The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

#987 - Solid Gold



Solid Gold, for those young'uns out there, was a hip television program that came on on Saturday nights, usually around the time that my parents were heading out for the evening, leaving an unsuspecting babysitter to watch me and the Mighty Malagan. We wouldn't miss this show for the world.

Solid Gold was hosted by Marilyn McCoo and some dude who I do not remember for a second. It was, quite simply, a music countdown show that had "live" (more on that in a second) performances by the day's hottest musicians and bands. Why, just below is one of those hot bands:

That's right....DeBarge!

More importantly Solid Gold also featured the Solid Gold Dancers! This was by far the most T&A available on cable to a young Jewbacca (short of those channels that were so scrambled that after about 5 minutes of watching I felt like I was having a seizure). Watch this wonderful clip to see what I mean, it's 4 minutes and 35 seconds of pure 80's bliss complete with scantily clad women. And pay close attention to where a former Beatle ranked that week.



More importantly, Solid Gold taught me 3 important things about music:

1. Naked Eyes did not employ some sort of amazing drummer for their smash hit "Always Something There to Remind Me."
I will never forget when they made their appearance to play their song and the rhythm section was one dude and some sort of strange looking machine. A drum machine. I was never the same after that.

2. Michael McDonald? He's white!
He shows up to sing "Yah Mo Be There" and he's not a black dude. I think I spit most of my Spaghettio's (with meatballs) across the room onto the 19 inch Zenith. I had no idea, I had never seen him before.

3. Did you know that artists lip sync their performances sometimes?
I couldn't figure out why the band would be bowing, the crowd applauding and the music...still playing?? What was up with that? They were apparently lip syncing.

And as a reward for getting to the end -- more Solid Gold Dancers!

For Sweaty, since his work won't allow him to access YouTube anymore...