June 4, 2025 • 44 mins
If I could turn back time—exactly 36 years—it would be 1989!
This episode was inspired by the 1989 monster hit by Cher. Yes, that Cher, who was 43 years old and leaving nothing to the imagination!
As I’ve done in the past, we’re going to dig into the music charts and major box office hits, along with a few newsworthy events from the last year of the '80s.The music charts featured a mix of hair metal ballads and classic rock bands enjoying a late-career resurgence, with alternative and pop also well represented. This was an era when New Kids on the Block, Chicago, Rick Astley, and Poison were all played back-to-back on the radio. Back then, radio was pretty great.
The big movies boasted massive hits from directors like Spielberg, Burton, Donner, and Zemeckis. The stars were names like Ford, Keaton, Gibson, and Fox—big movies with big budgets. But non-action films also drew huge audiences, like Parenthood and Dead Poets Society. This was the era when Robin Williams was earning numerous Academy Award nominations.
Plus, it’s crazy to think that this was the year the Berlin Wall fell and the Tiananmen Square protests—and subsequent massacre—took place.
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, and major streaming platforms. Connect with the podcast via email at stuckinthemiddlepod@yahoo.com, or follow on Instagram, X, and YouTube at @stuckpodx, and on Facebook at the Stuck in the Middle Podcast page.
This episode was inspired by the 1989 monster hit by Cher. Yes, that Cher, who was 43 years old and leaving nothing to the imagination!
As I’ve done in the past, we’re going to dig into the music charts and major box office hits, along with a few newsworthy events from the last year of the '80s.The music charts featured a mix of hair metal ballads and classic rock bands enjoying a late-career resurgence, with alternative and pop also well represented. This was an era when New Kids on the Block, Chicago, Rick Astley, and Poison were all played back-to-back on the radio. Back then, radio was pretty great.
The big movies boasted massive hits from directors like Spielberg, Burton, Donner, and Zemeckis. The stars were names like Ford, Keaton, Gibson, and Fox—big movies with big budgets. But non-action films also drew huge audiences, like Parenthood and Dead Poets Society. This was the era when Robin Williams was earning numerous Academy Award nominations.
Plus, it’s crazy to think that this was the year the Berlin Wall fell and the Tiananmen Square protests—and subsequent massacre—took place.
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, and major streaming platforms. Connect with the podcast via email at stuckinthemiddlepod@yahoo.com, or follow on Instagram, X, and YouTube at @stuckpodx, and on Facebook at the Stuck in the Middle Podcast page.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Stuck in the Middle Podcast, the podcast
dedicated to the music, movies and colts are generation. What
is up, slackers and welcome to another episode of the
(00:33):
Stuck in the Middle Podcast. So I am your host,
Jason Eck. Not a lot to talk about this week.
It's it's been pretty normal. It's been normal. Holy shit,
knock on wood. I hope it says that way. It's
really starting to get like the yard and outside in
(00:53):
the pool, trying to get all that stuff ready. We've
had nothing but rain for like, I don't know, a
week and a half. Two weeks minimizes your opportunity to
go ahead and get the outside ready, and we are
just dealing with a ton of erosion. We have a
very sloped yard, so trying to figure out if I
need to go the retaining wall route or anything like that.
(01:15):
But we'll see. What I do know is, as of
this writing, I have some family members who I am
you know, close to there, my in laws, and there's
been some health stuff and one of whom is suffering
from crones as do I, and the other has just
had like a just a myriad of just health stuff
(01:38):
just lingering, you know, like when stuff moves into your
lungs and it just stays there for so long. So
for those of you who pray, yeah, you don't know
their names, but just say, hey, Jason's sisters in laws,
they could have a couple extra prayers there their way.
I'm sure that would be appreciated, just as I always
appreciate any kind of prayers or well wishes that you
(01:58):
might have. So let's get into this episode four today tonight.
Whenever you're listening to this podcast, and I will tell
you that if there was a sponsor, tonight's episode would
be brought to you by Share. Now you might don't
don't turn it off. Don't turn it off. This isn't
an episode about Share. You can see in the title.
(02:19):
It is not about Share. But she was the impetus
for tonight's topic and bringing us back old school to
how I really started the podcast, which is let's dig
into a year now. It just so happens that I
was scrolling through the old Twitter machine and someone posted
that if you could turn back time thirty six years ago,
(02:43):
that was the debut. Is that it's that accurate? Let
me go back and look at the post um. Is
that true? Hold on hold on. Uh yeah, oh thirty
six years ago? Did I say thirty eight? Thirty six
years ago? Uh? Vcaturia, Yeah, I said thirty six. If
(03:03):
I could turn back time. Thirty six years was the
debut of the song. If I could turn back time
by Share, I will say, somehow or another, every decade
or so, Share will pop back up, drop a big hit,
and then go back off into doing whatever it is
that that Share does, which I'm assuming is a much
(03:23):
much younger man. Nevertheless, I saw that, and it was
I remember when that song came out so clearly, and
the debut of the music video, which, as you might recall,
has a whole lot of SHARE's backside showing. Now, if
this is thirty six years ago, I mean, how old
(03:46):
is Share? Is she like eighty? Is that right? Is
she eighty? Seventy nine years old? Seventy nine just last
month May twentieth, nineteen four six, so almost eighty and
she doesn't look a year over sixty? But holy cow,
(04:10):
I mean that in of itself is kind of crazy
to realize how old she was when she was doing
these these very titillating music videos. And I think she's
on the a ship with sailors everywhere. It's just a
bizarro thing that only shared the pull off. But it
got me thinking about nineteen eighty nine because it really
(04:32):
was for me. It was my sophomore year of high school,
and well the second half of my freshman year, and
then obviously, you know, sophomore year. But it's the end
of a decade. But there's also so much going on
in the world that I hadn't even thought of until
I was starting to do my final prep for tonight,
(04:53):
and I just pulled up some major news events from
nineteen eighty nine because somehow thirty six years ago seems
like no time at all. And obviously when we were young,
and you know, let's say it's you know, this is crazy.
If we were in nineteen seventy eight, thirty years prior
would have been nineteen forty eight, we would have been coming
(05:16):
out of World War Two. That doesn't seem possible. So
now we're talking thirty six years ago. This is just
one of those kind of idiosyncrasies of aging where time
just does not line up the way that you think
it should or it does. And it even comes into
the sense of when we're talking about retro music and
(05:36):
classic music and how our music is that much further
back than we realized. I'd said it on the podcast
one time we were doing the you know, the eighties,
earlier eighties when I found myself, you know, first getting
into listening to some of my parents' rock music. Right,
I remember listening to to led Zeppelin and going, holy shit,
(05:56):
that was nineteen sixty eight. And we're looking at like
a year differential, not even quite a twenty year differential.
And to think that shares turn back time thirty six
years old is baffling. But I was just looking through
what were some of the key events, So I'm not
gonna go through the whole thing before we jump into
(06:17):
what we normally do is let's like take a look
at the music charts and the box office for nineteen
eighty nine. But this is what blew my mind, I
think the most was that May seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine
Tieneman Square, more than a million Chinese protesters march through
Beijing demanding greater democracy, leading to a crackdown, and as
(06:41):
is the oddness of the world, the next the next
key news point from May seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine, was
in Stuttgart, Napoli, Diego Maradona wins the UFA Cup. Thank you.
Those two things are not like the other. But I mean, really,
(07:02):
we're looking at so many things that are happening throughout
the world. But communism was very much alive and well,
I mean certainly in parts of the world. It is
today as well. But you know, these protests were running
through June in China, and then you're starting to see
the cracks in the wall in literally in Germany as
(07:23):
we're beginning to see some big changes there now. Talk about, however,
many decades go. By July sixth, the Tel Aviv Jerusalem
bus four or five suicide attack, the first Palestinian suicide
attack on Israel, takes place. Crazy. You know, George Herbert
Walker Bush Bush Senior, if you will, was in office
(07:44):
at the time, traveling to Poland and Hungary, pushing for
US economic aid and investment. Let's see, we have I
talked about this on the show. Actress Rebecca Schaeffer is
murdered by an obsessed fan, leading to stricter stock laws
in California. In Lebanon, Hesbela announced that it has hanged
(08:06):
US Marine Lieutenant Colonel William R. Riggins in retaliation for
Israel's July twentieth kidnapping of Hesbel leader Abdul Kareem obeyed
ah Man on a lighter note. Same day, July thirty first,
nineteen eighty nine, Nintendo releases the Game Boy portable video
game system in North America. Crazy, oh gosh, I remember
(08:29):
this swearing. In United States Army General Colin Powell becomes
the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
after being nominated by President Bush. Let's see. P. W.
