While building out artist and album pages, I’ve realized there are quite a few instances where I’m just an album or a song short of a complete set.
It might be a Deep Dive artist who put out an album after I did the Deep Dive. Or an album I’ve covered so extensively over the years that I’m just a song or two short of representing the whole tracklist.
Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to fill in some of those blanks.
Berlin’s ‘Take My Breath Away’ topped the Billboard Hot 100 the week of September 13, 1986, reaching #1 for the first and only time in the new wave band’s career. It spent one week atop the chart.
‘Take My Breath Away’ was written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock for the Top Gun soundtrack. It was the second single released from that juggernaut of a collection, following Kenny Loggins’ ‘Danger Zone‘ (also written by Moroder and Whitlock). Director Tony Scott and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson liked the song so much they added additional love scenes to the film in order to feature it.
Throwing back to the week of September 12, 1976, we find one hit wonder Wild Cherry atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Play That Funky Music.’ The song spent three weeks at #1, giving the funk rock band their only Top 40 hit.
Wild Cherry, founded by 20-year-old Rob Parissi, started as a rock band in the early 70s but didn’t find much success. Parissi split up the band in 1974 and reformed it with a new lineup a year later.
Wrapping up this week’s tour of some of the site’s new features, today I’ll highlight an assortment of new landing pages I’ve created.
Frequent readers might have already noticed teases to the Throwback Weekends page, where I’m gathering all of my weekend posts that highlight top-charting songs from decades past. Craving some 60s pop? 70s rock? From that page, you can choose a decade and dive into the songs that fit your mood.
Like the Decades series, my posts on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame classes have allowed me to look back through time to celebrate artists I love and discover ones I don’t know very well.
The Rock Hall is certainly a flawed institution weighed down by biases and inconsistencies, but if nothing else, it’s an excuse to recognize the contributions of a wide range of talented musicians.
Meet Me In Montauk 