Truepenny is having heinous VH1 flashbacks

[truepenny]

I blame it on tzikeh.

220 song lyrics from the 80s

I identified 50 correctly; recognized 32 more, but either goofed on the identification, could only think of the title, or could hear the song in my head without being able to place it; and there were 14 that when I checked my answers, I felt really stupid for not recognizing, either because I heard the song WAY too often as a teenager or because I still have and listen to the album.

I don't believe the quiz-maker's assertion that the "average person should be at least familiar with almost all of the songs, if he/she owned a radio in the 80's," but I am torn between embarrassment that I fully identified less than a quarter of the list and embarrassment that some of the identifications were so automatic. I had really terrible taste in music in the 80s.

Do you want to know how bad?

I identified without a second's hesitation, because there was a period in my life when I loved each and every one of these songs:

• Bon Jovi, "Wanted Dead or Alive"


• Paula Abdul, "Straight Up"


• Bobby Brown, "Every Little Step"


• Beach Boys, "Kokomo"


• Steve Winwood, "Back in the Highlife Again"


• REO Speedwagon, "Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore"


• Richard Marx, "Don't Mean Nothing"


• Jefferson Starship, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"

Some of you may wish to disown me now.

Comments

[libskrat]

Wow. You're gonna hate me, Truepenny, but I can only place two of those.

And, yeah, I *did* grow up in the 80s, thankyewverymuch. High school class of '90.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

:) Hey, I got Air Supply right off the bat - we all have shame in our pasts.

And I came in to work this morning and tuned in the 80s station on the internet radio. And damn, every song that has played so far is on that list.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

"Kokomo" -- my roommate, freshman year, loved the Beach Boys and loved this song.

"I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" -- *cough* one of my guilty pleasure songs. I sing very loudly in the car to this one. There was a crush, it was unrequited, can I please forget the embarassment now?

"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" -- was our senior song. and it was my fault.

I can't disown you. I'm just as guilty.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

We all have our flaws. Mine is bad music from the 80s (at least, that's my flaw TODAY), and yours is ... not. *g*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

And damn, every song that has played so far is on that list.

Now that's really funny. Either the quiz-makers did a really good job, or the internet radio has seen the quiz, too. *g*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Solidarity!

Sister!

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Dude, I remembered Winger. Winger.

I think I take the shame crown.

[naomichana.livejournal.com]

I recognize... um... "La Bamba," although I couldn't tell you who recorded it after Ritchie Valens. And about another five lines provoked "huh, I know that from somewhere" responses.

This is even sadder if you realize that I did in fact graduate high school in '92. I think they need comparable quizzes from other decades so I can figure out what the heck I was listening to -- I suspect mostly late '60s and early '70s.

misspent youth

[loligo.livejournal.com]

I got 135 titles, though I had looked at the answers before I noticed that I was supposed to list the artists, too. So subtract maybe ten or so for things I always get confused (Chicago vs. Air Supply, etc.)

Obviously, that 135 encompasses a LOT of cheesy pop. What mystifies me is that I correctly identified crap like "Islands in the Stream", which I probably haven't heard since the year it was released, yet I missed songs that I actually have in my CD collection, from Talking Heads and Echo & The Bunnymen and the like.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Hey, I *still* like "Back in the High Life Again". Great song, good album, and I am not ashamed.

So there. :p

And dude: Cyndi Lauper. I share the shame.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Whereas I still have a soft spot for Cyndi Lauper. She's one of the 32 I recognized but couldn't dredge up the song--or, rather, I was fairly sure it was her, but I was getting it tangled up with one of the songs from "The Harsh Light of Day," which has the line "I know we are the lucky ones." Blanking of course on title and band, although the lead singer is a woman with really cool tattoos and a Cleopatra bob. I confused myself right out of being able to answer that one.

