This week you get another extended post so we can finish up the letter F nice and clean. Without further ado, I give you the final batch of artists whose names begin with the sixth letter of the alphabet and who reached the ass end of the Billboard Hot 100 in the ’80s.

Fortune
“Stacy” — 1985, #80 (download)

Fortune is an AOR band formed in Los Angeles in 1977. They released their debut self-titled record in ‘78, had a track called “Airwaves” on the Last American Virgin soundtrack in ‘82, then finally got around to their second album (also self-titled) in ‘85. “Stacy” comes from the second album, which includes a whole mess of generic light-rock tunes.

David Foster
“The Best of Me” — 1986, #80 (download)
“Winter Games” — 1988, #85 (download)

There’s just no way I have it in me to discuss the shittiness of Foster’s duet with Olivia Newton-John, “The Best of Me,” or Foster in general, when Terje Fjelde lives and breathes the guy — read Into the Ear of Madness while listening to these tracks.

4 by Four
“Want You for My Girlfriend” — 1987, #79 (download)

My first thought was 4 by Four simply wanted to be the next New Edition: good-looking kids with slick pop-filled R&B hooks. But I listen to this song and hear a lot of Prince in it as well. Zero in on the 2:20 mark and I swear you’ll hear the first bar of Prince’s “Controversy.”

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Will: I’ve always felt like this song was the point where Clapton finally began to escape from the “we need a pop song as the first single” era and entered the “do whatever you want, you’re too old for MTV anyway” era. It’s much more like the classic Clapton sound of the ’70s, and I always enjoy hearing it.

Py Korry: Although I heard Clapton’s music on the radio when I was but a lad, I really didn’t start to actively listen to him until the mid-’80s, when I had some cash to buy albums. Unfortunately, I started with an album that wasn’t all that great — Money and Cigarettes — and wondered what all the hubbub was about.

Clapton’s output in the ’80s was, to me, really unremarkable. And I’m basing that on what was played on the radio and not some buried gem on this or that album. “Pretending” is a good example of Slowhand going through the motions, and if it wasn’t for the horn punches in the song it wouldn’t have had enough ear candy to be a single. But let me bracket all that for a moment and say this: I’d listen to “Pretending” over and over for days if it meant I would never have to listen to “Change the World” or “My Father’s Eyes” again.

Zack: Tell me truthfully: if you didn’t know this was Clapton, wouldn’t you associate the first 20 seconds of “Pretending” with the start of an “action sequence” in a late-night Cinemax movie? (more…)