I’ll be up front about this one: I really never got Nitzer Ebb.

Back in my DJing days, I’d get tons of requests for “Join in the Chant,” “Murderous,” or “Warsaw Ghetto,” and I’d roll my eyes internally and slap it on just to keep the EBM fans sedated. I don’t know what it was — perhaps the sparse production that usually reduced the songs to drum machines and shouting wasn’t appealing to me — but I would never throw any Ebb on unless prodded.

That changed when Belief came out. While most point to “Join in the Chant” as the group’s high point, I’ve always been a sucker for Belief’s big single, “Control I’m Here” (download), with its layered synths and brake-squealing sound effects. And unlike “Chant,” “Control I’m Here” doesn’t go on for three minutes too many.

The packed dance floor proved that I wasn’t the only fan of this song, and the Razormaid! remix (download) only extends the pleasure. MTV grabbed onto the video and gave it quite a few spins on 120 Minutes, along with the album’s second single, “Hearts and Minds” (download).

I suppose I found it strange that an act that would have been resigned to an indie label like Wax Trax Records a few short years earlier was now on a major label and all over MTV. Things got even weirder when Depeche Mode took Ebb on the road for their next big tour a year later. As the years have gone by, I’ve warmed up a bit to Nitzer Ebb, although I defy anyone to sit through an entire album. Yikes.

“Control I’m Here” peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play Chart in 1989.

“Hearts and Minds” peaked at #16 on the same chart that same year.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

I’d been a big fan of Midge Ure-era Ultravox since the first time I saw “Vienna” on MTV early one Sunday morning in 1982, so when I spotted the new video for the first single from their latest album, Lament, a few years later, it was a bit of a shock. What the heck was one of my favorite synthpop bands doing with — gasp! — guitars around their shoulders!?!

Of course at the time I was unfamiliar with the earlier, John Foxx-led glammier version of Ultravox, so seeing the band I adored making like U2 in the snow, surrounded by non-synthesized instruments, was enough to give me heart palpitations. It’s not that “One Small Day” (download) was a bad song, or even a very atypical Ultravox tune — it was the new, arena-ready presentation that put me off at first. Where was the New Romanticism of “Reap The Wild Wind” and “Sleepwalk?” Ultravox, I was sure, had sold out.

Ah, impetuous youth. Not only were there still synths on “One Small Day” (take a listen to that bottom bass), but the rest of Lament was still safely in my synthpop sweet spot, as the next single, “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” proved. Yes, Lament was obviously a stab at breaking Ultravox as the next big rock thing, a la Simple Minds’ Sparkle in the Rain that same year, but there was still plenty of New Wave to go around, as my favorite track on the album, the opener “White China” (download), proved.

The catchiest dance song about smack since Laid Back’s “White Horse” (was 1984 a banner year for heroin or something?), “White China” was never released as a single proper, but dance clubs picked up on it and played it enough that the DJ-only service Razormaid! felt the need to release an extended remix (download).

Lament failed to break Ultravox in America, and after Ure scored a huge international hit with his solo single “If I Was,” the band released one more decidedly limp effort, U-Vox, before Ure split for good.

“One Small Day” and “White China” did not chart.

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Popularity: 6% [?]

Y’know, if Josie Cotton’s best-known single had become more than just a regional hit on the west coast, my high school life would have been a living hell.

But thankfully, “Johnny, Are You Queer” didn’t cross over to mainstream radio in 1981, even though it was featured, along with Josie herself, two years later in the cult classic movie “Valley Girl.” While my hipper friends knew about the song and would sometimes sing it to me (Answer: Yes.), the student population at large was thankfully unaware of Cotton and her catchy New Wave ways.

