10 terrible number-one songs of the 1980s

9. “TRULY” – Lionel Richie (1982)

Lionel Richie almost matched Phil Collins for both number ones (five, to Collins’ six) and sappiness. As a group of songs, I actually think Richie’s output is slightly more tolerable than that of Collins, but this song – this song is unlistenable. It is wildly overproduced to make up for the fact that it isn’t much of a song to begin with. Richie could always sing, but here, he sounds disengaged to me. Even when he goes big on the chorus, it sounds like he is doing it because that’s what it says on the sheet music, and not because he actually feels anything.

I suppose what he was feeling was joy that his bank account would soon be swelling. Richie was involved in a real funk with The Commodores. Walter Clyde Orange may have sung the funkiest numbers, but Richie was there, adding his voice to the mix. And when something softer was called for, as on a song like “Easy,” Richie could sing it without allowing it to devolve into bathos. But as a soloist, he let that edge slip. I can get into “All Night Long.” But “Truly” is several bridges too far.

8. “WHEN I’M WITH YOU” – Sheriff (1989)

OK, I’ve got an admission to make. I don’t always immediately recall all of these songs. When I scroll through lists of number ones, sometimes I do have to cue a track on the old iPhone and it gives it a listen to refresh my memory. But, by the time the chorus rolls around, I remember. That is until I came across Sheriff’s “When I’m With You.” This, I believe, is the most forgettable number-one song of the decade, and quite possibly of all time.

Sheriff was a band from Canada. Or at least, they once were. By the time this song climbed to the top of the charts, they had been broken up for more than three years. Why it came back out of the blue is a mystery, though not a very good one. Why it came back out of the blue and soared to number one is a mystery worthy of Scooby-Doo. And, not for nothing, this song is as generic as any plot involving five kids, a dog, and the Mystery Machine.

If you ask AI to write you an overwrought power ballad, it would probably come up with something slightly better than “When I’m With You.” The fact that this empty vessel of a song was number one in the land at the beginning of 1989 is a pretty good testament to just how barren the pop music landscape was in the final years of the 1980s.