Didn’t Rebecca De Mornay play a hooker in the “Sara” video? Or am I confusing her Sara character with her character in “Risky Business”? I could’ve sworn that when I saw the video on VH1 Classic four years ago for the first time since the late ’80s, there were implications that Sara was a prostitute. If so, then Mary Beth Whitehead was clearly focusing on the music, not the images. And if I’m wrong, then I guess I just outed myself as a sexist pig.

“… the rest of Sade (the band) records with guest vocalists (such as Maxwell & Amel Larreux) under the name Sweetback.” Speaking of Maxwell, when’s his next album coming out? It’s been delayed for two years now. The last rumor I heard was that it was going to be a double album or a trilogy or something. Maxwell, have you been hanging out with Axl?! I don’t care if your name almost rhymes with his — STAY AWAY!

I like a lot of songs from this Top 10; I was in fourth grade in March of ‘86 and having a great year. Good point about “Secret Lovers” in that T-Mobile ad, Matthew; I never even noticed that the ad didn’t use Atlantic Starr’s version. I helped my team win a trivia contest at a bar back in early ‘02 thanks to my knowledge of “Always” being a big hit in ‘87. Did I help America heal a little bit after 9/11 with that trivia(l) victory? Yeah … I’d like to think so.

I got no beef with Mr. Mister and their veiled Christian messages. Who would you rather be trapped in an elevator with — Richard Page or Scott Stapp? I rest my case.

Thanks for clearing up that “On Dangerous Ground” piece of trivia. I always wondered about that myself in fourth grade. I love all the Halley’s Comet excitement and paranoia that took place in the mid-’80s. Remember that movie “Night of the Comet,” where a passing comet killed everyone who went outside to look at it on the night it came closest to Earth? A decent B movie, from what I remember. (My favorite Mike and the Mechanics song, by the way, is “Taken In.” Very soothing, despite the presence of Richard Belzer in the video.)

I love the information about the Billy Ocean video being banned in the UK. Those crazy Brits. I’m going to have to listen to “When the Going Gets Tough” again thanks to your enthusiastic write-up.

Thefax, you’re right about ‘86 being the year MTV reran “The Monkees.” Those reruns were so popular that the group got back together, of course, within months. Or am I remembering that incorrectly? Anyway, that was my first exposure to the show and possibly the group. I loved me some “Daydream Believer” that year. I wish some cable channel would air the episodes again.

The Dream Academy did get one or two songs, including an instrumental cover of the Smiths’ “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want,” featured in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” the movie that inexplicably never had an official soundtrack produced. Then again, maybe I was just used to EVERY movie having a soundtrack by the early ’90s. Did “Sixteen Candles” have a soundtrack? I remember reading that John Hughes thought the songs in “Ferris” were too diverse to be placed side by side on an album. Not in the iPod age they’re not. But you missed the 20th anniversary, Hughes, so forget it!

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Matthew! And I guess I should’ve said that you SET the bar for the other guest writers, not RAISED it. To say you raised it would be an insult to Jason, and we don’t want to anger our kind host, now do we?

I saw an interview with Kantner where he expressed his clear disdain for “We Built This City.” It featured his ever-present cigarette smoke and his middle finger. He paused for a second and said, “We built this city on rock and roll? Oh, you did not.” [bird] And before I leave “Sara,” someone might remember the surrogate mother story from 1986, where Mary Beth Whitehead gave birth to a daughter who was the biological child of William Stern, then fled the country when she changed her mind about giving her up. The Sterns named the baby Melissa, but Mary Beth named her Sara, which she said was because of this song. I remember seeing her blubbering about it on one of those Dateline-type shows.

“Kyrie” didn’t bother me as much as it did you. I guess I don’t mind the subject matter as long as the writer is trying to say something. In this link, Richard says the song is about meditating “that what I’m doing is insignificant compared to the universe.” I guess it’s pretentious in one way, but interesting and kind of unique in another. There are a myriad of musicians whose lives and legacies would have been improved if they’d at least tried to approach life that way, instead of the high times philosophy. Axl W. Rose, I’m looking at you.

Great work, Matthew!! This was a really fun read. Congratulations!

8. Thanks for clearing up the “Dangerous Ground” subtitle on “Silent Running”–I remember its MTV ID said it was on a movie soundtrack, but I never remembered the movie coming out. I’d wondered if this was a bit of meta-video chicanery–a song and video for a fake movie as some sort of cyberprog joke.

7. Dream Academy had at least one more Top 40 hit: “The Love Parade” rocked to #37 (I think.) The Duran Duran comparison was apt, but I think the band also benefited from a weird faux-60s revival that year (I think ‘86 was the year MTV started devoting days on end to reruning the Monkees TV show, for instance.)

5. Sade is the perfect NPR band: light jazz but with just a tincture of edge; exotic but not threatening. They were Norah Jones before Norah Jones was born.

4. I’d never heard the Villiage People connection with “Living In America”, but yes, it’s certainly there. I’d imagine that James Brown’s Dan Hartman years aren’t ones that fans–or the Godfather himself–fondly remember(ed)–was “Gravity” on Star Time?

3. Only good thing about “Sara”: Rebecca De Mourney in the video.

2. Is “How Will I Know” one of Boy Meets Girl’s songs that Whitney recorded? Now there’s a guilty-pleasure band…

1. I used to listen to a Christian Rock station while driving from DC to Richmond–about halfway on the trip, the NPR band turned into a Xian rock station, but it turned into another NPR station once I got close to the city! Anyway, it’s astonishing how many bands in contemporary Christian rock sound like Mr. Mister–big, spiritual choruses built on top of bass-and-synth wankery. They’ve obviously a major influence in the genre, although I seem to recall that they were reluctant to be pegged as a Christian band.