Botha resigns as State President of South Africa and FW
D Clerk becomes the seventh and final holder of this
(08:49):
office under this governmental style. In Beverly Hills, California, Lyle
and Eric Menendez shoot their wealthy parents to death in
the family's den, and of course their claim what it
was due to systemic abuse in their childhood. Let's see
what other interesting things here? Anything else? I'm sure there's
(09:15):
a ton of stuff that's kind of interesting. Cold War
Paristroika um Nathan's famous opens a hot dog stand in
Moscow's Parastrica is the opening up of relations with the world.
Transparency is glasnost. So you have Paristroika and glasnost, which
(09:36):
is a restructuring slightly moving towards a more open, shall
we say, capitalistic forms of government. A coup attempt is
foiled by Manuel Noriega, military leader of Panama. That just
got worse and worse and worse and worse. Friday the thirteenth,
nineteen eighty nine was the mini crash. The Dow Jones
(09:58):
industrial average plunges one hundred and ninety points or six
point nine to one percent, to close at two million
five at two thousand and five sixty nine, most likely
after the junk bond market collapses. What other interesting stuff
do we have here? I should have gone and seen
what was happening in the world of pro wrestling. Brother
(10:21):
six Jesuit priests are murdered by US trained at Salvadoran soldiers. Yes,
because we have trained ah so many militant groups and destabilization,
and you know, we end up in the same places
over and over again. It's really unfortunate. I'm hoping we
can stop meddling the world affairs whenever possible. Pope John
(10:45):
Paul the Second meets with General Secretary of the Soviet
Union Mikhail Gorbachev, who pledges greatest religious freedom for citizens
of the Soviet Union. East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional
provision granting the communist dominated Socialist Unitist part of Germany
It's monopoly on power. He's starting to see the gradual
breakdown of Germany. The entire leadership of the ruling Socialist
(11:10):
Unity Party in East Germany, including Egon Trend's resigns. Hans
Moldraw becomes de facto the country's last leader before reunification.
And anything else here. The television series The Simpsons premiere
on Fox is a full animated series with the episode
(11:30):
Simpson's Roasting on an open fire. Obviously it was a
spinoff from The Chase Tracy Chapman Show. And finally, anything
else here. Walmart posts revenues and profits triple its nineteen
eighty six figures and rivals Kmart and Sears in importance
in the American market. Kmart and Sears now footnotes in
(11:54):
the capitalist history of America. And finally this came up
not too long ago. End Up Waya the first gangster
rap group to sell one million copies of an album
with their controversial debut album Straight out of Compton. So
now what we're all here for let's get into nineteen
eighty nine. So it's amazing to think that we're still
(12:16):
about a year and a half away before we have
the grunge revolution. So there's one band in particular that's
on this list a couple of times, which I've mentioned before.
We did a whole episode Abottom and we'll talk about
them shortly, but they were really the first, the first
real chipping away at what had been hair band dominance,
(12:37):
at least when it comes to rock music. And while
they were categorized within the hairband and coming out of
LA there were something different and that started, I think,
to gradually open how people viewed music. But you also have,
once again this mixture of I think, radio friendly pop
that wasn't some of its saccharin, but a lot of
(12:59):
it had some I don't know, it was enjoyable. So
I've always said I do listen to pop music, or
at least I did listen to pop music and some
of my favorite stuff. But this is an interesting mix
of like seventies and eighties rock stars, along with some
new up and comers, as there always is. And then
you know, the hairband still holding strong as we're beginning
(13:20):
to see a gradual kind of shift with some of
the music. So let's check it out. So coming in
at number one hundred, we have keep on Moving by
Soul to Soul, followed by the end of the Innocence
by Don Henley. We have the ballad Surrender to Me
Ann Wilson from Heart and Robin Xander of Cheap Trick.
(13:42):
We have Bobby Brown coming in at number ninety five
with rock witcha. I'm surprised that this is so low.
But at number ninety three we have Smooth Criminal by
Michael Jackson. This time I know It's for Real by
Donna Summer. This one, I am surprised it's higher than
Smooth Criminal. So bear in mind, I'm doing the Billboard
(14:02):
year end Hot one hundred singles, So some of these
songs went to number one. Some of these songs were
just on the charts for like the Whole Year for example.
But somehow Alice Cooper's kind of big return to the
big stage with Poison came in at number one, two
slots higher than Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal. Smooth Criminal is
(14:24):
a classic, obviously a great cover by Alien and Farm,
but Alice Cooper that whole album was a combination of
like Desmond Child, John and Richie Sambora, basically a who's
who of rock musicians that were contributing, mostly because of
their just reverence for Alice, who of course had a
part in Oh my Gosh. I almost said Bill and Ted,
(14:48):
not Bill and Ted Wayne's World, but yeah, her lips
are then a miss poison, Oh Alice. We have She
Wants to Dance with Me by Rick Astley. Remember this one, guys,
I Want to have Some Fun by Samantha Fox. Every
young boy, every red blooded American boy, loved Samantha Fox.
(15:13):
We have number eighty six, the first song on the
charts from a little band called Guns and Roses Paradise City,
great frickin' song. And this is what I mean by
they were something different than the rest of the hairbands.
Little more tawdry, a lot more taudry, pushing the boundaries
(15:34):
of what you can get away with on your classic
you know, radio stations, and becoming massive superstars in the process.
But yeah, go check out the Guns and Roses episode.
They are like no other in the history of music. Frankly,
we have number eighty four. What I Am is, What
I Am is what you are? Or what Edie Brokel
(15:55):
and the New Bohemians. Edie Brokel has been married to
Paul Simon for like a million years, I think, which
is mind blowing to me. Are they still married? Yeah,
Paul Simon, they got married in nineteen ninety two. What
a weird thing. I don't know. I've always found that
so strange. Um oh, the great great album opener from
(16:20):
bon Jovi's New Jersey We Have Laid Your Hands on Me.
That whole dum doo duo so great. That's what they
were opening with on this tour. Fantastic also did in
an episode on bon job go check that out. A
band that I've said before not the hugest fan of
(16:41):
We Have Love and an Elevator at number eighty one
by the legendary Aerosmith. My daughter's been digging Aerosmith lately.
I can't hate her for it, but that is definitely
dad rock. But not this dad Oh. Banger of a song,
Banger of a song Ronie by Bobby Brown. Tell you
about Ronnie. She's a sweet old girl, about the sweetest
little girl in the whole wide world. Hell yeah, we have,
(17:03):
in my opinion, a classic at number seventy seven. We
have Closed My Eyes Forever by Leada Ford and Ozzy Osbourne.
According to Leeda Ford, they were going to do some
work together and it's Sharon and Ozzy and Lida and
they're shooting pool and getting loaded as one does in
nineteen eighty whatever when it was recorded, probably recorded in
(17:24):
eighty eight, and they're both hammered and find like, you know,
we were supposed to be working on a song, and
they went and they sat in a little studio where
they were at and Leader just started playing the guitar
chords and they just banged out the song. I think
it's a great vocal performance by both. Probably Leada Ford's best,
not her best song, her best vocal performance. Our best
(17:46):
song is of course kiss Me Deadly. And now for
a completely different direction, we have stand by ram oh
So Saccharin, and I do think that they've mentioned couple
of the songs from this era, like Shiny Happy People
for example, Stan not necessarily in their opinion, their best work. Obviously,
(18:08):
they went from being a little bit more darker alternative
to stand in the Place where You Live Now. Turn
North is Algos now Turned South whatever, It's okay. The
first big single from Guns and Roses with Welcome to
the Jungle. So good man is this was just on
(18:30):
the charts because it got released in eighty seven and
then just stayed. They re released it in eighty eight
and then it just kept going. Holy cow, that seemed
like the timeline didn't line up, and I'll explain why
in just a minute. Let's see. We have cover Girl
by nkot Be the New Kids on the Block Boston Zone.
(18:54):
We have Patients by Guns and Roses, which is of
course off their EP GENR Love, which was released in
eighty eight and the single came out in nineteen eighty nine.
Patience is a great tune. We have the late great
Jeff Healy Band with Angel Eyes, great song in a
song that I mentioned as being a great rainy day song.
(19:17):
We have love Song by The Cure coming in at
number sixty eight. We have Missed You Like Crazy by
Natalie Cole. We have a Funky Cole and Medina by
tone Log at number sixty five. We have Second Chance
by thirty eight special. I forgot that Duran Duran had
to release this year. I Don't Want Your Love by
(19:38):
Duran Duran and just okay, listen to this section. Okay,
number sixty three, Second Chance by thirty eight Special, a
band that you know, came out of what the seventies
or the eighties. They kind of got big and then
they came back with this album, but it goes thirty
eight Special Duran Duran eighteen in Life, skid Row, When
(20:01):
the Children Cry by White Lion, Cherish by Madonna, Sowing
the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears, Soldier of
Love by Who Donnie Osmond, I Like It by Dino,
Express Yourself by Madonna, Satisfied by Richard Marx, Armageddonet by
(20:25):
def Leppard, You Got the Right stuff. New Kids on
the Block So Alive by Love and Rockets. Holy cow,
my heart can't tell you no. Rod Stewart hanging tough
New Kids on the Block. Guys, I think I gotta
do the whole rest of the list. This is crazy.
