Any day that I’m on blogging duty, I wake up with the hope that the internet will have something magical for me that day. Most days, my level of satisfaction with what’s out there is around a five or six on a scale of one to ten. But a day when I happen to stumble upon an entire episode of Solid Gold from Jan. 11, 1986—complete with commercials? That’s a solid ten. Take in the other five segments below the cut, complete with performances by the Judds, Whitney Houston (including Whitney and Dionne Warwick covering the Jackson Browne/Clarence Clemons song “You’re A Friend Of Mine”), John Waite, and Robin Gibb.
Part two:
Part three:
Part four:
Part five:
Part six:
Okay the freezefames alone are attack-inducing.
All the various cover version performances are coming back to me — Marilyn McCoo doing “Human Nature”
“Break My Stride”
And “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” with Andy Gibb:
(Sadly I can’t find her and Rex Smith doing “Beat It” but it must be out there…)
Is REM’s appearance where they actually played instead of lipsyncing out there somewhere? No one ever believes me but I swear it happened!
WOW. Thanks, there went a big chunk of my day.
There’s so much I could poke fun at — that awful synth in the Whitney-Dionne duet! that horrifying singing-in-the-shower montage! — but I’ll just stick to the “chart.”
Solid Gold’s Top 10 always differed widely from the official Billboard list, in part because they used Radio & Records data instead of Billboard’s, but also because they taped the show just enough in advance that they couldn’t really know what was a hit yet. In this particular show, for example, that Bryan Adams-Tina Turner song didn’t actually make the Top 10, and neither did that particular Sting track.
The Lionel Richie song at No. 1 here obviously was a legitimate chart-topper. But what’s so interesting about the Jan. ‘86 timing of this show — especially their making Richie sound like an indomitable hit machine (LOL George Brett reference!) — is that “Say You, Say Me” was basically the beginning of the end for him. It was his last No. 1 hit — he did have the execrable Dancing on the Ceiling album later that year, which spun off a few more Top 10 singles, but then he went into that famous tailspin from which he never really recovered.
In fact, you could argue that this song is poised at the exact moment of the changing of the guard in black pop, from the then-peaked Lionel to the newly ascendant Whitney.
Can I still get 12′ inlaid vinyl flooring? Awe-some.
No one could ruin a song like Rex Smith. I remember his awesome take on “Shadows Of The Night”. There’s not really any of these classic performances on Youtube.
Gotta watch this. This aired on my eleventh birthday!
Man…I feel ancient.
Trying to explain this show to oung people is like trying to explain how people tried to cure diseases with leeches. I can’t forget Andy Gibb singing Every Breath You Take or Ozzy singing Bark at the Moon and changing into a werewolf. Jesus H. Also, I loved every minute of it and my whole weekend revolved around watching it.