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

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"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a 1967 song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, and first recorded and released as a single by Gaudio's Four Seasons bandmate Frankie Valli. The song was among his biggest hits, earning a gold record and reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week, making it Valli's biggest solo hit until he hit No. 1 in 1975 with "My Eyes Adored You".

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"Just Once" is a 1981 single released from Quincy Jones' album The Dude on A&M Records. The song features James Ingram on vocals, and reached number 17 on the Billboard chart in the summer of 1981.
Ingram's singing was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 1982 Grammy Awards.

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• The song was featured prominently over the final scene of the 1982 film The Last American Virgin.

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"On the Wings of Love" is a song by Jeffrey Osborne from his self-titled debut album released in 1982. Written alongside Peter Schless, the song was the second single from the album.
"On the Wings of Love" peaked at No. 29 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, No. 13 R&B, and No. 7 Adult Contemporary. It did well in the UK, where it reached No. 11. It also hit No. 1 on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart.

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"Under Pressure" was recorded at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, in July 1981. Queen, working on their 1982 album Hot Space, had been working on a song called "Feel Like", but were not satisfied with the result. While they were there, David Bowie was also at Mountain recording his vocals for "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", the title song for the 1982 horror film of the same name. The artists ran into each other during the session. Bowie sang backing vocals for Queen's song "Cool Cat", but his vocals were removed from the final song because he was not satisfied with his performance. Afterwards, they worked together for a while and wrote "Under Pressure". It was credited as being co-written by the five musicians. The scat singing that dominates much of the song is evidence of the jam-beginnings as improvisation. However, according to Queen bassist John Deacon (as quoted in a French magazine in 1984), the song's primary musical songwriter was Freddie Mercury – though all contributed to the arrangement. As Brian May recalled to Mojo magazine in October 2008, "It was hard, because you had four very precocious boys and David, who was precocious enough for all of us. David took over the song lyrically. Looking back, it's a great song, but it should have been mixed differently. Freddie and David had a fierce battle over that. It's a significant song because of David and its lyrical content."

Statue of Freddie Mercury overlooking Lake Geneva in Montreux, Switzerland​

 

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"My Oh My" is a song by British rock band Slade, released in November 1983 as the second single from the band's 11th studio album, The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome, and in 1984 as the second single from the album's US counterpart, Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply. The song was written by lead vocalist Noddy Holder and bassist Jim Lea and produced by John Punter. "My Oh My" reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart, topped the charts of Norway and Sweden, and peaked at No. 37 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
A music video was filmed to promote the American release of the single. It was directed by Keith Coe and shot in London. The video depicts Slade walking in the countryside and one by one get picked up by an articulated lorry driven by a racing driver, which has an open stage on the back. The band are seen performing the song on the lorry, which arrives at Surrey Docks for a concert, where schoolchildren are seen waving Slade scarves, the lorry driver joins the band on stage, takes their crash helmet off and reveals themselves to be a beautiful woman. Like the "Run Runaway" video, "My Oh My" received regular airings on MTV.

Slade - My Oh My​

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In 1985, a swing-style version of the song was recorded, which appeared as the B-side to the band's 1985 single "Do You Believe in Miracles". The version was recorded by the Monty Babson Big Band with Holder adding his vocals to it. In a 1986 fan club interview, Holder spoke of the version: "It came about originally because a few people asked us for demos of songs to cover. A lot of people wanted to cover "My Oh My". I mean 'middle of the road' sort of people. Colin Newman actually suggested it, saying we couldn't send them our own version, because they've all heard that. Anyway, we had people like Frank Sinatra saying that we ought to do a 'swing version' of it. Well, we weren't going to do it, so we got a mate of ours – Monty Babson – to sing it on the original demo, which went out to all these 'middle of the road' people. When I heard it, I really liked it, so I said "Why don't we put my voice with Monty Babson's band?" and that's what we did. I just had a couple of drinks in the pub and went and sang with him in one take. We didn't spend any time on it or anything."

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"Vienna" is a song by British new wave band Ultravox, released on 9 January 1981 by Chrysalis Records as the third single and the title track from their fourth studio album of the same name. The new wave ballad,
which features Midge Ure on lead vocals, is regarded as a staple of the synth-pop genre that was popularised in the early 1980s, and remains both the band's signature song and their most commercially successful release.

The song was also performed at the 1985 Live Aid concert in Wembley Stadium, and is often performed live by Ure in solo performances.

