It’s time to get back to my favorite decade. For the month of March, I’ll be looking back at some of my favorite jams from the 80s. These songs often came to me via MTV or the radio. NYC-area stations WDRE, WPLJ, WNEW, K-ROCK and Z100 introduced me to everything from irresistible pop confections to under-the-radar post-punk anthems. I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for the 80s. It was the decade when I discovered music can be a truly powerful thing. #31DaysOf80sSongs
During my childhood, Duran Duran was one of my beloved bands. MTV helped bring these infectious songs to life with videos that felt like mini movies. And I remember on a family trip, my parents were walking inside the magnificent Leaning Tower of Pisa. But not me. I was in a tour bus with my brother listening to Duran Duran’s Rio on my walkman. The songs gripped me. Simon Le Bon was one of the great lead vocalists of that era. And every band member had legit skills – from Nick Rhodes’ dreamy synth scapes to John Taylor’s funk-driven bass lines. These guys weren’t just a bunch of pretty boys. Everyone knows “Hungry Like The Wolf” and “Rio”, but the entire Rio album had several classics, including “The Chauffeur”, “Save a Prayer” and a lesser celebrated track called “New Religion”.
The second you play the song, you’ve entered another dimension. Rhodes kicks things off with a sense of mystique and mystery. Something interesting is about to happen on my walkman. Then Andy Taylor and John Taylor lead us through a spiraling labyrinth. It’s like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, except my ass is still firmly planted on the tour bus coach seat. I can see the tower out the window, but in my mind a music video is playing: scenes of the band scrambling and climbing over each other to get to the top of the tower where liberation is waiting. I found it, too, inside that stuffy tour bus.
“I've something to see, I can't help myself. It's a new religion.”