I’ll get in trouble stanning for “We Are the World,” indefensible as a composition (Greil Marcus’ dismissal — when he responded to the Michael Jackson line “When you’re down and out” with, “The Ethiopians are ‘down and out?’ I still guffaw — is classic) but, as a compendium of American voices, white but especially Black, singing near at the top of their form, impressive as a performance. I suppose “Do They Know It’s Christmas” boasts the au courant, colorless — in every sense — production.
Because I wrote a conference paper on the revanchism taking place in American pop/rock criticism in 1985, I don’t have further comment about a solid pop year if you knew where to look, and the omnipresence of certain pop hits meant that “looking” was inseparable from “being pummeled.” The beginning of the High Reagan era was comfortable with a Don Henley hit drenching nostalgia in contemporaneity played incessantly around a Madonna hit that farted in the Eagles drummer’s face, a Tears For Fears anthem that, unusually, located the discomfort at the heart of megalomania without its big bam boom production smothering it, and a Doug E. Fresh chant reminding the superstars whom they stepped on as they boarded limos to Quincy Jones’ check-your-egos-at-the-door charity event.
Although “Walk of Life” I recommended to The Hague last year, it’s “Money for Nothing” whose loathsomeness deepens like mildew on a soap dish. I don’t care if Mark Knopfler sang “in character” like Randy Newman or something. Not long after the death of Rock Hudson as Americans realized the extent to which a plague was killing their siblings and best friends, hamhanded irony couldn’t grab Ronald Reagan by the lapel and force him into compassion.
The Hague
Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
Meh
R.E.M. – Can’t Get There From Here
Artists United Against Apartheid – Sun City
Aretha Franklin – Freeway Of Love
John Fogerty – The Old Man Down The Road/Big Train (From Memphis)
John Cougar Mellencamp – Small Town
John Fogerty – Rock & Roll Girls/Centerfield
Sound, Solid
Paul Young – Every Time You Go Away
Rockin’ Sidney – My Toot Toot
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Don’t Come Around Here No More
The Smiths – How Soon Is Now?
Talking Heads – And She Was
Ramones – Bonzo Goes To Bitburg
USA For Africa – We Are The World
Good to Great
Madonna – Into The Groove
Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill
The Commodores – Nightshift
Don Henley – The Boys Of Summer/A Month Of Sundays
Tears For Fears – Everybody Wants To Rule The World
Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew – The Show/La-Di-Da-Di
Prince & The Revolution – Raspberry Beret
Run-D.M.C. – King Of Rock
Katrina & The Waves – Walking On Sunshine
Hüsker Dü – Makes No Sense At All/Love Is All Around
Sade – Smooth Operator
Eurythmics – Would I Lie To You?
Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam With Full Force – I Wonder If I Take You Home
Humanizing The Vacuum 
Migh be the only human on Earth who can’t stand “Walking On Sunshine” hysterical (forced?) happiness and die on that hill alone, fine, but kudos for the band for making the video in the gloomiest of London’s setting. For a moment there, I think they could play sarcasm with the Randy Newmans of music even if I really don’t think so.
I don’t want to live in a world where “We Are the World” is not considered anymore than a noble cause. It made its goal happened (i think?) and it’s still a shitty song that unleashed even worse charity singles in the years that followed Including one cringy cover with hip-hop and stuff.
I can understand disliking things in the Forced Happiness genre — friends dislike “Breakout” too — but Katrina Leskanich makes it live.
But Breakout has a steady rythm instead of a whirlpool one, and the horns are not trying to blow you off the window with its “happiness”. It’s SUBTLE. Hence, believable. Relatable. “Sunshine” sounds lie like a manic depressive on PEDs. It’s like a parody of happiness. I like her voice, fair enough.
If songs were movies “Breakout” would be “Happy Go-Lucky”, which i adore and “Sunshine” would be “Amelíe” which I want to erase forever from my memory.
I would give anything for one night of 1985. What a great year, what great music, what a great time I had. Oh, I miss being that girl.