80s Movies and their Songs

So I was driving back from down south and we decided to fiddle with the radio. A generic FM station appeared and my Gen X ears knew most of the tracks, some ok, some dire. But the thing that prompted me to start this post was that a couple of the songs were clearly linked to films from the 1980s. I began thinking that, as much as it doesn't really happen now (or even much after the end of that decade, with some notable exceptions), this 'movie/song tie-in' was a huge pop culture phenomenon back then.

As a massive time-wasting technique, I decided to do a bit of research and try to find the film and song pairing that was the most popular of the era. Box Office Mojo helped with the film's takings, but how to discern a song's popularity? I've had a look at the US Billboard charts and the UK top 40, so we'll see if this goes some way to covering it.

Ultimately, the song that YOU heard on the radio all the time, or watched on MTV (often with the film's actors in the music video), or the record/cassette that you bought, these metrics are impossible to quantify. The films probably speak for themselves in that the top ten are pretty much household names for anyone who lived through the 80s.

Let's have a look at the top ten films from the 80s that have at least one song synonymous with them. From 10 down to 1, they are (box office takings in US Dollars):

10: The Karate Kid Part II (1986) - $115,103,979 [Song: Glory of Love by Peter Cetera]

9: Rocky III (1982) - $125,052,898 [Song: Eye of the Tiger by Survivor]

8: An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) - $129,795,890 [Song: Up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes]

7: Cocktail (1988) - $171,504,781 [Song: Kokomo by The Beach Boys]

6: Dirty Dancing (1987) - $ 214,577,242 [Song: (I've Had) The Time of My Life by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes]

5: Ghostbusters (1984) - $296,640,120 [Song: Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr.]

4: Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) - $299,965,036 [Song: Shakedown by Bob Seger]

3: Beverly Hills Cop (1984) - $316,360,478 [Song: The Heat is On by Glenn Frey and Axel F by Harold Faltermeyer]

2: Top Gun (1986) - $357,288,178 [Songs: Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins and Take My Breath Away by Berlin]

1: Back to the Future (1985) - $385,053,307 [Song: The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News]

Interestingly, I've seen all of these films once, a couple two or three times, but I've heard the songs likely dozens, possibly hundreds of times. And love them, like them, tolerate them, or fecking hate them, it can't be denied that there's a throbbing vein of nostalgia cheese running through each one.

Now, let's dig into the songs from these and other 80s films. In many cases, as we'll see, the songs hung around a lot longer than the memory of the films they were attached to did. With good reason, honestly, who's seen Streets of Fire? I'd never heard of it, but I knew the song when it came on that FM station in the car recently. The name of that song is I Can Dream About You by Dan Hartman - familiar tune, very unfamiliar film.

I wanted to first get some rules laid out here. No films from the 70s, 90s or any other decade, so this negates the strong cases of Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves and Bryan Adams's terminable ear slug, Everything I Do, I Do It For You; Titanic and Celine Dion's heart-rending, mind-numbing, ear-murdering hit, My Heart Will Go On; and The Bodyguard and Whitney Houston's gangrenous warble, I-yai-yai-yai Will Always Love Yoouoouuooo, though this would be disqualified anyway as Dolly Parton wrote and recorded it many years before.

Which brings me to the next rule - these songs must have been conceived for the film, not added later, as in Unchained Melody from the Righteous Brothers for Ghost (though this also slips out of contention by a year, as it's a 1990 film). More recent 'jukebox' films from Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright and James Gunn, to name a few, are all well and good, but they've painstakingly cherry picked some uber-suitable tracks to slot in at the perfect moments. And these songs have usually already made their bread, or not, in some cases. A solid hit like The Bangles covering (A) Hazy Shade of Winter for Less Than Zero, is also ineligible, as it was a Simon and Garfunkel original.

