34. Sinéad O’Connor, “Mandinka” It didn’t start with a picture of the Pope on live television. Sinéad O’Connor was at war from the beginning. “I had no illusions that there were such things as record deals — I just happened to be lucky enough to get one,” O’Connor noted shortly after the release of her 1987 debut album, The Lion and the Cobra. “I didn’t realize there were such bastards in this business.” Her famously shaved head — a look especially out of step with late-eighties fashion trends — was O’Connor’s rebuttal to label attempts to impose a more MTV-friendly style … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 34 – 32

37. U2, “I Will Follow” Iris Hewson died in 1974, when her son Paul was fourteen years old. Understandably, the pain and loss stuck with him for years. But what better tribute could a boy provide than to make a song about his mother — indeed, a song written from the perspective of his mother — the first track on the first album from his rock ‘n’ roll band, especially if that group in question goes on to become one of the biggest acts in the world? Leading off the 1980 album Boy, the first from U2, “I Will Follow” is about … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 37 – 35

40. The English Beat, “Save It for Later” Since this is a chart for U.S. college radio that we’re tracking through, we are obligated to refer to the band featuring both Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger among the ranks by the vulgar and pedantic moniker the English Beat. In their native U.K., there was no need for the geographic qualifier, of course. The original name for the group preserved truth in advertising since the ska-singed beat delivered didn’t necessarily call to mind the British Isles. The Beat were already a force on the U.K. charts by the time they released their third … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 40 – 38

43. R.E.M., “Fall on Me” Sometimes when focusing on singles released in the nineteen-eighties, it is illuminating to look at their music videos. By the time R.E.M. released their fourth album, Lifes Rich Pageant, in 1986, MTV was approaching the peak of its powers as the tastemaker for U.S. music charts. Although R.E.M. had a somewhat strained relationship with the promotional art of music videos, lead singer Michael Stipe took the lead on creating a clip for the album’s lead single, “Fall on Me.” Its cryptic imagery was in line with the band’s image as inscrutable icons of college rock, but … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 43 – 41

46. Romeo Void, “Never Say Never” Romeo Void were still early in their career when they found themselves working with Ric Ocasek, then exceedingly well-versed in the creation of hits thanks to his prominent place in the Cars. According to Deborah Iyall, lead singer and chief songwriter of Romeo Void, Ocasek became a fan of the band because a roadie kept playing their music of the Cars’ tour bus. After a meeting at a Boston gig, the band eagerly agreed to Ocasek’s offer to record together, and they showed up after a tour with a handful of songs. Because it … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 46 – 44

49. Tears for Fears, “Everybody Want to Rule the World” Bands beholden to major labels are often told they need to buckle down and try to write a hit song. As they were prepping material for their 1985 album, Songs from the Big Chair, Tears for Fears were given even more specific instructions than that. They were charged with writing a single that would appeal to the U.S. market. That single was “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” “We did the song to have an American hit,” Roland Orzabal, guitarist and vocalist for the band, conceded at the time. “It’s … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 49 – 47

52. Primitives, “Crash” Before the Primitives got around to recording their first album, they’d already decided that “Crash” was one of their less significant songs. “We wrote that very early on and then we dropped it from the set,” explained Paul Court, the band’s guitarist and chief songwriter. “We had a lot of songs like it, three chord style Ramones numbers, and then our producer Paul Sampson said it was a good song and that we should resurrect it.” That was only the beginning of Lazarus-like capacity for revival that the song had. It was definitely a college radio hit … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 52 – 50

55. Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car” “I had so many people come up to me and say that they felt it was their song,” Tracy Chapman said about “Fast Car,” the lead single from her 1988 self-titled debut. “And someone told me at one point that they thought I’ve been reading their mail. They were saying, ‘You seem to know my story,’ and people would come up and tell me about a car relationship and some detail that they felt was in the song that represented something that happened in their lives.” The singer-songwriter whose high school classmates joked would someday … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 55 – 53

58. XTC, “Dear God” Although it is one of XTC’s best known songs, “Dear God” was initially relegated to also-ran status. The story of that decision changes depending on who is telling it. Todd Rundgren, who produced the song, maintains that Andy Partridge and his bandmates chose to omit the song from the 1986 album Skylarking because they were warned the song’s dim view of religion would stir up controversy, calling the decision cowardly. While Partridge acknowledges that the label was concerned about how the song would play in the U.S. market, he says his own high standards stood as the chief motivation behind … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 58 – 56

61. Morrissey, “Suedehead” The collaboration between Steven Patrick Morrissey and Johnny Marr was in tatters. They had completely stopped speaking to one another, putting the future of their band, the Smiths, into a state more dire than doubt. While some of the members — including, according to some reports, Morrissey himself — were still holding out hope that the many rifts could be overcome, it didn’t look good. The terms of the record deal the Smiths has signed with EMI, in 1986, stipulated that new music was due, regardless of the official status of the band. With that in mind, Morrissey sought … Continue reading CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 61 – 59