This is just hit after hit. Normally I do these
lists and it's stuff that I'm like, eh, okay, I
(20:47):
don't really remember that one. This whole thing. I was
definitely tuned into the radio in nineteen eighty nine. Um,
my heart can't tell you no. Rod Stewart hanging tough
New Kids on the Block. Every Little Step Bobby Love,
Shack the B fifty two's Real Love by Jody Wattley,
rock On by Michael Damien, Bad Dance by Prince My,
(21:12):
Once Bitten Twice Shy by Great White, bust A Move
by Young MC, The Lover of Me Sheena Easton, Good
Thing by Fine Young Cannibals, Born to Be My Baby
Bond Jovi. Don't Rush Me Taylor Dane, When I'm with
You by Sheriff. Do you remember Sheriff? And then they
(21:35):
had a spinoff band, right like Alias or something. Yeah,
they returned as Alias later on. Yeah, Yeah, Sheriff and Alias.
I had this crazy cassette. It was called Best Rock
Ballads and it was like Rio Speedwagon. It was Sheriff
(21:56):
and Alias and just a whole bunch of stuff. It
was a great like, hey, you gotta set the mood.
You know what I mean driving around your car. You
know what I'm saying. Buffalo Stance by Nana Cherry and then,
like I said, what started this whole thing for tonight?
When I see you out, excuse me if I could
turn back time by Share, which is just it's a banger,
(22:17):
it is, It's just a banger of a song. It
was then it is now. That's why Share I think
just carefully cultivates the songs that she releases. But holy cow,
this keeps going. There's a bunch of stuff that was
that was earlier in the list that I didn't bother
mentioning with. But I'm looking at this going. Holy cow,
when I see you smile by Bad English, which is
(22:40):
basically what John Waite and like members of Foreigner Right
not Foreigner Journey. Yeah, Jonathan Kane, John Waite, Dean Castronovo
and Neil Sean like crazy. That was such a crazy band.
(23:02):
Wild Thing by Tone Look, Eternal Flames by the Bengals,
The Living Years, Mike and the Mechanics number thirty one.
Then is next few not a well one of them
I'm a big fan of. We Have Forever Your Girl
by Paula Abduel and then, as I mentioned on the
Kids Shows episode, we Have Toy Soldiers by Martika Baby,
(23:25):
Don't forget my number, Millie Vanilli. Let's see how can
I fall by Breathe the Joey McIntyre led I'll Be
Loving You Forever by Nucus on the Block. A funny story.
There is this girl she had a crush on me.
I did not reciprocate this. She said one of the
most out of pocket things that I'm not going to
(23:47):
share with you on this podcast. Eh, And it's just
it's I can't even share it. But I was with
my girlfriend at the time. We were at a band
p the band was getting together, and usually the Hicks
weren't allowed to band practice, but it was just kind
of a looser practice. And you know this one young
(24:08):
lady who is friends of my drummer's brother. She was
there and apparently she fell in love with me sent
me the craziest voicemails, like nuts stuff, and I was
sent I'll be loving You Forever by nucad on the
Block over the Family Answering Machine. Next, we have Like
(24:32):
a Prayer by Madonna, Oh, one of my all time
favorite blue eyed soul songs. If you don't know Me
by Now by Simply Red, I'll Be There for You
by Bond Jovi, Listen to Your Heart by rock Set Excellent,
Blame It on the Rain, Millie Vanilli, Two Hearts, Two Hearts,
(24:56):
Do Do Do Do Do? Phil Collins on her Own
by Bobby Brown. She Drives Me Crazy by Fya Fine
Young Cannibal's That is a killer, killer tune. The Look
The Look by rock Set. That's a great one, Girl,
I'm Gonna Miss You by Millie Vanilli and then the
(25:19):
song the theme song, our song, if you Will of
my high school sweet Art and I We Have at
number fifteen, Heaven by Warrant, which got locked at number two,
never made it to number one. You know I've said
it before. Janie Lane's one of my favorite singer songwriters
vocalists of that era or any era. But Heaven was
(25:40):
our song we have. Don't Want to Lose You by
Gloria Estefan, Lost in Your Eyes by One Debbie Gibson,
Waiting for a Start to Fall by Boy meets Girl.
Remember that one right here Waiting by Richard Marks That
was on a later mixtape for a different girlfriend. Given
You the Best That I Got by Anita Baker. My
(26:00):
stepdad loved Anita Baker and that album Baby I Love
Your Way, Freebird Medallee Medley by Will to Power Good Grief.
Got to admit it. I know they lip synced Girl,
you Know It's True by Millie Finilly. That was a
badass tune. Wow. This was nineteen eighty nine Wind Beneath
(26:20):
My Wings by Bete Midler. Uh, cold Hearted Snake look
into his eyes. Uh oh, he's been telling lies. Cold
Hearted by Paula Abduel. We have Missed You Much by
Janet Jackson and then straight up Now tell Me? Do
you really want to love me Forever? By Paula Abduel.
And then I thought that the song at number three
(26:40):
would have been the overall consensus for the year, But
when was it released. It was released in eighty eight
and stayed on the charts for quite some time, so
that's why it was not the overall. But that is
Poison with every rose has its thorn off the Open
Up and Say Ah album. It's an evergreen song. It
(27:05):
just is. It comes on now and you're just transported
to that time always. It's just so so fucking good.
We have My Prerogative by one Bobby Brown. And then finally,
the overall number one song is look Away by Chicago.
This was literally on every type of station because the
(27:27):
classic rock stations wanted to play it because it's Chicago.
The pop channels wanted to play it because it was
this hip hop song. Look Away, Baby, look go Away.
I mean, it was a huge hit, and apparently part
of the reason that they ended up having their keyboard player,
let's see Bill Champlin on lead vocals is because Peter
(27:50):
Saterra was now having a solo career and they didn't
want it to sound like, quote unquote like Chicago having
any kind of I guess misunderstanding in the marketplace because
Peter Setara had such a distinctive voice that was synonymous
with Chicago. So Bill Champlin came in and did the vocals.
(28:15):
It's a great song. It's a great song. So what's
interesting is that before being submitted to Chicago, the song
was one of two ballads offered by Epic Records to
Cheap Trick, who chose the Flame instead. The track was
also offered to Europe, but was turned down due to
frontman Joey Tempests refusal to record material written by outside writers.
(28:38):
So shout out to the band Europe. So that is
the year end Hot one hundred Singles of nineteen eighty nine.
I apologize I was reading fast, Hopefully, I was articulating
everything and it came out clear. But I just covered
a lot of ground. But I'm just looking at the
list and I'm going like, simply read Bonjobi Rosette and
(29:02):
Nelie Vanilli, Phil Collins, Bobby Brown finding Cannibals. I'm just
looking at it going holy shit, Like every genre was
kind of represented here, and all of them were massive songs. Now,
you know, I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago
on the podcast that we're doing this kind of paint
by numbers almost when it comes to music, and I
(29:22):
feel like back then, even music that was in pop,
that may have been done with let's say, program drums
or whatever, there was still something more raw about it.
Maybe it's because even if they had a drum machine,
it was all synths, the vocalists weren't super overly polished
or overly produced where it wasn't like the auto tune,
(29:45):
like the pro tools kind of thing where everything is
so precise and that the beats per minute is like, okay,
what is the exact I guess structure, the science of
the song. I still don't feel like, despite all these
folks saying, Okay, here's the science, You're gonna have this
intro and it's gonna be x number of bars, and
(30:07):
then there's gonna be your first verse. Then you're gonna
be a build up chorus, and then you're supposed to
have this banger of a chorus. The choruses never rise
to the hook like these songs. Did you look through
this whole thing and everything had such a hook? I
mean every single song, regardless of style. Yeah, I don't know.
(30:30):
There's just something about modern songwriting. It's just not I
want something to make me feel like these songs. Did
you know, even songs that were outside my quote unquote
preferred genre, you still go, that's a great freaking song,
perfect right, Like a prayer is a great freaking tune,
great freaking tune, Brunette Madonna. I don't know, it's just
(30:55):
so different. Come on, music industry, get your shit together. Okay.
So now let's shift over to the box office for
nineteen eighty nine, what were the big hit movies? So
let's go starting with number ten. Is that true? Wow? Okay,
(31:16):
I figured this would have been higher on the list.
So bear in mind this is unadjusted for inflation, because
Lord knows that some of these movies were some of
the biggest movies of our youth. A couple of things
to bear in mind, capacities of theaters, number of theaters
per actual cinema, that you went to. What was the
cost per ticket? All right? What were the cost of concessions? Like?
