Summer Breeze.. Makes Me Feel Fiiine..
Oops.. wrong genre (sorry! been off doing summertime things with family lately)
Now.. Back to the topic at hand
There are so many fave 80's dance songs that I came to know by initially hearing them on WLIR or in the area nightclubs. Whichever happened first, there was a unmistakable synergystic interplay between the two which further fueled the popularity and 'must have' desirability of those tunes during my club kid years.
My earliest recollection of such tunes came in the summer of 1983 when I transitioned from the area 'watering holes' to my first NW club, Paris NY. Certainly by then a host of NW annointed artists (Bowie, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Naked Eyes, Police, etc..) were basking in the glaring spotlight of top 40 radio crossover fame.
However, aside from all this Z-100 & (then recently flipped) WPLJ embraced radio format fodder, came a new and very different musical vibe over the dancefloor soundsystems of numerous LI clubs I came to know like 007, Camouflage, Malibu, PNY, Rumrunners/Heartbeat, 007 etc..
IMO, What helped make WLIR so influential was that some of the airstaffers (DJ Bird, Larry The Duck, Maxx to name a few) would DJ at those very same clubs!
This intimate relationship with the metro NY area music scene was indeed a signature hallmark of 92.7 .
Years & decades later, even crudely home taped live WLIR 'dance party' broadcasts would become sought after musical 'time capsles' from those halcyon years.
The following songs were ones I fondly remember from my early clubbing days ('83 - 84)
A Girl In Trouble - Romeo Void
Amok - Ledernacken
Around My Dream - Silver Pizoli
Blue Monday- New Order
Brand New Lover- Dead or Alive
Electric Dreams- Phil Oakey & Georgio Moroder
Generals & Majors - XTC
Head Hunter - Front 242
Heart Goes Bang- Dead or Alive
Images In Heaven- Pete Gotwin
Indigo Eyes - Peter Murphy
I Travel - Simple Minds
Join In The Chant - Nitzer Ebb
Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode
Kiss Me - Steve (Tin Tin) Duffy
Love Tempo- Quando Quango
One More Chance (original 1984 ver)- Pet Shop Boys
One Thing Leads To Another - The Fixx
Say It Again - Danse Society
She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult
Shoot U Down- APB
Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beat
State Farm - Yaz
Temptation - New Order
Thats Good - Devo
Thats Love That It Is - Blancmange
The Hardest Part - Blondie
The Mask - Roger Glover
Trommeltanz (Din Daa Daa) - George Kranz
Two Hearts(Beat as One) - U2 (S. Lillywhite Remix)
Uncertain Smile - The The
West End Girls (original 1984 ver)- Pet Shop Boys
What I Like About You - Romantics
Sadly, some of them would follow the earlier aformentioned artists into the dubious pantheon of 'overplayed' 80's top 40 & comp classics (Arghh!)
Funny how some of them (such as Simple Mind's 'I Travel') predated my initial listening experience by 4+ years!
