Casey Kasem's American Top 40—February 27, 1988

This week, we travel back to a time when the “M” in MTV stood for Music; an era of 24/7 video programming; a moment in history when 16-year-olds made hit songs instead of reality shows about being pregnant.

Teenage girls flexed their buying power, catapulting Debbie Gibson and Tiffany onto the charts. VJs pushed artists like Terence Trent D’arby, The Bangles and INXS into the mainstream. Boomer icons like George Harrison, Fleetwood Mac, and Cher found ways to survive and even thrive in the digital age.

All of this, along with a George Michael chart-topper, history’s first Rickroll, and a mega-dose of Dirty Dancing. This countdown is crazy with Swayze.

The Week In History

Casey Kasem’s late February countdown aired just as organizers made final preparations for the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. The Calgary Games played out between February 13th and February 28th. It marked the last time that the Soviet Union or East Germany would ever compete in the Winter Olympics.

The Iron Curtain nations had ceased to exist by the time of the ’92 games in Alpertville, France.

Though in the throes of government death, the Eastern Bloc made its final appearance count. The U.S.S.R. topped all nations in the medal count with 29 overall and 11 gold. East Germany came in next with 9 gold medals and 25 in total.

The U.S. took home just 2 gold medals, and 6 altogether. Canada, clearly distracted by its duties as host, seized zero gold medals that year, and just 5 medals in all.

Most importantly though, this was the year that Jamaica sent its very first bobsleigh delegation to the Winter Olympics. Here they are–crashing into a wall.

This, of course, inspired the 1993 Disney movie Cool Runnings, most notable for briefly making Doug E. Doug a household name.

Speaking of Disney, the top movie at the box office this month was the studio’s acclaimed Robin Williams vehicle—Good Morning Vietnam, the story of an irreverent DJ named Adrian Cronauer who is dispatched to Vietnam to spin records on U.S. Armed Services radio.

His zany antics endear him to the troops, introubulate him with his ranking officers, and earn him an Academy Award nomination. The soundtrack is packed with 60s soul, pop, and garage nuggets.

Highlights from This Week’s Top 40 Countdown

Singers Gone Solo

George Michael’s moody “Father Figure” hits the top spot on this week’s countdown. This was actually the fourth single from the British R&B singer’s 1987 enormous solo debut record–Faith. In fact, as “Father Figure” scaled the charts, the title track from Faith also remained firmly lodged in the Billboard Hot 100.

George Michael became an MTV era icon on the strength of his early hits as part of a duo called Wham. Along with partner Andrew Ridgely, Michael shot out of the gate in the early 80s with a clutch of poppy, playful earworms. On his solo debut, George Michael achieved an entirely new level of fame.

In fact, this week’s countdown is filled with erstwhile lead singers. At #22, former Police-man Sting checks in with “Be Still My Beating Heart”; Van Halen’s David Lee Roth hits #12 with “Just Like Paradise”; and The Go-Go’s Belinda Carlisle reaches #8 with “I Get Weak.”

Then there’s Paul Carrack at #9 with “Don’t Shed a Tear.” This tune is pretty forgettable, even if it is his biggest solo hit. But Paul holds a unique distinction. The talented vocalist previously scored major hits as a singer for three different bands:

Going Deep On Dirty Dancing

Still, most notable here among former bandleaders is Eric Carmen—once of power pop icons The Raspberries—who smashes the charts with “Hungry Eyes” at #5.

Let’s go a little deeper on “Hungry Eyes”. Actually, let’s take a whole Dirty Dancing deep dive. Prepare for the time of your life. (Sorry…sort of).

At this point in his solo career, Eric Carmen was best known for the oft-lampooned melodrama, “All By Myself”, which I’m only now realizing is an insane 7 minutes long.

His career took a considerable leap forward when producers featured his recording of “Hungry Eyes” on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. The soundtrack dropped along with the movie in summer of ’87 and went on to sell more than 32 million copies, boosted by a clever balance of innately familiar oldies and 80s power ballads.

The formula was a tremendous success. I was perfectly evocative of the film’s early ‘60s setting, but also delivered a batch of slickly produced, ready-made radio hits. It became a template for countless 80s soundtracks to follow.

The untold story is that this soundtrack was anchored by the work of an obscure working-class New Jersey bar band. Hailing from New Brunswick, Franke and the Knockouts recorded the original version of “Hungry Eyes” in 1984.

Bandmates Franke Previte and John DeNicola share a co-writing credit.

Carmen’s version is pretty faithful to the original, though it clearly benefits from a superior singer and glossier studio production.

Amazingly, even at #5, it isn’t the highest ranking hit from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack in this week’s countdown. That honor belongs to Patrick Swayze, who holds the #3 spot with “She’s Like the Wind.”