(31:38):
I would have to look it up, Like what the
average cost. Let's just see this. Let's find out average
cost of a movie ticket in nineteen eighty nine. What
do we get here? The average cost of a movie
ticket in nineteen eighty nine was approximately three dollars and
(32:02):
ninety nine cents in the United States. So for three
ninety nine I could go and see a movie or
at least fill up half a tank of gas. Holy cow,
But this is according to the National Association of Theater
Owners also known as NATO and other historical box office records.
(32:23):
Adjusted for inflation, this would be roughly nine to fifty
to ten dollars. Now bear in mind I usually buy
in advance. Oftentimes you have to buy an advance if
you want to get a good seat, right because now
it's not just general admission. So if you don't order
advance and pay all the fees, we don't go to
enough movies to join up for one of these clubs
(32:46):
unlimited ticket purchases. You wave all fees. Great, we see
like a handful of movies each year. I need to
see a ton of movies back then, or we're gonna
go through this list, and I'm sure that I've seen
many of them in the movie because it was three
ninety nine, and let's see, in nineteen eighty nine, I
would have been paying full price. I wasn't a kidneymore.
(33:06):
But even like, think about like a family, I have
a family of five. We just went to the movies.
Oh that's right. One thing that happened this weekend. We
went and saw Thunderbolts. They're saying it's it's not going
to meet the margin that Marvel or Disney had wanted
it to. If you haven't seen it, it's probably gonna
be in the theater for like another week or so.
It was worth it. It was really worth it. It
(33:27):
was an enjoyable kind of return to form for Marvel,
and I thought it was great. Everyone enjoyed it. It
was universally loved by the family. Let's see, So what
did I spend? Let's see, so for a family of five,
(33:49):
it cost eighty bucks. Cost eighty bucks, which is sixteen
dollars a ticket right now. It would have been twenty
bucks for all five of us in nineteen eighty nine.
And what would you have seen, Well, let's get into that.
You would have seen Back to the Future Part two,
(34:10):
directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Michael J. Fox, chrispher Lloyd
Lea Thompson. It did not star Crispin Glover by the Way,
Elizabeth Shu and Jeffrey Weisman. This grossed ninety three million.
Ninety three million. That was considered a big hit, coming
in at number nine with ninety six million. We Have
(34:33):
Parenthood starring Steve Martin, Tomhols, Rick Moranez, Martha Plimpton, Keata Reeves,
Jason Robarts, Mary Steinbergen, and Dianne Weist, directed by Ron Howard.
I did not see that in the movie theater. I
did see that on VHS not long afterwards. But yeah,
ninety six million, considered a big hit, also at ninety
(34:54):
six million, A movie that I did not go to
see it in the movie theater. It seemed foolish to
me and a watching it VHS down at my buddies'
buddy's house. We watched a lot of movies my buddies,
Skip's Baseman, Dead Poet Society, Robin Williams, Robert Sean, Leonard,
Ethan Hawk, Josh Charles, Gail Hansen, Norman Lloyd, and Kurt
wood Smith, Yes, kurtwood Smith otherwise known as Red from
(35:17):
that seventy show, directed by Peter Ware ninety six million,
kind of a classic. Coming in at one hundred and
thirteen million. We have ghost Busters two. The Gang Is
Back Together, Bill Murray, Dan, Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Dreamis,
Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts directed by the
legendary Ivan Reitman. Saw bat in the movie Theater. I
(35:41):
also saw Look Who's Talking. I don't even know why,
maybe because it was John Travolta, Christi Ali, Olympia Dukakis,
Abe Fucking Vogoda, and Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis was a
major box office star. Which is so interesting to think
that you have John Travolta and Bruce Willis in Who's
Talking and then later on in Pulp Fiction, two very
(36:04):
very different movies. I did not see this one in
the movie Theater. We have Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,
another hit for one. Rick moranis at one hundred and
thirty one million, also starring one Matt Frewer, best known
as Max Mat Matt Max Headroom Marcia Strassman and Christine
(36:24):
Sutherland directed by Joe Johnson, huge hit for Disney. Saw
that many times on VHS. Next one I saw on
a date. It's a good date movie. We have Rayman
starring Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise and the Valeria Galino directed
by Barry Levinson one hundred and forty million dollars. Tom
(36:48):
Cruise states that he got the part in this movie
because he was out to dinner with his sister who
saw across the restaurant Dustin Hoffman and said, you need
to go and introduce yourself to him. He's like, I what,
it's Dustin Hoffman. Like, Dustin Hoffman was a huge movie star,
(37:10):
and Tom Cruise was certainly already getting started. It wasn't
like he was a nobody. It's like he's not gonna
know who I am. And Dustin's like, I love your work.
I would love to work with you someday. And I
believe it was Dustin Hoffman who had Tom Cruise in
mind to play his brother. So, of course this is
the story of Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Ray Babbitt and
(37:33):
Tom Cruise as Charles Charlie Babbitt, and of course Charlie
when he was little called Raymond Rayman. Ah, great movie.
Great movie, and I think one of the earliest views
that mainstream America saw of what we now call autism. Anyway,
saw the movie theater, actually watched it. Next, we have
(37:57):
Lethal Weapon two, starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci,
Josh Ackland, Derek O'Connor, and Patsy Kenzip directed by the
legendary Richard Donner. One hundred and forty seven million at
the box office. Saw that it was great. Surprisingly, the
next movie on the list I did not see in
(38:18):
the movie theater. I don't know why. Number two Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade arguably the best of the
original three, depending on your preference. I'm a Raiders of
the Lost Arc guy. My wife is an Indiana Jones
and the Last Crusade Gal Harrison, Ford, Denholm, Elliott Alison, Duty,
(38:38):
John Rice Davey, Julian Glover, and of course Sean Connery
directed by none other than Steven Spielberg. So one hundred
and ninety seven million would be considered a flop nowadays.
And finally number one saw it in the theater and
many times since you might have heard that I mentioned
(39:01):
a I might have even skipped over it because it
was not my favorite song by the legendary Prince who
did the soundtrack for Tim Burton's Batman, Jack Nicholson as
the Joker, Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger, Robert Wohl, Pat Hinkle,
Billy Dee Williams, of course is Harvey Dent, Michael go
(39:22):
and Jack Palance. Frickin' Jack Palance had this late career
resurgence with this with City Slickers. He's on the oscars
doing one arm push ups. He's like seventy five years old. Nevertheless,
this was like the next breakthrough of the superhero movie.
Of course, back in the day you had Christopher Reeves Superman.
(39:44):
But many people even back then, and it wouldn't have
been on the Internet, but it would have been in
like Entertainment Weekly or one of those complaining about the
casting variety of Michael Keaton as Batman, saying that he
didn't look the part, he didn't look like Bruce Wayne,
only to have one of the most iconic takes on
(40:04):
the character. Now, I'm not saying that Michael Keaton is
my favorite Batman. He's actually not. I don't know. I
wouldn't call myself a Nolan guy. But Christian Bale I
think was great in both aspects of the character, both
Batman and Bruce Wayne. I thought he was excellent. So
I say Christian Bale is the best of the Batman.
(40:27):
Michael Keaton would come in at number two. Then I
would say Ben Affleck, then Robert Pattinson. Although my kids
are all like batpat is the Batman awesome? Then you know,
Val Kilmer was good, wasn't my favorite? Batman and Clooney
could have been great. It just didn't work out that way. Nevertheless,
(40:48):
Batman was the highest grossing film of the year. But
a couple other honorable mentions we have The War of
the Roses came out in eighty nine National Lampoons, Christmas Vacation. Now,
of course a classic Harlem Knights. That was with Eddie
Murphy and Richard Pryor and Red Fox, Crazy Black Rain
(41:15):
with Michael Douglas. I remember that coming out directed by
Ridley Scott. I might have to go back and watch
that one. Uncle Buck Turner and Hoot, Tom Hanks and
the Lovable Dog Beasley. Let's see Star Trek five, The
Final Frontier at Cemetery. Hell yeah, major league legendary turn
(41:40):
by one mister Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes, Tom Beringer, Bob Uker,
Renee Russo, Corbyn Bernston was excellent in that as with
as Dennis Haysbert excellent. Let's see lean on Me. I
didn't really like that one that much. As a Morgan Freeman,
(42:01):
It's good the fly to didn't Know The Burbs. I
saw this in the movie Theater. I saw this in
the movie Theater, a black comedy film directed by Joe Dante,
Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Dukommen, Corey Feldman,
Wendy Shall, Henry Gibson, and Gil Gordon. Excellent. I really
(42:23):
really enjoyed that movie. Watched it with the kids recently,
like what is going on right now? Because it is
a comedy, but it is kind of mysterious and elements
of horror, but not really. It's really fun. So if
you haven't watched The Burbs in a minute, it's probably
the only Tom Hanks film I really really enjoyed that
(42:43):
I like to watch. I just think it's great. There's
been stuff that he's done that I like, but I'm
not a Forrest Gump guy. I'm not a castaway guy.