Her label, Elektra Records, wanted to correct this, so for her second full-length album, From The Hip, they pulled out all the stops. The ragged, punky edge of her debut, Convertible Music, was scrapped and the drum machines and synths came out to play. The lead single, “Jimmy Loves Maryann,” (download) a remake of the only other Top 40 hit by ’70s AM radio gods Looking Glass of “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” fame, was the best of the bunch. A shiny retro tune of young love, it was catchy enough for Top 40 and even sported a big budget video that got a bit of MTV light rotation:

If you recognize the distinctive guitar plucking on that tune, that’s because it’s none other than Josie’s label-mate Lindsey Buckingham playing on the track. Now, why you would feature Lindsey on your song and not give him a solo is a question only Cotton can answer, but…in any case, “Jimmy Loves Maryann” scraped the bottom of the Hot 100, peaking even lower than Josie’s only other chart hit, “He Could Be The One.” You may be surprised to learn that “Johnny, Are You Queer” never even charted. (Phew. Bullet dodged. I and every other John breathed a sigh of relief.)

Elektra dropped Cotton after From The Hip, but she returned to recording in recent years, alternating from a more experimental, ethereal sound a la Kate Bush, and a campier style closer to her girl-group roots, as evidenced on her 2006 release, Movie Disaster Music, a dark take on theme songs from her favorite B-movies.

“Jimmy Loves Maryann” peaked at #82 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in 1984.

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Popularity: 7% [?]

Anyone who’s been hanging around these parts with any frequency for the past few months has probably picked up on my unabashed love for pop candy peddlers Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, responsible for many hits from a number of different artists. I’m sure you know Chapman went on to produce seminal albums by the Knack, Blondie, and more ’80s faves. He also began collaborating with a young songwriter by the name of Holly Knight, churning out smashes like “Love Is a Battlefield” for Pat Benatar and “The Best” for Tina Turner.

But not everything Chapman and Knight touched turned into a gold record. Take for example Real Life’s 1986 single “Babies,” from their U.S. compilation Down Comes the Hammer. A song pretty much forgotten by everyone since it didn’t chart, but I believe we can place the blame for its failure on one man: Michael Des Barres.

Ah, Michael Des Barres. Pop box-office poison. A string of failed bands lie in his wake, including Silverhead, Detective, and Chequered Past. Never heard of ‘em? Surprise. Perhaps you remember him playing a punk rocker on WKRP in Cincinnati? Or joining the cast of The New WKRP in Cincinnati? How about his role as Mudoc on MacGyver? Oh, I know how you’ll remember him — he was the guy foolish enough to try and replace Robert Palmer in the Power Station.

Yup, that guy.

(more…)

Popularity: 9% [?]

Before getting lost in the world of orchestral strings and Tim Burton soundtracks, Danny Elfman was the singularly strange lead singer/songwriter behind guitar/horn section new wave hybrid Oingo Boingo. Big duh. But while the band is known mostly for the “wacky” songs like “Weird Science, “Only A Lad,” and “Little Girls,” the group’s later, more serious work doesn’t seem to get much flashback radio love.

That’s too bad, because later albums like Dead Man’s Party and particularly BOI-NGO are filled with hook-laden, should-have-been hits like “Just Another Day,” “Stay,” “Pain,” and a big personal favorite, “Not My Slave” (download). A tune either celebrating or lamenting a lover’s independence (nice touch on the ambiguity, there), “Not My Slave” takes the classic Boingo ingredients like a skipping beat, catchy synth riffs, and sinister overtones and while not muting them, brings them closer to the mainstream. The remixed single version (download), a superior mix, beefs up the drums even more and adds a slashing guitar riff across the chorus. Sadly, radio shrugged and threw it on the intern promo giveaway pile.

MCA’s faith in the single showed by their commissioning an extended dance mix (download), but here the remixing fails, as it strips the song down to almost nothing but the originally thin beat, keys and vocals. Not the most danceable dance remix and its non-chart showing wasn’t a big surprise.

Hey, how about Oingo Boingo performing the BOI-NGO era singles on the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, with an intro from Jerry himself, no less (”Oyyynnngoooo Boyyyynnngooooo, LAAYYYY DEEEE”)? (more…)

Popularity: 11% [?]

