Hello again retro music fans. Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 20, 25, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).
It’s the 4TH Friday of the month, so I go back 35 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday February 28TH 1988:
One of my favorite songs of all time is from the Summer of 1972 – “Go All The Way” from Raspberries – fronted by Eric Carmen. I hear that song almost every day via my iPod Shuffles that play at my desk at my workplace. That same Eric Carmen reemerged some 15½ years later in 1987 with a big hit that was featured on the soundtrack of “Dirty Dancing”. His “Hungry Eyes” was a Top 5 smash here in the U.S.A., and it was a popular music video on a young MTV at the time:
Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to March 2008. It’s when Aaron Gillespie and his hard rock band – The Almost – scored a huge hit on my chart about something that I specialize in.
It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going retro with me !
All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp
Hello again retro music fans. Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 20, 25, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).
It’s the 4TH Friday of the month, so I go back 35 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday January 31ST 1988:
You know I was never a big fan of either Prince or Michael Jackson. I liked a few of their songs. I obviously liked the two songs above (since they were in my Top 5 at the time). Both artists got their starts in the ’70s – Michael with his family, and Prince solo. As the ’80s hit – M.J. went solo, and Prince joined other musicians. Both started fading into the ’90s. If you’re into pop culture rumors and conspiracy theories – then you may believe that Prince and Michael Jackson publicly hated each other for various reasons. I think they probably respected each other and their success. They were both very talented. They were both doing their own thing. They were both at the top of their game 35 years ago.
And then there’s Rick Astley. #RickRoll
Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to February 2008. It’s when my # 1 smash of all of 2008 was my # 1 smash of the week – and the month – and the month after that.
It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going retro with me !
All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp
Hello again retro music fans. Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 20, 25, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).
It’s the 5TH Friday of the month, so I go back 35 years ago (since last week was a special). Here it is – for the week ending Sunday January 03RD 1988:
With this edition of #RetroFriday from 35 years ago I leave 1987 behind and enter 1988. It was an unusual year of pop music for me. It was largely a rerun of 1987 in that a lot of the hits that arrived stateside were already hits in Great Britain (where I lived) the year before. Many songs – especially early-on in 1988 – were spending over 20, 30, and even 40 weeks on my chart, as their chart runs were either a continuation or a resumption of their chart runs in 1987.
Longtime Australian band Icehouse scored a surprise # 1 smash on my first chart of 1988, and it was not a British rerun. It was their U.S. breakthrough hit at Top 40 radio and on the mainstream pop charts. Here’s the video that tells a “Crazy” story:
Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to January 2008. It’s when a Nashville Tennessee “Tooth & Nail” band were near the top of my chart with 1 of their 3 hits.
It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going retro with me !
All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp
Today it’s a very special edition of #RetroFriday. It’s the return of a Christmas classic that’s been featured on my blog before in various forms. It’s the story of the greatest Christmas gift ever – the arrival of a cat.
It started out as a morning like any other, but just a few hours later it would become a morning that forever changed the lives of me and my little brother, and our Mom and Dad.
Exactly 39 years ago this morning on Friday December 23RD 1983 me (age 16½) and my little brother (age 8½) looked out our living room window at the snow and the ice on the ground of our backyard. It was a bitter cold morning in McLean Virginia 2 days before Christmas, and we were happy to be warm and comfortable inside.
But there was a creature stirring outside that was not warm and comfortable. It was a lonely young cat with no tail that was wandering around aimlessly on our ice-covered backyard patio deck, and it was shivering in misery. Me and my brother decided rather quickly that it did not belong in the harsh elements of the outside at that moment, so we opened the door and she walked right in to our more sheltered screened-in ‘Florida Room’.
We gave her some milk to drink. She loved us for it. We gave her some love. We heard a strange sound coming from her that we hadn’t heard before. It was the friendly and inviting sound of her purring. We let her in to our warm and comfortable home. She never looked back. In fact she refused to leave after that. We pretty much named her ‘Fluffy’ that day, and she instantly became an important part of our family – the missing link if you will.
That’s a young me in 1985 holding a young Fluffy. I was about 60 pounds lighter than I am today.
She was the 5TH member of our family, and she was the start of nearly 30 years of felines in our family. Fluffy loved us all, but she clearly adored me the most. During her younger years she anxiously awaited me to open the basement / laundry room door for her first thing in the morning so that she could run (and beat me) to my bedroom upstairs for a long round of petting and purring. During her later years in Jacksonville Florida when she was slowly dying she literally came back to life over and over again and jumped and loved on me and ran upstairs to my parents’ guest room whenever I arrived for a short visit. She lived a long, happy, and healthy life (until April of 2001), and she provided lots of love to our family starting with that very first Christmas of 1983.
There have been other cats and dogs within our family over the years since then. Fluffy eventually gained a feline roommate with Barney (also known as “the cat that never liked me”). After Fluffy’s death Barney eventually gained his own feline roommate with Pumpkin. Boots was my own loving cat and housemate for 12½ years here in Homestead Florida until his (expected) death on May 17TH 2007. He was the coolest cat that ever lived.
But it all started with “Fluffy The Manx Cat”. She was the Matriarch of all of our family pets (to this day). She was the Queen of her castle. She was the stability of our family. She was our family’s common denominator. She was the center of attention. She was the most lovable cat that ever lived.
Fun Fact: This WordPress blog is a spinoff of my former hit music based massivesmash.com web site that I created in 1995. That web site grew out of a previous web site known as “MANx On The Net”. That first web site was a spinoff of “MANx Cat BBS” (1993-1997) – a dial-up bulletin board system run via MS-DOS typical of its time that was inspired by and named after Fluffy.
All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp
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