Deniece Williams -- Let's Hear It for the Boy

 

For this week's Reminiscings of Youth article, my rusty memory goes back to 1984 and I think that the two of the big movies for that year were "Ghostbusters" and "Footloose". Especially with that latter movie, the title song by Kenny Loggins was huge on radio and video. In fact, I swear that the video with a young and kickass Kevin Bacon kicking off his Sunday shoes and dancing amok everywhere was made a permanent addition to any music video show.

Loggins' hit song status was to the extent that I'd had no idea that Deniece Williams' "Let's Hear It for the Boy" was actually a part of the "Footloose" soundtrack for several weeks after the video made its premiere (and nope, I never watched the movie...wasn't my thing). Still, "Let's Hear It for the Boy" was and still is a fun and really uplifting song that had its release on Valentine's Day 1984. Created by Tom Snow and Dean Pitchford, the synthesizers embraced me in its nostalgic swoon and Williams' vocals and the overall melody brought back some nice memories of what pop music was like in the 1980s. 

I've also read on the Wikipedia article for "Let's Hear It for the Boy" that Paul Jackson Jr. and Paulinho Da Costa were in the recording booth as guitarist and percussionist respectively. Both musicians are folks that I've seen within a number of liner notes for Japanese singers such as Anri（杏里）. By the way, the above video is the remix version for the song since after all, we all used to be remix hounds back in the day. Both "Footloose" and "Let's Hear it for the Boy" were nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars that year.

Well, then, what were the Top 3 songs on the Oricon Singles chart in February 1984?

1. Seiko Matsuda -- Rock n' Rouge

2. Warabe -- Moshi mo Ashita ga （もしも明日が）

3. Toshihiko Tahara -- Charleston ni wa Mada Hayai（チャールストンにはまだ早い）