On July 12, 1979, disco's decadelong reign over American music culture went up in smoke—literally.
Crowds had swarmed the White Sox stadium in Chicago that summer evening but not just for the old ball game. They were congregating to witness something else entirely: the organized demise of disco.
The premise was simple: bring a disco record to the stadium and get in to see the game for only 98 cents. The records were collected and placed in a large crate. After the end of the first game, the record-filled box was hauled to the middle of the field and blown up in front of roughly 48,000 spectators.
Vinyl shrapnel flew, and as the smoke began to clear, mayhem broke loose. Attendees rushed the field by the thousands, overwhelming security forces and forcing the White Sox to forfeit the following game. The event, known as Disco Demolition Night, marked the seeming end of the '70s musical trend.
Thus, the 1980s arrived in America clothed in leg warmers and blaring the sound of the new decade: synth-based dance tracks and the resurgence of rock 'n' roll, revitalized and hardened by the emergence of punk and metal. Television sets across the country broadcast MTV, heralding the cultural supremacy of the music video. New musical giants rose to the top of the charts: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Cyndi Lauper, Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, Whitney Houston, and the Police.
But not all the big hits of the '80s came from popular U.S. artists with established fan bases. Many of the defining songs of the decade were one-hit wonders. While some captured the hottest musical trends of the time, laying down synth earworms and euphoric dance tracks, others stood out as distinctly not of their time, featuring unusual instrumentation or nostalgic sounds of past decades. To honor the legacy of these anomalous songs, I created a playlist of one-hit wonders—bands that had only one song top the U.S. charts—of the 1980s.
Here are some songs that may take you back in time...
Just some retired folk, filling our time, keeping our minds active with blogging. We are not selling anything. But a little recognition is nice. So, Join Us, and follow some of our Hobby Bloggers...
Featured at Retrotainment on Facebook