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If I had used the '65 chart, there would have been some '60s contenders ... As it is: 7 8 9* 8* 9 7 8 8 7 7 * close calls That battle for No. 3 was as close as it gets, as all four songs had some claim to it. In the end, P.M. Dawn triumphed, but just barely over, in order of my preference as well as receding decades, Foreigner, Barry Manilow and Marty Robbins. No. 4 was also a tight battle (although less so because the '60s song was a nonentity to me). I really like both the Boyz II Men and Barbra Streisand songs, but "Start Me Up" is barely behind "Satisfaction" in the classic Stones hits in my book.

5-9-6-7 "Supernatural Thing" is the best of this lot. The rest are OK but no big deal, with Hammer simply being too repetitive to get past the midpoint.

Especially nice to see that Boyz II Men pushed out New Kids on the Block.

Hell, yes!

I think there's something in the use of your greater than symbols that is freaking out the site by making it think it's code...

Not a fan of the choice between Hey Baby and Someday We'll Be Together, two of my favorites from the decade. And poor Bobby Vinton -- he keeps getting paired up against classics like "Where Did Our Love Go?" So yep, he's four for four (for me) in moving on... On the other hand, it was easy to send along "Alley-Oop," "Mr. Custer" and "The Stripper," which has the potential to go all the way at this rate.

I haven't read that essay, Thegue, but I am familiar with Mr. Morris from some episodes of his podcast and a guest spot on Chris Molanphy's "Hit Parade," so I've got a pretty good guess at which No. 1 this will be. And you're right, it will be fascinating (and I bet fascinatingly divided).

That's the new Amanda, then? ;)

This weekend, the weekend of Nov. 30/Dec. 1, 1991, on my personal chart -- http://crownnote.com/charts/cstolliver/music-of-a-lifetime-top-25-659 -- two artists of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s offer a tasty collaboration that won’t be their last. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5xl8LFRWeE “Keep Coming Back” was the lead-off single from “Rush Street,” the third album from Richard Marx. Coming off nine consecutive Top 15 singles (the first seven, Top 10) from his first two albums, Marx was no doubt being scrutinized by record industry folks to see if he could maintain the pace. Unlike the lead-off singles from the previous two albums (“Don’t Mean Nothing” and “Satisfied”), “Keep Coming Back” wasn’t a pop/rock track but more of an R&B number, with strong backing vocals by Luther Vandross. In Billboard, the track matched the “so close” peaks of his previous two singles (“Too Late to Say Goodbye” and “Children of the Night”) by hitting No. 12. On my chart, “Keep Coming Back” was up two this week to No. 7 on its way to a peak of three weeks at No. 4. It would be another decade or so before the Marx-Vandross pairing yielded another song that was both less popular (by Billboard standards) and more popular (by Grammy standards). We’ll talk more about that within the next year at the rate the charts are about to speed up…

Covered.

It was only through going through discussions with TNOCS of Kiss' Top 40 hits that I realized I really do like a lot of their songs (I still shudder at considering myself a fan) ... Beth, Rock and Roll All Night, Shout It Out Loud, I Was Made for Lovin' You, Hard Luck Woman are good to great; Christine Sixteen and Calling Dr. Love are guilty pleasures when heard sparingly; and their non-Top 40's A World Without Heroes and Reason to Live are also songs I like. That's far, far more than I would have thought before spending time here.

I don't look at it on mobile anymore because I can't make it through the column, let alone TNOCS, without crashing. I look at it at home on my desktop (and even then there's an occasional crashing ... usually when I'm trying to post).

Are you saying it's generational bias that spurs the low vote for Michael Bolton's remake over the '60s original? By that logic, we ought to be seeing a wave of dislike for today's No. 1 because of its sample of a popular song of the decade prior. But ... we're not.

I won't disagree with your comparison of "Bad Time" and "Beth." But I like "Beth."

There's no way to hear this without thinking of John Garabedian's "Open House Party."

I hadn't heard this before. Thanks for sharing. It's a good track ... I just wish the vocals weren't so buried in the mix in the chorus. I guess it adds to the mysticism of it all, but George is a great vocalist and shouldn't be trampled over by tinkly piano sounds.

Or "My Ding-a-Ling."

9-4-10 I love today's song (there are four P.M. Dawn songs in these next few virtual years -- probably the next two months in real time -- that will earn 9 or 10 grades from me). I agree with Tom that "I'd Die Without You" is P.M. Dawn's 10. And there are a few songs that I don't even have to think about before assigning a 10 -- "Respect," "Someday We'll Be Together," "I Want to Hold Your Hand." "Satisfaction" is in that camp. Herman's Hermits? Eh. I don't loathe "Henry VIII" but I don't love it either. I'd have given it a 5, but the second verse same as the first nonsense (which I'm sure some find charming) knocks it down a point for me.

Don't blame me. :) I gave it a 2 and Anka a 1.

10-7-10-7 "Old Days" is among Chicago's less played-out songs but it's also not as strong as some of the cuts that do get burned out ("25 or 6 to 4," "Beginnings," etc.) Yes, "Chevy Van" is skeevy, but delightfully so, I don't get a whiff of lack of consent, and I love the line "I put her out in a town that was so small, you could throw a rock from end to end." That alone would get a 7. Those 10s, though: "Bad Time" and "Only Yesterday" are my favorite tracks from their respective artists.

Now we're getting somewhere ... polls 7 and 9 were rough, but otherwise a clear sense of which song was worse. (And most of the time I'm aligning with the other voters.)

