reagan. In theaters, the enduring Rocky, Star Wars, Superman and Indiana Jones franchises; on TV, ABC became the #1 network in primetime with ’50s throwbacks Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley and jiggle shows like Charlie’s Angels and Three’s Company. And in music, something, anything to replace Disco after it spectacularly imploded mid-’79.

Closest thing there is to an iron-clad rule in Pop: when people’s spirits are down and anxieties up, they crave the trancelike escape and release of the ballroom, disco, rave, EDM festival, what have you, and Dance Music surges in popularity. But like Springsteen picked up on, heading into the ’80s, people just said “enough!” and even though not much improved on paper for nearly three years into Reagan’s presidency, pride, engagement, confidence and optimism were back in style.

Now how that going to translate to the charts exactly, no one really knew, and with AM Top40 radio on life support and Pop migrating to FM so Sony Walkman listeners could enjoy the hits in stereo, Billboard in 1981 was saying “no longer is there an exclusive Top 40 anything, just an ever-changing multitude of Top 40s, depending upon genre.” Once MTV launched in August of ’81, it quickly became the new center of gravity, but before that it was an unpredictable, but sometimes exciting mishmash of sounds.

#10 Dolly Parton – 9 to 5

And Country was big in the mix. Country Rock titans The Eagles, still dominant and Kenny Rogers at the top of his game. And John Travolta’s next project after personifying the Disco and ’50s Nostalgia crazes in Saturday Night Fever and Grease? 1980’s Urban Cowboy.

So first up at numbers 10 and 9 as we get things rolling here on our 1981 Chartcrush countdown, back-to-back Country crossovers. At #10, the Oscar-nominated title tune by one Country’s top Female Singer-Songwriters from her screen debut co-starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin about a trio of ladies who scheme against their sexist Male boss. It’s Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.”

Dolly Parton, “9 to 5,” only the second time a Female artist topped top both the Country and Pop charts with the same single. Jeannie C. Riley was first in 1968 with “Harper Valley PTA.” It wasn’t Dolly’s first top ten hit on the Hot100; that was “Here You Come Again” in ’77. But it was her first and only #1. Very different story over on the Country chart though: 24 #1s there from 1970 to 1991.

Speaking of Kenny Rogers, his Lionel Richie penned smash “Lady” was #1 the last six weeks of 1980, and because Billboard‘s 1981 “chart year” began with their October 4, 1980 issue, they had “Lady” at #3 for ’81. At Chartcrush, though, we don’t do “chart years.” Instead we count every song’s full run in whichever calendar year it was strongest, so we have “Lady” at #2 for 1980, where it belongs, and our ’81 countdown is Rogers-free.

#9 Eddie Rabbitt – I Love a Rainy Night

But there’s another Male Country crossover act, more in line with the Urban Cowboy archetype, who beat ‘ol Kenny on the Hot100 Artists ranking for ’81 by a lot, and he’s at #9 in our lead-off Country twofer here on the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show with the song that replaced “9 to 5” at #1, the last consecutive Country Crossover #1s in Hot100 history to date. A staple of road songs compilation CDs for years to come, at #9 it’s Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night.”

Also a staple of road songs CDs, Eddie Rabbit’s previous hit “Driving My Life Away,” #5 in October of 1980. And then “I Love a Rainy Night,” #1 for two weeks in March of ’81, and he had one more top-fiver in October, “Step by Step,” before his chart action declined in ’82, but he kept scoring top ten Country hits ’til right about the same time Dolly Parton’s chart fortunes faded, the first years of the ’90s, when Country’s neo-Trad renaissance swept away many of the ’80s smoother, more polished Pop-Country hitmakers.

#8 Christopher Cross – Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)

At #8 we have another Soundtrack hit and the Oscar winner for Best Original Song. “9 to 5” was nominated; this won, from the film about a heavy-drinking New York heir played by Dudley Moore who falls for a shoplifting waitress from Queens played by Liza Minelli. For the score, the studio tapped the Singer-Songwriter whose debut album and its first two singles were all over the radio and the charts while the film was in production.

