NEON NIGHTS [1982]

The parade of K-Tel albums from 1982 continues with Neon Nights - Rock's Danceable Side.   The album sports a stylish cover but for the life of me I cannot figure out what's going on wth that shoe or is it a boot on the cover?  And why is the neon sign clipped on the right on the cover and then clipped at the top on the back cover?  And am I the only one who gets this is indeed rock music under its broadest definition, the same standard the much-mailgned Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame uses? Speaking of which, there are actually two RHOF acts on Neon Nights: Prince and Hall & Oates.  Looking at the tracklist, this is clearly an upbeat R&B album.  I can say there are a few Top 10 Pop hits here but I honestly can't say how well the songs did on any of the other charts except to say absolutely none of these songs crossed over to the Country chart.  Let's set we can find video-wise for some of my favorite songs on Neon Nights.

You can listen to Neon Nights via player below or hit up incomplete Spotify playlist a little further down.

The last Summer I spent away from home was 1982. The way I remember it, my Grandma was waiting for me when I got home the last day of school, along with my then 13 year old cousin, Mike. We spent a few days seeing the sights of Tucson as it was their first time out here and then I rode back to Texas with them in her navy blue Delta 88 with an 8 track deck and a console full of Herb Alpert and Donna Summer tapes. My Texas Grandma bought Mike a replica pilot/space helmet from one of the museum gift shops here and he wore that thing 24/7. The trip back to Texas was filled with minty smoke from Grandma's Salem cigarettes as they sat in the beanbag ashtray on the dash. That Summer, I worked with my Texas Grandpa, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sammy and Uncle Homer building barbed-wire fences, installing cattle guards and sand-blasting buildings, making pretty great (tax-free) money for a sixteen year old kid. Also spent several weekends just outside Bryan where my Grandpa's baby brother "Selze" (given name Sylvester) had built a lovely custom home for his wife and three children, all of whom were close to my age it seemed. Long games of hide and seek on their multi-acre property were broken up by record listening parties in their bedrooms, which I remember as being the biggest bedrooms I had ever seen in my life. (I'd be willing to bet that my palatial office space here at The Hideaway is a third of the size of one of their bedrooms!)

The youngest brother, Daryl, was already a big fan of R&B and it was on his record player that I first heard Dazz Band's "Let It Whip", he even had a dance he did while the song played, said he had seen it on Soul Train. I would go on to hear the song many times over that Summer while out in the pastures with Grandpa Harold, who let me leave radio on and doors open in his truck while we worked sometimes. Heard a lot of great songs on a soul station out of Bryan or maybe Houston. Gap Band, Zapp, One Way, Stevie Wonder, Donna Summer, Patrice Rushen and Ray Parker, Jr. I can almost swear I heard Queen's "Body Language" on that station a couple of times as well. Oh and this song.

The newly convened intern research team here at The Hideaway could find no evidence of a Canadian version of Neon Nights but they did turn up both cassette and 8-track formats. As the album only has a dozen tracks, it may have been easier to establish a uniform tracklist across the three formats without the need for the usual jumble required for 8-track. The stats at discogs marketplace say the average selling price for Neon Nights in ten transactions has been $2.70 with the median pegged at $2.94.  Currently there are thirteen at least VG copies for sale, starting at $3.00. My younger sister had this album on cassette before I bought a vinyl version but I still have mine and she has no idea whatever became of her tapes.  

		debut date	peak date	wks to pk
Let It Whip	Dazz Band	April 24, 1982	July 17, 1982	12
Super Freak	Rick James	August 8, 1981	October 24, 1981	11
Call Me	Skyy	January 16, 1982	March 6, 1982	7
Controversy	Prince	October 24, 1981	November 21, 1981	4
You Got The Power	War	April 3, 1982	April 17, 1982	2
Don't You Want Me	Human League	March 6, 1982	July 3, 1982	17
Get Down On It	Kool & the Gang	February 27, 1982	May 22, 1982	12
I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)	Hall & Oates	November 14, 1981	January 30, 1982	11
A Night To Remember	Shalamar	April 10, 1982	May 29, 1982	7
Circles	Atlantic Starr	March 27, 1982	May 22, 1982	8
Murphy's Law	Cheri	April 10, 1982	June 5, 1982	8
Mama Used To Say	Junior	February 13, 1982	April 24, 1982	10
	averages	February 6, 1982	April 10, 1982	9

As for the songs themselves, they had an average debut on the Hot 100 during first week of February 1982 and peaked on average nine weeks later on the second chart published in April 1982.  Based on the dates, I'd say an educated guess would place the release date of Neon Nights around late Spring or early Summer 1982.

NEON NIGHTS [1982]							18.38
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	COU	R&B	Disco	Rock	AC	CB
Let It Whip	Dazz Band	5		1	2			13
Super Freak	Rick James	16		3	1			17
Call Me	Skyy	26		1	3			27
Controversy	Prince	(70)		3	1			(72)
You Got The Power	War	(66)		18	6
Don't You Want Me	Human League	1			3	4		1
Get Down On It	Kool & the Gang	10		4	16			12
I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)	Hall & Oates	1		1	1	28	12	1
A Night To Remember	Shalamar	(44)		8	15			31
Circles	Atlantic Starr	38		2	9			(48)
Murphy's Law	Cheri	39		5	1			37
Mama Used To Say	Junior	30		2	4			30

With three songs missing the Top 40 on the Pop chart, Neon Nights was doomed to a low score on the K-Tel Scale™. Four Top 10s, including a pair of Number Ones on the Pop chart, one Top 20 on the Adult Contemporary chart and two crossovers to the Rock chart. All but two songs made the R&B Top 10 and if that was the primary factor in the algorithm instead of Pop Top 40, this album would surely be ranked among the Top 10 of All-Time here on the K-Tel Kollection.  And it did slightly better still on the Disco chart. Neon Nights is a better than good listen as long as you know and like the danceable tunes which are presented in radio friendly edited versions on the album.  The playlist below features full length album cuts or extended remix versions for an overall better dancing experience lasting nearly half an hour longer than the playlists above.

Next time out, we're revisiting another one of my favorite K-Tel albums from 1982 as we go from the all R&B of Neon Nights to the all rock of N.U.R.O.C.K. - The Best Of Today's New Rock: