Evelyn "Champagne" King- Out Of Control (1984)

Whenever I kick something on the ground, the same thing resounds in my head. "No baby birds no baby birds please no baby birds", because nine times out of ten, it is a goddamn baby bird.
I love the fact that we have enough clean air to support urban wildlife and all, but the dead baby bird situation in this city is truly out of control.

Shalamar- A Night to Remember (1982)

My partner works on a rotating schedule that often leaves me making my own dinner for weeks at a time, which means cheese and crackers (better known as 'chackers'), mixing diet sodas to create new, cancer-causing flavors, and, in one particularly regrettable instance, frog's legs from a sketchy Chinese Buffet. Now, truth be told, I could have been less adventurous and left the slimy legs steaming in the tray, as it appeared they had done for hours prior, but I'll tell you this much: you don't get a night to remember out of not eating the legs. Am I right, folks? Am I?

Alvin Fields- Special Delivery (1981)

I love Japanese food and all, but I will not eat sunomono salad or cone sushi in a restaurant.
These are "delivery only" dishes. 
You see, I just can't figure out how to eat the cone sushi gracefully, and as the sunomono,  I have always been confused as to whether you are supposed to drink the sweet vinegar dressing, or leave it in the bowl.
To leave the broth in a bowl of soup would be rude, and would signal a distaste in the dish (which, I assure you, is quite the opposite when it comes to refreshing Japanese salads).
The waiter comes by, and always asks if I am finished, and, not wanting to look like an uncultured dick, I am unsure of how to reply. "Uhhhh, I don't know? You tell me?"

Gwen McCrae- Keep The Fire Burning (1982)

This year, I turn 31, which, I believe, is the exact year I start getting birthday cards with a picture of a cake burning down an entire building.

Leroy Burgess- Stranger (1983)

Although they were played in multi-national campaigns to millions and millions of children, I am certain that nobody was affected by the scare-tactic PSA ads of the eighties as much as I.
If you would have asked me, at a mere seven years old, where my life was headed, I would tell you about the almost-certainty of an electrical fire, in which I would be expected to save my entire family from our burning house, along with the fact that I would be absconded and raised by a creepy stranger with a giant moustache and a beat-up van full of candy, puppies, and drugs (which, on second thought, might not have been so bad after all).

Prime Time- I Owe It To Myself (1984)

Sometimes I'll get to the counter of the 7-11, and I've got two kinds of beef jerky, a cream soda, seven dollars' worth of penny candy, and the newest issue of XXL, and the guy at the counter will look at me sideways.
For the record, counter guy, I know I'm being excessive, but after taking the lead on damage control after one of the clients at work tried to pee in the drain instead of the toilet, and sitting in a two-hour long HR presentation about how we're all fucking up our time-sheets, I totally, totally, TOTALLY owe it to myself. Totally.

Clarity- The Way You Make Me Feel (1985)

I am a person that has very strong feelings. When I am happy, am I very, very happy. When I am sad, I am an upset mess. That being said, there are feelings in my life that I have yet to put my finger on, like when I run out of milk right as the pot of coffee finishes brewing, how I tend to rip all of my best clothes doing something stupid, when a small child grabs at my chest, or the most confusing feeling of all: the constant dreams of a shirtless, teary-eyed Phil Collins holding a boombox, Say Anything-style, outside of my bedroom window, blasting 'In Too Deep'. Strange, strange, strange.

Shirley Lites- Heat You Up, Melt You Down (1983)

I'm not sure if it's the heat, the copious amounts of cheap beer at weekly softball games, the fumes inhaled via open pickup truck windows, or too-tight/too-sweaty dirty white snapbacks, but there is something about summer that makes the dickweeds in my neighbourhood go from 'kinda deplorable' to 'absolutely intolerable'.

Glenn Jones- Finesse 1984

I used to use Finesse for all of my 80's budget haircare needs, but then Salon Selectives came on the market, and sometimes, you just can't fuck with softness.

Unlimited Touch- Searching (1981)

The other night, I watched a documentary of a biologist, searching for an up-close encounter with nature, that lived, for twelve months, with his biologist wife in a tent in the middle of this giant nature preserve in Idaho.  Although I'm sure this was a good year for spotting wolves, it would be a fucking terrible year for absolutely everything else in your whole life.