The Director was nervous about his lack of experience, though, so instead they brought in seasoned pro Burt Bacharach. But he did get to co-write the theme song with Bacharach, and record it for the film. Good thing, because despite his 1980 hits “Ride like the Wind” and “Sailing” and his big night at the Grammys, the next two singles off his debut didn’t connect like the first two, so he needed another hit fast, and he got it. His biggest yet. At #8 it’s Texas Singer-Songwriter Christopher Cross with “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do).”

Theme from Arthur, “Best That You Can Do” at #8 here on our Chartcrush Countdown of 1981’s top 10 hits.

By the time Christopher Cross’ second album dropped in ’83, he’d lost some weight, ditched the scruffy facial hair and upgraded his wardrobe, but his look and style still didn’t translate to MTV, and the album’s lead single only got to #12. But “Think of Laura” was a surprise hit off the album months later after ABC started using it to promote its red hot daytime Soap General Hospital and its missing-presumed-dead heroine Laura Spencer. As it turned out, the album’s only top 10 hit. General Hospital, quite the hitmaking juggernaut in those years.

#7 Kool and The Gang – Celebration

Next up at #7, the top Black act of ’81 on the Hot100 and Billboard‘s #2 Soul Singles Artist of the year. Stevie Wonder was #1 with, among other hits from his Hotter than July album, his Bob Marley homage “Master Blaster.” Marley, diagnosed with terminal cancer in the Fall of ’80.

And if you’re wondering, Michael Jackson was between albums in ’81; Thriller came out at the end of ’82.

Now, our #7 song: baseball fans were among the first to hear it on NBC TV spots plugging the 1980 World Series, but what really juiced it on the charts: news broadcasts playing it in the coverage of the end of the Iran hostage crisis in January after 444 days, right as Ronald Reagan was being sworn in as President. Two weeks later, after a ticker-tape parade for the hostages in New York January 30, it hit #1. It’s Kool & The Gang, “Celebration.”

“Celebration,” since ’81 a staple of weddings, parties, and Democrat Walter Mondale’s campaign in 1984, but he didn’t have much to celebrate, losing to Reagan in a 49-state landslide.

Kool & The Gang notched their first top ten hits “Jungle Boogie” and “Hollywood Swinging” in ’73 and ’74, but then came Disco and for three years their “loose and greasy approach to Dance music” as Rolling Stone‘s Geoff Hines put it, was a dud on dancefloors. Not even having a track on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack helped, and adding strings and Female vocals to the mix just alienated their existing fans.

But as soon as Disco hit the skids in late ’79, they were back with J.T. Taylor as Lead Singer, and “Ladies Night” was their first top ten in over five years. Then “Too Hot” in ’80, and “Celebration” in ’81, their first #1 and #7 on our 1981 Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown.

Despite MTV not playing any R&B ’til CBS forced their hand with Michael Jackson in ’83, Kool & The Gang still managed to score another top 10 in ’82, “Get Down on It,” and then later, with MTV support, “Joanna,” “Fresh” and “Cherish” in ’84 and ’85.

#6 Foreigner – Waiting for a Girl like You

So Billboard launched its Mainstream Rock chart in March of ’81: their weekly ranking of Airplay on FM Rock stations. Could’ve used that during the glory days of Album Rock in the ’70s, right? But better late than never!

Well our Rock Band at #6 had been scoring Hot100 hits since their debut album in 1977 with “Feels like the First Time” and “Cold as Ice,” then “Hot Blooded” and “Double Vision” off their second in ’78, all top 10s that virtually defined mainstream Rock in the late ’70s.

Well, their third album Head Games in ’79 wasn’t quite as successful, but after two members left the band, they hit the ’80s as a foursome, so the title of their fourth album in ’81, just the number 4, had a double meaning.

Its lead single was the Rocker “Urgent,” and got them back into the top ten in September, but around Thanksgiving this Ballad hit #2, and stayed there for the next ten weeks, #2! It never got to #1 but it’s #6 here on our 1981 edition of Chartcrush: Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl like You.”

