Throwing back to the week of November 1, 1955, we have a quintet of repeat offenders atop the Billboard chart. At #6, jumping up from #12 the previous week and on its way to a peak at #2, is Gale Storm’s recording of ‘I Hear You Knocking.’
Storm was an actress and singer who had success performing on film, television, and radio in addition to her music career. She is one of 30 artists with three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (hers are for television, radio, and music).
For the past couple of years I’ve dedicated a week or two in October to write about my new appreciation for horror films. After a lifetime of mostly avoiding scary movies, taking the plunge has been one of my most rewarding experiences as a cinephile.
This year my movie-watching project has focused on the work of Vincente Minnelli (covered here) and Judy Garland (still to come), so I haven’t had the time to do another horror deep dive. I’m sure some of my regular readers are just fine with that!
But on this Halloween day, I did want to shout out what has been a solid year for horror on the big screen. In fact, 25% of the new 2025 releases I’ve seen so far have been horror movies.
Concluding my look at the albums of 1986…
I didn’t grasp exactly how popular Janet Jackson was until many years later. At the time of her commercial dominance (from 1986 through the end of the last century), she rewrote the record books and achieved feats topped only by her brother Michael. Imagine being that successful and still being #2 in your own family.
It’s even crazier to think that success was halted largely due to the controversy surrounding Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. What a different time that was.
Continuing my look at the albums of 1986…
The top-selling album released in 1986 was Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, and it wasn’t particularly close. The hard rock band’s third album sold more than 15 million copies in the U.S., five million more than the runner-up, Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill. That was enough to make this album the 20th top-seller in U.S. history.
Slippery When Wet earned that success on the backs of the three most enduring songs Bon Jovi ever recorded: ‘You Give Love a Bad Name,’ ‘Livin’ On a Prayer,’ and ‘Wanted Dead or Alive.’ I’d never even heard any of the other seven tracks.
Continuing my look at the albums of 1986…
My biggest blindspot for any musical year is invariably the R&B releases. It’s just not a genre I enjoy enough to dive in very deep.
The biggest R&B/soul release of 1986 was Anita Baker’s Rapture. This was the singer-songwriter’s sophomore effort, following a modestly received debut a few years earlier. It rode the success of top ten single ‘Sweet Love’ to 5X Platinum status, easily becoming the biggest success of her career.
Meet Me In Montauk 