(Finished January 7th, 2024) Part 6 of Rolling Stone’s 200 Best Songs of the 80s: Songs 137-122

Hello,

Rolling Stone has released another Top 200 Best 80s songs list. I’m going to post the songs from 200 to 1 and review each song. Is it worthy of it’s ranking, is it too high and is it too low. I’m not a big fan of Rolling Stone’s rankings as they include songs that I’ve never heard of or songs that were only popular to a very select group of people. My Top 200 80s songs would look completely different.

With MTV at its peak and radio stations playing multiple genres back in the day, if I had never heard of a song it’s truly obscure. I have neither heard of the song or artist for songs 188, 186 and 181. That’s three songs and bands that I had never heard of before today.

Please stop with this nonsense, outside Costello fans no one has heard of this song. It’s a decent song, but would be hard pressed to be in the Best 2000 Songs of the 80s. 137) Elvis Costello “New Lace Sleeves”:

This is a pretty cool song but I suggest “I Need Love” or “Going Back To Cali”. Of course his best song is the 90s classic “Mama Said Knock You Out”. 136) LL Cool J “Rock The Bells”:

135) Psychedelic Furs “Love My Way”:

This is classic for this countdown. Let’s take the fourth, at best, song off this CD and say it’s worthy of being one of the Top 200 songs of the 80s. I wouldn’t argue with either “She Drives Me Crazy” or “Good Thing” being right here. Sheffield should have went with a cooked song here instead of a raw song. 134) Fine Young Cannibals “I’m Not The Man I Used To Be”:

133) Bon Jovi “Wild In The Streets”:

132) The Jam “That’s Entertainment”:

131) The Clean “Anything Could Happen”:

I have never heard this song before and I’m barely aware of Nick Cave. After hearing this song I’m glad for both of those things. 130) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “From Her To Eternity”:

This song is decent, but it’s not up to the song below it. Again this is a song that would likely struggle to reach the Top 2000 Songs of The 80s. This song is so obscure that it doesn’t even have it’s own Wikipedia page. 129) Roxanne Shante “Go On Girl”:

Bonus song: Young MC “Bust A Move”:

This song might be obscure to some, but it is a great song. It probably doesn’t deserve this high of ranking but it’s better than songs 126, 122, 116, 115, 114, 113, 112 and 110. 128) Haysi Fantayzee “Shiny Shiny”:

A great, great, great song that probably is close to being appropriately ranked. 127) Sheena Easton “Strut”:

I know this is really a famous song and a song that many people love. However I’m not one of those. This song doesn’t not even begin to belong on this list. 126) Motorhead “Ace of Spades”:

Her version is great and Luke Combs version is great. This song should be much higher- probably in the Top 20 at least. What a great and amazing song. 125) Tracy Chapman “Fast Car”:

A great song that should be higher, probably in the Top 100 at worst. 124) Hall and Oates “You Make My Dreams”:

One of the best hard rock songs of the 80s. The older I get the more I like Iron Maiden’s music. This song has really grown on me the last several years. 123) Iron Maiden “Hallowed Be Thy Name”:

Well at least this song has a Wikipedia entry. I was really hoping to like this song and it’s decent. This is likely a song would think was okay back in the day- if I had ever heard it. 122) Ten City “That’s The Way Love Is”:

themusicaddict