Shalamar began life as a studio project by Soul Train booker Dick Griffrey, but after the success of their first single, “Uptown Festival,” Griffrey had to put some faces with the voices quick. Looking to the Soul Train dancers, he recruited pop/lock empresario Jeffrey Daniels and the runway-ready Jody Watley. They were soon joined by singer Howard Hewett, and Shalamar began a decent run on the American R&B charts. The story was different overseas, where the trio crossed over with regularity on the U.K. pop charts. They’d score a U.S. pop hit here and there, but with the exception of the #8 peaking “The Second Time Around” in 1980, major crossover success eluded them.

1983’s The Look was concocted to solve this problem, with a slick sound that fused the funky r&b Shalamar typically traded in with the New Wave zeitgeist. The result was the band’s first significant crossover hit in years as “Dead Giveaway” (download) (here in its single version) became a bit of a hit, thanks in no small part to its blistering rock guitar solo and New Wave-y synth line on the chorus. The single’s video was also an MTV favorite, Shalamar being one of the first African-American acts to make that channel’s formerly tightly segregated playlist. Keep your eye on Watley (like you can’t anyway) - she spends the video posing and vamping, occasionally deigning to pretend to play the synth. She looks so entirely over the proceedings, it’s a hoot to watch:

“Dead Giveaway” struggled a bit up the charts, stopping just shy of the Top 20. The band was unable to capitalize on this for a follow-up until a few years later, when the even more New Wave “Dancin’ In The Sheets” hit the Top Ten. By that time, however, Watley and Daniels were a memory, replaced by two ringers while Hewett became the focus. Jody Watley went on to bigger mainstream success than Shalamar ever enjoyed and Shalamar called it day in the early ’90s.

The Look is currently out of print and fetches some decent dollars on Amazon, but there are tons of Shalamar compilations out there to fit the bill if you’re not a hardcore fan.

“Dead Giveaway” peaked at #22 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart and at #18 on the Club Play Chart in 1983.

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Popularity: 11% [?]

I know what you’re thinking … how can a Duran Duran song possibly be considered Lost in the ’80s? How about when the band itself basically dislikes the single so much they haven’t played it live in more than 20 years and didn’t even put it on any of their compilations? Don’t believe me? Take it away, John Taylor:

The only song from Rio you don’t play is My Own Way. Why not?

JT: Hmm. Not a favourite. We were doing it in a medley with Some Like it Hot for a while. Not a favourite.

Released between their self-titled debut and their big breakthrough, Rio, “My Own Way (Single Version)” (download) was meant to keep the momentum going on the charts while the band prepared their follow-up. With its hyper beat and sweeping disco strings, the single was slight, but pleasant, and served as the link between the group’s New Romantic beginnings and new, Roxy Music-meets-teen pop image.

The internal dissatisfaction with “My Own Way” must have been nearly instantaneous, since the band featured a rerecorded version (download) on Rio when it was released less than a year later. Slowed down to a more danceable funk beat with some changes in the arrangement and lyrics, the new version reflected the cosmopolitan, sophisticated gloss of the re-invented Duran. Still wasn’t enough to sway the band, though, since “My Own Way” didn’t make the cut on either the Decade compilation or Greatest (but “Serious” did?!). To add insult to injury, even the fun video, an important artifact in the evolution of the group, has been left off every DVD and video compilation since the original Duran Duran video LP in 1983.

Too bad, because the song was always a big favorite of mine (the Rio version, at least). But to this day, I still wonder — just where the hell is “45, between 6th and Broadway?”

“My Own Way” did not chart.

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Popularity: 11% [?]

The Cars were on an extended hiatus in 1986 and its members were off doing their own thing. Ric Ocasek and Elliot Easton had both released solo discs since the group’s last studio album, Heartbeat City, in 1984. Since Lakewood, Ohio’s Benjamin Orr handled the vocals on that album’s biggest hit, “Drive,” it seemed only natural that he would do the solo thing as well.

