On a random whim, I went out and downloaded what I expected to be an obscure 1980s one-hit wonder, Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride". (God help me, I'm looking for Eddy Grant right now ....)

Nonetheless, I was extremely surprised to be presented with a diverse range of options, 102 files from sixteen separate CDs, of varying bitrates.

It should be noted that the song still sounds to me like Matthew Broderick on speed. On a note of pride, however, I will not be out searching for Rick Astley.

And I will make one bizarre note; now, I know how bad 1980s bubblegum was, and I certainly won't apologize for it, as it's not my fault that the stuff exists at all. But what passes for a guitar solo in Eddy Grant's "Romancing the Stone" has about it a fundamental musicality absent from most of what's on the radio now; I just don't get it--you really couldn't get any less substantial than the 1980s, but we've managed in the time since.

In the meantime, some bubblegum songs to look for (good luck):

• Anthony Carey - "A Fine Fine Day"
• Mummy Calls - "Sexual Desire"
• Asia - "Don't Cry"
• Dream Academy - "Life in a Northern Town"
• Murray Head - "One Night in Bangkok"
• Paul Hardcastle - "Nineteen"
• The Hooters - "And We Danced"
• Men At Work - "It's A Mistake"
• Wang Chung - "Dance Hall Days"
• Icehouse - "My Obsession"
• Animotion - "I Engineer"

(Yes, a couple of them should be very easy to find. But holler if you get hold of "Sexual Desire". My only copy is on vinyl, and hidden away somewhere in one of two record collections. Most of the rest should at least be out there somewhere.)

And by the way ... anyone know who the hell does that damned Latin-sounding "Ay-yi-yi" pop song that Capital One (or some other credit card bank) used a couple years ago in a television spot with monkeys? I first heard it on KGRG, a college radio station I can't even get in Seattle, fifteen years ago, and it's one of several songs from that period that still escape me. Another one is a female vocalist whose name I can barely guess; it sounds like "S. Oxcene", but I've never found it anywhere. For those familiar with both, it sounds like a cross between Nina Hagen and a random piece called "Auschwitz" featured on the Latcho Drom soundtrack. Anyway, since I'm tripping down Nostalgia Lane, I thought I'd ask.

(Celebrate! As I type, I am downloading one of the songs on the list above, Anthony Carey's "A Fine Fine Day", which I literally haven't heard since it made its ill-fated run for the charts. And in between it's been a tough search; at one point, Google could only give me two hits for the whole of its search breadth, and both of those were txt playlists by people who weren't sharing. Celebrate, for it's a fine, fine day, indeed. I'm going to go do something long overdue and smoke a bowl while listening to a warm, sunny piece of my childhood long-lost but never forgotten.)

I was recently trying to get Why Me, by Tony Carey's Planet P Project out of the same sense of nostalgia. Since it has had virtually no radio play since it peaked in the spring of 1983, which was the end of my senior year of highschool, it brings back my feelings of that time very sharply, very close to the way a wiff of perfume favored by a long lost girlfriend will make you dizzy with memories.

My senior year was nothing great. But I had a sense of optimism about the future that I've long since lost. After all, I wasn't even 18 yet. No matter how lost you feel, when you're that young you can console yourself that you have plenty of time. Not so at 39.

Doing a Google search for Capital One monkeys gave me this, http://www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk/adv_res.asp?advSearchString=Capital%20One&chCompany=yes

Thanks for the link; I'm trying to download "Monkey Man" as I type. In the meantime, did you ever find "Why Me"? I can't say I heard it in its day, but I'm checking a 224 kb/s .mp3 for skips right now, and if you don't have it yet, I can try to get it up on a remote server tomorrow. Later today. Something like that.

But, yeah ... that would be a great song to lose your virginity to in 1983. Not enough to make me wish I was older, though. Although I have to chuckle if only because I recently saw that site where the guy splits your speakers and plays two Nickelback songs side by side and they're the same damn song; Tony Carey, it seems, really likes a certain chord progression and lyrical cadence. It's not as dramatically monochromatic as the Nickelback example, but "Why Me" and "A Fine Fine Day" have the same verse construction, nearly exactly. You could transplant the lyrics, I think.

Maybe I should do an egomanical top ten of "songs that should have been popular" according to the 1980s standards; songs that weren't, but should have been. People will either wonder what songs those are or fall over laughing at the thought. #1 would clearly be "Echo Beach" by Martha and the Muffins. I still don't know why that song wasn't more popular in the U.S.

Ah, yes ... that's right, I must download some Laura Brannigan. Believe it or not, there is, extant, a cassette of her album somewhere in this house.

I was a long way from losing my virginity when I was a senior in highschool!
I was thinking about that song (Why Me) some more today, and I remembered that I taped it off of the radio. I bought a my first ever cassette deck in April of '83. I also taped the song from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life where Eric Idle comes out of the fridge and sings to Terry Jones to convince her (him in drag of course) to donate her liver. I got that from Dr. Demento, and it was immediately after Why Me. It was an odd mix tape.

I scored it from Kazaalite earlier, but thanks for the offer.

It was a good spring for songs about space. No sooner than they had stopped playing Why Me, Peter Schilling's Major Tom made the top 40.

The Martha and the Muffins song I remember (also from the spring of '83) was Danseparc. But it was only played on the local college station, KHSU. I liked it, but it was (and is) an odd song. I remember hearing it several saturday mornings in a row while waiting for my friend (and boss) to come over and give me a ride to my job at a bicycle shop. The saturday morning show was the Jim and Doug show, and being a public college station, they could play all kinds of goofy stuff.

I got my first computer just as Napster was winding down. I managed to score some music before it was shutdown, and Danseparc by M&M was one of the songs. It had even more of a timecapsule quality than Why Me, because I had not heard that song even once since probably May of '83. I was actually surprised I could find it on Napster.

This time 20 years ago I was working at a fresh fish store called Mr. Fish. The local adult contemporary station (KPDJ, which I was forced to listen to by my boss) played Self Control by L.B. at least 5 times a day in the late summer/early fall of '84. I really got sick of that song.