70's, 80's 'Feel Good' Music

Bad Boys Blue are a multinational pop group that was formed in Cologne, Germany. The group performed many international hits including "You're a Woman", "Pretty Young Girl", "I Wanna Hear Your Heartbeat", and "Come Back and Stay".

Joe Esposito (born May 5, 1948) is a Grammy-nominated American singer/songwriter whose career spans from the 1970s to the present day. Esposito's songs have been recorded by Donna Summer, Aretha Franklin, Labelle, Stephen Stills and others. Esposito was a member of the band Brooklyn Dreams, best known for their collaboration with Donna Summer on "Heaven Knows" and "Bad Girls." Giorgio Moroder asked Esposito to collaborate on his 1982 "Solitary Man" project, which became Esposito's first solo album.
In the 1980s, he is best known for his performances of the hit songs "Lady, Lady, Lady" from the "Solitary Man" album and 1983 film Flashdance.
"You're the Best" is from the 1984 film The Karate Kid.
Esposito also supplied vocals on Brenda Russell's 1988 "Piano in the Dark," as well as a duet with Laura Branigan on "Come Into My Life" from the Coming to America soundtrack (1988).

"Have You Never Been Mellow" is a popular song written by John Farrar and recorded by Olivia Newton-John as the title track for her album of the same name.
In March 1975, the single became Newton-John's second consecutive number one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and also topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Singles chart. "Have You Never Been Mellow" continued Newton-John's success as a crossover artist when it peaked at No. 3 on the Hot Country Singles chart.
The record also received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
In the United States, it was Newton-John's fourth straight single to be certified gold for sales of one million copies. "Have You Never Been Mellow" also reached number one in Canada and peaked at number 10 in Australia and number 26 in Japan, but was not much of a success elsewhere in the world, failing to chart altogether in the United Kingdom.
The song was performed as part of the 2007 Broadway musical Xanadu.
In 2001, Japanese singer and voice actress Rie Tanaka recorded the song (in English) for her album garnet. Olivia's original version had been a big hit in Japan in 1975.

"Running Up That Hill" is a song by the English singer-songwriter Kate Bush. It was the first single from her 1985 album Hounds of Love, released in the UK on 5 August 1985. It was her first 12" single. It was the most successful of Bush's 1980s releases, entering the UK chart at No. 9 and eventually peaking at No. 3, her second-highest single peak. The single also had an impact in the United States, providing Bush with her first chart hit there since 1978, where it reached the top 30, and featured prominently within the Dance Charts. Bush also performed the song with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd at the Secret Policeman's Third Ball. The song's title for Hounds of Love and all subsequent releases was "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)."
The B-side of the 7" single contains Bush's song "Under the Ivy". The 12-inch single contains an extended remix and an instrumental version of "Running Up That Hill", as well as "Under the Ivy".
The song has been critically acclaimed. In a retrospective review of the single, Allmusic journalist Amy Hanson wrote: "Always adept at emotion and beautifully able to manipulate even the most bitter of hearts, rarely has Bush penned such a brutally truthful, painfully sensual song."
The song was used as the main theme tune for the 1986 BBC 1 gritty children's drama serial Running Scared.
On 12 August 2012, Bush released a new version of the song "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)". Subtitled '2012 Remix', it uses the backing track of the extended version on the 1985 12" single, over which new lead vocals were recorded. The track was transposed down a semitone to fit Bush's current lower vocal range. The new version was premiered during the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Bush did not appear herself, but the recording was featured in a crucial section of the closing ceremony, after the entry of athletes and prior to the presentation of the medals for the Marathon. The track set the theme to a dance performance, where a 'hill' or pyramid was gradually assembled by the dancers from giant white blocks, representing each of the Olympic events. The performance was not shown in the United States NBC coverage due to time constraints and tape delay issues.
The track is included in the official soundtrack album of the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony A Symphony of British Music: Music for the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
On 19 August, the remix entered the UK charts at number 6. It was Bush's return to the top ten after nearly seven years, following "King of the Mountain" in 2005.

"Swing the Mood" is a song by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers from their debut album The Album.
Produced by the father and son DJ team of Andy and John Pickles, "Swing the Mood" was a cut and paste record which fused a number of early rock and roll records with liberal use of Glenn Miller's "In the Mood."
Copyright problems caused a re-recorded version to be released; despite this version being derided by critics it nevertheless became a massive hit in the United Kingdom spending 5 weeks at the top in July and August 1989, partly aided by the Jive Bunny animated character. The record became a worldwide phenomenon, reaching #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. It was the 2nd best-selling single of 1989 in the UK, outsold only by "Ride on Time" by Black Box.

