From Professor of Rock.

Here we are… more than twenty-six years into the 21st century, and you can really feel how much has changed since the start of the 2000s. Pop culture has evolved in big ways. When you rewatch a movie or TV show from one of your favorite decades, the outfits and the way people spoke have that distinctive sound & look that perfectly reflect that era. Songs can be like that. Songs from that favorite period can sound dated, like the year they were released, not timeless in a production sense, yet they take us right back to those precious moments in our lives that are memories we treasure. It used to be a slight when one would say that a song sounds dated but now it’s a compliment because they captured a snapshot in time including Wang Chung’s Everybody Have Fun Tonight that had a chorus that was improvised as a joke but that joke became a major catchphrase of the 80s, plus the happy go lucky Novelty song by Timbuk 3 that had a more sinister meaning… this one hit wonder band was offered millions by advertisers to license it, but they wanted to stay true to its message so they turned it down, plus Rock Me Amadeus that was the first All German sung song to hit #1 on the charts. Let’s do it.

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Executive Producer
Brandon Fugal

Honorary Producers
22Unchained, Thomas Halterman, Keith Novak, Yvonne Fus, Jeffrey Thorn

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#classicrock #80smusic #vinylstory #vanhalen

Hey Music Junkies, alright today I’m starting a new series that I am calling Song Capture….Music that Defined their times. Like I said, some songs are timeless but other songs stay in the time they come from and remind us of the year it came out. Like when you hear Living on a prayer it doesn’t take you back to 1986 necessarily, when you hear the future so bright I gotta wear shades, it’s a one-way ticket to 1986. So let’s go back to 86, the year of Aliens and Ferris Bueller and Perfect Strangers and Alf on Tv and the year the Red Sox botched the World Series to the Mets and Walter Payton and the Bears took the Superbowl and let’s go back to the 80s.I promise that you are gonna get pummeled with Nostalgia. Let’s kick off our spotlight of songs from ‘86 that can’t shake the sound of ’86, yet it’s exactly what we want them to sound like. We don’t want them to age well. We want them to take us back…

Starting with “Who’s Johnny” by the lead singer of the family group Debarge…3rd oldest brother… El Debarge at #11 “Who’s Johnny?” is a song that sits squarely in 1986, dated in its production, yet heartwarmingly nostalgic in what it stirs up. The title centers directly around Johnny 5, the robot at the center of the ’86 film Short Circuit, grounding the track in a very specific era of pop culture: The music video reinforces that dated-but-charming vibe. You’ve got El DeBarge performing in a courtroom, singing as a witness for the robot’s defense, with playful cameos from movie stars like Ally Sheedy and even a cardboard cutout of Steve Guttenberg. The visual chaos in the courtroom mirrors the film’s quirky, big-energy spirit: The chorus packs in a line that echoes the film’s central question: “Who’s Johnny?”—a direct nod to the courtroom questions about whether the robot is property, or a living, feeling being. It’s the kind of meta-reference that feels very ‘80s, tying a pop song to a blockbuster film in a way that was very common then.

Chart-wise, it’s a testament to hit pop singles in the mid 80s: a #3 sensation on the Billboard Hot 100, and a fat #1 on the Hot R&B Singles chart, emblematic of the crossover appeal many 80s movie tie-ins enjoyed back then. While the song’s production and video aesthetic feel unmistakably 80s, the warmth of the song comes from its innocence, the sense of wonder it taps into about technology and friendship, and the nostalgia of watching a beloved scene from Short Circuit unfold in a catchy, soulful tune.

The Stories of Human by the Human League, The Future’s So Bright I Gott Wear Shades by Timbuk 3, No One Is to Blame by Howard Jones with Phil Collins, Love Walks in by Van Halen, Sweet Freedom by Michael McDonald, Take Me Home Tonight By Eddie Money, and more.