Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 6

This week in 1984, a new song went to Number One, beginning a two-week run at the top spot. On May 12, 1984, ”Hello” (video up top) by American singer, songwriter, record producer (and TV personality) Lionel Richie became the new Number One song. This wasn’t a song I was fond of, and I have no personal connection to it other than remembering hearing it on the radio for a time. To me, that’s not a big deal: It wasn’t the first or last time I didn’t connect with a Number One hit, not that it matters: Arthur’s Law, and all that.

The song was used in various TV commercials, as so many pop songs are, but that probably helped keep it in my memory, something that might not have happened otherwise. This isn’t to suggest that there weren’t Lionel Richie songs that I liked, at least somewhat. I just didn’t care for this particular song.

This is also a song where the music video did nothing to help the situation for me. A good music video can make me like a song more than I might otherwise, and a song I already like isn’t harmed by a bad music video. In this case, I didn’t like either the song or (especially) the music video. Wikipedia described the video well:

The music video for "Hello", directed by Bob Giraldi, features the story of Richie as a theater and acting teacher having a seemingly unrequited love for a blind student (Laura Carrington) until he discovers she shares the feeling as demonstrated by the discovery that she is sculpting a likeness of his head in clay.

At the time, I thought the video was kind of creepy and even stalker-ish because of the way Richie always seemed to be lurking in the periphery. I had a much a bigger question, though: How did the blind girl know how Richie’s head was shaped? Those were the things I thought about whenever the video came on, and thinking about film details doesn’t usually help make a song more appealing.

Clearly I was not in step with my contemporaries: “Hello” reached Number One in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK (Gold), and, of course, it was Number One on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” and on the Cash Box "Top 100 Singles" charts. The song was also Gold in the USA.

So, this was a song I didn’t particularly care for, but one that was also liked by lots of people. That’s okay. It’d be an awfully dull world if we all liked the same things.

This series will return May 26 with another new Number One, one I did like—though it also reinforces something I said in this post, but that’s a topic for then..

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1984” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 1 – January 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 2 – February 4, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 3 – February 25, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 4 – March 31, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 5 – April 21, 2024