Wow I just found out about this podcast and can certainly say listening felt like time travel. Almost everything you played had some sort of meaning.
Couple of comments
1) Purple Rain - most definitely an 80s song! Listening to it screams homecoming my freshman year. While it is a fantastic song and one could argue that it transcends time, it's home is 1984.
2) Almost Paradise - Talk about a powerhouse duo from two of the best voices of the time. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out why you left it out (see next comment).
3) Kenny Loggins was a force in the 80s. I suspect you left out Almost Paradise in favor of Footloose (from the movie Footloose). Since only one Kenny Loggins song is supposedly allowed in the countdown, why not include "Danger Zone" from Top Gun (maybe in on the "B" side, since it is from 1986) and replace Footloose with Almost Paradise? Or better yet, just break the rules!
Finally - I love the concept - let the games begin!
Welcome aboard, John!! Tough tough choices to be made. Joe had it as a base tenet that transcendent artists would be left off the bracket , so both Joe and I had to make some difficult cuts. The problem is that there are just too many great songs, and even now we are remembering songs and wishing we had room to include them! It's possible that this assignment was impossible, that we were doomed from the start, but dammit, we march on!!
All your ideas and opinions are sound, this inexact science had taken an emotional toll on everyone !
Thank you for listening! And keep the comments (and votes) coming!
Thoughts on the Movie Region, in no particular order, and addressing only the songs left out, since comments on the competitors will be better served during the actual matchups. In no particular order:
1) "You're the Best" was written for "Rocky III," which is why it sounds that way. Diving deeper, composer Bill Conti incorporated the three ascending notes/chords accompanying the actual lyrics "You're the best" into the film score: They're the same ones you hear building during the final fight - "dundun DUNNNNNNN" - and in more introspective elsewhere in the score. Additionally, the notes played in descending order accompany things like the Cobra Kai attacking Daniel on his bike. (Source: "The Soundtrack Show" podcast. Highly recommended.)
2) From what I can find "Spandau Ballet" is specifically a reference to Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess twitching as he hung, so maybe it's still OK to like "True?" :) (Said the guy who really struggles with enjoying Joy Division, a band name which *is* a terrible WWII reference to the wrong side.)
3) "Almost Paradise" - It's difficult to explain to kids today what the team-up of Mike Reno and Ann Wilson represented to Gen Xers at the time: The frontfolk of two arena-packing bands combining their powers? ARE YOU F'ING KIDDING ME?
4) You never should've got me started. See you in the brackets, 80s nerds.
This will probably sound strange, but it reminds me of a Meat Loaf song or something, in terms of the...what...theatricality(?) of the song. It's pretty good, but I don't recall ever hearing it on the radio--do you know if it ever charted in the US?
No Dirty Dancing songs? Was that movie in the correct time frame? Most the tunes were oldies, so shouldn't be included, but did you consider "(I've Had)The Time of My Life?" Not a strong opinion, just asking.
You guessed it--Dirty Dancing is in 1987, so you might see a "Side B" Movie Region matchup of Swayze's "She's Like the Wind" vs. "(I've Had) The Time of My Life"! That remains to be seen, we haven't made that bracket yet, but there's a strong possibility!
First of all, thank you for ALL of this. I love it so much.
1.) I did not remember this from Rocky III, probably because I have only seen that once or twice, compared to many more viewings of The Karate Kid. I love that we basically "figured it out" from the sound of it!
2.)Regarding Spandau Ballet, I didn't want to believe that they were Nazis, but I had read that the term referred to the prisoners' twitches while dying, which made me way more uncomfortable than a Nazi getting his final comeuppance. (And thanks for the note about Joy Division--that's news to me.)
3.)Almost Paradise had real, ultimate power, to be sure. Picking the brackets is tough.
4.) This kind of interest is exactly why we are doing this. Thanks for being here!
Wow I just found out about this podcast and can certainly say listening felt like time travel. Almost everything you played had some sort of meaning.
Couple of comments
1) Purple Rain - most definitely an 80s song! Listening to it screams homecoming my freshman year. While it is a fantastic song and one could argue that it transcends time, it's home is 1984.