Due to the astonishing similarity of his and Ocasek’s voices, people tend to forget/not know that Orr sang on many of the Cars’ hits, including “Let’s Go” and “Just What I Needed,” so an Orr solo album seemed like a sure bet. Orr scored right out of the gate with the ballad “Stay the Night,” a very “Drive”-ish adult-contemporary evergreen (you can probably hear it today on your local soft-rock radio station). “Stay the Night” was a fair-sized hit, and things looked good for sales on the accompanying album, The Lace.

“Too Hot to Stop” was chosen for the album’s second single — a sensible selection, thanks to its more upbeat sound. In fact, the song (download) was probably the most Cars-like pop single to come from their many solo projects (with the possible exception of Ocasek’s “True to You”), with the signature harmonies, glossy production, and participation from keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson. And the video was from the ’80s school of teased hair and tons o’ hot chicks:

It seemed like a slam dunk, but “Too Hot” failed to make a showing on the charts (except for some middling action on the AOR chart). That doesn’t keep it from being a catchy lost Cars curio, though. Orr spent the next few years fiddling with an ultimately aborted follow-up to The Lace that never saw the light of day. Sadly, we lost Orr to pancreatic cancer in 2000, along with the last hopes for a full-fledged Cars reunion.

“Too Hot to Stop” peaked at #25 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart in 1987.

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Popularity: 10% [?]

Ah, the age-old struggle of Art vs. Commerce. Many a critically acclaimed band has succumbed to the pressure for that all-elusive hit, sacrificing credibility for a chance at some cold, hard moolah. But I am here today not to judge the Comsat Angels for seeking to add some commercial sheen to their sound, but to praise them.

After three heavily atmospheric and Joy Division-esque albums, Sheffield U.K.-based Comsat Angels (sometimes billed as “The C.S. Angels” in the States, due to a similarly named satellite company) signed to Jive Records in 1983, and the push was on to score a hit. Teamed with OMD and A Flock of Seagulls producer Mike Howlett, the band decided to re-record one of its first singles, “Independence Day,” for the new album, Land. Covered in contemporary synthpop sheen, the new version of “Independence Day” (download) is superior to the earlier, rougher version, and even charted in the lower 70s of the U.K. pop chart while scoring the band its first American record deal.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to break the band entirely. After another album for Jive and a song (”I’m Falling”) featured in Val Kilmer movie classic Real Genius, Comsat Angels fan Robert Palmer used his pull to get the band signed to Island Records, but nothing there seemed to take either. The Angels continued to record into the Nineties before splitting up. As bands like Interpol and the Editors adopted a similar sound, the Comsat Angels saw their catalog re-released with bonus tracks in the early ’00s, but some have already slipped back out of print.

“Independence Day” did not chart.

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Popularity: 11% [?]

German new wave combo Nena secured their place in rock history with the one-hit wonderdom of “99 Luftballons” in 1984, but I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for the equally catchy follow-up, “Just a Dream” (download) (an English-language remake of a German hit titled “Nur Geträumt”). With its Blondie ambitions and playground sing-along chorus, “Dream” was taken from the 99 Luftballons LP, a U.S. compilation of Nena’s first two German albums with some English translation added on one side. “Dream” was accompanied by one of those wacky, made-on-the-cheap videos that were de regur at the time — look at us and the shenanigans we get into while on tour! And I wasn’t the only one that found lead singer Gabriele “Nena” Kerner kinda hot, hairy European armpits and all:

Despite the band’s best efforts, “Just a Dream” failed to crack the Hot 100, which was incredibly disappointing coming off a huge #2 single like “99 Luftballons.” Perhaps the lack of any kind of melody in the verses hurt. The video did grab some light MTV rotation and alternative radio play, but not enough to make too much of an impact. The album, however, remains in print, which is sort of surprising when you consider the number of compilations on which “99 Luftballons” has been featured.

“Just a Dream” peaked at #102 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Chart in 1984.

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Popularity: 12% [?]