song of the day – “We Got The Beat” | The GO-GO’s | 1981 / 1982.

Posted on January 18, 2020 by retrogod1985

On January 15, 2020, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame announced their 2020 inductees, which included a semi-diverse list of artists, including Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, The Doobie Brothers, T. Rex (long overdue), The Notorious B.I.G. and the only woman to be inducted in the 2020 class, Whitney Houston.

While it was hoped that Pat Benatar and Chaka Khan (as half of Rufus and Chaka Khan) would also be inducted this year, it’s not surprising they weren’t. At the very least, the Dave Matthews Band didn’t get in. How the fuck did they get nominated in the first place? Christ. But I digress.

A couple of days before the Rock Hall inductees were announced, the Academy Award nominees were announced. Only one woman of color was nominated for a major acting award and no female directors (and there were many in 2019) were nominated.

Here on the blog, I know I’ve often mentioned the lack of women in the Rock Hall, and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. And, with the double whammy of the Oscar nods and the Rock Hall inductees this week, I’m hopeful that by 2021, we’ll see a lot more women nominated everywhere.

On the day the Rock Hall inductees were announced, I read an article online about 10 female artists who should be in the Rock Hall (and five who might be next). At the top of the list, Carole King. Abso-fucking-lutely. One of the greatest songwriters of all-time, her 1971 TAPESTRY album was so huge, it spent 15 weeks atop the BILLBOARD album chart, won four Grammy Awards, has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, and was the No. 2 album of the year in the U.S. for both 1971 and 1972, and the No. 22 album for 1973. Pretty fucking amazing.

Other women on the list I would certainly vote for included Björk, Kate Bush, Dolly Parton and The Go-Go’s. Courtney Love and her band, Hole, were on the list as well, and as was written in the article, “this one should be a no-brainer.” WTF?! She is only on the list because she was married to Kurt Cobain. She did a decent acting job in a couple movies in the late 90s (including 1998’s MAN ON THE MOON), and the band had one okay song, but really? A “no-brainer?” How about just NO!!! I would much rather have chosen Mariah Carey and Sheryl Crow (both on the list) over Courtney Love, and those are artists I am not really a fan of. And nowhere (again) on the list was Cyndi Lauper.

Future Rock Hall inductees (yes, please!) Cyndi Lauper and Dolly Parton.

I’ve made my case for Cyndi to be in the Rock Hall (or at least nominated, fer fuck’s sake) many times here on the blog, and you can go back and read about my reasons for why she should have been inducted years ago, so if you see #Cyndi2021 trending anywhere this year, that’s prolly why.

Even Steve Miller (who has had his own issues with the Rock Hall) called them out when he was inducted in 2016, and said, “keep expanding your vision, to be more inclusive of women.” That’s goddamned right.

The Go-Go’s are definitely worthy of being in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. The Los Angeles New Wave / Punk Rockers, formed in 1978 and consisting of singer Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin on rhythm guitar, Kathy Valentine on bass guitar, Charlotte Caffey on lead guitar and keyboards, and drummer Gina Schock, were the first all-female group to reach No. 1 on BILLBOARD’s album chart with their 1981 album, BEAUTY AND THE BEAT.

One of two covers used for BEAUTY AND THE BEAT.

The album spent six weeks on top in March and April 1982, sold over two million copies in the U.S. alone, was the No. 2 album in America for 1982, and was one of the biggest debut albums of all-time. To date, The Go-Go’s remain as the only all-female band to both write their own songs and play their own instruments on an album that reached No. 1 on the BILLBOARD album chart. Still pretty impressive nearly 40 years later.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAT was released in early July 1981 on I.R.S. Records, and took awhile for it to catch on. The first single released from the album, “Our Lips Are Sealed,” also took awhile to catch on, but it ultimately reached No. 20 on the BILLBOARD Hot 100, and also took its time leaving the survey, spending its 30th and final week on the Hot 100 in late March 1982. It was on the chart so long, it ranked at No. 63 for all of 1982, beating out about 20 Top 10 hits, including their own single, “Vacation” (the No. 8 title track from their 1982 album).

The second single chosen from BEAUTY AND THE BEAT was “We Got The Beat,” released this week in January 1982. Written by Charlotte Caffey, this song made its original 1980 appearance on Stiff Records, and in the U.K., was released as a single in July 1981. It was so popular in the dance clubs, the import got so much play, it even reached No. 35 on BILLBOARD’s Dance chart in 1981.

The cover art for the original Stiff Records single version of “We Got The Beat.”

The re-recorded version you hear on BEAUTY AND THE BEAT did not take long to debut on the BILLBOARD Hot 100. Just a couple weeks after its release, it debuted at No. 79 in late January 1982, and just two weeks later, debuted inside the Top 40 at No. 31. By mid-March, the catchy two-and-a-half-minute New Wave / Dance classic had beat its way to the Top 10.