Missy Elliott’s “Work It” got stuck at #2 behind Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” for ten weeks in 2002 into ’03, but until then, Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl like You” had that record all to itself: weeks at #2 without ever getting to #1.

Later here our 1981 edition of the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show we’ll be hearing the song that was #1 for nine of those ten weeks from late November ’81 to late January ’82.

All those weeks, by the way? In Billboard‘s 1982 chart year, which began October 31, 1981, so you’ll find them both on Billboard‘s 1982 year-end Hot100, not ’81. Now here at Chartcrush, since we don’t have to get a year-end issue printed and mailed by New Years, we can count every song’s full chart run, even if it goes from one year into the next, and rank it in whichever calendar year it earned the most ranking points. Just think of it as correcting the record.

Foreigner stayed hot for the rest of the ’80s, and if you’re wondering, yes, they finally did get to #1, in 1984 with another Power Ballad, “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

#5 Rick Springfield – Jessie’s Girl

So before General Hospital was rescuing songs like Christopher Cross’ “Think of Laura” and Patti Austin & James Ingram’s “Baby, Come to Me” from the depths of obscurity and making them hits in ’83 and ’84, our next act at #5 got some of his chart mojo playing a character on the show. From ’81 to ’83 he was Rock Singing Surgeon Dr. Noah Drake. Before that he’d been an early ’70s Teen Idol along with David Cassidy and Donny Osmond, spent the Disco years doing one-off acting roles, and right before he landed the part on General Hospital, he’d cut his first album in four years. Its lead single is #5: Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl.”

“Jessie’s Girl,” Rick Springfield, #5 on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown of 1981’s biggest hits. It took its sweet time moving up the chart: 18 weeks to #1 August 1st, the same week MTV launched. He never got to #1 again, but scored another four top 10s over the next few years, and got another look in 2013 when Nirvana Drummer and Foo Fighters founder Dave Grohl featured him in his documentary Sound City about L.A.’s Sound City Studios, where Nirvana recorded Nevermind and Springfield had recorded his album, Working Class Dog, ten years before.

#4 John Lennon – (Just Like) Starting Over

At #4 another veteran making a comeback after five years, but in this case his absence wasn’t because Teen Beat and 16 stopped putting him on their covers, or he couldn’t score hits, or because he was sidelined by Disco or anything like that. No, in ’75, his second son was born so he decided to step off the merry-go-round (as he put it in another song), and be a full-time Dad.

But in 1980 he was back with a new album, shorter hair, clean shaven, slicker clothes and a new bounce in his stride. He even disavowed his early ’70s radicalism and liked Reagan! “What the hell was I doing fighting the American Government,” he wondered in a 1980 Newsweek interview, “just because Jerry Rubin couldn’t get…a nice cushy job?” Jerry Rubin, Yippie founder and Chicago Seven radical-turned-Yuppie multimillionaire in the ’80s.

The album Double Fantasy, seven songs each by him and wife Yoko Ono, dropped in November of ’80, and its lead single out at the same time was the appropriately titled “(Just Like) Starting Over.” At #4, John Lennon.

“(Just Like) Starting Over,” only the fourth song to hit #1 after the artist’s death. Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” the first in 1968, then hits by Janis Joplin and Jim Croce in the ’70s.

Would it and Double Fantasy‘s next two hits “Woman” and “Watching the Wheels” have been as big as they were if John Lennon had lived? Well, critics for the most part hated the album, but it was selling, and John had plans to tour North America and Europe in ’81, which would have reintroduced him to a whole new generation of late Boomers and first-wave Gen X-ers in their late teens and 20s.

That generational cohort sometimes informally called Generation Jones, since they don’t neatly fit into either the Baby Boom or Gen X. Lennon’s story arc had mirrored youth culture more than any other icon of his era. Would that have continued for Jonesers in the ’80s?

Double Fantasy went on to win Album of the Year at the 24th Grammys in ’82, which Yoko was there to accept.