"Summer of '69" is a song recorded by Canadian recording artist Bryan Adams, from his fourth studio album, Reckless (1984). The song was written by Adams and Jim Vallance, a long-time writing partner of Adams. "Summer of '69" was produced by Adams and Bob Clearmountain. It was released in June 1985 under A&M Records as the fourth single from Reckless. As with most Adams songs, "Summer of '69" is an up-tempo rock song.
The song was released with two B-side tracks; "Kids Wanna Rock" and "The Best Was Yet to Come", which had previously appeared on the albums Reckless and Cuts Like A Knife respectively. "Summer of '69" received favourable reviews from music critics. The single had a strong effect on music charts internationally, with its highest peak being number four in the Netherlands, and its least successful charting country being Germany. The track was promoted with a music video, which was filmed by Steve Barron. The video features Adams and his backing band in a variety of settings, including running from the police.
When Adams appeared on The Early Show in 2008, he was asked about "Summer of '69" and its lyrical meaning. Adams said the song was about sex and making love in the summertime. "69" is a reference to the sexual position, 69. On the Reckless 25th anniversary, Adams told In the Studio that the song was built on the theme of nostalgia, such as the "cultural revolution", the break-up of The Beatles, his discovery of music and the moon landing, but also about a character who plays until his fingers bleed and sexual discovery. Vallance however has gone for the more conventional interpretation of the title being a reference to a year. He notes Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty", which contains references to 1965 and 1969, as his own influence, and recalls Adams citing the film Summer of '42 as his.
"That song is 25 years old now so it's had that many years to incubate. A lot of songs, like that one, hit big in America but really not anywhere else. It didn't chart anywhere in Europe until at least 10 years after it was released. [...] I think songs can have a life of their own regardless of the promotion."
In 1985 the song won the BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) Citation of Achievement for US radio airplay, the following year 1986 - Procan Award (Performing Rights Organization of Canada) for Canadian radio airplay and in 2000 it won a Socan Classics Award for more than 100,000 Canadian radio performances. In a poll conducted by Decima Research in 2006, "Summer of '69" was voted the best driving song among Canadians who sing in their cars.

"The Hustle" is a famous disco song by songwriter/arranger Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony. It scored No. 1 on the "Billboard Hot 100" and the "Hot Soul Singles" charts during the summer of 1975. It also peaked at No. 9 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report) and No. 3 in the UK. It would eventually sell over one million copies and is one of the most popular songs of the disco era. The song won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1976.
According to producers Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, who owned the Avco record label that originally released "The Hustle", McCoy met with them shortly before his death in 1979 to discuss ideas for a new, longer version of the song, in order to appease Avco's UK and German affiliates who were clamoring for a 12" disco single release. The new version, clocking in at just under 6-and-a-half minutes, was assembled posthumously as a remix, using parts of the original recording plus new parts, including drum, Syndrum, and a "little" Moog synthesizer. It was credited to Van McCoy alone or with an unnamed orchestra, mixed by "The Mix Masters", identity unknown

VanWarmer was inspired to write "Just When I Needed You Most" by a "devastating" breakup with a girlfriend: he wrote the song six months after that breakup co-writing it with Tony Wilson of the group Hot Chocolate two years before it became a hit. After recording "Just When I Needed You Most" for an album recorded for the UK division of Bearsville Records, VanWarmer then flew to the US to pressure Bearsville's head office to promote the album which was duly remixed and released with "Just When I Needed You Most" as lead single although VanWarmer would recall that Bearsville evinced little enthusiasm for the track: "Nobody thought my version was an especially good version of the song [which] a few other people were thinking of cutting...Everybody just assumed mine was a demo for people to listen to who'd [then] cut the definitive version". It has also been asserted that "Your Light" the flip was the original intended A-side of VanWarmer's single

"Sugar Baby Love", recorded in autumn 1973 and released in January 1974, is a bubblegum pop song, and the debut single of the Rubettes. Written by Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington and produced by Bickerton, engineered by John Mackswith at Lansdowne Recording Studios, and with lead vocals by Paul Da Vinci, "Sugar Baby Love" was the band's one and only number one single in the UK Singles Chart, spending four weeks at the top of the chart in May 1974.

