Don’s Top 10 for April 21, 1987

(#12 last week) Named by VH1 the 40th greatest hard rock song of all time. I'll defer to their expertise. Have you seen the cult movie "Hot Tub Time Machine"? "Poison" performed it. I put quotation marks there because actors portrayed the group.....

(#10 last week) Kim's dad Marty was a U.K. recording star in the 50s & 60s, even charting once in the U.S. (using the name "Shannon", with the cult song "Abergavenny", in 1969). Kim herself first charted in the U.S. with "Kids In America" in the early 80s. This song made history itself: It became the first song in the rock era to make the top 10 in three different versions (Supremes, 1966; Vanilla Fudge, 1968). It happened again just a year later, with the third version of "The Loco-Motion" making the top 10.

(#9 last week) The song Bono considers his "Hey Jude", meaning, the song so big it trancends his group.

(#4 last week) Arguably Prince's most socially conscious single. Backup vocals are by then-girlfriend Susannah Melvoin.

(#7 last week) Produced by Narada Michael Walden, who became the 8th producer in the rock era to have back-to-back national #1 hits when this followed Starship at the summit.

(#2 last week) One of only nine #1 songs to be #1 by two different artists, this won Bill Withers a Grammy Award--in 1987, for Best R&B Song, a songwriter award.

(#6 last week) In a 2001 poll of the greatest New Zealand & Australian songs of all time, this was voted #2 on the New Zealand list & #7 on the Aussie one (the band had members from both countries). The video earned the group a Best New Artist award at the MTV Video Awards show.

(#3 last week) Jody Watley was no stranger to the charts when she hit it big in the late 80s--she was part of the group Shalamar, who made the top 10 in 1980 with "The Second Time Around" & had a few other hits.

(#1 last week) It's interesting, that as the critics hated the latest incarnation of this San Francisco group, the music-buying public loved them, even more than their previous versions.

(#5 last week) Madge usually did better on our local charts than nationally, & here's the biggest example, a song that peaked at #4 coast-to-coast, but leaps to chart-topper right here! The translation is "the beautiful island". it was first offered to Michael Jackson for his "Bad" album by songwriter Patrick Leonard. Boy, would that have been a bad fit. Michael was smart enough to turn it down. Madonna grabbed it & added lyrics.