Categories
1990s Blogging Music Radio

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1997

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 3RD Friday of the month, so I go back 25 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday October 26TH 1997:

  1. “Tubthumping” – Chumbawamba
  2. “(I Just Wanna) Fly” – Sugar Ray Ft. Super Cat
  3. “(If You’re Not In It For Love) I’m Outta Here !” – Real McCoy
  4. “Show Me Love” – Robyn
  5. “Mo Money Mo Problems” – The Notorious B.I.G. Ft. Puff Daddy & Mase

If any act defined and expanded Eurodance back in the mid-1990s – it was Berlin Germany’s Real McCoy. After “Another Night” and “Run Away” invaded the pop charts worldwide in 1994 and 1995 they scored with 5 more hits on my chart – “Come And Get Your Love” (# 2), “Automatic Lover (Call For Love)” (# 1), “Ooh Boy” (# 2), “One More Time” (# 3), and finally “(If You’re Not In It For Love) I’m Outta Here !” (# 1).

4,686 = Combined number of plays of all 7 Real McCoy tracks on my iTunes / iPod Shuffles since the Summer of 2007.

I loved “(If You’re Not In It For Love) I’m Outta Here !”, and I still love it today. Commercially it was a flop, but luckily here in South Florida it was a regional smash on the radio. It generated heavy airplay as it spent 23 weeks on my chart.

Shania Twain cowrote the track, and she took it to # 1 on the U.S. Country Music chart early in 1996. It was also a minor pop hit at Top 40 radio.

Next #RetroFriday I’ll go back 35 years ago to the end of October 1987. It’s when Sara, Siobhan, and Keren scored a # 1 smash on my chart. It will also be my final British-based pop chart.

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

Categories
Blogging Christian Driving Geography God Music Radio Travel

Fort Lauderdale Florida

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Last Thursday October 13TH 2022 dual music concerts were occurring simultaneously 17 miles apart in the Greater Fort Lauderdale area (Broward County). At The Parker – “Weird Al” Yankovic was LIVE on tour – with comedian Emo Philips opening for him. Over at The Center – Newsboys were headlining – with Cochren & Co. and Adam Agee (Stellar Kart) opening for them. So of course – you know me – you’ve been reading my blog for years now – of course – I saw – the legendary – “Weird Al” Yankovic and Emo Philips !

I actually bought my ticket for the “Weird Al” show 7 months earlier in March 2022. He was doing back-to-back completely different shows on Wednesday and Thursday (October 12TH and 13TH), and I randomly picked the second show since it was closer to the weekend. If I had picked the first show (on Wednesday) then I could have gone to the Newsboys concert (on Thursday). The Newsboys concert wasn’t even announced until a couple of months ago in August 2022.

So I’ve been a “Weird Al” fan (OK – nerd) for almost 40 years now – ever since I first heard of him and his music in 1983 on WJOK-AM (All Comedy Radio in Gaithersburg Maryland). I bought all of his cassettes back in the ’80s. I kind of “outgrew” him into the ’90s, but I still have that place in my heart for his weirdness. I saw him LIVE in concert for the first time in August 2015, and then I saw him again in June 2019. All 3 shows were in Fort Lauderdale. He always puts on a good fun nostalgic show. I kind of wish I had gotten tickets to both of his shows – since they were both completely different (aside from the encores). For his tour this time around – he performed some of his “extremely unpopular songs”, so not the hits, but even so I knew a lot of the songs that he did. For this show that I attended – one of his encores was a note-for-note cover version of Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” – one of my favorite songs of all time !

“Weird Al” Yankovic is a born-again Christian who doesn’t cuss, smoke, drink, or use drugs. Privately (off-performance) he’s shy and polite to everyone.

Emo Philips opened for “Weird Al” with a 34-minute stand-up comedy set that had the entire concert hall laughing in hysterics. I was never a fan of his weird comedy, but he definitely delivered for this show. He exceeded my expectations of him. His comedy routine was funny and relevant.

This was my second show at The Parker (former Parker Playhouse) – at least since 2000. It’s been there near downtown Fort Lauderdale (off U.S. 1) since 1966 – with the first show presented in February 1967. It recently completed a 2½-year / $30-million-dollar renovation. It definitely had that “new-car-smell” to it last week. It’s a very nice venue. I think I may have seen a concert or two there in the late-1980s into the 1990s. Back then the Sunrise Musical Theatre was the place for concerts over in the western part of Broward County.

