101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s by Nick Parkhouse

I had recently finished Nothing But a Good Time, an oral history of the hair metal era, and was searching for other pop oral histories to read when I came across an interview with Parkhouse.  He recounts how he was chatting with a man in a pub about 80s playlists including the same batch of songs, leaving many, particularly from the last half of the decade, forgotten. His companion called him “the Louis Theroux of Eighties pop” and encouraged him to write a book. After some initial research, he started contacting artists—beginning by sending an e-mail to Brother Beyond’s Nathan Moore, who got back to him right away. The positive feedback he got from that initial contact encouraged him to reach out to other artists, some of whom, such as Nick Beggs from Kajagoogoo, helped him make contact with other 80s artists. Parkhouse notes that he got great stories from many musicians (Moore, Johnny Hates Jazz, Pal Waakatar from A-ha, etc) as well as some grumpy messages from artists that did not take kindly to being contacted for a book about forgotten 80s hits.

From this interview, I had the impression that this would be an oral history, or that significant chunks of the interviews would be included in the book. That is not the case. While some stories are recounted, each essay is brief, and the promise of extensive anecdotes that the above interview hinted at are lacking. The book is instead somewhat similar to Daniel Blythe’s Encyclopedia of Classic 80s Pop, in that it provides short essays on a randomly selected set of artists (although in this case Parkhouse focuses on specific songs, rather than the artists as a whole). Parkhouse is an engaging writer and there is a lot of trivia sprinkled throughout, for example, the demo for Boy Meets Girl’s “Waiting for a Star to Fall” was recorded in the couple’s garage, and they had to wait for quiet moments as any outside noise would appear on the recording.

The book served as an excellent introduction to several songs that I was unfamiliar with, even with my late 80s British pop obsession. Here are a few that stood out to me (won’t list them all for length):

“London Nights” by London Boys: This seems very similar to Milli Vanilli to me, and very catchy. Was sorry to read they were killed by a drunk driver in 1996: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI9UR-5R40M

“Diamond Lights” by Glenn and Chris—a non-novelty song by a pair of football players—was not bad.  Trying to think of an 80s or 90s equivalent act in the U.S. and drawing a blank. The Top of the Pops video for it is pretty funny as one of the duo was really into it, and the other really was not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KEMMfV5-Qg

Jimmy Nail’s cover of “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” I rather enjoyed. The Rose Royce version is better, but this cover has a moody charm working for it. Nail was one of the stars of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and the show’s theme song “That’s Living Alright” also makes an appearance in the book. Looking at Wikipedia, it appears there were a few music connections from that show. Curious—was this a good program? Is it worth tracking down?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iWOaW2I71E

Flying Pickett’s cover of “Only You” is fabulous. The Yaz original is perfect, but this cover is lovely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgDKtLPp46s

Another curious aspect of the book was the familiar songs that Parkhouse considers lost classics: “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Caribbean Queen,” and “Physical” are certainly not missing from U.S. 80s nights. It is interesting to think about what is huge in one country and is just “meh” or not released at all in another (see a certain exquisite Marc Almond/Gene Pitney duet).   

While 101 Forgotten Pop Hits of the 1980s was not the kind of book I originally thought it was going to be, it was a fast and fun read. It also leads to hours of musical rabbit holes, which is never a bad thing.

Hit Men by Frederic Dannen

This review refers to the 1990 edition with 2010 epilogue.

Hit Men mainly covers the top 40 music industry in the 1980s and the tension between the major record labels, the independent promoters known as “the Network,” and how this shaped radio airplay.   

There is a connection between independent promotion and organized crime and Dannen spends a lot of time looking at the organized crime angle, which makes sense, considering he later wrote Hong Kong Babylon about organized crime and its ties to the film industry. If you are interested in reading about the mafia and their various dealings, you will enjoy these sections of the book. 

While there is a fair amount of Clive Davis and David Geffen throughout the book, Dannen mainly profiles two record executives: Walter Yentikoff and Dick Asher, who both started together at CBS Records. Asher was later fired and eventually landed at Polygram. 

In 1981, Asher, who felt independent promotion was unethical, convinced Yetnikoff to have CBS Records ban independent promotion, using the argument that it had grown so expensive that it was impacting profits. Warner Brothers also agreed. The Network retaliated by stopping the airplay momentum of some of these labels’ acts. Loverboy’s first single “Turn me Loose,” (peak #35) and the Who’s “You Better You Bet” (peak #18) are listed as two songs impacted by this attempt at banning the practice. 

When the 1981 attempt at ending independent promotion failed, the Network increased their costs, and by 1985, even most of the major records companies could not afford it. Only CBS (who spent $12.8 million in 1985, almost 10 percent of their pretax profits) could do so long term. But even if CBS could afford it, it was not helping them make money. But Dannen argues that may not have been CBS Records’s motivation. He cites Irving Azoff from MCA stating that Yentikoff told him that CBS heavily used independent promotion to make “the cost of entry for, shall we say, new upstart labels [too] high to get into the record business” (265).    

In 1986, NBC News ran a report about Joe Isgro (a member of the Network), his ties to the mafia, and the new payola. this led to the major record labels instituting another independent promotion ban. This had some interesting consequences. The Network had to lower their costs and some independent labels were able to then go to the Network with their artists and get hits. One example cited in the book is Profile Records, who used the Network to promote “I Wanna Be a Cowboy” by Boys Don’t Cry (peak #12). Some well-known labels, such as Island and Virgin Records never took part in the ban, and used the Network to promote Robert Palmer, T’Pau, and Cutting Crew among others.  

Some established artists were upset with the independent promotions ban and worked with their managers to get independent promotion. The labels were aware of this. Eventually, the funds for independent promotion became described as an “artist advance” or “tour support” and instead of something that had been a loss for the record companies it became another “recoupable” expense they could claim from the artists’ royalties (292).  

Dannen at one point notes that the average career of a rock/pop artist is five years. He argues that this makes lawyers and managers insecure, and easily exploited by the labels. To quote an anonymous lawyer in the book “[d]o you think lawyers fail to understand that artists come and go, but RCA is forever?” (141) RCA turned out not to be forever.

Dannen explains how at the time this book was written (1990), the standard contract given to new artists had the term “recoupable” – meaning the costs of making the record (studio time, marketing, touring and more) all come out of the artists’ royalties. Artists who are able to sell millions of records can make some money, but for many, the record company sees the money from the hits while the artist is still in debt to them for some time. 

There are a lot of songs out there that deal with record labels as crooks, and I thought I understood why, but this book made them seem even worse.  One of the recoupable costs Dannen cites is manufacturing. Does that mean the actual printing of the LP or cassette? That can’t be what that means, I hope.

The book is well researched and had an epilogue written in 2010 for the later edition, where Dannen notes many things changed, but much has not. It would be interesting to see a 2020 epilogue.  

If you are fascinated by music business history (and I mean business, not music) or anything mafia adjacent, then you will enjoy this book. I wish there had been more about the music itself, and more details about the independent promotion of specific songs. The examples I cited here are only briefly mentioned in the book (in most cases, only the name of the artist, no more detail).  I am glad I read it, but it was not a page turner.