Ultravox - Vienna (Live Aid 1985)​

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Written in January 1980, "Vienna" has a dramatic grand piano in the verses and chorus, and a viola solo in the middle of the song. Other sounds include a solid synth bass line played on a MiniMoog, an Elka string synthesiser and a Roland CR-78 drum machine. The drum machine pattern created by Warren Cann was the basis of the song. Cann and the classically trained Billy Currie together wanted to create something that might sound like it had been written by a late-19th-century romantic composer, so they started creating the basic chords and sounds of the song, and the romantic viola solo was influenced by German composer Max Reger.
The lyrics, which describe a brief love affair in the city of Vienna, were quickly written by Midge Ure. According to Currie, Ure was hesitant about the overly classical romantic feel of the orchestration, and said: "This means nothing to me", to which the producer Conny Plank replied: "Well, sing that then." Ure said that, when he went into the studio, he had in his mind only the line "The feeling is gone, this means nothing to me – oh Vienna!". Then he wrote the vocal part while bass player Chris Cross started playing some bass lines with his synthesizer.

In interviews at the time it was said that the song took its inspiration from the 1949 film The Third Man, which is based around the Austrian capital, but Midge Ure later admitted he made that up when asked what the song was about. Ure is said to have been influenced by the Walker Brothers' 1978 single "The Electrician" According to Ure's autobiography, the title came about by a mishearing of the Fleetwood Mac song "Rhiannon"
Ure said of the track: "We wanted to take the song and make it incredibly pompous in the middle, leaving it very sparse before and after, but finishing with a typically over-the top classical ending.
The band's record company Chrysalis Records was reluctant to release "Vienna" as a single, thinking the song too slow and too long to be successful, but relented after the band persisted.

 

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"Feelings" is a song by the Brazilian singer Morris Albert, who also wrote the lyrics. Albert released "Feelings" in 1974 as a single and later included it as the title track of his 1975 debut album.

Morris Albert - Feelings​

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Dispute over authorship
At the time of "Feelings"'s greatest commercial success, it was solely credited to Albert himself. In 1986, the French songwriter Loulou Gasté sued Morris Albert for copyright infringement, claiming that "Feelings" plagiarized the melody of his 1956 song "Pour Toi". Gasté won the lawsuit, upheld on appeal in 1988; they now share the credits of the song.

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In the years after its release, "Feelings" has been performed by many other vocalists. A version by Chicago soul singer Walter Jackson reached number 93 on Billboard's pop chart in January 1977

Walter Jackson = Feelings​

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Hey There Lonely Girl" is a song released in 1969 by Eddie Holman. It peaked at 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop chart in 1970, and was the first #2 hit of the 1970s.

Hey There Lonely Girl- Eddie Holman​

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JEALOUS GUY- John Lennon​

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"Jealous Guy" is a song written and originally recorded by the English rock musician John Lennon from his second studio album Imagine (1971). Not released as a single during Lennon's lifetime, it became an international hit in a version by Roxy Music issued in early 1981; this version reached number one in the United Kingdom and Australia and was a top-10 hit in several European countries. Lennon's own version was subsequently issued as a single and charted in the United States and UK.
A promotional video was made for the song in 1971. It showed, mostly in a continuous overhead shot by helicopter, John and Yoko travelling in a hearse from their Tittenhurst Park mansion to a nearby lake, where they were then shown getting into a row boat

 

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"Perhaps Love" is a song that John Denver wrote and recorded as a duet with Plácido Domingo. The song appeared on Domingo's 1981 album of the same title. "Perhaps Love" is the only song on the album with Denver's vocals alongside Domingo's. Denver also appears on the album's cover version of his composition "Annie's Song", where he accompanies Domingo on guitar. Released as a single with "Annie's Song" on the B side, "Perhaps Love" peaked at #22 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart and #59 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982. Remaining in print, the song sold almost four million copies by 2008.
"Perhaps Love" was addressed to Denver's wife Annie Martell (the eponym of his #1 hit "Annie's Song") while they were separated and moving towards a divorce. In an interview the day after Denver's death in 1997, Annie said that this was her favorite song of his, rather than "Annie's Song" (which she also said she enjoyed)

