"Me Myself And I" by De La Soul

1989 / #34

Rate Your Music score: 3.92 out of 5!

I'm giving this lost hit an entry to show how we focus on singles rather than albums.

You may know that - whenever possible - I buyed actual records instead of cassettes or CD's. Good records had better sound quality - and were cheaper than CD's. You could have your cake and eat it too! I continued with this until you could buy MP3's instead. I think the last new 45 that I purchased had to have been in the mid-1990s, maybe later.

Also - whether it was a record, tape, or CD - I usually buyed singles instead of albums. Sometimes the album version of a track was better than the single mix, but this was hit-or-miss. I usually purchased the single because singles represented excitement. Some of the best music had brevity. I didn't buy music so I could analyze it.

For some acts, such as Men At Work or "Weird Al" Yankovic, we'd buy the album. But for most other performers - even some of the greats - we got the single.

From its inception until 1998, the Hot 100 was a singles chart. There was a time in its early years when the chart included a few EP's too, but that didn't last past the 1960s. Only since 1998 has the chart included LP-only cuts. But apparently, even before 1998, a single would occasionally chart even if a commercial single was not available.

That's where "Me Myself And I" comes in.

When this record appeared on American Top 40, host Shadoe Stevens said it was the first item to reach the top 40 that was not available as a commercial single. I'm not sure under what rule it charted. Was there a promotional single for radio stations? There had been a few songs that famously did not chart because they were not released as commercial singles, but I know there were promo 45's for some.

In a later AT40 installment, Shadoe corrected this information, saying "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang from a decade earlier was actually the first item to reach the top 40 without being sold as a commercial single. But Wikipedia says there were 7-inch pressings of this hit that are "very rare." "Rapper's Delight" was also known for the brilliant line, "I can bust you out with my super sperm."

In the 1990s, many big hits were sold as a cassette single or CD single, but not as a single record. These were still eligible to appear on the Hot 100, because there was some type of single. But the era saw many big songs excluded from the Hot 100 because they didn't have a single at all.

Long live the single!

"Don't Let Go" by Wang Chung

1984 / #38

Rate Your Music score: 3.46 out of 5!

I profiled Wang Chung once before for their lost hit "Hypnotize Me." But it really is amazing how much their minor hit "Don't Let Go" - their first chart hit ever - essentially ruled the roost for about a year in the mid-1980s, even after it faded from radio and MTV.

I'm not even sure why or how. It just did. It's as if that record just takes that time frame and smashes it right in your face. I actually remember discussing this song with someone, maybe some neighborhood pals who stopped by. I don't even recall why.

Many events of the era were somehow linked to the musical culture of the day, and "Don't Let Go" appeared to be at the heart of it all. This song was the standard by which everything else was judged. It represented an environment that sort of bobbed along for a while, died down, and resurfaced a couple more times in the ensuing decades.

In more recent years, current popular music hasn't had nearly as much influence on our society, while other media have. I had a blast in the 2010s, as I went to rallies and participated in community projects (which were quickly swatted down in the 2020s). But if you look at a Hot 100 chart from the 2010s, you'll see very little music that you ever remember hearing. Even #1 hits aren't remembered. Yet a #38 hit from 1984 is still fondly recalled even after it's been off the airwaves for 41 years.

Another amusing note about Wang Chung: "Don't Let Go" came from their album Points On The Curve, a disc that prompted a hilarious review by the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Inquirer charged that Wang Chung were "mean-spirited fops." I burst out laughing when I found this, because Wang Chung always seemed like the ultimate nice guys, and it's hard to imagine them as "mean-spirited."

"Highwire" by the Rolling Stones

1991 / #57

Rate Your Music score: 3.3 out of 5!

This song sounds like a big hit, and maybe it would have been one if not for the radio industry's political intolerance.

"Highwire" came out around the end of the disastrous 1991 Gulf War. The Stones' Keith Richards said the song was "about how you build up some shaky dictator" just to "slam them down." The song criticized the politics behind the start of the war.

The tune's antiwar stance caused it to be banned by radio stations in Salt Lake City and St. Louis. This was while radio played songs that they linked to favorable views of the war. A station in Albany, New York, even collected congratulatory letters to send to George H.W. Bush for how he carried out the conflict.

I heard the song precisely once on Cincinnati radio - as we were in the car in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant - and it's a miracle our stations played it even that much, considering how stodgy and conservative our top-rated stations already were. You can bet your bottom dollar that after the song aired once on local radio, the suits slapped it down lickety-split. But the record apparently saw more play in smaller cities, so it actually made the Gavin Report's top 40.

The ban of this record was like having the 2020s in the 1990s!