I had to stop myself — take a look at these titles! I’d even play them in the accidental order in which these songs landed. I made no room for Keith Sweat’s “I Want Her,” Maze featuring Frankie Beverly’s “Back in Stride,” Pebbles’ “Mercedes Boy,” and The Whispers’ “And the Beat Goes On.” And so on. I owe Thomas Inskeep and his ’80s R&B blog Rock Me Tonight a great deal for introducing me to this decade’s slushier hits, or so they would have sounded to a white audience. Mike Joseph and Inskeep’s “The Jheri Curl Chronicles” add context and jokes; you need to hear every episode. Believe me, Stephanie Mills and Melba Moore and Angela Winbush weren’t mentioned often among white cognoscenti in 2003 reviving music their older siblings had ignored.
On this list I want to keep pointing to under-heard performances: Chaka Khan’s start-of-decade cover of a Boz Scaggs-indebted Ned Doheny song over “I Feel For You”; Billy Ocean’s percolating late ’86 ballad over “Caribbean Queen” (he did quite well through 1986, didn’t he? We forget! And the video is his version of New Order’s “Perfect Kiss”); and Angela Winbush writing and producing a spectacular showcase for Stephanie Mills. My readers will learn more about Winbush in the next week when I share the paper I wrote for MoPop Pop Conference.
Although I could’ve gone all retroactive wisdom and picked De La Soul for pointing toward the future, I settled on “Let’s Groove” for its ecumenical spirit. Imbued with the communalism of disco but girded by developing technological innovations, Earth, Wind & Fire’s last pop crossover embodied an 1980s that, the success of Prince, Michael Jackson, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis excepted, strove for what critic Rashod Ollison called “the culture erasure of the Reagan era” — a grim development I’ll discuss at length next week. Here are forty-one awesome #1’s.
1. Earth Wind & Fire – Let’s Groove
2. Janet Jackson – Control
3. Loose Ends – Hangin’ on a String (Contemplatin’)
4. Alexander O’Neal – Fake
5. The Brothers Johnson – Stomp!
6. Luther Vandross – Never Too Much
7. Soul II Soul – Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)
8. Michael Jackson – Billie Jean
9. Stephanie Mills – I Have Learned to Respect the Power of Love
10. Ray Parker Jr. & Radio – A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do)
11. Chaka Khan – What Cha’ Gonna Do for Me
12. Skyy – Call Me
13. Isley-Jasper-Isley – Caravan of Love
14. Stevie Wonder – That Girl
15. Prince – When Doves Cry
16. Billy Ocean – Love Zone
17. Marvin Gaye – Sexual Healing
18. Karyn White – Superwoman
19. Herb Alpert – Diamonds
20. Teena Marie – Ooh La La La
21. Evelyn “Champagne” King – Love Come Down
22. The System – Don’t Disturb This Groove
23. Rick James – Give It To Me
24. Cameo – She’s Strange
25. Gap Band – Outstanding
26. Babyface – It’s No Crime
27. De La Soul – Me, Myself and I
28. Aretha Franklin – Get It Right
29. Freddie Jackson, Jr. – Rock Me Tonight (For Old Times Sake)
30. Anita Baker – Giving You the Best That I’ve Go
31. Dazz Band – Let It Whip
32. René & Angela – Your Smile
33. Debarge – Time Will Reveal
34. Vanessa Williams – Dreaming’
35. George Benson – Give Me The Night
36. Gwen Guthrihe – Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ on But the Rent
37. Whitney Houston – You Give Good Love.
38. Bobby Brown – Don’t Be Cruel
39. Gregory Abbott – Shake You Down
40. Al B. Sure! – Nite and Day
41. Diana Ross – Upside Down
Humanizing The Vacuum 
It took me a long time to disassociate the R&B ballad/slow jam of this era from schmaltz, as well – to this day I still sometimes have problems.
Ecstatic that #3 and #7 are so high – I wonder if the likes of “Ye Mad Puffin” & Scott Seward would recognise and accept them as such? (Or indeed Stephen Malkmus, and so endlessly on.)
That this decade saw schmaltz top the chart there is no doubt. I held the line!
That would make a great Spotify playlist – assume you know David Toop’s Sugar & Poison compilation that overlaps with some of these