Music

Pop music was a huge part of 8^th grade!  Back then there were two primary stations that kids our age listened to:  B96 and Z95.  Later in 8^th grade I started listening to Rapdown with Ramonski Love on 107.5 WGCI, but for most of the year it was Z95 and B96.  Music was all over the map in the ‘88-‘89 school year.  All the big acts of the 80’s were popular:  Michael Jackson, Madonna, George Michael, and Prince to name a few.  But they aren’t the artists that stand out for me.  Chicago radio had an interesting mix of pop music in the late 80’s that reflected the diversity and uniqueness of the city

Chicago is an urban metropolis, but for such a large city, it’s very provincial in its outlook and mentality.  I guess it makes sense if you think about it.  Chicago is a thousand miles from New York, three thousand miles from LA and we’re nowhere near any kind of international borders.  Sorry, Canada doesn’t count as it’s too similar.  The end result is that we’re not overly influenced by any one type of music or cultural trends.  It’s a mix of divergent influences and that was reflected in what I was listening to in 8^th grade.

When the school year started, I remember the track “Big Fun”, by Inner City.  This was like September/October ’88.  Inner City was the brainchild of Kevin Saunderson, one of the originators of Detroit Techno, and a Chicago vocalist, Paris Grey.  The sound was pure house and inaugurated the era where house music began to get mainstream traction.  What was so cool about Inner City and “Big Fun” was that it was a smash hit internationally as well.  Normally, Europe is the center of the dance music universe.   To have a Midwest collaboration blow up at that level was very cool in retrospect.  “Big Fun” holds up and has been voted one of the most influential dance tracks of the past 30 years.  A couple of years ago I played the track for my wife and my brother-in-law, both of whom were raised in Detroit.  They had never heard the song nor had ever heard of Inner City.  I was in shock.  It took me awhile to get over that.

What was great about the music is that we’d go from a dance heavy track like “Big Fun” to something completely different………like Fine Young Cannibal’s, “She Drives Me Crazy”.  I remember watching the video for this song over at Danny and Meredith’s house in winter of ’88-’89 and I was blown away by the crunching guitars offset by the falsetto vocals.  The combination was magic.  Fine Young Cannibals were from the UK and music from that side of the Atlantic was a huge influence on me.  A lot of that stemmed from my years living in Ireland. My first memories of pop music coming from a show called Top of The Pops that would come on every Thursday at 7:00 pm:  Musical Youth, Eddie Grant, Culture Club, Eurythmics, and loads of other groups helped form my musical tastes (thank God for that as well). 

“She Drives Me Crazy” travelled well and was a huge hit in the US as well.  When I think of the other UK acts that were big during 8^th grade you had Samantha Fox, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, and of course George Michael.  Def Leppard were also from the UK but their sound was more arena rock.  Funny enough, rock acts like Def Leppard and Guns N Roses were not hugely popular in our class.  At least that’s my recollection.

Hip-Hop and dance music were far more prevalent.  Paula Abdul and her first single, “Straight Up” was a big, big hit.  Tone Loc had two tracks that were super popular, “Wild Thang” and “Funky Cold Medina”.  As 8^th grade progressed, hip-hop’s influence seemed to grow and grow.  De La Soul’s “Me, Myself, and I” was one of my favorite tracks of 8^th grade. 

It’s funny, but there was a song in January/February of 1989 that I remember vividly because of how much I hated it.  The song was, Sheriff’s, “When I’m with you”.  The girls loved this damn song and it I couldn’t stand it.  It was a rock ballad from 1982 that got rereleased in early 1989.  My overriding memory is the song being played in the gym as I’m playing basketball with Jessica sitting on the stage, her legs casually swinging up and down…..I hate to admit it but I have a soft spot for the song these days.  But not back then!!  You won’t find any rock ballads in my 8^th grade mix tape.

One element of pop music that grew out of American Latin culture was freestyle.  Wow.  Where do you start……Freestyle was big in Chicago.  Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Expose, and Stevie B to name but a few.  Okay, I liked some freestyle, but man when it was bad it was dreadful.   Tinny sounding electronics, overwrought emotional lyrics usually about love, longing or betrayal, and big hair.  Stevie B was unfortunately very popular in 8^th grade.  I couldn’t stand his thin, whiny voice and sugary, vapid lyrics.   When his songs would come on the radio, it would be a visceral, physical reaction as I would scramble to change the station.  Girls seemed to absolutely love this music and while there were some good songs within the genre, it’s the bad ones that stay with me.  Probably because for every decent Freestyle tune that existed there were a half-dozen that were unbearable.  Let’s just say it was a very particular genre of music that was a big part of the scene from like 1986 through 91.

There were also Chicago based DJs that took some of this music along with other party tracks to create mixes that were played on B96 every Friday and Saturday night.  Julian “Jumpin” Perez and “Bad Boy” Bill were two of the more prominent names I remember.  What I liked about the mixes was that it was a way to find more obscure dance tracks that didn’t necessarily get mainstream radio airplay.  But man, sometimes you had to sift through a lot of freestyle type junk to find those gems. 

Speaking of other music my classmates loved that I wasn’t the biggest fan of:  New Kids on The Block.  Danny was a fan of these jokers and so were many others.  I’m still happy to remind Danny of that fact today.  To his credit he doesn’t deny it.  One of the other groups that Danny flew the flag for was Milli Vanilli.  I’ll cut him some slack on Milli Vanilli.  Okay, their public image was a sham but the actual singers were talented and the production was excellent.  “Girl You Know It’s True” was a polished, good pop song and of course Danny owned the cassette single.    

1988-89 also was the peak for Bobby Brown.  “My Prerogative” was hugely popular and was so late 80’s.  Bobby Brown burned out pretty quick and became a hot mess in the 90’s, but he put together a string of hits in the late 80’s:  “Don’t Be Cruel”, “Every Little Step”, “Rock Witcha Baby” all came off the same album.  It was an impressive debut album with four top 10 hits.  Then the wheels came off in a major way in the 90’s.

The song that sticks with me the most from 8^th grade is Nenah Cherry’s “Buffalo Stance”.  When I heard the song and saw the video for the first time I was mesmerized.  The track to me sounds so urban New York and combined with her look you’d have thought that she was born and raised in Queens.  She raps ferociously, sings beautifully, the attitude is megawatt, and the production is tight.  She’s tough and no nonsense, but she as she sings in the song, “it’s sweetness that I’m thinking of.”  The defiance mixed with the longing in her voice as the song fades out allow it to hold up very, very well.  It’s crazy to think that Nenah Cherry is Swedish and spent a large amount of time in London as a teenager.  Great, great song.

Here is my personal top 10 from 1988-1989 school year (No Freestyle and no Rock Ballads):

1. Nenah Cherry,  “Buffalo Stance”
2. Fine Young Cannibals, “She Drives Me Crazy”
3. Inner City, “Big Fun”
4. Bobby Brown, “Every Little Step”
5. Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, “It Takes Two/Get On The Dancefloor”
6. De La Soul, “Me, Myself, and I”
7. Tone Loc, “Wild Thang”
8. Inner City, “Good Life”
9. Bobby Brown, “It’s My Prerogative”
10. Living Color, “Cult of Personality”