What’s 1984 Got to Do with It Edition Part 2

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Slate Podcasts

Music, Music History, Music Commentary

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2024

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A decade ago, Rolling Stone magazine called 1984 “Pop’s Greatest Year.” A bold statement…but a lot of critics agree. A confluence of factors—the comeback of dance music, the peak of MTV, the Second British Invasion, and the emergence of metal and hip-hop—made the radio a great place to be. It was a year of fearless genre crossover…cinematic hits…veterans reinventing themselves…ballads that became standards…a newcomer named Madonna…and a movie star who called himself The Kid and made doves cry. Join Chris Molanphy as he dissects eight reasons why 1984 was awesome for pop fans and walks through all 20 of the year’s No. 1 hits: from “Jump” to “Hello,” “Karma Chameleon” to “Caribbean Queen,” “Let’s Go Crazy” to “Like a Virgin.” This is what it sounds like when pop’s fly. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance,
0:05.0	Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians,
0:11.0	these are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to
0:16.0	progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save.
0:23.0	Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.
0:26.0	Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine, about the hits
0:49.1	from Coast to Coast. I'm Chris Mulanfi, Chart Analysts, Pop Critic, and writer of Slates Why Is This Song Number One series. to get to the bottom of why so many pop critics call 1984 pop's greatest year.
1:08.0	Was it the dance music, the power ballads, and synth pop, the Madonna, Prince, Cindy Lauper, Van Halen, Bruce Springsteen, and Tina Turner
1:17.8	hits, all of that and more.
1:20.7	In Part 1, I walked through 8 reasons why 1984 was a great pop year.
1:28.0	And in Part 2, we're going to dive into the 20 songs that top the Hot 100 in 1984. So maybe not all of the number
1:40.6	one hits of 1984 are your favorite.
1:44.7	There are a couple that even I, a deeply biased Gen Xer,
1:49.5	think are just okay.
1:51.5	But they do all exemplify what made the year unique.
1:56.2	To kick us off, here's a fun piece of trivia.
2:00.0	1984 was the only year in which Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna, the three Titans of 80s pop, all scored number one hits.
2:11.0	And Jackson's 1984 number one was on top right at the start of the year with a
2:18.1	little help from a former beetle on the radio show American Top 40, Casey Kaysen counted it down.
2:26.0	Well now it's time for the number one song in the USA.
2:30.0	It's the ninth number one for Michael Jackson and the 29th number one for Paul McCartney.
2:37.0	The most popular song in the land for the sixth week in a row is by McCartney and Jackson. It's Say Say.
	...

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