HEARTBEAT OF THE '80s [1983]

The title sounds more like a Time-Life CD collection than a single album, Darlene Butler's artwork is weird but not as weird as the prose on the back of the album, which by the way only has ten songs, a record here on the K-Tel Kollection for least amount of tracks on a K-Tel album. Today's featured album is the short, sweet and soft compilation known as Heartbeat of the 80's. This 1983 album clocks in around 38 minutes and I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say probably every single song was at least a Top 10 single on the Adult Contemporary (AC) chart. Which is kind of an issue because I wasn't listening to any radio stations that played these songs when they were at peak popularity, roughly the period from 1980-1983. I take that back; listening to Casey Kasem's Weekly Top 40 most every weekend, initially on WLRW in Illinois and then KRQ once we arrived here in the desert, I did hear most of these songs more than just once.

It's somewhat of a small coincidence that three of my favorite four songs on Heartbeat of the 80's are clustered together on Side Two, beginning with the touching duet, "You And I" from Eddie Rabbitt with Crystal Gayle. Neither artist ever sounded finer than they do on this crossover hit. The song's writer, Frank Meyers, later recorded his own duet of the song with none other than Crystal Gayle.

The following track, "Together", was a remake of an Intruders track from the late Sixties and while it's hard to beat OG Philly Soul from the likes of Gamble & Huff, Steve Salas smooths out the sound with help from his brother Rudy on guitar and the rest of their group, Tierra, creating a slow jam for the ages. Ironically, legend has it that the Salas Brothers grew apart after this record, not speaking to each other for more than a decade before getting back together.

Rounding out that block of three is Paul Davis and "Cool Night", which has been a favorite of mine since I first heard it somewhere, some time. True to the lyrics, the track is best enjoyed holding that special someone in your arms by the firelight on a cool night, though I sometimes substitute starlight for firelight or have both on such occasions.

My fourth most favorite track on Heartbeat of the 80's is the lover's plea that is "Just Once", a song indelibly etched in my psyche via numerous, torturous viewings of The Last American Virgin, where it is heard no less than three times in the film, including the maddingly gut-wrenching final scene. Apparently, James Ingram did go on to sing other songs over the past four decades but his first two vocal performances, as heard on The Dude, are all I need to get by.

The prose I alluded to at the top of the post has been transposed for your enjoyment below. To best enjoy these words, please take a minute to dim the lights and light a few dozen scented candles.

Without whispers, without warnings, without expectations, the 80's are here and the world feels more open to change. The active cities and blinking lights are overwhelming at times. You need a softer sound. It's the faster pace that creates a special appreciation for the tender moments.

As always, the music of the day reflects the mood, and you take comfort in the fact that an escape from it all is just a song away.

As you dim the lights and move closer to that special someone, experience the Heartbeat of the 80's. Discover the experience - together.

You're welcome. I have one more treat for you before we crank up The K-Tel Scale which should be able to rate today's album in record time. I'm gonna predict that Heartbeat of the 80's scores about a 25 or 26 as I am pretty sure the songs were all huge on the AC chart but I have less confidence in their peak on the Top 40 or if there was any further crossover onto other charts. But first enjoy, Brandon Hixson's sweet needle drop recording of the album:

Your ears did not deceive you, "You And I" has been muted to satisfy the copyright cops.

HEARTBEAT OF THE 80's [1983]					28.80
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	R&B	COU	Rock	AC	CB
Never Gonna Let You Go	Sergio Mendes	4	28			1	3
Baby, Come To Me	Patti Austin with James Ingram	1	9			1	2
Just Once	Quincy Jones feat. James Ingram	17	11			7	13
Shoot For The Moon	Poco	(50)				10	(44)
Heartbreaker	Dionne Warwick	10	14			1	15
Truly	Lionel Richie	1	2			1	1
You And I	Eddie Rabbitt With Crystal Gayle	7		1		2	20
Together	Tierra	18	9			30	23
Cool Night	Paul Davis	11				2	16
It Might Be You (Theme From "Tootsie")	Stephen Bishop	25				1	19

Well, I'll be. The album exceeded my expectations though I was fairly accurate in my every song a Top 10 AC track prediction. Five Number Ones on the AC chart, a Country Number One and two Pop Number Ones is really good for just ten tracks. 28.80 is really close to the average score here on The Kollection now that we are 71 albums in. The failure of "Together" to chart higher than 30 on the AC chart is a head-scratcher, though. And I must confess, I don't recall hearing Poco's "Shoot For The Moon" until listening to this album.

Though in cassette format Heartbeat of the 80's retains the order of the vinyl tracklisting, the eight-track is another story. Not only are the songs slightly shuffled, they are not even shuffled well enough to avoid two songs being split across programs. So imagine you're setting the mood, moving closer to that someone special (as mentioned above) and the tape is playing three songs in, with "Just Once" being the final song of Program One and then a loud KA-CHUNK! in the middle of the song before it continues on Program Two. Okay, you can recover from that. Harness your chi and move on. Just as you get back into your groove, "You and I" comes on and then - KA-CHUNK! - and the moment is lost as the tape head switches from Program Two to Program Three. If ever a song should be heard without interruption, it is "You And I", which, like most of the other songs on Heartbeat of the 80's, was a wedding reception staple back in the day. Part of me wishes someone would collect all the interrupted songs on eight-track and make a digital file, so younger and future generations could experience the frustration that was fairly commonplace when 8-track tapes were around.

As we've come to expect, the Canadian version of Heartbeat of the 80's has both more tracks and radically different cover art with only three tracks carrying over from the US version. With Warwick, Manilow, and Jarreau all on the album, I imagine a few fans are quite giddy right about now. Surprisingly, the Canadian version kinda rocked The K-Tel Scale despite having two songs completely miss the US charts. If we factor out both of those songs, the album's score rises to an above-average 31.07. Because I am feeling generous, I'm publishing the K-Tel Scale for a Canadian album which as all six of my regular readers can attest is something I never ever do. Don't get used to it.

HEARTBEAT OF THE 80's [1983] CAN					27.19
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	R&B	COU	Rock	AC	CB
You And I	Eddie Rabbitt with Crystal Gayle	7		1		2	20
Straight From The Heart	Bryan Adams	10			32	29	18
I've Never Been To Me	Charlene	3				7	3
Always On My Mind	Willie Nelson	5		1		2	4
Key Largo	Bertie Higgins	8				1	7
Heartbreaker	Dionne Warwick	10	14			1	15
Make Love Stay	Dan Fogelberg	29				1	26
Midnight Blue	Eric Robertson
Total Eclipse Of The Heart	Bonnie Tyler	1			23	7	1
Never Gonna Let You Go	Sérgio Mendes	4	28			1	3
Sexual Healing	Marvin Gaye	3	1			34	5
Welcome To Heartlight	Kenny Loggins	24				17	25
Some Kind Of Friend	Barry Manilow	26				4	31
Through The Years	Tim Finn
We're In This Love Together	Al Jarreau	15	6			6	13
How Am I Supposed To Live Without You	Laura Branigan	12				1	1

When we return with a US K-Tel album (because now we're doing UK-Tel albums, too), it will most probably be the one pixelated below:

🎧🎧🎧

I know it came out a few years later, but the entire time I was listening to Heartbeat of the 80's, I was thinking of this song:

And now that I've listened to that song half a dozen times, there was "a movement in my mind" and I'm thinking of this one:

I peeked and saw a Heartbeat of the 70's album on the shelf, so we'll see. Fingers crossed.