10 terrible number-one songs of the 1980s

I’m going to say this one time, right at the beginning, and then not repeat it. There was some outstanding music produced in the 1980s.

With that disclaimer safely tucked away, let me further say that in terms of what was popular – as defined here by songs that made it to the top of the pop charts in the USA – the 1980s unequivocally produced more dreck than any decade before or since. I have been studying bad songs that made it to number one quite a bit, and I will swear on a stack of Pitchfork magazines that this was the worst decade of them all.

I will be offering ample evidence of this claim in the ensuing paragraphs, but first, let me proffer a possible explanation. And let me set that explanation up with a famous quote from film history. Orson Welles, as Harry Lime, speaking to Joseph Cotton’s Holly Martins in Carol Reed’s 1949 classic The Third Man.

10 wretched number-one songs from the 1980s

“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Tensions may have been simmering just below the surface, but compared to civil rights and war and oil embargos and hostages, the 1980s were far more superficially placid than the previous two decades. And just as with those clock-making Swiss, the culture – or at least the POPULAR culture – stagnated.

There were a lot of reasons that hip hop came to dominate American music in the decades that followed the 1980s. One of the reasons that I think is sometimes overlooked is that the field was wide open. Popular music had grown stale.

Rock and roll was no longer dangerous. It was corporate. Programmed synthetic music expanded the landscape, but also made it very easy for lifeless redundancy to flood the airwaves. Radio stations became pre-fab monopolies, playing the exact same songs up and down the dial, east, west, north, and south. The cultural field was ripe for takeover. Hip-hop, along with punk, metal, grunge, and world music all made serious inroads.

The last time similar conditions existed was the 1950s, when rock and roll was birthed. And I would argue that the 1950s blew the 1980s away in terms of quality number-one songs. Like I said, the ‘80s were the worst.

Normally, this is where I’d offer up some sort of (Dis)Honorable Mention list of songs that just missed the cut. But I can’t do it today. There are too many. And since I will almost certainly be referencing many of those near misses when I get around to the actual Top Ten list, I thought I’d share this instead. Here are some genuinely reviled songs that didn’t even make my long list for the 1980s.

I know people who would puncture their own eardrums before listening to Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” one more time, but McFerrin wasn’t even close to making my list.

I personally can’t stand Christopher Cross’s voice (or his arrangements, melodies, and lyrics.) “Sailing” is ground zero for Yacht Rock. Still, “Sailing” is significantly better than at least twenty other number ones from the ‘80s. (OK, “significantly” may be a stretch.)

When Weird Al’s spoof is ten times better than your original, that’s a bad sign. Still, Toni Basil’s “Mickey” is nowhere near this list.

Then there are the “what the hell happened to you?” moments in which rock/pop titans released downright bad songs. Were I grading on a curve, Steven Winwood’s meaningless Junior Walker rip-off “Roll With It,” George Harrison’s supremely lazy James Ray cover “Got My Mind Set On You,” and the Beach Boys' empty calorie “Kokomo” would all make my list. They are just such massive comedowns from what these artists were capable of. But I don’t grade on a curve.

And there is the Phil Collins Decade Achievement Award (I couldn’t make it a lifetime achievement award). Six number ones, each one more saccharine and syrupy than the last. I dislike all of them, but not enough to place in the top ten on this list (though the nonsensical “Sussudio” and the tone-deaf “Another Day in Paradise” came awfully close.)

Finally, Milli Vanilli, the poster child for jaded artistic fakery, had three consecutive number ones late in the decade but “Baby Don’t Forget My Number,” “Blame It On the Rain,” and “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” are all better songs than what follows.  (FYI – things might have been different had “Girl You Know It’s True” made it to number one, but it stalled out at number two. The spoken word intro alone would have earned it a spot on my list.)

All right – enough with the preamble. Here are the ten worst songs to hit number one during the 1980s.

10. "HANGIN' TOUGH" - New Kids on the Block (1989)

I realize that there are people who are – at this very moment – cursing me for this sin against Jordan, Donnie, and the rest of the boys. (Yeah, I don’t remember the other ones either.) I suppose if I were born a decade later, I may have seen NKOTB the way my generation saw the Jackson Five – or even, the Osmond Brothers. Boy bands are always gonna crop up and a new generation is gonna scream their heads off for them.

Here's the thing. I can accept “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever).” I don’t like it, but I get it. Jordan’s whiny falsetto and promises of eternal devotion at least track with what the kids were selling at the time. “Step by Step,” their final number one, tried to sound a little tougher, but it still had that romantic high crooning. But “Hangin’ Tough” is a joke.

As soon as Donnie orders everyone to “get on the floor and do the new kids dance,” I can’t keep a straight face. As much as they promise “a funky song,” all I can hear is that police whistle that shows up at various points for no apparent reason – and a bunch of kids trying to show how “tough” they are.