Hit Parade: Point of No Return Part 1

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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After the so-called-but-not-really “death” of disco, dance music in the 1980s moved to its own beat. There was synthpop, electro, hi-NRG and house. But the scrappy genre that seemed to pull it all together was called freestyle—a breakbeat-tempo, Latin-flavored genre fortified with dizzying, proudly synthetic beats. Freestyle grew out of the clubs and streets of New York and Miami and briefly dominated ’80s dance-pop. Freestyle’s flagship artists were only medium-level stars: Shannon. Exposé. Lisa Lisa. Stevie B. Nu Shooz. Sweet Sensation. But these acts—most especially their yearning, floridly romantic, rhythmically hectic songs—punched above their weight on the charts and even affected the hits of superstars from Madonna to Duran Duran, Whitney Houston to Pet Shop Boys. Join Chris Molanphy as he defines the byways of this bespoke dance genre and traces how it bridged the disco era into the hiphop era. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up guys, I am Ashley Gavin, and I am your father.
0:03.1	I'm Elena Joy, I am Mommy, and I'm Mackin from your hot teenage brother.
0:08.4	Baby, Mack is baby.
0:09.7	We are your chosen family, because you don't have a gay family and you need a gay family.
0:14.3	Every week, we bring a topic to the family dinner table from gender dysphoria,
0:17.9	to monogamy, to how to figure out if someone is into you.
0:20.5	Listen to Chosen Family every Wednesday on your favorite podcast app,
0:24.0	or watch full episodes on YouTube to get the full family experience.
0:27.7	Chosen Family is a part of the Forever Dog podcast network.
0:58.6	You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives.
1:03.8	Plus, hit parade the bridge are bonus episodes with guest interviews,
1:09.4	deeper dives on our episode topics and pop chart trivia.
1:14.0	Once again, to join that's slate.com slash hit parade plus.
1:19.2	Thanks, and now please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode.
1:28.4	Welcome to hip parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine.
1:39.9	About the hits from coast to coast, I'm Chris Malanthe,
1:43.6	chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slates Why is this song number one series?
1:49.5	On today's show, 35 years ago, this month in July of 1987,
1:56.3	the hot 100 was a wash in pulsating synthesizers and pinging rhythms.
2:02.7	In the early 80s, you might have expected these electronic musical tools
2:08.8	to be wielded by such MTV synth pop gods as Durand Rand or Prince.
2:15.9	But in the second half of that decade, they were most effectively deployed
	...

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