193. Blue Öyster Cult, “Burnin’ for You” Naturally the process of trekking through a two hundred and fifty songs was going to lead to a few discoveries that would have been useful for me earlier. Almost exactly two months after retiring the “Top 40 Smash Taps” feature on this site, acknowledging that my collection of posts was probably not comprehensive (but was also “good enough, to be sure”), here I find another one that meets the qualifications for inclusion. “Burnin’ for You,” the lead single from the Blue Öyster Cult’s Fire of Unknown Origin LP, became their second to cross … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 193 – 191

196. The Psychedelic Furs, “All That Money Wants” Richard Butler intended “All That Money Wants” to be his closing statement on the Psychedelic Furs. The song was written as a direct response to his dismay over the heavy commercial push given to the band’s 1987 album, Midnight to Midnight, which Columbia Records touted as “The Psychedelic Furs’ Masterstroke” in advertisements. Throughout the supporting tour, Butler found that he was growing increasingly detached from the lyrics he was singing onstage. In explaining “All That Money Wants,” Butler said, “It was about the success of Midnight to Midnight and how people began to look … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 196 – 194

199. Joan Jett, “Bad Reputation” While it’s hardly the most pertinent detail to share about the life and career of Joan Jett, the fact that I’m typing this out while seated in a coffee shop in Wisconsin’s capital city makes me feel obligated to begin with the following: Jett is a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan. She reported falling in love with the team as a kid, based almost entirely on the image on a Sports Illustrated cover. Her affection for the Baltimore Orioles was even more pronounced, leading her to add a liner note dedication to the team when she reissued … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 199 – 197

202. The Who, “You Better You Bet” A necessary piece of music trivia in the arsenal of every fan so inclined to mentally gather such minutiae is the status of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” as the very first music video played on MTV. You’ll never win a bar bet with that factoid, but knowing the first song to be played twice on the network could earn a free drink. Following the Buggles’ inaugurating clip, Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run,” and Rod Stewart’s “She Won’t Dance with Me,” MTV aired the music video for “You Better You Bet,” the first … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 202 – 200

205. Los Lobos, “Will the Wolf Survive” While the track “Will the Wolf Survive” provided Los Lobos with the title, slightly modified, for their major label debut, it was the last song written for the album. According to the band members, the impetus for the song came in part from Dave Alvin, undoubtedly hanging around because of his personal and professional connections with the album’s co-producer, T Bone Burnett. Alvin surveyed the material Los Lobos had assembled for the 1984 release and suggested that what the band really needed was an anthem, something that truly and properly represented the their musical and cultural outlook. The worrisome … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 205 – 203

208. King Crimson, “Elephant Talk” Sure, there are many ways the King Crimson single “Elephant Talk” lives on, but perhaps its most unique legacy is lending its name to a groundbreaking web-based fan site. Well before most were adept at relating addresses with a well placed @, King Crimson fan Toby Howard started a newsletter meant to be distributed via email. Dubbed “Elephant Talk,” the first issue was distributed in the summer of 1991. That eventually led to a website of the same name, which further evolved into a wiki-style platform years later, after some twelve hundred plus issues over fifteen years, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 208 – 206

211. The Boomtown Rats, “I Don’t Like Mondays” I suspect every last one of my college radio cohorts back in the day knew the backstory of the most notable single the Boomtown Rats ever released. At the very least, they had the basics. The band’s lead singer and chief songwriter, Bob Geldof, composed it after encountering a news story about Brenda Spencer, a sixteen-year-old in San Diego who opened fire on a neighboring schoolyard from a window in her family home. When a reporter got her on the telephone, she explained her motivation by blandly noting, “I don’t like Mondays.” (Spencer later … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 211 – 209

214. Modern English, “I Melt with You” After the Snow, the second album from Modern English, represented a very deliberate stab at creating big pop hits. The band’s debut full-length, Mesh & Lace, released one year earlier, was very much in the gloomy, agitated post-punk mode perfected by Joy Division. When it came time to follow it up, they wanted to do something markedly different. At the time, lead singer Robbie Grey explained, “We could have easily carried on with the Mesh & Lace formula. We could have played the barren landscape, the heavy drumming, distorted guitars, and wailing vocals game … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 214 – 212

217. New Order, “Love Vigilantes” “Love Vigilantes” was widely considered a significant departure for New Order and something of a statement of purpose, or at least against reflexive pigeonholing, when it notably led off the band’s 1985 album, Low-Life. Though there are familiar sonic signatures throughout the track, it is distinctively lean and even a touch twangy. More strikingly, the lyrics actually tell a story, which was rarely the case with the jagged merging of words and music on earlier New Order songs. According to Bernard Sumner, the song’s lineage begins with a U.K. tour undertaken with the Buzzcocks in the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 217 – 215

220. fIREHOSE, “Brave Captain” “Brave Captain” was the ideal opening salvo from fIREHOSE. Recorded in October, 1986 at Radio Tokyo studios, in Venice, California, Mike Watt and George Hurley put the song to tape less than a year after the tragic death of D. Boon brought an end to their prior band, the Minutemen. Inspired punk rockers still reveling in acclaim showered on the recent double album masterpiece Double Nickels on the Dime (though the now rarely invoked 3-Way Tie for Last was the band’s true final statement) at the time of the van accident that claimed the life of their lead singer, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 220 – 218