AFTER HOURS [1982]

While everyone else was out buying Adele's 25 or picking up advance tickets to The Force Awakens, I spent the last week rethinking and fine-tuning my Favorite Songs of 1982 list which I hope to unveil over on The Hideaway before the end of January 2016.  This marks the third time I've revamped the list of my favorite songs from my favorite year in music history so its a pretty big task but ultimately rewarding despite the many frustrations.  Make no mistake, it is not a futile attempt at recreating a playlist of what I listened to back in 1982 but rather a cumulative collection of songs I'm listening to most often as a man in his late 40s with practically every song ever made available to listen to.

But getting back to the music of 1982, some of the songs that were eligible for my list appear on the 1982 K-Tel album After Hours, which claims to contain fifteen of The Chart Soaring Hits Of Today. While I count a few of these songs among my favorites, I would not and did not buy this album back in 1982, only picking it up later to round out my K-Tel Kollection.  Why?  The songs are for the most part too mellow, which was not what I was listening to or who I was in 1982.  According to US Copyright Office, After Hours is one of four K-Tel compilations that share a copyright date of July 8, 1982. (The other three titles are pictured below.)

I was curious if any of the songs on After Hours were still on the charts by that date so I did some digging. Using the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated July 10, 1982, I found just three of the songs from After Hours: 

• "Don't Talk To Strangers" was at number 85 in its nineteenth week; 
• "I've Never Been To Me" was at number 88 and also in its nineteenth week; 
• "'65 Love Affair" was holding down the rear echelon at number 100 in its twentieth week. 

By the chart dated July 31, all three songs were off the chart. The other dozen tracks on the album had already enjoyed their chart runs which could have been a contributing factor in K-Tel's successful licensing ability, adding an additional revenue stream for these "oldies". Funny term "oldies" - I remember a few Christmases back when one of my nieces was visiting and requesting music for her iPod; she was in high school, maybe 15, and I asked her what kind of music she liked. She said she liked what they played on the radio so I brought up Billboard's Hot 100 playlist in Spotify and began playing songs and she would say "please" for the ones she wanted and shake her head for the ones she didn't.  We got to one song in the upper half of the chart, sorry but I forget which song it was, and she said "I don't want any oldies on there."  At which point I stopped the song, asked her for her definition of what an "oldie" was and she replied "Songs that were out two months ago or older."  Which was just about every song we had already heard, most of which she wanted, and would have heard if I continued to indulge her, which I did not.  These are the people today's pop music is geared towards and it is sad. You kids get off my lawn.

We turned up no evidence of an alternate Canadian version of After Hours but we did come across the usual domestic cassette and 8-track copies.

The cassette does have a rearranged tracklist but still balances eight songs on Side 1 and seven on Side 2 just like on the vinyl album.  Recent copies of the cassette have sold for as much as $17 for a near mint copy, complete with holographic anti-counterfeit label on the front right corner - the label is missing from the image above.  The average price for sold cassette copies of After Hours run just under $9.  Our requests for further information about the 8-track went unanswered by the sellers so we can only speculate that it also had a slightly altered running order.  We found no info on sold 8-tracks but they can be had for $10-$15 according to sales and auctions we found online.

I have exactly one 45 of a song featured on After Hours, the one pictured above, which I picked up just last month for a quarter. Firing up the K-Tel Scale for rating After Hours but I'm not expecting much except some heavy crossover onto Adult Contemporary chart and maybe a few blips on the Rock Tracks chart.  Good to go in 5...4...3...2...

AFTER HOURS [1982]							30.00
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	COU	R&B	Disco	Rock	AC	CB
Don't Talk to Strangers	Rick Springfield	2				11	30	2
Open Arms	Journey	2				35	7	1
Take It Easy On Me	Little River Band	10					14	13
When All Is Said And Done	ABBA	27					10	31
Somewhere Down The Road	Barry Manilow	21					1	21
My Girl	Donnie Iris	25						27
Nobody Said It Was Easy	LeRoux	18						22
Turn Your Love Around	George Benson	5		1	32		9	5
I've Never Been To Me	Charlene	3					7	3
Sweet Dreams	Air Supply	5					4	8
One Hundred Ways	Quincy Jones / James Ingram	14		10			5	20
Goin' Down	Greg Guidry	17					11	20
Someone Could Lose A Heart Tonight	Eddie Rabbitt	15	1				10	15
Trouble	Lindsey Buckingham	9				12	14	8
'65 Love Affair	Paul Davis	6					5	10

After Hours actually scored higher than I expected with every track making the Top 30 and just over half going all the way up to the Top 10.  All but two tracks crossed over to AC chart and the other four charts all had at least one crossover as well.  Chart Soarin'?  Methinksnot.  A total of four Number Ones across the board but none of them on the almighty Top 40 Pop chart.

Listen to a needle drop rip of After Hours with all the clicks, pops and skips you remember from listening to your copy.  Courtesy of Brandon Hixson aka Billboard Top Hits 1980, posted in October 2014.

Adrian Qitana offered up his damn near perfect sounding After Hours episode on his show Show N K-Tel back in September 2014.

But trumping both of those guys was Bruce David Janu, who featured After Hours on his show Adventures In Vinyl back in July 2013.

Tune in next time as we pull the 60th album off the shelf and give it a whirl.  Better don your hazmat gear and grab your Geiger counter though cause its going to be Radio Active.

Before you fill my inbox with complaints, this is not the cover you have on your copy of Radio Active from 1982. Unless you have the Canadian version.