#3 Diana Ross and Lionel Richie – Endless Love

Next at #3, the breakout Singer from Motown’s biggest ’60s Group The Supremes who went solo at the beginning of the ’70s, duetting with the breakout Singer-Songwriter of one of Motown’s biggest ’70s Groups, The Commodores, whose last two hits before his solo career began in the ’80s overlapped the duet on the charts.

For six weeks in late Summer, both the duet and The Commodores’ “Lady (You Bring Me Up)” with him singing lead were in the top 10. Then his last big ballad with the group, “Oh No,” was on its way to its peak of #4 as the duet slipped to #2 after holding down the top spot for nine weeks, August into October. At #3, it’s Diana Ross, coming off her big Post-Disco year in 1980 with “Upside Down,” “I’m Coming Out” and “It’s My Turn,” together with Lionel Richie, “Endless Love.”

Lionel Richie like Diana Ross also had a big year in 1980, just not as a solo act yet, or even as part of the Commodores, but as the Songwriter and Producer of Kenny Rogers’ “Lady,” which was #1 for six weeks. Richie also wrote and co-produced “Endless Love” we just heard at #3 here on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1981: the top charting Duet of all time according to Billboard.

It was the last of Diana Ross’ six solo #1s, and the first of Richie’s five from ’81 to ’85, and it was from a soundtrack. Endless Love the movie, also memorable for being Tom Cruise’s movie debut: a short scene where he brags to friends about trying to burn down a house when he was eight.

In 1994, Luther Vandross and Mariah Carey’s cover of “Endless Love” made it all the way to #2.

#2 Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes

Now to most folks after, say, 1991, “alternative” is not the first word that comes to mind when our #2 song comes on, but Billboard in ’81, trying to identify the next big thing, trumpeted the fact for the third year in a row, a “New Music”-adjacent Rock record was their #1 hit of the year.

Now our Chartcrush #1 for ’81 is a different song, this is #2, but the larger point, of course, was right, and once MTV started catapulting New Wave tracks by previously unknown Brits and Aussies into the top ten in ’82, the question was settled. At #2 it’s Kim Carnes, “Bette Davis Eyes.”

Village Voice critic Robert Christgau snarked that ”Bette Davis Eyes” is Rod Stewart’s best work since ”Maggie May.” Of course, not Rod Stewart; it was L.A. Singer-Songwriter Kim Carnes’ synthy, New Wavey cover of a Bluesy deep album cut in 1975 by the woman who co-wrote it, Jackie DeShannon: #1 for nine weeks and the #2 song on our 1981 edition of Chartcrush. It would’ve been ten weeks, but Stars on 45’s Discofied medley of (mostly) Beatles hits moved up from #2 for one week in the middle of its run on top.

In the late ’60s Kenny Rogers (there’s that name again) had been in a latter-day lineup of the Folk ensemble New Christy Minstrels with Carnes and her hubby, so in 1979, he tapped them to write songs for his concept album Gideon about a fictional Texas Cowboy, and “Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer” from that was a #4 hit: a Rogers/Carnes duet. Then her own fifth album in 1980 got her back in the top ten with her cover of Smokey Robinson’s “More Love.”

But “Bette Davis Eyes” was by far her biggest hit. It was everywhere in the Spring and Summer of ’81 and won Record and Song of the Year at the Grammys. Bette Davis herself (the movie legend; aged 73 in 1981) thanked her for making her cool in the eyes of her teenaged grandson and “a part of modern times.” And as I mentioned, it was Billboard‘s #1 song of the year.

#1 Olivia Newton-John – Physical

But we have a different #1, the song that kept Foreigner’s “I’ve Been Waiting for a Girl like You” at #2 for nine weeks at the end of ’81 spilling over into ’82, but recall from when we heard that back at #6, Billboard ranked both on its 1982 year-end Hot100 chart, not ’81, since their ’82 “chart year” began with their first issue in November ’81.

Again, at Chartcrush we go by calendar years, not arbitrary “chart years,” and for songs whose runs go from one year to the next, we rank their full chart runs in the year they racked up the most points. So Billboard‘s #1 song of 1982 becomes our Chartcrush #1 for 1981.