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According to music historian Fred Bronson, "I Love a Rainy Night" was 12 years in the making. Rabbitt had a collection of old tapes he kept in the basement of his home. While rummaging through the tapes one day in 1980, he heard a fragment of a song he had recorded one rainy night in the late 1960s.
"It brought back the memory of sitting in a small apartment, staring out the window at one o'clock in the morning, watching the rain come down," wrote Bronson in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. "He sang into his tape recorder, 'I love a rainy night, I love a rainy night.'"
Upon rediscovery of the old lyrics, Rabbitt completed the song (with help from frequent songwriting partners Even Stevens and David Malloy) and recorded it.
The result included vivid descriptions of a man's fondness for thunderstorms and the peace it brings him ("I love to hear the thunder/watch the lightnin' when it lights up the sky/you know it makes me feel good") and a renewed sense of hope the storms bring ("Showers wash all my cares away/I wake up to a sunny day").
The song's other distinctive feature is its rhythmic pattern of alternating finger snaps and hand claps, which was included with the help of percussionist Farrell Morris, who, according to The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits, mixed two tracks of each to complete the record.
"I Love a Rainy Night" came during Rabbitt's peak popularity as a crossover artist. The follow-up to "Drivin' My Life Away" (number one country, number five Hot 100), the song was Rabbitt's only Hot 100 number one. But his crossover success continued with the follow-ups "Step by Step" and "You and I" (the latter a duet with Crystal Gayle).

On Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart, it was his eighth out of 17 career chart-toppers, spanning from 1976 to 1990.

"I Love a Rainy Night" was certified gold for sales of one million units by the Recording Industry Association of America.

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"Don't Know Much" (also titled as "All I Need to Know" on other versions) is a song written by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Tom Snow. Mann was the first to record the song in 1980, gaining a minor chart hit in the US.

Don’t Know Much - Barry Mann​

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In 1981, American singer-songwriter Bill Medley covered the song for his eighth studio album, Sweet Thunder. Medley's version was a minor hit.

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The song was covered on Linda Ronstadt's triple-platinum 1989 album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind in a duet with Aaron Neville.
"Don't Know Much" won Ronstadt and Neville the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was nominated for Song of the Year.

LINDA RONSTADT - 'Don't Know Much' (feat. Aaron Neville) 1989​

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"Ai No Corrida" is a song written by Chaz Jankel and Kenny Young, first recorded in 1980 and featured on Jankel's self-titled debut album for A&M Records. Ai (愛) is the Japanese word for "love", while Corrida is the Spanish word for "bullfight", but also in Spain's youth slang, is a nickname for masculine ejaculation.
The title is based on the Japanese title of the erotic film In the Realm of the Senses. It was first recorded in 1980 and featured on Chaz Jankel's debut studio album Chas Jankel for A&M Records.
In Japan, 1981, a Japanese-language version was released by RVC, performed by Japanese unit BIG BANG (Yoshifumi Oba, Yoshihiko Shiraishi, Katsumi Takeichi, Shunji Inoue), produced by Koichi Fujita.

Chaz Jankel - Ai No Corrida​

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Quincy Jones version
The song was covered by Quincy Jones in 1981 on his album The Dude, with vocals by Dune (a.k.a. Charles May) and Patti Austin. Jones's version peaked at number 28 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number 10 on the R&B chart.

Awards​

Jerry Hey and Jones received the 1982 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for their recording of this song.

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"Sha-La-La-La-La" is a song by Danish glam rock band Walkers. The song was co-written by band members Torben Lendager and Poul Dehnhardt. It entered the Danish charts at number eight in the last week of March 1973, and peaked at number two after three weeks, after which it disappeared from the charts. The song achieved worldwide exposure after being covered by Dutch Eurodance group Vengaboys.

The Walkers - Sha La La La La​

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Vengaboys Music video
The accompanying music video for "Shalala Lala" is modeled after the single cover. It takes place in a fictional Alpine bar named "Wurst & Women". The video primarily focuses on lead vocalist Kim Sasabone performing the song, while women dressed in a skimped-up version of a dirndl dance around. Some men are dressed in lederhosen. The two male group members compete with each other for the affections of Kim Sasabone. After the second verse, the song pauses with a record scratch wherein the two engage in a parody dance battle. The video ends when the bar is raided by the police

Vengaboys - Shalala lala​

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• Thai singer Prissana "Pookie" Praisaeng also released her version of the song, which over a million copies of cassette sold in 1997.

SHA-LA-LA-LA : Pookie​

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