Next #TravelThursday I’ll tell you all about the Miami Military Museum. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Christian God Ministry Music Radio

My Top 10 Hits – Week 296

Every Monday I post my all-new Top 10 Christian hit music chart based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from the previous week. It’s the continuation of a weekly hobby that goes back nearly 45 years. Here’s this week’s chart – for the week ending Sunday October 16TH 2022 – the 296TH week of this current era that began on Presidents’ Day Weekend of 2017:

TW LW WKS SONG TITLE ARTIST / SITE
1 1 10 Good Morning Mercy
[5TH week @ # 1]		 Jason Crabb
2 3 17 Thank God For Sunday Morning Cochren & Co.
3 2 9 New Creation Mac Powell
4 5 6 Miracle Power We The Kingdom
5 6 3 Ain’t Nobody Cody Carnes
6 4 8 Build A Boat Colton Dixon
7 8 3 Love Me Like I Am for King & Country Ft. Jordin Sparks
8 7 18 Hold You Tight Dan Bremnes
9 9 6 God Is In This Story Katy Nichole Ft. Big Daddy Weave
10 10 6 Perfectly Loved Rachael Lampa Ft. TobyMac

# 1 This Week In:
2021 – “What If” – Matthew West
2020 – “Rise Up (Lazarus)” – Cain
2019 – “Fear No More” – Building 429
2018 – “Only Jesus” – Casting Crowns
2017 – “The Gospel” – Ryan Stevenson

COCHREN & CO. – I featured “Thank God For Sunday Morning” as the 3RD and final song of “Praise & Worship” with my church family yesterday morning. It’s a great song to read the lyrics to on the big screens, and take those words in. It’s back up a notch this week to # 2 on my chart, and it could rise to the top next week. I took a look back at the debut smash from Cochren & Co. “Church (Take Me Back)” enjoyed a long chart run in 2019. It actually spent 8 non-consecutive weeks at # 2 before it spent 4 weeks at # 1. This is the 5TH non-consecutive week at # 2 for “Thank God For Sunday Morning”. We’ll see if it can end that streak for the better next week.

This concludes another weekend of blog posts. I’ll do it again with the new weekend – and 4 new entries – known as #TravelThursday, #RetroFriday, #SundayScripture, and #Top10Monday.

Your likes, follows, and comments are always appreciated. Thank You for being part of my online ministry to share God’s Good News and win souls for Christ through His music. I’m also on Twitter and Flickr.

Be blessed my friends !  May our God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Bible Blogging Christian Church God Ministry Scripture

Sunday Scripture

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday October 16TH 2022, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

This morning I’m getting ready to preach my sermon – “Blessings & Benedictions” – to my brothers and sisters of my church family. It looks to be about a 40-minute sermon – which is my goal. If I hit 35 to 45 minutes when I preach – then I’m on par. Next Sunday morning I’m preaching again. It’s a sermon titled “Give & Take”, and it’s actually a built-up sermon from a partial sermon that I wrote and abandoned over 5 years ago. I’ve always wanted to go back and bring back to life that unfinished sermon, and God finally led me on a path to do just that. I’m looking forward to sharing it next Sunday morning.

And so now on #SundayScripture I continue presenting the last sermon that I preached – “Good & Evil” – in its original written form. It’s based on 1 Peter 3:8-4:8, and it effectively wraps-up my First Peter message series which I began 13 months ago. Here’s Part 2:

You know those people who know that you know God ? Well if any one of them asks you about your relationship with God – then you can start with this:

God The Father – Creator – He showed mercy on me – He showed mercy on us – when He sacrificed His Son – God The Son – Christ – on the cross – to pay for all of our sins – past, present, and future. We are redeemed through His blood.

And so – we are commanded to bless everyone – no matter what. I know it’s a hard thing to do, but we can do that. And our God will help us to do that. We just need to seek His guidance. He will show us the way.

Be happy with those who are happy. Well that’s easy to do. If I’m near a happy person then I’m happy too. Happiness is contagious. That’s a good thing. That’s a God thing.

Weep with those who weep. That’s easy to do too. Sort of ? I think it’s easier said than done. You know it’s hard to understand what someone is going through when they are visibly weeping. How can you weep alongside someone if you don’t know all of the specifics. And weeping can be easy to do – while not showing it. Some of us in here may be weeping today, but we’re putting up a brave front about it – because we don’t want anyone to know that we’re weeping – because then we’ll have to share specifics as to why we’re weeping, and it’ll cause us to weep more. That’s just human nature. But we gotta take care of each other – and get to know our brothers and sisters – and our friends and neighbors – so that we can be there for them when they weep – so that maybe they will share why they are weeping.

You know I love Romans. It’s the Apostle Paul – explaining God’s Good News – to the Romans of the Roman Empire at the time. He wrote his letter to the Romans – right around 57 A.D. That’s almost 25 years after Christ died and rose again and ascended to Heaven. And it’s about 7 or 8 years before Paul was imprisoned and martyred in Rome.

Paul’s letter to the Romans applies today in 2022. It’s a great document from start to finish. It should be read by all believers and followers of Christ on a regular basis. It’s 16 chapters. It’s 433 verses. You can read it – in less than an hour.

Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. (Romans 12:17-18)

There’s not enough peace in the world. There’s never been enough peace in the world. This is not a new thing. We have persecution. We have hate. We have crime. We have violence. We have wars. We can do our part though. God commands us to do our part. Live in peace with everyone. Love your neighbor as yourself. Don’t let evil conquer you. Conquer evil by doing good. (12:21)

(End of Part 2)

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp