boy culture

Sweet Dreams

Over at YVYMag, Renie Saliba shoots Andrew Hendley, who manages to pull off early Annie Lennox hair as well as half his clothing. 

February 16, 1985

Continuing with my posts on some old Billboard charts I just bought, looking at the chart for February 16, 1985, it's amazing what was on the Top Pop Albums chart simultaneously.

The Top 10:

#1 Like A Virgin by Madonna. I creamed over this album—I just absolutely loved it all the way through. I still do. Okay, I don't love "Material Girl" anymore, but the rest is pure pop perfection. I even love and never skip "filler" like "Shoo-Bee-Doo" which is gorgeous. I hate that "Stay" (the video is an unreleased early version of "Stay") and "Over And Over" were never U.S. singles. Even her high-camp, melodramatic "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" is a hot mess of fun. I bought this album at a record store in Water Street Pavilion in Flint, Michigan, and I think I bought a Culture Club album the same day.

The Italian single of "Over And Over" sells for hundreds of dollars in 2009.

#2 Born In The U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen. A great record even if I was never much of a Boss fan. Listening back, all of his umpteen singles from this are still good listens today. He was hot, too.

#3 Make It Big by Wham!. I loved their singles, but I don't believe I ever bought their album, which is weird. I literally bought every Wham! single and every early George Michael single. I always thought of the title of this album as referring to the most useful thing to do when you encounter an unguarded penis.

Big deal.

May 15, 1993

The Billboard "Hot Dance Music/Club Play" chart for May 15, 1993, featured Madonna's "Fever" in the pole position. This was right after I moved to New York, and I still remember how exciting it was to see her in her little red wig in the video. I have a special place in my heart for red-headed Madonna, because she had red pigtails the only time I've seen her in public, with my then-roommate and still-friend John outside the Sound Factory. (For the record, I almost missed her.)

Here is a flashback to the chart:

#1 "Fever" by Madonna. A delightful dance take on the song Peggy Lee made forever famous, at the time it seemed almost a lazy idea, too easy. But it's a remake that holds up after all these years. Peggy herself, who met Madonna around this time, said by way of comparison, "Hers is disco. Mine was not." Correct:

#2 "I Can't Get No Sleep" by Masters At Work Featuring India. God, the fashions in the video were so '90s, and yet it was a near-remake of "Vogue"'s video, right down to the torso shot of a woman caressing her bustier. Sounds pretty shrill and unpleasant now, no?:

#3 "Who Is It" by Michael Jackson. Jesus, people danced to this???:

#4 "Independence" by Lulu. I fell in love with this then-fresh track from a then-not-so-fresh Lulu, so much so that I bought her CD—which was a lot of fun. I also really adored her appearance on "Relight My Fire" with Take That. Brothers In Rhythm really got this sister in rhythm:

May 11, 1985

Recently, I bought hundreds of old Billboard Top 40 charts; seeing what was on the charts at the same time was a real trip, so I'm sharing a bit of them today and tomorrow...

On May 11, 1985, my sister turned 10 years old and I was holed up in my bedroom writing down the entire Billboard Top 40 in longhand, unaware that without my documentation it would still have been recorded by an actual magazine called Billboard. The Top 10 hits were shockingly memorable songs...isn't it weird that these were all in release at the same moment?:

#1 "Crazy For You" by Madonna. This was the song that bumped "We Are The World" from #1; ironically, she was one of the only recognizable artists of the day not to participate in USA For Africa. Never liked "Crazy For You" much, actually:

#2 "We Are The World" by USA For Africa. How the whole "egos checked at the door" story ever had legs considering Jacko's fuzzy-beauty self-shots intercut in the otherwise dressed-down video, I'll never know. Plus his sunglasses! I have to say Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper totally made this song what it was:

#3 "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds. This song did it for me and I was obsessed with The Breakfast Club. Simple Minds never sang anything like this before, and it was so huge it caused the to alter their sound on their ensuing record. As for Live Aid, I rented a VHS cassette recorder for $50 to tape the entire thing, tapes I think I finally trashed on this last move when I realized everything is available on DVD and I hadn't watched them one time since:

Medusa Oblongata

I was a Eurythmics fan ("Just Eurythmics. No 'the.'"—David Leavitt's The Lost Language Of Cranes) before I was a Madonna fan; in fact, their Revenge Tour was my first concert. I saw it with a handsome boy with whom I was in unrequited "love," and still remember how it was kicked off with a giant zipper unzipping a piece of leather-like material to reveal the stage.

I've been less of a fan of Annie's solo work. I found her first solo album to be adult  contemporary and boring ("Walking On Broken Glass" is such crap from a woman who sang "Sexcrime"), then she did remakes and by then I was not paying much attention. The title of this post refers to the medulla oblongata, which is brainy but is in charge of autonomic functions; I've harshly felt much of Annie solo career—uh-MAY-zing voice notwithstanding—has been on autopilot, like your heartbeat.