Saving Private Ryan is brilliant, but that's just whole cast everything.
That's an amazing film start to finish. Really Tom Hanks guy.
But I really like The Urbs. I don't know why.
(43:04):
I think it's clever. I think it's well written, well performed.
Plus Carrie Fisher. That's probably why I went between Corey
Feldman Carrie Fisher. Sign me up, I'm there. But a
pretty nice slate of films topping the box office in
nineteen eighty nine. So there we have it. Another episode
(43:25):
of the Stuck in the Middle Podcast has come to
an end. Just kicking at old school with some old
nineteen eighty nine. Let's just break down a year and yeah,
I hope you liked it. Let me know what were
some of your favorites. What do you think I missed?
I thought I pretty much covered all the key points.
Maybe there's some world news that I missed, but I
(43:45):
think I captured all. But you let me know, and
how do you do that? You can email me at
Stuck in the Middle pod at yahoo dot com. You
can find me on Instagram X and YouTube at stuckpod X.
Heading over to the Facebook page Stuck in the middle
of gen X Podcast, Please like, comment, share, leave five
star reviews, and most importantly, please subscribe to the podcast.
So until next time, later slackers,
Welcome to the Stuck in the Middle Podcast, the podcast
dedicated to the music, movies and colts are generation. What
is up, slackers and welcome to another episode of the
(00:33):
Stuck in the Middle Podcast. So I am your host,
Jason Eck. Not a lot to talk about this week.
It's it's been pretty normal. It's been normal. Holy shit,
knock on wood. I hope it says that way. It's
really starting to get like the yard and outside in
(00:53):
the pool, trying to get all that stuff ready. We've
had nothing but rain for like, I don't know, a
week and a half. Two weeks minimizes your opportunity to
go ahead and get the outside ready, and we are
just dealing with a ton of erosion. We have a
very sloped yard, so trying to figure out if I
need to go the retaining wall route or anything like that.
(01:15):
But we'll see. What I do know is, as of
this writing, I have some family members who I am
you know, close to there, my in laws, and there's
been some health stuff and one of whom is suffering
from crones as do I, and the other has just
had like a just a myriad of just health stuff
(01:38):
just lingering, you know, like when stuff moves into your
lungs and it just stays there for so long. So
for those of you who pray, yeah, you don't know
their names, but just say, hey, Jason's sisters in laws,
they could have a couple extra prayers there their way.
I'm sure that would be appreciated, just as I always
appreciate any kind of prayers or well wishes that you
(01:58):
might have. So let's get into this episode four today tonight.
Whenever you're listening to this podcast, and I will tell
you that if there was a sponsor, tonight's episode would
be brought to you by Share. Now you might don't
don't turn it off. Don't turn it off. This isn't
an episode about Share. You can see in the title.
(02:19):
It is not about Share. But she was the impetus
for tonight's topic and bringing us back old school to
how I really started the podcast, which is let's dig
into a year now. It just so happens that I
was scrolling through the old Twitter machine and someone posted
that if you could turn back time thirty six years ago,
(02:43):
that was the debut. Is that it's that accurate? Let
me go back and look at the post um. Is
that true? Hold on hold on. Uh yeah, oh thirty
six years ago? Did I say thirty eight? Thirty six
years ago? Uh? Vcaturia, Yeah, I said thirty six. If
(03:03):
I could turn back time. Thirty six years was the
debut of the song. If I could turn back time
by Share, I will say, somehow or another, every decade
or so, Share will pop back up, drop a big hit,
and then go back off into doing whatever it is
that that Share does, which I'm assuming is a much
(03:23):
much younger man. Nevertheless, I saw that, and it was
I remember when that song came out so clearly, and
the debut of the music video, which, as you might recall,
has a whole lot of SHARE's backside showing. Now, if
this is thirty six years ago, I mean, how old
(03:46):
is Share? Is she like eighty? Is that right? Is
she eighty? Seventy nine years old? Seventy nine just last
month May twentieth, nineteen four six, so almost eighty and
she doesn't look a year over sixty? But holy cow,
(04:10):
I mean that in of itself is kind of crazy
to realize how old she was when she was doing
these these very titillating music videos. And I think she's
on the a ship with sailors everywhere. It's just a
bizarro thing that only shared the pull off. But it
got me thinking about nineteen eighty nine because it really
(04:32):
was for me. It was my sophomore year of high school,
and well the second half of my freshman year, and
then obviously, you know, sophomore year. But it's the end
of a decade. But there's also so much going on
in the world that I hadn't even thought of until
I was starting to do my final prep for tonight,
(04:53):
and I just pulled up some major news events from
nineteen eighty nine because somehow thirty six years ago seems
like no time at all. And obviously when we were young,
and you know, let's say it's you know, this is crazy.
If we were in nineteen seventy eight, thirty years prior
would have been nineteen forty eight, we would have been coming
(05:16):
out of World War Two. That doesn't seem possible. So
now we're talking thirty six years ago. This is just
one of those kind of idiosyncrasies of aging where time
just does not line up the way that you think
it should or it does. And it even comes into
the sense of when we're talking about retro music and
(05:36):
classic music and how our music is that much further
back than we realized. I'd said it on the podcast
one time we were doing the you know, the eighties,
earlier eighties when I found myself, you know, first getting
into listening to some of my parents' rock music. Right,
I remember listening to to led Zeppelin and going, holy shit,
(05:56):
that was nineteen sixty eight. And we're looking at like
a year differential, not even quite a twenty year differential.
And to think that shares turn back time thirty six
years old is baffling. But I was just looking through
what were some of the key events, So I'm not
gonna go through the whole thing before we jump into
(06:17):
what we normally do is let's like take a look
at the music charts and the box office for nineteen
eighty nine. But this is what blew my mind, I
think the most was that May seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine
Tieneman Square, more than a million Chinese protesters march through
Beijing demanding greater democracy, leading to a crackdown, and as
(06:41):
is the oddness of the world, the next the next
key news point from May seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine, was
in Stuttgart, Napoli, Diego Maradona wins the UFA Cup. Thank you.
Those two things are not like the other. But I mean, really,
(07:02):
we're looking at so many things that are happening throughout
the world. But communism was very much alive and well,
I mean certainly in parts of the world. It is
today as well. But you know, these protests were running
through June in China, and then you're starting to see
the cracks in the wall in literally in Germany as
(07:23):
we're beginning to see some big changes there now. Talk about, however,
many decades go. By July sixth, the Tel Aviv Jerusalem
bus four or five suicide attack, the first Palestinian suicide
attack on Israel, takes place. Crazy. You know, George Herbert
Walker Bush Bush Senior, if you will, was in office
(07:44):
at the time, traveling to Poland and Hungary, pushing for
US economic aid and investment. Let's see, we have I
talked about this on the show. Actress Rebecca Schaeffer is
murdered by an obsessed fan, leading to stricter stock laws
in California. In Lebanon, Hesbela announced that it has hanged
(08:06):
US Marine Lieutenant Colonel William R. Riggins in retaliation for
Israel's July twentieth kidnapping of Hesbel leader Abdul Kareem obeyed
ah Man on a lighter note. Same day, July thirty first,
nineteen eighty nine, Nintendo releases the Game Boy portable video
game system in North America. Crazy, oh gosh, I remember
(08:29):
this swearing. In United States Army General Colin Powell becomes
the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
after being nominated by President Bush. Let's see. P. W.
Botha resigns as State President of South Africa and FW
D Clerk becomes the seventh and final holder of this
(08:49):
office under this governmental style. In Beverly Hills, California, Lyle
and Eric Menendez shoot their wealthy parents to death in
the family's den, and of course their claim what it
was due to systemic abuse in their childhood. Let's see
what other interesting things here? Anything else? I'm sure there's
(09:15):
a ton of stuff that's kind of interesting. Cold War
Paristroika um Nathan's famous opens a hot dog stand in
Moscow's Parastrica is the opening up of relations with the world.
Transparency is glasnost. So you have Paristroika and glasnost, which
(09:36):
is a restructuring slightly moving towards a more open, shall
we say, capitalistic forms of government. A coup attempt is
foiled by Manuel Noriega, military leader of Panama. That just
got worse and worse and worse and worse. Friday the thirteenth,
nineteen eighty nine was the mini crash. The Dow Jones
(09:58):
industrial average plunges one hundred and ninety points or six
point nine to one percent, to close at two million
five at two thousand and five sixty nine, most likely
after the junk bond market collapses. What other interesting stuff
do we have here? I should have gone and seen
what was happening in the world of pro wrestling. Brother
(10:21):
six Jesuit priests are murdered by US trained at Salvadoran soldiers. Yes,
because we have trained ah so many militant groups and destabilization,
and you know, we end up in the same places
over and over again. It's really unfortunate. I'm hoping we
can stop meddling the world affairs whenever possible. Pope John
(10:45):
Paul the Second meets with General Secretary of the Soviet
Union Mikhail Gorbachev, who pledges greatest religious freedom for citizens
of the Soviet Union. East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional
provision granting the communist dominated Socialist Unitist part of Germany
It's monopoly on power. He's starting to see the gradual
breakdown of Germany. The entire leadership of the ruling Socialist
(11:10):
Unity Party in East Germany, including Egon Trend's resigns. Hans
Moldraw becomes de facto the country's last leader before reunification.
