Considering how much people liked my first blog about #11 hits, I've decided to go ahead and list another batch of them. Let's get serious here, it isn't like that first batch is better than this latest one. It's all just me staring at charts and saying, "Ooh, I remember that song!" and then making comments so stunning that other bloggers say to themselves, "I hate that guy!"

Yeah, well, my mother wasn't so impressed with my career choice, either. "Why don't you write speeches for the President or something, if you're supposed to be a writer?"

Sorry, Mom. I'm just not that good. Just be glad I haven't landed in the clink, ok?

The next few months are packed with new releases for just about everyone's taste, except for Jazz! No, no, just kidding folks. I'm sure Jazz fans will be made whole as well. But I only have 25 slots here and I've got to tell you about people who might sell a lot of records -- or whatever it is that people do these days.

Let's get to it! (All release dates subject to change. This is the music business, folks.)

The following is a list of songs that topped the Billboard Pop Charts during the summer months of the second half of the 1980s. I offer this as my farewell kiss to summer, one of the three tolerable seasons we have in the Northeast.

OK, everyone, time to find some clothes to put on!

25) The Greatest Love of All -- Whitney Houston (1986): This song was rapidly ascending the pop charts, becoming one of those songs that no one could escape. The overly-sincere among us believed every word, while the smarty pants in the back chortled like they did at everything in life.

24) On My Own -- Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald (1986): I've already picked this as one of my worst summer songs, so I won't bother to elaborate, except to say I haven't changed my mind. Maybe I just hate mellowness?

23) Holding Back The Years -- Simply Red (1986): Mellowness in and of itself is not the problem. It's that if you listened to commercial radio in the 1980s, everything had this gloss to it. So, even if

Since I'm told the people like the 1980s and can't get enough of them, I've decided to look into the first half of the decade and pull out the most popular songs of the era.

Never mind the underground, here's the pop chart.

Cogent commentators can make sense out of this stuff, but I don't think anything means anything. It's all crap. Music happens and money and power and people's tastes mix together until a bizarre consensus is reached and everyone can go home.

Sure, college radio rose up during these years and bands not listed here came to prominence with their albums, but this list is what you heard everywhere. Black Flag were known to a small circle of friends, while the rest of the world was still sucking up the Air Supply. But grab your legwarmers, baby, the night's getting cold.