For me, it was a tough call between “Walk of Life” And “Mad About You.”
Wound up voting for “Walk of Life” because I’d rather slam my finger in a door than have to listen to “Here’s 83 trivial things that went wrong with my day that I’m going to whine to you about,” aka “Manic Monday,” so my vote for “Walk” was essentially a vote against “Manic Monday.” (Talk about a title that’s false advertising, incidentally.)
Not to mention “Manic Monday” has got the lamest, stupidest refrain of any pop song I’ve ever heard that has a refrain.
Not a lot I recognize – it’s like a year full of B-sides. Normally I’d go with Dire Straits based on the “Is it on my iPod?” test, but Walk of Life just doesn’t do it for me. So…Bangles, I guess. Praised with faint damns, or something like that.
“Alive and Kicking” finishes ahead of all other songs in the world-famous Ponch8 Music Rating System, beating out “No One is to Blame” and “If You Leave” by a fairly comfortable margin.
“I Miss You” and “Secret Lovers” are tied for dead-ass last. Those songs make Eddie Murphy sound great by comparison.
I like them both but Manic Monday was written by Prince for the Bangles because he really wanted a piece of that tiger tail. That has to count as one of the greatest gifts to anyone in entertainment history.
I love Dire Straits but Money for Nothing is a better song than Walk of Life so I deducted points for that. Still, the most happy karaoke act that I ever witnessed was by a disabled person that performed Walk of Life at the Cat’s Meow in New Orleans to a standing ovation. He did an excellent job and you couldn’t help but feel great at the end of it.
I don’t care about the order too much. They are both clearly the best songs of the year and most people agree.
No, that he couldn’t have given her a better song in hopes of banging her.
Seriously, up until today, I could have divided all Prince songs I’ve heard into two categories: (1) those that I really liked, and (2) those that may not have been my cup of tea, but were clearly the work of a talented songwriter trying interesting things.
This song, OTOH, reminds me of Goddam in Bored of the Rings:
Well, it’s one of only four songs to make the top two for the Bangles, so I think he did okay. That said, I know what you’re saying about the lyrics. It’s a good thing I tune out must rock and pop lyrics. That “Monday/Sunday/funday/I-don’t-have-to-run-day” set of rhymes make me cringe a little bit if I listen too carefully. Still, it’s got a nice musical hook and melody, IMHO.
I think you’re looking at this wrong. Ok, it’s a shitty Prince song. But it’s a *perfect *Bangles song. He didn’t write it for himself, he wrote it for a “Girl Group” and I think his ability to design songs for other people and other styles speaks very highly of his talent.
Manic Monday is not a shitty song by any measure. It is one of those songs like Dancing Queen by Abba that almost everyone likes but is too embarrassed to admit it. Prince is one of the most talented singer/musician/song writers that has ever existed and Manic Monday is one of his more notable works.The Bangles were great performers too. Put the two of them together and you have a very memorable song. It isn’t the best song performance ever but it is easily in the top 1% especially for the year in question.
Heck, I can’t even come up with lame snark beyond that while on the one hand at least Lionel Richie did not have yet another weepy choked-up ballad, on the other hand he dropped a track made just so that in the video they could reproduce a Fred Astaire bit from 1951.