And anything else here. The television series The Simpsons premiere
on Fox is a full animated series with the episode
(11:30):
Simpson's Roasting on an open fire. Obviously it was a
spinoff from The Chase Tracy Chapman Show. And finally, anything
else here. Walmart posts revenues and profits triple its nineteen
eighty six figures and rivals Kmart and Sears in importance
in the American market. Kmart and Sears now footnotes in
(11:54):
the capitalist history of America. And finally this came up
not too long ago. End Up Waya the first gangster
rap group to sell one million copies of an album
with their controversial debut album Straight out of Compton. So
now what we're all here for let's get into nineteen
eighty nine. So it's amazing to think that we're still
(12:16):
about a year and a half away before we have
the grunge revolution. So there's one band in particular that's
on this list a couple of times, which I've mentioned before.
We did a whole episode Abottom and we'll talk about
them shortly, but they were really the first, the first
real chipping away at what had been hair band dominance,
(12:37):
at least when it comes to rock music. And while
they were categorized within the hairband and coming out of
LA there were something different and that started, I think,
to gradually open how people viewed music. But you also have,
once again this mixture of I think, radio friendly pop
that wasn't some of its saccharin, but a lot of
(12:59):
it had some I don't know, it was enjoyable. So
I've always said I do listen to pop music, or
at least I did listen to pop music and some
of my favorite stuff. But this is an interesting mix
of like seventies and eighties rock stars, along with some
new up and comers, as there always is. And then
you know, the hairband still holding strong as we're beginning
(13:20):
to see a gradual kind of shift with some of
the music. So let's check it out. So coming in
at number one hundred, we have keep on Moving by
Soul to Soul, followed by the end of the Innocence
by Don Henley. We have the ballad Surrender to Me
Ann Wilson from Heart and Robin Xander of Cheap Trick.
(13:42):
We have Bobby Brown coming in at number ninety five
with rock witcha. I'm surprised that this is so low.
But at number ninety three we have Smooth Criminal by
Michael Jackson. This time I know It's for Real by
Donna Summer. This one, I am surprised it's higher than
Smooth Criminal. So bear in mind, I'm doing the Billboard
(14:02):
year end Hot one hundred singles, So some of these
songs went to number one. Some of these songs were
just on the charts for like the Whole Year for example.
But somehow Alice Cooper's kind of big return to the
big stage with Poison came in at number one, two
slots higher than Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal. Smooth Criminal is
(14:24):
a classic, obviously a great cover by Alien and Farm,
but Alice Cooper that whole album was a combination of
like Desmond Child, John and Richie Sambora, basically a who's
who of rock musicians that were contributing, mostly because of
their just reverence for Alice, who of course had a
part in Oh my Gosh. I almost said Bill and Ted,
(14:48):
not Bill and Ted Wayne's World, but yeah, her lips
are then a miss poison, Oh Alice. We have She
Wants to Dance with Me by Rick Astley. Remember this one, guys,
I Want to have Some Fun by Samantha Fox. Every
young boy, every red blooded American boy, loved Samantha Fox.
(15:13):
We have number eighty six, the first song on the
charts from a little band called Guns and Roses Paradise City,
great frickin' song. And this is what I mean by
they were something different than the rest of the hairbands.
Little more tawdry, a lot more taudry, pushing the boundaries
(15:34):
of what you can get away with on your classic
you know, radio stations, and becoming massive superstars in the process.
But yeah, go check out the Guns and Roses episode.
They are like no other in the history of music. Frankly,
we have number eighty four. What I Am is, What
I Am is what you are? Or what Edie Brokel
(15:55):
and the New Bohemians. Edie Brokel has been married to
Paul Simon for like a million years, I think, which
is mind blowing to me. Are they still married? Yeah,
Paul Simon, they got married in nineteen ninety two. What
a weird thing. I don't know. I've always found that
so strange. Um oh, the great great album opener from
(16:20):
bon Jovi's New Jersey We Have Laid Your Hands on Me.
That whole dum doo duo so great. That's what they
were opening with on this tour. Fantastic also did in
an episode on bon job go check that out. A
band that I've said before not the hugest fan of
(16:41):
We Have Love and an Elevator at number eighty one
by the legendary Aerosmith. My daughter's been digging Aerosmith lately.
I can't hate her for it, but that is definitely
dad rock. But not this dad Oh. Banger of a song,
Banger of a song Ronie by Bobby Brown. Tell you
about Ronnie. She's a sweet old girl, about the sweetest
little girl in the whole wide world. Hell yeah, we have,
(17:03):
in my opinion, a classic at number seventy seven. We
have Closed My Eyes Forever by Leada Ford and Ozzy Osbourne.
According to Leeda Ford, they were going to do some
work together and it's Sharon and Ozzy and Lida and
they're shooting pool and getting loaded as one does in
nineteen eighty whatever when it was recorded, probably recorded in
(17:24):
eighty eight, and they're both hammered and find like, you know,
we were supposed to be working on a song, and
they went and they sat in a little studio where
they were at and Leader just started playing the guitar
chords and they just banged out the song. I think
it's a great vocal performance by both. Probably Leada Ford's best,
not her best song, her best vocal performance. Our best
(17:46):
song is of course kiss Me Deadly. And now for
a completely different direction, we have stand by ram oh
So Saccharin, and I do think that they've mentioned couple
of the songs from this era, like Shiny Happy People
for example, Stan not necessarily in their opinion, their best work. Obviously,
(18:08):
they went from being a little bit more darker alternative
to stand in the Place where You Live Now. Turn
North is Algos now Turned South whatever, It's okay. The
first big single from Guns and Roses with Welcome to
the Jungle. So good man is this was just on
(18:30):
the charts because it got released in eighty seven and
then just stayed. They re released it in eighty eight
and then it just kept going. Holy cow, that seemed
like the timeline didn't line up, and I'll explain why
in just a minute. Let's see. We have cover Girl
by nkot Be the New Kids on the Block Boston Zone.
(18:54):
We have Patients by Guns and Roses, which is of
course off their EP GENR Love, which was released in
eighty eight and the single came out in nineteen eighty nine.
Patience is a great tune. We have the late great
Jeff Healy Band with Angel Eyes, great song in a
song that I mentioned as being a great rainy day song.
(19:17):
We have love Song by The Cure coming in at
number sixty eight. We have Missed You Like Crazy by
Natalie Cole. We have a Funky Cole and Medina by
tone Log at number sixty five. We have Second Chance
by thirty eight special. I forgot that Duran Duran had
to release this year. I Don't Want Your Love by
(19:38):
Duran Duran and just okay, listen to this section. Okay,
number sixty three, Second Chance by thirty eight Special, a
band that you know, came out of what the seventies
or the eighties. They kind of got big and then
they came back with this album, but it goes thirty
eight Special Duran Duran eighteen in Life, skid Row, When
(20:01):
the Children Cry by White Lion, Cherish by Madonna, Sowing
the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears, Soldier of
Love by Who Donnie Osmond, I Like It by Dino,
Express Yourself by Madonna, Satisfied by Richard Marx, Armageddonet by
(20:25):
def Leppard, You Got the Right stuff. New Kids on
the Block So Alive by Love and Rockets. Holy cow,
my heart can't tell you no. Rod Stewart hanging tough
New Kids on the Block. Guys, I think I gotta
do the whole rest of the list. This is crazy.
This is just hit after hit. Normally I do these
lists and it's stuff that I'm like, eh, okay, I
(20:47):
don't really remember that one. This whole thing. I was
definitely tuned into the radio in nineteen eighty nine. Um,
my heart can't tell you no. Rod Stewart hanging tough
New Kids on the Block. Every Little Step Bobby Love,
Shack the B fifty two's Real Love by Jody Wattley,
rock On by Michael Damien, Bad Dance by Prince My,
(21:12):
Once Bitten Twice Shy by Great White, bust A Move
by Young MC, The Lover of Me Sheena Easton, Good
Thing by Fine Young Cannibals, Born to Be My Baby
Bond Jovi. Don't Rush Me Taylor Dane, When I'm with
You by Sheriff. Do you remember Sheriff? And then they
(21:35):
had a spinoff band, right like Alias or something. Yeah,
they returned as Alias later on. Yeah, Yeah, Sheriff and Alias.
