Category: 1980s

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1987

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date May 27, 2022

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, 25, 30, 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 May 31ST 1987:

“It’s Not Unusual” – Tom Jones
“Under The Boardwalk” – Bruce Willis
“Victim Of Love” – Erasure
“Serious” – Donna Allen
“Hot Shot Tottenham !” – Tottenham Hotspur FA Cup Squad With Chas & Dave

The Summer Of 1987: What a great summer that was. It was a great summer of British pop music. It was a great summer of fun with friends. It was perhaps the greatest summer of my life as a 20-year-old living in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Tom Jones enjoyed a career resurgence that began during that era. He followed-up a # 2 smash on the U.K. pop charts that received very little radio airplay (“A Boy From Nowhere”) with the reissue of his biggest smash ever – “It’s Not Unusual”. 22 years after its 1965 release it was on the charts again, and it hit # 1 on my Top 50 chart at the time. (That’s right – I did a Top 50 every week back then.)

Tom Jones and I share a birthday week. I was born on June 05TH. He was born on June 07TH. He’ll be 82 soon, and a few days later he embarks on a 4-month worldwide tour of Ireland, The U.K., Spain, Denmark, Austria, Netherlands, Hungary, Luxembourg, Italy, Croatia, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, The U.S.A., and Canada. The man’s got a lot of energy. No Florida date though. I would definitely see him in concert, for he is a legend !

Another one of Tom Jones’ hits – in fact his biggest hit here stateside – “She’s A Lady” – is and has been for several years – in heavy rotation on my iPod Shuffles that play at my desk at my workplace. I hear it almost every day, and I sing along to it.

Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to the start of June 2007. It’s the week that I discovered Dustin Ruth and his band and their music.

It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday with 3 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going retro with me !

Tags 1987, Music, Radio

1970s 1980s Blogging Driving Movies Radio Travel

Kings Dominion

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date May 26, 2022

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Kings Dominion is a fun seasonal amusement park located between Washington D.C. and Richmond Virginia (much closer to Richmond) right along I-95. The 280-acre park opened on May 03RD 1975 – the same exact date that my little brother was born. Starting in the late-1970s and continuing into the mid-1980s me and my family would visit the park every few summers. We would actually alternate between Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens near Williamsburg Virginia (opened 13 days after Kings Dominion), and Hershey Park in Pennsylvania (opened 116 years ago this weekend).

Kings Dominion is generally open starting in mid-March – weekends only at first, and then daily from Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day Weekend. The park returns to weekends only during the Autumn months. It’s also open during Christmas and New Year’s Week for festive displays and events known as #WinterFest.

Me and my brother always had a lot of fun roaming around the park and riding all of the rides. My parents were there for the shows, shops, and restaurants.

There are still some original rides from the 1975 opening including what used to be the “Rebel Yell” rollercoaster – now known as the “Racer 75”. It rises to a height of 85 feet, and it drops 81 of those 85 feet at a top speed of 56 MPH. That was perhaps the first rollercoaster I ever rode on. It was scary back then, and I wouldn’t ride it today because – well – it’s still scary. (And nowadays I get motion sickness very easily on those types of rides.)

That’s me as a teenager in the early-1980s atop the Eiffel Tower – a one-third replica of the real thing – standing tall at 314 feet. (The observation decks are 40 feet below the top.)

So 26 years ago this week (leading-up to Memorial Day Weekend) was my final visit with my brother to Kings Dominion. My brother won a radio contest on Washington rock station #DC101 – two free tickets to Kings Dominion – where you got to go there as VIPs before the park opened to participate in a “Mission: Impossible” scavenger hunt all throughout the park. (The Tom Cruise movie premiered at the box office that week.) Me and my brother drove down to the park on an unseasonably chilly and drizzly day, and we had lots of fun with the scavenger hunt and the rides on that day.

A lot of fun family memories at Kings Dominion. It’s good to see it still thriving with new generations of families 47 years later.

Next #TravelThursday we’ll visit Chicopee Massachusetts. Let’s keep traveling together.

Tags Kings Dominion, Virginia

1980s Blogging Music Radio

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1987

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date April 29, 2022

It’s the 5TH Friday of the month, and usually I present a special on this Friday, but due to #GoodFriday 2 weeks ago #RetroFriday was preempted. So this week I go back 35 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday May 03RD 1987:

“You’re So Strong” – Mental As Anything
“Meet El Presidente” – Duran Duran
“Can’t Be With You Tonight” – Judy Boucher
“Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” – Starship
“If You Let Me Stay” – Terence Trent D’arby

My favorite Australian band of all-time – Mental As Anything – scored their 2ND consecutive # 1 smash on my chart in 9 weeks in 1987. “You’re So Strong” followed-up “Live It Up” to the top of the pops. It was a remarkable achievement in that while “Live It Up” was a BBC Radio 1 smash (Top 3 on the U.K. pop charts) – “You’re So Strong” received very limited airplay for a week or two before it fizzled. Strangely – “You’re So Strong” was the only Mental As Anything song that made an impact stateside – as a hit on the U.S. Dance chart.

You know a lot of great bands, duos, and artists have come out of Australia, and I’ve liked a lot of their music. But Mental As Anything rises above all of them. I actually only know two of their songs. “Live It Up” is one of my favorite pop songs of the era while living for 2 years in the United Kingdom. 35 years later I still hear it almost every day via my iPod Shuffles that play at my desk at my workplace. For 3 minutes and 49 seconds it always brings me back to that time when I was a late-teenager (on the verge of my 20s) enjoying life in a foreign country with my best friends at the time. I actually don’t have “You’re So Strong” in my collection, but (as I wrote this) I went on iTunes and I added it to my wish list for purchase later. It’s another good song – peppy and faster than I remembered it during those couple of weeks that it played on the radio 35 years ago. It’ll be a good solid addition to my daily iPod Shuffle airplay.

By the way how about that Judy Boucher song – “Can’t Be With You Tonight”. Back in the mid-1980s Caribbean reggae music was very popular in the U.K. It was a common fixture on pop radio and the pop charts. It kind of served as unofficial promotion for the warm British territories of the Caribbean. I loved its feel on the radio. What a great memory that song was !

Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to May 2007. It’s the week that Switchfoot had an “Awakening”.

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 !

Tags 1987, Music, Radio

1980s Blogging Music Radio Travel

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1987

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date March 25, 2022

It’s the 4TH Friday of the month, so I go back 35 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday March 29TH 1987:

“Let It Be” – Ferry Aid
“Lean On Me” – Club Nouveau
“(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)” – The Beastie Boys
“I Get The Sweetest Feeling” – Jackie Wilson
“Respectable” – Mel And Kim

During the early evening hours of Friday March 06TH 1987 the MS Herald Of Free Enterprise car and passenger ferry – on its way to Dover England – capsized off the coast of Zeebrugge Belgium in the North Sea. 193 passengers and crew perished in shallow frigid water. There were 346 survivors.

A little over a week later a large ensemble of mostly British musicians got together to record a special version of The Beatles’ classic “Let It Be”. It was released as a single a week after that, and it went straight-in at # 1 on the British pop chart. All proceeds of the single went to a charity that supported the victims of the disaster and their families.

Here’s the official music video of this single:

Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 15 years ago to April 2007. It’s when my favorite pop-punk band scored a # 1 smash with a fast-paced song that can wait another week.

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 !