"Mississippi" was a popular single by Dutch group Pussycat which consisted of three sisters Betty, Marianne and Toni Kowalczyk of which Toni (now Toni Willé) was the lead vocalist. They were accompanied by Lou Willé (g), Theo Wetzels (b), John Theunissen (g), Henk Hochstenbach, Hans Lutjens ('til 1973), Theo Coumans (from 1973) and again Hans Lutjens. Written by Werner Theunissen and produced by Eddy Hilberts, the song "Mississippi" was the sole number one single for Pussycat.
Werner Theunissen wrote "Mississippi" in 1969 being inspired by the Bee Gees song 'Massachusetts'. The song grabbed EMI Bovema's attention, and they decided to sign the band. By December 1975, the song became a massive hit seller at the number one position in the Dutch charts, followed by its international success in 1976 pushing the song into the charts across Europe and the United Kingdom as far as Africa and Australia, where it reached number one in August 1976. It spent four weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart in October 1976. In South America, it charted for 129 weeks. Seven million copies were estimated to have been sold worldwide.
he song was promoted by John Saunders Hughes in the UK through a Liverpool radio station. The lyrics are about the history of music, how rock music became more popular than country music.

Joy is a 1980s Euro disco trio from Austria, best known for the hits "Touch By Touch" and "Valerie".
The band JOY was formed in Bad Aussee, an Austrian town of 5.000 citizens. Andy Schweitzer (26.02.60), Freddy Jaklitsch (22.01.60) and Manfred Temmel (25.02.59) were school friends – and already as teenagers played in different amateur bands together; but after graduation they have chosen different careers. Andy became a policeman, Freddy started teaching German language and history at school, and Manfred was a popular DJ in Orion disco-club, in German city Traunreut.
Three friends met again in 1984, and decided to focus their joint efforts on a professional musical career. Quickly enough three young talents got a record deal – with an Austrian label OK Musica. The record company owners appointed Michael Scheickl (23.03.57; represented Austria as a leading force of due Mess duo at Eurovision song contest in 1982, where their track Sonntag reached #10) to guide three young talents through all the curves and dangers of show-business.
JOY first single, Lost In Hong Kong(composed by Michael Scheickl – using a pseudonym M.Mell), was released in February 1985. It didn’t become a big hit, but the new band was mentioned in press.
The next single Touch By Touch, released in September 1985 and composed by Schweitzer and Jaklitsch, immediately reached European Top 20 Dance Charts - and was Nr.1 in Austrian national chart. In Austria, Portugal and Spain more than 50.000 copies of Touch by touch have been sold - and the single reached golden status in these 3 countries.

"Best of My Love" is a song written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and J.D. Souther. It was originally recorded by the Eagles (with Henley singing lead vocals), and included on their 1974 album On the Border. The band's first Billboard Hot 100 #1 single in March 1975, the song also topped the easy listening (adult contemporary) chart for one week a month earlier.

"Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer" is a song written by David Ellingson and Kim Carnes and recorded by Kenny Rogers and Carnes as a duet. It was released in March 1980 as the first single from Rogers' album Gideon. The song reached #3 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and #1 on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada. It was also recorded in Spanish as "No Te Enamores De Un Loco".

In late-1978 American singer Donna Summer released a multi-million selling vinyl single disco version of "MacArthur Park", it was number one on the American pop music sales charts for three weeks during 1978, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Summer's recording, which was included as part of the "Mac Arthur Park Suite" on her double album Live and More, was eight minutes and forty seconds long on the album. The shorter seven-inch vinyl single version of the Mac Arthur Park was Summer's first single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100; it doesn't include the balladic second movement of the song, however. Donna's recording was also composer Jimmy Webb's only number one song in the US.
The nearly 18-minute musical medley "Mac Arthur Park Suite" incorporated the songs "One of a Kind" and "Heaven Knows". This medley was also sold as a 12-inch (30 cm) vinyl recording, and it stayed at number one on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Songs chart for five weeks in 1978. The versions of this medley in Live and More and in the 12-inch recording are notably different in choices of the lengths of the slices of the two accompanying songs. In the 12-inch version, "Heaven Knows" was extended to incorporate the string introduction and the bridge horn solo of the single version for radio stations, and "One of a Kind" was trimmed of some percussion breaks.

Tokyo Square is a musical band from Singapore formed in 1985 by Max Surin and his sister Linda Elizabeth. The band is known for its soft pop songs with a unique blend between Chinese melodies and western instrumentation. Their popularity is not confined locally but have following in many far Eastern countries and internationally.
The band shot into fame with their #1 hit "Within You'll Remain" a song that used the tune of a famous Chinese hit "Wo Ai Ni" (I Love You). Another famous band hit was "That Is Love" with music based on the Japanese hit "Rouge" by Miyuki Nakajima and Naomi Chiaki. Other well-known hits include "Say You Will", "Love of My life", "Caravan of Life".
However, "Within You"ll Remain" was originally composed by Donald Ashley, CHYNA, the best Asian drummer formed and leaded a famous rock and roll band in Hong Kong 80s'. "Within You'll Remain" has been released and published in Hong Kong since 1983. Tokyo Square appeared to covered and released "Within You'll Remain" without the consent and authorization of the original composer, Donald Ashley and his band, CHYNA.