I had this crazy cassette. It was called Best Rock
Ballads and it was like Rio Speedwagon. It was Sheriff
(21:56):
and Alias and just a whole bunch of stuff. It
was a great like, hey, you gotta set the mood.
You know what I mean driving around your car. You
know what I'm saying. Buffalo Stance by Nana Cherry and then,
like I said, what started this whole thing for tonight?
When I see you out, excuse me if I could
turn back time by Share, which is just it's a banger,
(22:17):
it is, It's just a banger of a song. It
was then it is now. That's why Share I think
just carefully cultivates the songs that she releases. But holy cow,
this keeps going. There's a bunch of stuff that was
that was earlier in the list that I didn't bother
mentioning with. But I'm looking at this going. Holy cow,
when I see you smile by Bad English, which is
(22:40):
basically what John Waite and like members of Foreigner Right
not Foreigner Journey. Yeah, Jonathan Kane, John Waite, Dean Castronovo
and Neil Sean like crazy. That was such a crazy band.
(23:02):
Wild Thing by Tone Look, Eternal Flames by the Bengals,
The Living Years, Mike and the Mechanics number thirty one.
Then is next few not a well one of them
I'm a big fan of. We Have Forever Your Girl
by Paula Abduel and then, as I mentioned on the
Kids Shows episode, we Have Toy Soldiers by Martika Baby,
(23:25):
Don't forget my number, Millie Vanilli. Let's see how can
I fall by Breathe the Joey McIntyre led I'll Be
Loving You Forever by Nucus on the Block. A funny story.
There is this girl she had a crush on me.
I did not reciprocate this. She said one of the
most out of pocket things that I'm not going to
(23:47):
share with you on this podcast. Eh, And it's just
it's I can't even share it. But I was with
my girlfriend at the time. We were at a band
p the band was getting together, and usually the Hicks
weren't allowed to band practice, but it was just kind
of a looser practice. And you know this one young
(24:08):
lady who is friends of my drummer's brother. She was
there and apparently she fell in love with me sent
me the craziest voicemails, like nuts stuff, and I was
sent I'll be loving You Forever by nucad on the
Block over the Family Answering Machine. Next, we have Like
(24:32):
a Prayer by Madonna, Oh, one of my all time
favorite blue eyed soul songs. If you don't know Me
by Now by Simply Red, I'll Be There for You
by Bond Jovi, Listen to Your Heart by rock Set Excellent,
Blame It on the Rain, Millie Vanilli, Two Hearts, Two Hearts,
(24:56):
Do Do Do Do Do? Phil Collins on her Own
by Bobby Brown. She Drives Me Crazy by Fya Fine
Young Cannibal's That is a killer, killer tune. The Look
The Look by rock Set. That's a great one, Girl,
I'm Gonna Miss You by Millie Vanilli and then the
(25:19):
song the theme song, our song, if you Will of
my high school sweet Art and I We Have at
number fifteen, Heaven by Warrant, which got locked at number two,
never made it to number one. You know I've said
it before. Janie Lane's one of my favorite singer songwriters
vocalists of that era or any era. But Heaven was
(25:40):
our song we have. Don't Want to Lose You by
Gloria Estefan, Lost in Your Eyes by One Debbie Gibson,
Waiting for a Start to Fall by Boy meets Girl.
Remember that one right here Waiting by Richard Marks That
was on a later mixtape for a different girlfriend. Given
You the Best That I Got by Anita Baker. My
(26:00):
stepdad loved Anita Baker and that album Baby I Love
Your Way, Freebird Medallee Medley by Will to Power Good Grief.
Got to admit it. I know they lip synced Girl,
you Know It's True by Millie Finilly. That was a
badass tune. Wow. This was nineteen eighty nine Wind Beneath
(26:20):
My Wings by Bete Midler. Uh, cold Hearted Snake look
into his eyes. Uh oh, he's been telling lies. Cold
Hearted by Paula Abduel. We have Missed You Much by
Janet Jackson and then straight up Now tell Me? Do
you really want to love me Forever? By Paula Abduel.
And then I thought that the song at number three
(26:40):
would have been the overall consensus for the year, But
when was it released. It was released in eighty eight
and stayed on the charts for quite some time, so
that's why it was not the overall. But that is
Poison with every rose has its thorn off the Open
Up and Say Ah album. It's an evergreen song. It
(27:05):
just is. It comes on now and you're just transported
to that time always. It's just so so fucking good.
We have My Prerogative by one Bobby Brown. And then finally,
the overall number one song is look Away by Chicago.
This was literally on every type of station because the
(27:27):
classic rock stations wanted to play it because it's Chicago.
The pop channels wanted to play it because it was
this hip hop song. Look Away, Baby, look go Away.
I mean, it was a huge hit, and apparently part
of the reason that they ended up having their keyboard player,
let's see Bill Champlin on lead vocals is because Peter
(27:50):
Saterra was now having a solo career and they didn't
want it to sound like, quote unquote like Chicago having
any kind of I guess misunderstanding in the marketplace because
Peter Setara had such a distinctive voice that was synonymous
with Chicago. So Bill Champlin came in and did the vocals.
(28:15):
It's a great song. It's a great song. So what's
interesting is that before being submitted to Chicago, the song
was one of two ballads offered by Epic Records to
Cheap Trick, who chose the Flame instead. The track was
also offered to Europe, but was turned down due to
frontman Joey Tempests refusal to record material written by outside writers.
(28:38):
So shout out to the band Europe. So that is
the year end Hot one hundred Singles of nineteen eighty nine.
I apologize I was reading fast, Hopefully, I was articulating
everything and it came out clear. But I just covered
a lot of ground. But I'm just looking at the
list and I'm going like, simply read Bonjobi Rosette and
(29:02):
Nelie Vanilli, Phil Collins, Bobby Brown finding Cannibals. I'm just
looking at it going holy shit, Like every genre was
kind of represented here, and all of them were massive songs. Now,
you know, I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago
on the podcast that we're doing this kind of paint
by numbers almost when it comes to music, and I
(29:22):
feel like back then, even music that was in pop,
that may have been done with let's say, program drums
or whatever, there was still something more raw about it.
Maybe it's because even if they had a drum machine,
it was all synths, the vocalists weren't super overly polished
or overly produced where it wasn't like the auto tune,
(29:45):
like the pro tools kind of thing where everything is
so precise and that the beats per minute is like, okay,
what is the exact I guess structure, the science of
the song. I still don't feel like, despite all these
folks saying, Okay, here's the science, You're gonna have this
intro and it's gonna be x number of bars, and
(30:07):
then there's gonna be your first verse. Then you're gonna
be a build up chorus, and then you're supposed to
have this banger of a chorus. The choruses never rise
to the hook like these songs. Did you look through
this whole thing and everything had such a hook? I
mean every single song, regardless of style. Yeah, I don't know.
(30:30):
There's just something about modern songwriting. It's just not I
want something to make me feel like these songs. Did
you know, even songs that were outside my quote unquote
preferred genre, you still go, that's a great freaking song,
perfect right, Like a prayer is a great freaking tune,
great freaking tune, Brunette Madonna. I don't know, it's just
(30:55):
so different. Come on, music industry, get your shit together. Okay.
So now let's shift over to the box office for
nineteen eighty nine, what were the big hit movies? So
let's go starting with number ten. Is that true? Wow? Okay,
(31:16):
I figured this would have been higher on the list.
So bear in mind this is unadjusted for inflation, because
Lord knows that some of these movies were some of
the biggest movies of our youth. A couple of things
to bear in mind, capacities of theaters, number of theaters
per actual cinema, that you went to. What was the
cost per ticket? All right? What were the cost of concessions? Like?
(31:38):
I would have to look it up, Like what the
average cost. Let's just see this. Let's find out average
cost of a movie ticket in nineteen eighty nine. What
do we get here? The average cost of a movie
ticket in nineteen eighty nine was approximately three dollars and
(32:02):
ninety nine cents in the United States. So for three
ninety nine I could go and see a movie or
at least fill up half a tank of gas. Holy cow,
But this is according to the National Association of Theater
Owners also known as NATO and other historical box office records.
(32:23):
Adjusted for inflation, this would be roughly nine to fifty
to ten dollars. Now bear in mind I usually buy
in advance. Oftentimes you have to buy an advance if
you want to get a good seat, right because now
it's not just general admission. So if you don't order
advance and pay all the fees, we don't go to
enough movies to join up for one of these clubs
(32:46):
unlimited ticket purchases. You wave all fees. Great, we see
like a handful of movies each year. I need to
see a ton of movies back then, or we're gonna
go through this list, and I'm sure that I've seen
many of them in the movie because it was three
ninety nine, and let's see, in nineteen eighty nine, I
would have been paying full price. I wasn't a kidneymore.
(33:06):
But even like, think about like a family, I have
a family of five. We just went to the movies.