For three weeks in April 1982, “We Got The Beat” stayed at No. 2 on the Hot 100, held off by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ monster hit, “I Love Rock N’ Roll,” and stayed on the chart for 19 weeks, exiting in early June 1982, nearly a full year after the release of BEAUTY AND THE BEAT. “We Got The Beat” also reached No. 3 in Canada, No. 29 in Austria and No. 7 on BILLBOARD’s Mainstream Rock chart.

NERDY CHART FACT: Both “We Got The Beat” and the namesake of the The Go-Go’s originated from a song they covered, “Going To A Go-Go,” a 1965 hit by The Miracles, co-written, co-produced and sung by the legendary Smokey Robinson. The week after “We Got The Beat” left the BILLBOARD Hot 100, a live version of “Going To A Go-Go” by The Rolling Stones debuted on the chart. So, in a way, the Go-Go’s kept beating on until “Vacation” immediately followed The Stones into the Top 40 in July 1982.

The Go-Go’s broke up in 1985, after their third album, 1984’s TALKSHOW, Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin had successful solo careers, got back together briefly in 1990 and 1994, and have been together for over 20 years, and released their fourth album, the wonderful GOD BLESS THE GO-GO’s, in 2001. In the summer of 2018, a musical about the band, HEAD OVER HEELS, premiered in New York.

One of the posters for the HEAD OVER HEELS musical.

“We Got The Beat” was named as one of “The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock And Roll,” a list that includes songs by the also-yet-to-be-nominated/inducted Siouxsie And The Banshees, Salt-N-Pepa, The B-52’s and the aforementioned Cyndi Lauper.

Today (January 18, 2020) was the fourth annual Women’s March, which started worldwide the day after Donald Trump was sworn in as President Gas. This year’s protest march for women’s rights and more took place in many cities in the U.S., including an event in Portland, Maine.

From the 2020 Women’s March in Philadelphia, January 18, 2020.

A hope I have for 2020 and beyond is that more women everywhere are recognized for the incredible work they do, not just in entertainment, and are treated (at least) as well and as fairly as their male counterparts. Nearly 40 years ago, five young women from L.A. shouted, “Yeah! We Got The Beat!”, and it was an inspiration to women everywhere. And women still have the beat and then some. It’s time for men everywhere to take notice and start dancing to that beat. It’s long overdue…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f55KlPe81Yw

song of the day – “What’s Going On” | CYNDI LAUPER | 1987.

Posted on July 9, 2017 by retrogod1985

On June 15, 2014, Casey Kasem, host of the longtime countdown program, AMERICAN TOP 40, passed away at the age of 82. From my first blog post (and prolly some more inbetween then and now), I explained how, in 1979, I was a geeky, lanky and somewhat lost 12-year-old living in Central Maine, had a few friends and not a lot of interest in much of anything, but at some point early that year, I discovered AMERICAN TOP 40, and was glued to it every weekend. Not only could I hear the 40 biggest songs in the country every week, but also Casey’s cool trivia and facts about the songs and the artists, a trait I treasure to this day. For me, the show was No. 1 with a bullet. And still is (thanks to the re-airing of broadcasts of AT40 on iHeart Radio).

In honor of my radio hero, Casey Kasem, for the entire month of June (and now through July), I will be highlighting a song each day (some days will have two songs!) that peaked in the Top 40 of the BILLBOARD Hot 100 (including five (real) one-hit wonders of the 80s), and with every blog post, just like on AMERICAN TOP 40, the hits will get bigger with each post. On June 1, 2017, I featured a song that peaked at No. 40. Sometime here in July, I’ll feature a “song of the day” that went all the way to No. 1.

As Casey used to say on AT40, “And on we go!”

On Friday, July 14, 2017, I will be seeing my favorite recording artist, the incomparable Cyndi Lauper, perform here in Maine, and it’ll be my fourth time seeing her perform (for the time I got to interview her and meet her in July 2002, I didn’t actually get to see her perform due to a transportation snafu, which would have been the first time I would have seen Cyndi perform). She will be performing on the same bill as Rod Stewart, who, to my knowledge (the brain’s a bit fuzzy on this) is someone I have not seen perform live before. I can’t wait.

And, if my fuzzy brain is again correct, I believe this is the first time Cyndi has performed in the Pine Tree State since her TRUE COLORS world tour brought her to the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, Maine in December 1986 (sadly, I was sick and couldn’t go; I would have been there in a heartbeat). I tried to get Cyndi to come back earlier than now (I mentioned it to her in my 2002 interview with her), but she’s been busy and then some. Still, it’ll be wonderful to see her perform again, and it’ll be my third time since 2013. My goal is to see her every year she’s performing from here on out.