I didn't list the ones I probably should be ashamed of, but still love. *mumble*George Michael*mumble*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I remembered the song, but I really can't keep straight any longer the Big Hair Bands: Warrant, Winger, Damn Yankees, Poison, Slaughter, Mr. Big, etc. etc. (I'm stopping now because my ability to remember the NAMES of the BHB is starting to alarm me.) Motley Crue and Guns 'n' Roses are the only ones that remain distinct at this distance. But for some reason, "Dr. Feelgood" didn't click for me, although I owned the album, and I do not regret the G'n'R love I once had.

Come to think of it, Bon Jovi is also perfectly distinctive, but that's because their damn lightweight fluff is such terrible earwormage.

*starts singing Madonna loudly to self, to drown out "Living on a Prayer"*

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Oh, my god, the late 80s hair bands. I could probably sing several songs from each band you listed. Except maybe Slaughter, but I do remember thinking that the lead singer was really cute. And did actually claim the last name Slaughter. And there was, um, Firehouse and Trixter and whoever did "More Than Words Can Say."

And man, Extreme! "More than words, is all you have to do to make it real..."

Stopping now.

Re: misspent youth

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I couldn't place, "You Can Call Me Al," which is (a.) one of my favorite Paul Simon songs, (b.) a video I saw I don't know HOW many times on VH1 (Chevy Chase! Lipsynching!) and (c.) on Graceland, which gets a fair amount of airplay in this household. Whereas I could get people like Tina Turner and Mike + the Mechanics and freaking Tiffany (!), whose albums I don't own and who I haven't listened to in years. The human brain is weird.

I also missed "99 Red Balloons." I am unutterably bummed.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I guessed correct on "La Bamba" but didn't count it, because it was a Sherlock Holmes type thing; there's no other song in Spanish that would make that list.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Then there's Nelson. The 80s station in town played one of their songs a while back, and I remember sitting at a traffic light listening to it and being faintly stunned at how BAD it was. They weren't even in key. It was atrocious and proved once and for all that teenage girls do not listen to pop songs with their ears.

Whitesnake, also with the Big Hair. And Skid Row. And ... stopping now.

[pdcawley.livejournal.com]

Hmm... recognized almost none of them. Though there were a fair few where I could hear the line... I get the feeling it's a pretty US centric list though.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

122. That's how many I recognized and could name both title and artist.

And I would really like to use thar portion of my brain for other things, you know? The portion that remembers Lionel Richie lyrics. Gah.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Hey, I listened to "Faith" the other day. No shame. :)

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Gods, this made me feel *OLD*. Is there a 60s page for me to try? Sometime, when I have an hour, I'll go through this. But a quick glance and I got fewer than one in ten.

I will admit I've always like the line
"Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac."

Sums up my feelings of the changes I've seen.

[libskrat]

That's okay. I'm the right age, and I got about the same number you did.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I recognised 33, of which I actually knew the name and the band for 16 -- the rest I just knew the entire rest of the lyric.

I'm surprised it was so few, but I suppose I was only there for the middle of the eighties.

The awful thing was how each one would start playing in my head until I hit the next.

The one that stuck was the Paul Simon -- do you know what that song is about?

I've been worrying about it for years. (Angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity...)

I do have a plot for it, but it's a very existential one -- there are these two characters who come out of the gray place where characters live before someone makes them up, insufficiently made up. So they're trying to make themselves up and reassure themselves, with names and relationships and so on, to make themselves solid, before someone notices and deletes them. They go around marvelling at the scenery without the slightest idea what's going on.

It's got to be better than that!

Yours,

Puzzled, of 1986.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Your explanation of "You Can Call Me Al" is better than anything I've ever come up with. Except for the obvious (which just occurred to me), which is that it's a midlife crisis song.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I only got 31, even after cheating by giving myself points if I knew the title but not the artist. And I graduated from high school in 1990! But I didn't listen to much current pop music by the time I finished high school - I was a little hippie, listening to Cat Stevens and the Grateful Dead and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Most of the songs on this list that I know, I know from junior high school or earlier.

In contrast, my husband got a *hundred* and 31.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

All of Graceland is about mid-life crisis, "looking at ghosts and empty sockets". The album that came after was so much that I can't even bear to think about it.