And actually, that’s awesome because it lets us say a little more about the biggest disruptor in music for a very brief window in ’81 before MTV shook everything up. The clunky first model in 1979 sold moderately well but the lighter, smaller Walkman II that appeared in February ’81 was the real game changer. They weren’t cheap, about what a decent smartphone cost in the 2020’s inflation-adjusted, but tens of thousands of them sold, and the centerpiece of Sony’s marketing? Fitness!

For the first time ever, you could bring your own tunes with you out for a run or skate or workout at the gym. By November, Time magazine was heralding “The Fitness Craze” on its cover with a group of spandex and headband-wearing folks and the tagline “America Shapes Up,” and this song was topping the Hot100. Yeah, the Walkman did that! At #1, Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical.”

With the Fitness Craze only just breaking, not at all clear at the time whether “Physical” was about working out or sex. Looking at the lyrics, clearly sex; but watch the video, working out… and sex, which got it banned here and there, and even MTV scrubbed the ending where a group of toned, oiled-up dudes in the gym ignore Olivia taking a shower in silhouette, and instead start eyeing each other!

“Physical” was the culmination of Olivia Newton-John’s real-life image transformation from sweet girl-next-door on her mid-’70s hits to naughty sexpot: the exact transformation that happens with Sandy, the character she played in the Grease movie opposite John Travolta in ’78. Written with Rod Stewart in mind, rejected by Tina Turner for being too sexual, but snapped up by, of all people, Olivia Newton-John after a moment’s hesitation, and it was her biggest hit, tying the then-Hot100 record with ten weeks at #10, which stood until Boyz II Men got 13 with “End of the Road” in 1992. Olivia made the top 10 three more times in ’82 and ’83, but “Physical” was the last of her five career chart-toppers.

Bonus

So that’s our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1981, but we’re not quite done yet. With “Physical” and “Waiting for a Girl like You” coming in to our top ten from Billboard’s 1982 ranking, plus “Arthur’s Theme” when you factor its full chart run and not just the weeks within their ’81 chart year, that displaces three hits from Billboard‘s official published year-end top ten, so to be thorough despite the flaws in Billboard‘s methodology, let’s look at those three. I mentioned earlier that Kenny Rogers’ “Lady,” #3 on the year in Billboard, was really a 1980 hit, so that one’s in our 1980 countdown.

#12 REO Speedwagon – Keep On Loving You

But the song Billboard had at #10 on the year was a legit 1981 hit: a Rock Group that’d been around ten years touring relentlessly, but only denting the charts. But their perseverance finally paid off when they hit the jackpot with their 1981 album Hi Infidelity and its biggest hit, REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You.”

REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You,” #10 on the year in Billboard; bumped down to #12 by the three hits coming in to our Chartcrush top ten for 1981 we just counted down.

#11 Daryl Hall and John Oates – Kiss on My List

And finally, in our bonus segment of songs that made Billboard‘s top ten for ’81 but not ours, the hit they had at #7 which just misses our top ten at #11, by a Philadelphia Duo who scored three top tens in ’76 and ’77 but then slumped badly peak Disco and came back bigger than ever in ’81 with this hit: Daryl Hall & John Oates’ “Kiss on My List.”

Pop fans and MTV couldn’t get enough of Hall & Oates’ patented brand of Pop/R&B fusion. “Kiss on My List,” the first of their five #1’s in the first half of the ’80s, and besides those they notched seven top tens to become Billboard‘s top-charting Duo of all time, ahead of such luminaries as the Everly Brothers, Simon & Garfunkel and Carpenters.

Well that’s all we’ve got for you here on our 1981 edition of the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show. I’ve been your host Christopher Verdesi and I want to thank you for listening. Hey, if you want more, you’re gonna want to check out our website, chartcrush.com, where you’ll find links to stream all our Chartcrush episodes online, plus written transcripts, chart run line graphs, our full top 100 charts and other awesome extras. Again, that website: chartcrush.com. We count down a different year every week on this show, 1940s to now, so tune again next week, same station, same time, for another edition of Chartcrush.

::end transcript::