Since Cyndi will be opening for Rod Stewart on this short tour, I’m betting her gorgeous cover of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” (from the TRUE COLORS album) won’t be on the setlist. But a hopelessly devoted Cyndi Lauper fan can hope, right?

“What’s Going On” was one of nearly 70 songs that reached No. 12 on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 between 1979 and 1989, and covers were a theme, apparently, for the No. 12 position. There were also No. 12 covers by Daryl Hall & John Oates (“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’”), The Fat Boys & The Beach Boys (“Wipeout”), Carole King (“One Fine Day,” a song she actually wrote, but was a hit three times before her version charted), Van Halen (“Oh Pretty Woman”), The Nylons (“Kiss Him Goodbye”), David Lee Roth (“Just A Gigolo / I Ain’t Got Nobody”), Anne Murray (“Daydream Believer”), plus one parody (“Eat It” by “Weird Al” Yankovic, parodying Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”), and two medleys (though not covers) by The Beach Boys and The Beatles (I think you can thank Stars On 45’s 1981 No. 1 hit, “Medley” – which WERE covers – for that).

Released as the third single from Cyndi’s wonderful 1986 album, TRUE COLORS, “What’s Going On” was a cover of the No. 2 Marvin Gaye hit from 1971, written during the heart of the Vietnam War. Its personal and poignant lyrics (which could have been written today) resonated with the people of a generation, and it’s been hailed as one of the greatest songs of all-time. In 1995, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame included it in its list of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock, and in 2010, ROLLING STONE ranked it at No. 4 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time.

Cyndi’s spirited version of “What’s Going On” entered the BILLBOARD Hot 100 in mid-March 1987 as the “Hot Shot Debut” of that week, coming in at No. 63. The second single released from TRUE COLORS, the No. 3 hit “Change Of Heart” (with The Bangles on backing vocals), was just ahead of it at No. 58.

“What’s Going On” blasted into the Top 40 the following week, winning the airplay award for that week. It won the sales award on the Hot 100 two weeks later, and looked like another Top 10 hit for Cyndi. But, for whatever reason, the sales and the airplay slowed, and “What’s Going On” spent a week at its peak position of No. 12 in early May 1987, and was gone from the Hot 100 by mid-June.

From the “What’s Going On” video.

Around the globe, “What’s Going On” also reached the Top 40 in Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand, and two excellent dance remixes by Shep Pettibone helped land the 12” single of “What’s Going On” at No. 17 on BILLBOARD’s Dance chart. The energetic and passionate video for “What’s Going On” was also nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best Cinematography In A Video.

Cyndi’s done a ton of incredible covers during her career, covering many genres, starting with her stint in Blue Angel to covers on SHE’S SO UNUSUAL to last year’s extraordinary Country covers album, DETOUR, and her songs, especially 1984’s “Time After Time,” have been covered many, many times. But her cover of “What’s Going On” has always stood out to me, despite what it did or did not do on the Pop charts.

Today, when I listen to Cyndi’s version of “What’s Going On,” I see the same thing Marvin Gaye saw when he co-wrote the song all those years ago – war, police brutality, injustice, and an aching lack of peace. All of that shit is still happening today, but now includes events such as attacks on night clubs and concerts, attacking and killing people who just want to be free, and free to have a good time and be who they are. What’s going on?!

I wouldn’t even want to research how many people have been shot by police in the last several years (that didn’t need to be) and the cops got away with it. Prince hit upon this in his brilliant 2015 song, “Baltimore,” talking about the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray (“If there ain’t no justice, then there ain’t no peace!”). (All six officers involved in the Freddie Gray death – including one Sergeant and one Lieutenant – were acquitted and all charges dropped.) What’s going on?!

The cover art for the 2015 benefit concert Prince put on in Baltimore.

I try to maintain a sense of it all, but most times I can’t. We have the elected “leader” in Washington, D.C., trying to get answers out of Russia over the 2016 election and trying to have North Korea not launch any nuclear missiles, which is all fine and good (I don’t want a World War III), except for the fact that more than half of the country didn’t vote for this man, and who don’t believe in him. #MyFakePresident would rather ban beloved Maine author Stephen King from tweeting to him than to be presidential. What’s going on?!

Well, for now, when I can, I take comfort in things that make me happy and help me forget (albeit temporarily) that there’s all this other unnecessary bullshit going on in the world, like going to the ocean, seeing a movie, spending time with awesome people (you know who you are), and seeing a concert, which I will do when I see the lovely Cyndi Lauper (and Rod Stewart) on Friday, July 14, 2017 here in Maine. I’d take you all there if I could.

You have to do everything in your power to do the things that make you happy and make you feel at peace – not just with everything in the world, but mostly with yourself – as much as you possibly can, to forget everything else going on, at the very least for a little while.

And, if for some reason, you don’t think you can get to that point (or at least try to) where you do things – even little things that don’t cost much money or time – that make you happy or make you feel at peace, what’s going on?