Cray-cray of light

UPDATED as of January 25, 2025 — incredibly, all six have lived another 11 years and counting from the time I wrote this:

When Joan Fontaine died at the ripe old age of 96, I was thinking she must surely be the earliest of Alfred Hitchcock's leading ladies still living. Nope! She was the oldest, but there was one leading lady who was working with Hitchcock a decade before Joan. (It was Nova Pilbeam, who has since died at 95.)

This inspired my list of all the still-living leading ladies of Hitchcock. For this list's purposes, I tried to make sure I kept out any women who were the most prominent females in their respective films, but who were not, in fact, leads.

One of the last to Vertigo

As you can see, by any standard, the list is paltry...looks like we're down to six!

Before peeking, I dare you to try to guess them all ...

Alphaville's Marian Gold by Shiraz Fuman

I recently ruminated about the fact that Debbie Harry has never had a Top 40 solo hit in the U.S., and had no problem at all coming up with 12 of her songs that deserved it.

Now, I've put together a list of 50 of my favorite songs of the '80s that failed to hit the Top 40 on Billboard's Hot 100. In some cases, these are the biggest songs of the decade, songs you simply can't believe were not bigger chart hits. In other cases, these are fantastic pop singles that simply failed to cut the mustard. And in still other cases, these are just songs that seemed squarely aimed at the Top 40 and were by acts who'd had not trouble breaking through earlier.

Enjoy, and please comment back with your own suggestions for songs I forgot...

What follows is a list of 125+ household-name artists grouped by the last years in which they appeared on a single that hit the Top 40 of Billboard's “Hot 100” chart in the U.S.

As a recovering teen chart nut, I find this stuff fascinating. It speaks to their relevance as artists in some cases, but speaks to the relevance of having a “hit single” in cases where the artists are clearly still quite successful by other measures.

Most of all, it's just wow-inducing to see how long it's been for some of these artists, who have sold millions and millions of records in their storied careers. It's also interesting seeing the groups of artists who enjoyed their last Top 40 success in the same year.

Finally: This is updated as of March 31, 2020. However, that means some of my original 125 have died. The concept of the list is to choose living artists. Rather than add more and delete the dearly departed, I am indicating who has died. Also, I'm confused about J.Lo and Shakira; I'm sure they had Top 40 entries with old songs (as Mariah did) recently, post-Super Bowl, but not sure which ones would have been last.

(Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong on any; it's hard juggling artists' singles, featured appearances, etc.)

Enjoy...

Newsflash: 1983 was 30 years ago. A baby born the day "Rebel Yell" was released could be a balding dad of three by now. Quite easily.

Looking back, that year seems to be a sweet spot for great pop music, perhaps in part because I was about 14, which was when I was really intensely caring about music, especially anything Casey Kasem told me about.

What follows are my picks for the ultimate, defining pop singles of 1983. Let me know if I missed any! I focused on U.S. singles with a few U.K. tossed in for good measure, and tried not to include a song if the bulk of its life as a single was really in 1982, yet I did include some that were released in '82 but were huge in '83. (I tended to skip any songs that were released in Decemvber of '83.)

Enjoy the flashback...