Howdy, everybody!  Happy Halloween!  Between Tina Turner’s hair and Eddie Money’s face, it’s quite a scary week here at CHART ATTACK!  Take a look back at what singles were topping the Billboard Hot 100 on November 1, 1986!

10.  All Cried Out — Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force Amazon iTunes
9.  Take Me Home Tonight — Eddie Money Amazon iTunes
8.  Sweet Love — Anita Baker Amazon iTunes
7.  When I Think of You — Janet Jackson Amazon iTunes
6.  True Blue — Madonna Amazon iTunes
5.  Human — Human League Amazon iTunes
4.  Amanda — Boston Amazon iTunes
3.  I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On — Robert Palmer Amazon iTunes
2.  Typical Male — Tina Turner Amazon iTunes
1.  True Colors — Cyndi Lauper Amazon iTunes

10. All Cried Out — Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force

I have the weirdest memory of this song. I remember watching America’s Funniest Home Videos very early on in its run (I was 12, okay?), and they had a video of a guy who had done his makeup half as a bride, half as a groom.  And his shtick was that he sang “All Cried Out” in profile to the camera, half as the woman and half as the man.  That’s all I remember about this song; it wasn’t until I listened to it just now that I realized it was even a duet. Who’s the guy, anyway?  I’m guessing he was in Full Force.  According to Wikipedia, Full Force had two vocalists — Paul Anthony or Bowlegged Lou — so I guess it was one of those two.  Please let it be Bowlegged Lou.  I like the idea of someone named Lisa Lisa having a passionate lover’s quarrel with Bowlegged Lou.  “You listen here, Lisa Lisa!”  “Don’t talk to me like that, Bowlegged Lou!”  And then, of course, later, they reconcile, and before you know it, the priest is going, “Do you, Lisa Lisa, take Bowlegged Lou…”

Why did Lisa Lisa need Full Force, anyway?  Wasn’t having Cult Jam enough?  Both sound like formidable teams, but a Full Force Cult Jam sounds like overkill.

Holy cow, here’s a “live” performance from 1986, and guess what? Paul Anthony and Bowlegged Lou sing to Lisa Lisa! It’s a Full Force threesome!  Fast forward to 1:40 for the good stuff, and by “good stuff,” I mean “some seriously awful fashion decisions.”

I personally find this song to be just another lame ballad, but apparently, I’m in the minority: listen to this crowd do all the singing at this performance from earlier this year. They’re loving this one, even without good ol’ Bowlegged Lou. By the way, I’m not saying that people can’t get older and maybe put on a few pounds, now she’s more like Lisa Lisa Lisa.

9. Take Me Home Tonight — Eddie Money

Is it just me, or does Eddie Money kind of look like Benny Mardones?

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Last week I talked about “the Shrink,” the guy at the record show who thinks he knows everything about every artist that ever recorded. This week we move on to another one of my favorite characters: Mr. Random.

Mr. Random is the dude who comes into the twice-a-year record show with thousands of records in milk crates all around the floor and gets pissed off when the records aren’t in alphabetical order. I don’t expect everyone to be a hardcore collector like me, but it still makes me laugh when I see people get angry at randomness. Mr. Random was probably in his mid-40s or so and came in with his wife and two children. He immediately asked the seller, “Are these in any sort of order?” The seller told him that they were by genre only and that he was in the rock and pop section, with country, jazz, easy listening, etc., over on the far wall. After the seller walked away, Mr. Random started loudly complaining to his family: “How does he think anyone will buy any records if they aren’t in order?” Then he started flipping through the crates, you know, like ten records at a time, kind of looking in their general direction and feigning a bit of interest before walking away seemingly disgusted.

I really just wanted to answer his rhetorical question to his wife. “Who’s going to buy them? Well, pretty much everyone who comes here, sir, since you are clearly the only one that just stumbled across this record show. The rest of us are here because of the show, and I’m sure all of us don’t mind not having anything in order, and in fact most of us enjoy the fact that they are random because that’s part of the fun of the search.”

And yes, I completely realize that I sound like a record-show snob at this point, but I’m really not. Ninety-nine percent of the people that were at the record show were totally cool and, really, I couldn’t have cared less what they were doing or buying, but it’s the 1 percent that make for a good story.

NEW MUSIC FOR THE COLLECTION:
David Hasselhoff, Lonely Is the Night
Atlantic Starr, Brilliance
Jethro Tull, Under Wraps
Jethro Tull, Rock Island

More “C” artists to come as we try to keep up with the quality of last week’s songs with 20 more from the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the ’80s.

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