Swayze actually co-wrote this one in 1984 with soundtrack composer Stacy Widelitz. They shopped the demo around for a few years but found no takers. Then Swayze played it for Dirty Dancing director Emile Ardolino.

Ardolino loved it and passed it along to the soundtrack’s producers, who ultimately minted Patrick Swayze as a star of screen and studio.

It all proves a very important point—nobody puts Swayze in a corner.

More Dirty Dancing

Ok. Even though it doesn’t make this week’s countdown…the biggest hit on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack was actually “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”, which reached all the way up to #1 in November of 1987.

This one was also composed by Previte and DeNicola of the Knockouts. The hit version was performed by former Righteous Brother Bill Medley and duet specialist Jennifer Warnes.

However, Franke and the Knockouts also recorded the original version of this familiar tune. Though their demo informed and inspired the hit that we all know, it was not released at the time of its recording.

Curious listeners had to wait until 1998, when the song found its way into a reissue of the band’s debut as a bonus track.

Interestingly, this is the version that Baby and Johnny Castle are actually hearing in the movie. That ensemble dance number you see in the film’s climactic scene is taking place in real time to the demo by Franke and the Knockouts.

The Medley-Warnes version was still under construction at the time. Though the hit version was overdubbed later, Swayze always held that the Franke and the Knockouts version was his favorite.

Odds and Ends

Australian New Wave rockers INXS were huge in 1988. In the fall of 1987, they released their sixth studio album, Kick. It blasted the band into another stratosphere, spawning four Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 singles on the way to six-times platinum status.

INXS has two entries in this week’s countdown—“Devil Inside” at #38 and “Need You Tonight” at #21.

Salt-N-Pepa account for the only hip hop song to make the countdown this week, with “Push It” at #23; M/A/R/R/S hints at the rising tide of weird-ass electronic dance music with “Pump Up the Volume” at #13; and Michael Jackson gets self-reflective with “Man in the Mirror” at #17.

The Original Rickroll

But the entry on this countdown that has proven most culturally persistent? Clearly, it’s Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

Astley’s signature song reached #4 on Casey Kasem’s countdown this week.

The lead single off of the British pop singer’s debut album was an international #1 smash hit at the time of its release. The accompanying MTV video received heavy rotation. I’d describe it to you, but I’m pretty confident you’ve already seen it.

Two decades after Astley’s greatest commercial success, he became the subject of one of the first truly inspired viral internet memes. I feel like I probably don’t have to explain this, but in the interests of due diligence, I’m going to do it anyway:

Rickrolling is when somebody sends you a link to the video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” disguised as a link to something that you might actually be inclined to click on like a news article, or a cool recipe, or a list of celebrities who have really let themselves go in the last few years.

And then you see this…

Ok, now that that’s out of the way…

The first Rickroll reportedly occurred on 4chan in 2007. The bait-and-switch meme began as an April Fool’s Day joke but ultimately expanded into a web-wide and worldwide cultural phenomenon.

The sudden and unexpected visibility elevated Astley from late ‘80s footnote to permanent cultural fixture, and revitalized his career. Today, his most famous video puts up Drake-like streaming numbers, with the official Youtube version garnering a remarkable 1.5 billion+ plays since being uploaded in 2009.

But I would contest that the original Rickroll actually occurred in 1989, and the very first victim was one-time U.S. ally Manuel Noriega. Noriega’s freelance foray for into the Central American drug trafficking business soured his friendship with then-President Bush.

The Bush Administration called for Noriega’s apprehension. He fled his palance, and U.S. troops began their pursuit on December 20th.

By Christmas, Noriega was holed up in the Panama City Vatican Embassy, where he enjoyed immunity from the use of actual force. With guns holstered, American PSYOPS tried a different tactic. They created a wall of sound around the embassy, and began blasting popular Western music at earsplitting volume.

Noriega was known to enjoy an opera in his leisure time. So they fed him a steady diet of Rick Astley instead. “Never Gonna Give You Up” proved a powerful weapon in the art of psychological warfare.

Other selections on the PSYOPS playlist included the Clash’s version of “I Fought the Law”, Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” and, obviously, Van Halen’s “Panama”.

Noriega ultimately gave himself up to U.S. authorities on January 3rd.

We’ll never know what role this tactic played in Noriega’s surrender. The Bush White House was most displeased to learn that soldiers were using rock music in lieu of bombs and guns. Bush National Security advisor Brent Scowcroft called the tactic “undignified.”

Undignified or not, Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” has proven a surprisingly lasting achievement. And I daresay that what was once ironic appreciation has flowered into a completely sincere recognition that maybe Rick Astley’s tune is a total banger.

Here are the rest of the bangers and hangers from late February of 1988.