Wow. What a find. I ought to like it (I like the Bolton/Patti Labelle version on "Time, Love & Tenderness" but couldn't make it past the 3:35 mark.

** earned. (Edit button!)

I'm not sure it's quite that simple an equation. Bolton and Patti Labelle earn raves from a largely black audience at the Motown 30th show for their duet medley covering several Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell songs.

Unless by "cover," you mean dig a ditch, drop it in, and dump piles of earth on it. Then I'm for it.

Yep. I'm a Babs fan, but I didn't care for her version of this. Can't really explain why.

Accidentally downvoted. Where's mt's button?

I hear you ... the camp factor almost redeems it, though. As opposed to "The Game of Love," (the Mindbenders, not Santana/Michelle Branch) with a very similar message that automatically irritates me no end and gets a definite 1.

I don't believe that some songs should never be covered. (Heck, Aretha's "Respect" was a cover.) I do think it's a good idea for an artist to think about what they can bring to the cover that the original didn't have. To that degree, our conversation about James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt from Wednesday may be relevant. In their best cases, they brought a different personality to their covers from the originals. In their worst, zzzz ...

I remember "Remember the Nights" (a good song) and am shocked it spent one week on the charts. Thanks for such great trivia, PLF.

I loved today's ... but I'll always be partial to mt's "All Over the World" video. (It got me through the early days of COVID lockdown.)

When the original himself has a critically mixed-to-negative reputation, what does it mean to be called “Michael Bolton-esque”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS2Hp9Ck9mQ Curtis Stigers managed to remind AC/Top 40 listeners of not one but two popular yet polarizing artists of the time; as a sax player as well as a long-haired singer capable of yowling, Stigers brought to mind not only Bolton but his frequent partner-in-crime Kenny G. The video for Stigers sole pop hit, “I Wonder Why,” makes Stigers – a legit sax player – look like he’s slumming with a prop. (Honestly, by 1991, why were videos even a thing any more in this genre?) This week, the weekend of Nov. 23/24, 1991, on my personal chart -- http://crownnote.com/charts/cstolliver/music-of-a-lifetime-top-25-658 -- Stigers was No. 1. You may wonder why. As I mentioned above re: Bolton, I like the occasional bluesy shout in a pop/AC ballad. It’s when that’s all the song becomes, or when the artist isn’t paying attention to what he’s shouting, that it becomes a total turnoff to me. With “I Wonder Why,” Stigers nails the distinction for most of the song … though I’ll agree today that the final 45 seconds or so go into the same excesses that doom Bolton’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Stigers’ run was much, much briefer than Bolton’s, as this was his only pop hit. On my personal charts, he did hit twice more in the next 12 months: “You’re All That Matters to Me” went to No. 10 in April 1992 (it hit 98 on the Hot 100), and the double-sided “Sleeping With the Lights On/People Like Us” went to No. 4 in August (96 on the Hot 100). His time was up after that. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Whoa ... Celine Dion and Michael Bolton in one concert?? Nothing succeeds like excess.

Ah, 1975. Where you could enjoy "I'm Not Lisa" because it's the name of your younger sister and you could torment her by singing it, only to then be mortified by the same station playing Major Harris and the women's background "singing." Merry Christmas, happy holidays, etc...

Poor Bobby Vinton ... he could wind up with a final four! :) Probably not, but ... At least some of these did feature some songs that could be truly be the worst. Still, I'm struggling on a few matches where I still love both songs. I have a feeling that'll disappear by round 3. I hope you have a good break, friend. Thanks for doing this.

Thank you, my friend! The happiest of holiday seasons to you as well.

What brought Michael Bolton down, ultimately? Excess. He kept reaching for those extra notes, gutting out performances without paying attention to whether the particular composition he was singing called for them. Often, I liked his gutbucket flourishes on songs like “When I’m Back on My Feet Again” (“no, I’m not gonna cra—a—wl again …”) or “Steel Bars” (“I'm bound forever till the end of ti—hime”) or “That’s What Love Is All About” (“beyond a shadow of a dow—howt”). On “When a Man Loves a Woman,” he piles them on, and the record crumbles beneath their weight. Bolton’s tendency to take a pop/rock shouter approach (his early ‘80s “Fool’s Game” was very similar to Sammy Hagar’s stuff at the time) to adult contemporary compositions worked OK on his own compositions or co-writes (“How Can We Be Lovers,” “Time, Love & Tenderness”). But when he turned that shout loose on soul/R&B standards, the results were less favorable. Whether it’s “Georgia on My Mind,” “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” “To Love Somebody” (written by Barry Gibb originally for Otis Redding) or “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Bolton seems to think the key to success is overemoting and extending the song for an oversung bridge or chorus to demonstrate his vocal chops, not realizing that the strengths of the original versions of the songs were in their subtlety, their brevity or both. In the interests of transparency, I’ll note that this cover did make it to No. 5 on my charts. (I liked much of the stuff from “Time, Love & Tenderness,” including the title track, “Steel Bars” and a duet with Patti LaBelle.) It hasn’t stood the test of time, though, and it’s an automatic channel-change today. It’s a 2.

And Linear were in the Top 40 with a song called "TLC" at the same time as TLC were on the chart.

It's really OK. Like I said, I knew I was taking it in a way you likely didn't intend it. Unfortunately, at the time of Freddie's death, there was no other way of taking it because those making such statements were all too clear in their meaning. I know you've got a good heart, my friend.

I love "Blue Eyes" (it went to No. 1 on my personal charts), but "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" will always be my favorite Elton '80s song. Elton + Stevie (without the sap of TWFAF) = #1.