Finally, you'll notice there are no Bond songs as I see them as a distinct entity. Shame, because some of the 80s ones are amongst the best of the stable - Sheena Easton's For Your Eyes Only and Duran Duran's A View to a Kill (from the films of the same names) did some good numbers in the charts too. I'm also not including the fantastic 'soundtracks' Queen did for Flash Gordon and Highlander because they don't deserve to be a footnote.

Righto, onto the songs. First the top ten (actually 14) by weeks at number 1 on the US Billboard charts:

=8 (all 2 weeks): Let's Hear it for the Boy by Deniece Williams [Film: Footloose]

=8: Maniac by Michael Sembello [Film: Flashdance]

=8: The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News [Film: Back to the Future]

=8: St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) by John Parr [Film: St. Elmo's Fire]

=8: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton [Film: 9 to 5]

=8: Glory of Love by Peter Cetera [Film: The Karate Kid Part II]

=8: Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship [Film: Mannequin]

=2: (all 3 weeks): Footloose by Kenny Loggins [Film: Footloose]

=2: I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder [Film: The Woman in Red]

=2: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins [Film: Against All Odds]

=2: Up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes [Film: An Officer and a Gentleman]

=2: Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. [Film: Ghostbusters]

=1 (both 6 weeks!): Flashdance...What a Feeling by Irene Cara [Film: Flashdance]

=1: Eye of the Tiger by Survivor [Film: Rocky III]

So, two appearances by Footloose and Flashdance in the US charts, but let's look at the UK Singles charts now. Here are the top ten (actually 14 again) for weeks in the Top 40:

=10 (all 10 weeks): Glory of Love by Peter Cetera [Film: The Karate Kid Part II]

=10: Up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes [Film: An Officer and a Gentleman]

=10: Never Ending Story by Limahl [Film: The NeverEnding Story]

=10: Together in Electric Dreams by Giorgio Moroder and Phil Oakey [Film: Electric Dreams]

=10: We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) by Tina Turner [Film: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome]

=5 (all 12 weeks): Eye of the Tiger by Survivor [Film: Rocky III]

=5: Into the Groove by Madonna [Film: Desperately Seeking Susan]

=5: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins [Film: Against All Odds]

=5: When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going by Billy Ocean [Film: The Jewel of the Nile]

=5: Flashdance...What a Feeling by Irene Cara [Film: Flashdance]

4 (13 weeks): Crazy For You by Madonna [Film: Vision Quest]

3 (16 weeks): Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship [Film: Mannequin]

2 (21 weeks): I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder [Film: The Woman in Red]

1 (27 weeks!): Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. [Film: Ghostbusters]

Some points to note here. We can safely say that Madonna's fame elevated the films her songs were in (hello Vision Quest) and that Ghostbusters spent a staggering half a year in the top 40 in the UK, when the film would have been in and out of cinemas in a few months.

An extra wrinkle is that only five of these songs made it to number 1 in the UK - Billy Ocean, Survivor, Starship and Madonna (for Groove) had 4 weeks at the top, but old Stevie Wonder sat there for 6 weeks (a super popular song from a not so popular film).

One more word for a film/song combo that came right at the end of the 80s - Public Enemy's Fight the Power for Do the Right Thing. The film did ok numbers at the box office but the song spent 6 weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Hot Rap charts AND 5 weeks in the UK top 40.

In conclusion dear reader, I'm going to say that the most popular film and song pairing of the 80s was...Ghostbusters. 5th at the worldwide box office (not including films without popular songs, of course), 3 weeks at number 1 in the US and 27 weeks in the UK top 40 (though only making it to 2nd spot). This thing went berserk. Honourable mentions must go to Jennifer Warnes and Kenny Loggins for each having two film song hits in the decade, and Survivor's Eye of the Tiger for becoming an anthem and helping Rocky III do some good business. It's also interesting that many of the more well-received songs came from sequels (Rocky III, The Karate Kid II, The Jewel of the Nile, Mad Max III, etc.).

Well, this has been fun. Give me a hoy if I've missed anything.

Listen to also:

Here's a link to a Spotify 80s movies playlist I made for this article. Enjoy, if you can.

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