Oh that's right. One thing that happened this weekend. We
went and saw Thunderbolts. They're saying it's it's not going
to meet the margin that Marvel or Disney had wanted
it to. If you haven't seen it, it's probably gonna
be in the theater for like another week or so.
It was worth it. It was really worth it. It
(33:27):
was an enjoyable kind of return to form for Marvel,
and I thought it was great. Everyone enjoyed it. It
was universally loved by the family. Let's see, So what
did I spend? Let's see, so for a family of five,
(33:49):
it cost eighty bucks. Cost eighty bucks, which is sixteen
dollars a ticket right now. It would have been twenty
bucks for all five of us in nineteen eighty nine.
And what would you have seen, Well, let's get into that.
You would have seen Back to the Future Part two,
(34:10):
directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Michael J. Fox, chrispher Lloyd
Lea Thompson. It did not star Crispin Glover by the Way,
Elizabeth Shu and Jeffrey Weisman. This grossed ninety three million.
Ninety three million. That was considered a big hit, coming
in at number nine with ninety six million. We Have
(34:33):
Parenthood starring Steve Martin, Tomhols, Rick Moranez, Martha Plimpton, Keata Reeves,
Jason Robarts, Mary Steinbergen, and Dianne Weist, directed by Ron Howard.
I did not see that in the movie theater. I
did see that on VHS not long afterwards. But yeah,
ninety six million, considered a big hit, also at ninety
(34:54):
six million, A movie that I did not go to
see it in the movie theater. It seemed foolish to
me and a watching it VHS down at my buddies'
buddy's house. We watched a lot of movies my buddies,
Skip's Baseman, Dead Poet Society, Robin Williams, Robert Sean, Leonard,
Ethan Hawk, Josh Charles, Gail Hansen, Norman Lloyd, and Kurt
wood Smith, Yes, kurtwood Smith otherwise known as Red from
(35:17):
that seventy show, directed by Peter Ware ninety six million,
kind of a classic. Coming in at one hundred and
thirteen million. We have ghost Busters two. The Gang Is
Back Together, Bill Murray, Dan, Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Dreamis,
Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts directed by the
legendary Ivan Reitman. Saw bat in the movie Theater. I
(35:41):
also saw Look Who's Talking. I don't even know why,
maybe because it was John Travolta, Christi Ali, Olympia Dukakis,
Abe Fucking Vogoda, and Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis was a
major box office star. Which is so interesting to think
that you have John Travolta and Bruce Willis in Who's
Talking and then later on in Pulp Fiction, two very
(36:04):
very different movies. I did not see this one in
the movie Theater. We have Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,
another hit for one. Rick moranis at one hundred and
thirty one million, also starring one Matt Frewer, best known
as Max Mat Matt Max Headroom Marcia Strassman and Christine
(36:24):
Sutherland directed by Joe Johnson, huge hit for Disney. Saw
that many times on VHS. Next one I saw on
a date. It's a good date movie. We have Rayman
starring Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise and the Valeria Galino directed
by Barry Levinson one hundred and forty million dollars. Tom
(36:48):
Cruise states that he got the part in this movie
because he was out to dinner with his sister who
saw across the restaurant Dustin Hoffman and said, you need
to go and introduce yourself to him. He's like, I what,
it's Dustin Hoffman. Like, Dustin Hoffman was a huge movie star,
(37:10):
and Tom Cruise was certainly already getting started. It wasn't
like he was a nobody. It's like he's not gonna
know who I am. And Dustin's like, I love your work.
I would love to work with you someday. And I
believe it was Dustin Hoffman who had Tom Cruise in
mind to play his brother. So, of course this is
the story of Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Ray Babbitt and
(37:33):
Tom Cruise as Charles Charlie Babbitt, and of course Charlie
when he was little called Raymond Rayman. Ah, great movie.
Great movie, and I think one of the earliest views
that mainstream America saw of what we now call autism. Anyway,
saw the movie theater, actually watched it. Next, we have
(37:57):
Lethal Weapon two, starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci,
Josh Ackland, Derek O'Connor, and Patsy Kenzip directed by the
legendary Richard Donner. One hundred and forty seven million at
the box office. Saw that it was great. Surprisingly, the
next movie on the list I did not see in
(38:18):
the movie theater. I don't know why. Number two Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade arguably the best of the
original three, depending on your preference. I'm a Raiders of
the Lost Arc guy. My wife is an Indiana Jones
and the Last Crusade Gal Harrison, Ford, Denholm, Elliott Alison, Duty,
(38:38):
John Rice Davey, Julian Glover, and of course Sean Connery
directed by none other than Steven Spielberg. So one hundred
and ninety seven million would be considered a flop nowadays.
And finally number one saw it in the theater and
many times since you might have heard that I mentioned
(39:01):
a I might have even skipped over it because it
was not my favorite song by the legendary Prince who
did the soundtrack for Tim Burton's Batman, Jack Nicholson as
the Joker, Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger, Robert Wohl, Pat Hinkle,
Billy Dee Williams, of course is Harvey Dent, Michael go
(39:22):
and Jack Palance. Frickin' Jack Palance had this late career
resurgence with this with City Slickers. He's on the oscars
doing one arm push ups. He's like seventy five years old. Nevertheless,
this was like the next breakthrough of the superhero movie.
Of course, back in the day you had Christopher Reeves Superman.
(39:44):
But many people even back then, and it wouldn't have
been on the Internet, but it would have been in
like Entertainment Weekly or one of those complaining about the
casting variety of Michael Keaton as Batman, saying that he
didn't look the part, he didn't look like Bruce Wayne,
only to have one of the most iconic takes on
(40:04):
the character. Now, I'm not saying that Michael Keaton is
my favorite Batman. He's actually not. I don't know. I
wouldn't call myself a Nolan guy. But Christian Bale I
think was great in both aspects of the character, both
Batman and Bruce Wayne. I thought he was excellent. So
I say Christian Bale is the best of the Batman.
(40:27):
Michael Keaton would come in at number two. Then I
would say Ben Affleck, then Robert Pattinson. Although my kids
are all like batpat is the Batman awesome? Then you know,
Val Kilmer was good, wasn't my favorite? Batman and Clooney
could have been great. It just didn't work out that way. Nevertheless,
(40:48):
Batman was the highest grossing film of the year. But
a couple other honorable mentions we have The War of
the Roses came out in eighty nine National Lampoons, Christmas Vacation. Now,
of course a classic Harlem Knights. That was with Eddie
Murphy and Richard Pryor and Red Fox, Crazy Black Rain
(41:15):
with Michael Douglas. I remember that coming out directed by
Ridley Scott. I might have to go back and watch
that one. Uncle Buck Turner and Hoot, Tom Hanks and
the Lovable Dog Beasley. Let's see Star Trek five, The
Final Frontier at Cemetery. Hell yeah, major league legendary turn
(41:40):
by one mister Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes, Tom Beringer, Bob Uker,
Renee Russo, Corbyn Bernston was excellent in that as with
as Dennis Haysbert excellent. Let's see lean on Me. I
didn't really like that one that much. As a Morgan Freeman,
(42:01):
It's good the fly to didn't Know The Burbs. I
saw this in the movie Theater. I saw this in
the movie Theater, a black comedy film directed by Joe Dante,
Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Dukommen, Corey Feldman,
Wendy Shall, Henry Gibson, and Gil Gordon. Excellent. I really
(42:23):
really enjoyed that movie. Watched it with the kids recently,
like what is going on right now? Because it is
a comedy, but it is kind of mysterious and elements
of horror, but not really. It's really fun. So if
you haven't watched The Burbs in a minute, it's probably
the only Tom Hanks film I really really enjoyed that
(42:43):
I like to watch. I just think it's great. There's
been stuff that he's done that I like, but I'm
not a Forrest Gump guy. I'm not a castaway guy.
Saving Private Ryan is brilliant, but that's just whole cast everything.
That's an amazing film start to finish. Really Tom Hanks guy.
But I really like The Urbs. I don't know why.
(43:04):
I think it's clever. I think it's well written, well performed.
Plus Carrie Fisher. That's probably why I went between Corey
Feldman Carrie Fisher. Sign me up, I'm there. But a
pretty nice slate of films topping the box office in
nineteen eighty nine. So there we have it. Another episode
(43:25):
of the Stuck in the Middle Podcast has come to
an end. Just kicking at old school with some old
nineteen eighty nine. Let's just break down a year and yeah,
I hope you liked it. Let me know what were
some of your favorites. What do you think I missed?
I thought I pretty much covered all the key points.
Maybe there's some world news that I missed, but I
(43:45):
think I captured all. But you let me know, and
how do you do that? You can email me at
Stuck in the Middle pod at yahoo dot com. You
can find me on Instagram X and YouTube at stuckpod X.
Heading over to the Facebook page Stuck in the middle
of gen X Podcast, Please like, comment, share, leave five
star reviews, and most importantly, please subscribe to the podcast.
So until next time, later slackers,
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