Today marks the final post of 2008 for Bottom Feeders. So instead of starting the letter G and then going on break, let’s take a look back at the first 33 weeks of the series, with what I believe are the ten best, the ten worst, and the ten rarest songs in the series up to this point.

The Best
10. Jimmy Buffett, “It’s My Job” (download)
9. Bee Gees, “You Win Again” (download)
8. Crosby, Stills & Nash, “War Games” (download)
7. The Time, “The Oak Tree” (download)
6. The Cult, “Fire Woman” (download)
5. Dragon, “Rain” (download)
4. Devo, “Theme From Doctor Detroit” (download)
3. Jon Astley, “Jane’s Getting Serious” (download)
2. Joan Armatrading, “Drop the Pilot” (download)
1. The Cure, “Lullaby” (download)

I’ve listened to every song I own in my collection — every track to hit the Hot 100, thousands of tracks on the R&B and dance charts, and album after album, but listening to all of these songs pretty thoroughly while writing them up for Bottom Feeders has opened my ears to some tunes I didn’t realize were so good. Two of those are “You Win Again” by the Bee Gees, which I couldn’t stop listening to weeks after I posted it, and “War Games” by Crosby, Stills & Nash, which I listened to repeatedly only after reading your comments on it.

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So here’s my question of the week for you — what the hell is a “fancy dancer”?

I’ve been listening to a lot of ‘80s funk and R&B lately and I keep hearing that term pop up. There’s One Way’s “Pull Fancy Dancer/Pull,” Twennynine and Lenny White’s “Fancy Dancer,” and before those two there was the Commodores’ own song from 1976 called “Fancy Dancer.” I still don’t know what a fancy dancer is, though. I assume it’s someone who dances in a non-boring fashion — maybe a person who wears some attention-grabbing clothing or is simply superfly.

However, I do know that I’ve been talking about fancy dancers for the past three weeks now, and every time my unborn child starts kicking my wife, she calls him a fancy dancer. So it’s about time I figured out what the true definition is. Can anyone help? Better yet, were any of you a fancy dancer in the ’80s?

NEW MUSIC FOR THE COLLECTION:
Mai Tai, Mai Tai
Curtis Mayfield, Love Is the Place
House of Freaks, Tantilla

This week, an abbreviated edition centering on the letter “C,” as we continue wading through the muck at the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the ’80s.

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