Returning to their earlier, experimental synthpop roots must have been too much for the casual Eurythmics fan, since 1987’s Savage remains their lowest-charting album (not counting the soundtrack for 1984)….
John C. Hughes
402 Articles
John C. Hughes began his Lost in the ’80s blog in 2005 and is now proud to be a member of the Popdose family, where he’s introduced LIT80s’s companions, the obviously named Lost in the ’70s and Lost in the ’90s, alongside the slightly more originally named Why You Should Like…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
A person unfamiliar with Kitchens of Distinction might hear them today and mistake the swirling, moody melodies for Interpol, The Editors or a less synth-y She Wants Revenge. All the…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
In 1985, a bunch of my best fag hags and I went to see Adam Ant in concert at the Cleveland Music Hall. It was far from a sold-out show,…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Like the vast majority of Americans in 1983, I had no idea Spandau Ballet existed before True, much less were funky New Romantics embracing disco and fashion, having paved the…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Is getting married young a mistake? Do we really know what we want when we’re only 17? Those are questions posed in Fun Boy Three’s single, “Tunnel Of Love”. After…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
After years of singer/songwriter musings, several albums and hit singles for Elektra Records, Carly Simon changed paths in the early ’80s, signing to Warner Brothers Records. Her first album for…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
The ’80s started off pretty rocky for Rockford, Illinois power-pop combo Cheap Trick. After watching their first chart entry of the decade, “Voices”, struggle to #32 on the charts, the…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Speaking of Talking Heads… The band reconvened in 1986 to record a sort of soundtrack for David Byrne’s directorial debut, True Stories. I say “sort of”, since the album mostly…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
25 years ago, no one expected a little side project from the bassist and drummer of art-rock/New Wave combo Talking Heads to be much of a hit, much less become…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
A funny thing happened to Todd Rundgren in the ’80s – his commercial solo work get progressively more experimental and inaccessible, while Utopia, formerly his outlet for his more prog-rock,…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
And now, here’s Anthony Geary, TV’s Luke from General Hospital, with a message from our sponsor:
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Oh, Livvie. Talk about misguided choices. Nearly an unstoppable pop juggernaut as the ’80s dawned, thanks to hits from Xanadu and Physical, Olivia Newton-John stumbled a bit as the decade…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Here’s one that someone requested in the comments section waaaaaaaayyy back, but I held out, trying to scrape together some more info about it. No luck. This one’s a bit…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Dave Edmunds took a few years off between hits. Like, 12 of them. Rockabilly fueled guitar twanger Edmunds hit the Top 5 in 1971 with his cover of “I Hear…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Before they found multi-platinum success with The Raw & The Cooked and its smash singles “She Drives Me Crazy” and “Good Thing”, the Fine Young Cannibals took their post-English Beat…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
Á¢€¢ Their debut album featured a #1 smash, the video of which won eight MTV Video Awards.Á¢€¢ It eventually sold eight million copies worldwide, a million of that in the…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
This one’s funky, nasty, and more than a little creepy. Taking a cue from Rick James and his self-proclaimed mix of “Punk Funk”, jazz percussionist Bill Summers and his group,…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Hopefully everyone has the day off – if not, here’s some commiseration courtesy of actor Bill Paxton and his art-rock/New Wave collective known as Martini Ranch – “How Can The…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Live from the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport Men’s Restroom, it’s Senator Larry Craig’s Dance Machine! “Good evening, everyone. Let’s get this party started with a big favorite where I’m from…The…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
I’ve said it a few times before…don’t get me started gushing about The Human League’s Dare, quite possibly my favorite album of the ’80s. No matter how many times a…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
The tail end of the ’80s saw a small explosion of female-fronted jangle-pop bands from the UK like The Sundays, Transvision Vamp and The Darling Buds cut a psychedelic, sugary…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
If Led Zeppelin fans were taken aback at the increasing number of synthesizers on the final proper Zep album In Through The Out Door, a product of vocalist Robert Plant…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
If Disco was dead by 1981, no one bothered to tell Canada. When even the Village People had denied Disco and gone New Romantic by that time, Voggue, a studio…
John C. Hughes
3 Min Read
Hey, did you know Sunday, August 12th is Vinyl Record Day? Me neither, until I was invited by the lovely jb over at The Hits Just Keep On Comin’ to…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Montreal’s Men Without Hats have an unfair reputation as one hit wonders (“Men Without HITS! Har!”), but people tend to forget they had another fair-sized hit in 1987 with “Pop…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Before Hairspray, the musical…before Hairspray, the movie…Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine, aka John Waters’ original muse, was best known for eating dog poop. But we’re not here to talk about…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Sheena Easton, the adult comtemporary pop princess of the early ’80s, got a bit of a makeover in 1984 with her album, A Private Heaven, thanks to the Top 5…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
No, don’t you dare click to the next blog. Seriously, you’re going to like this one a lot more than you think you will. The quintessential one-hit wonder, Toni Basil…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Stacy Lattisaw was a mere 16 years old in 1983 (the Best Year for Music Ever!) and had already notched two Top 40 hits and a number one Dance Club…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Well, hello there. Nice to see you. What’s that? Lost B-sides Week was last week? I haven’t posted anything since? I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ahem….