2) Almost Paradise - Talk about a powerhouse duo from two of the best voices of the time. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out why you left it out (see next comment).
3) Kenny Loggins was a force in the 80s. I suspect you left out Almost Paradise in favor of Footloose (from the movie Footloose). Since only one Kenny Loggins song is supposedly allowed in the countdown, why not include "Danger Zone" from Top Gun (maybe in on the "B" side, since it is from 1986) and replace Footloose with Almost Paradise? Or better yet, just break the rules!
Finally - I love the concept - let the games begin!
Welcome aboard, John!! Tough tough choices to be made. Joe had it as a base tenet that transcendent artists would be left off the bracket , so both Joe and I had to make some difficult cuts. The problem is that there are just too many great songs, and even now we are remembering songs and wishing we had room to include them! It's possible that this assignment was impossible, that we were doomed from the start, but dammit, we march on!!
All your ideas and opinions are sound, this inexact science had taken an emotional toll on everyone !
Thank you for listening! And keep the comments (and votes) coming!
--Keith
Thoughts on the Movie Region, in no particular order, and addressing only the songs left out, since comments on the competitors will be better served during the actual matchups. In no particular order:
1) "You're the Best" was written for "Rocky III," which is why it sounds that way. Diving deeper, composer Bill Conti incorporated the three ascending notes/chords accompanying the actual lyrics "You're the best" into the film score: They're the same ones you hear building during the final fight - "dundun DUNNNNNNN" - and in more introspective elsewhere in the score. Additionally, the notes played in descending order accompany things like the Cobra Kai attacking Daniel on his bike. (Source: "The Soundtrack Show" podcast. Highly recommended.)
2) From what I can find "Spandau Ballet" is specifically a reference to Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess twitching as he hung, so maybe it's still OK to like "True?" :) (Said the guy who really struggles with enjoying Joy Division, a band name which *is* a terrible WWII reference to the wrong side.)
3) "Almost Paradise" - It's difficult to explain to kids today what the team-up of Mike Reno and Ann Wilson represented to Gen Xers at the time: The frontfolk of two arena-packing bands combining their powers? ARE YOU F'ING KIDDING ME?
4) You never should've got me started. See you in the brackets, 80s nerds.
I would have gone with "Tonight is What it Means to Be Young" as the song to represent Streets of Fire.
I don't know that one! Will go give it a listen! --Keith
Epic 7 minute opus written by Jim Steinman of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell fame.
Oh, no shit--I know that guy! OK, so he really has a signature sound!
This will probably sound strange, but it reminds me of a Meat Loaf song or something, in terms of the...what...theatricality(?) of the song. It's pretty good, but I don't recall ever hearing it on the radio--do you know if it ever charted in the US?
Or maybe like if "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" and "I Need a Hero" had a baby.
No Dirty Dancing songs? Was that movie in the correct time frame? Most the tunes were oldies, so shouldn't be included, but did you consider "(I've Had)The Time of My Life?" Not a strong opinion, just asking.
You guessed it--Dirty Dancing is in 1987, so you might see a "Side B" Movie Region matchup of Swayze's "She's Like the Wind" vs. "(I've Had) The Time of My Life"! That remains to be seen, we haven't made that bracket yet, but there's a strong possibility!
First of all, thank you for ALL of this. I love it so much.
1.) I did not remember this from Rocky III, probably because I have only seen that once or twice, compared to many more viewings of The Karate Kid. I love that we basically "figured it out" from the sound of it!
2.)Regarding Spandau Ballet, I didn't want to believe that they were Nazis, but I had read that the term referred to the prisoners' twitches while dying, which made me way more uncomfortable than a Nazi getting his final comeuppance. (And thanks for the note about Joy Division--that's news to me.)
3.)Almost Paradise had real, ultimate power, to be sure. Picking the brackets is tough.
4.) This kind of interest is exactly why we are doing this. Thanks for being here!
--Keith of "The 80s-est Podcast"
What what what with Spandau Ballet?!!! Gross! Goddamnit, I loved the song