AIN’T THAT AMERICA

I can remember many nights in 1980 talking on the phone for hours with Cindy, she under the covers to evade her mother’s fine ear for any conversations that involved me, and me sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, one knee pressed against an open container of wide-eyed potatoes.

And what did we do on the phone for hours? Mostly we listened to the radio. WPIX.

Nick Lowe, The Vapors, Split Enz, Sniff and the Tears, Flash and the Pan, The Records, The Only Ones, The Specials, The Kings, Devo.

Girding ourselves for a decade of going against the grain…

Oh Sherrie-- Steve Perry
It’s amazing how the memory trips into video mode when you enter this decade. I remember that Steve emoted like a peacock caught in a thresher. And that Sherrie apparently couldn’t afford a bra…

Modern Love-- David Bowie
A slick mainframe simulation of a genuine David Bowie song, programmed in a lab up in Armonk in late ’82, and released to an unsuspecting public in ’83.

Our Lips Are Sealed-- Go Go's
My big “secret” with my best girl friend Robyn back in ’81 was how this melted me like a chocolate chip in a cookie. That is, I got all soft and runny, but I held my basic form.

Private Eyes--Daryl Hall & John Oates
I know it’s not fair to characterize Oates as an accessory, but if the handbag fits…

Pink Houses-- John Cougar Mellencamp
I give the little bastard some credit. He evolved. Yeah, he's still in Springsteen-manque mode here, but that's a fair remove from I Need a Lover...

Eternal Flame-- The Bangles
The devil of commercial success visited this bunch, and led them down the shit-guilded path to treacle such as this. Bad devil, bad.

Cars-- Gary Numan
First gear, second gear, third gear, fourth gear. And no reverse.

Edge Of Seventeen-- Stevie Nicks
Stevie representing for the girls in the 'burbs, on the edge of a chutter-chutter-chutter-chutter guitar line. Cool.

Handle With Care--Traveling Wilburys
Roy Orbison? Check. Bob Dylan? Check. George Harrison? Check. Tom Petty? Um, OK, check. Jeff Lynne? Jeff Lynne?

High On You-- Survivor
So artless and faceless that it's an achievement of sorts.

This small sampling of the Big 80s finds it as melanin-free as pre-Thriller MTV, but I’ll assume I just happened to hit a white patch.

Grade: C.

Tomorrow is Potluck Wednesday—we’ll see what grabs my fancy.