“There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)” by Billy Ocean (1986)

One person’s view:  “Certainly a strong contender for the title of most lackluster Billboard #1 of the ‘80s.” – thx4noting @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  2.36 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 1986 that did not involve Peter Cetera  

Billy Ocean occupies a strange space in the history of 1980s pop music.  He had five songs that reached #1 or #2 on the Hot 100 – more than Huey Lewis and Bruce Springsteen combined – yet few people would name him as one of the decade’s big stars.  When he is remembered, it’s for his up-tempo R&B-ish/dance-ish records like “Caribbean Queen” and the impudently bossy “Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car”.  His hit ballads, on the other hand, have not withstood the test of time.  Those songs are out of our dreams, they got into a stranger’s car, and now they’re on a milk carton.

The SiriusXM ‘80s channel plays a random “lost” hit at about quarter ‘til each hour.  I can usually identify this obscure song from the first few notes – unless it’s a slice of Billy Ocean soft rock that comes tinkling through the speakers.  All of his ballads sound the same to me.  Is that “Love Is Forever”?  Or “The Colour of Love”?  Or “There’ll Be Sad Songs”?  I never know until he gets to the chorus.

But other than having similar melodies and identical production parameters, there’s nothing that’s really wrong with Billy Ocean’s slower songs.  They have a mature sound to them and are never cheesy, because he saves the embarrassing lyrics for his up-tempo hits.  He usually focuses on the nature of love rather than just fawning over a woman, which I can appreciate after listening to a lot of Lionel Richie for the last entry.  And I didn’t think I’d get a chance to use the word “mellifluous” on this blog, but it’s a good description of Ocean’s voice.  His singing is smoother than the side of Mr. T’s head.  Nonetheless, these records always seemed like they should be confined to my parents’ soft rock radio stations.  They didn’t quite fit with Madonna and Bon Jovi on American Top 40.

Aside from “There’ll Be Sad Songs”, the year 1986 saw at least seven or eight other unmemorable ballads in the #1 spot on the Hot 100.  My guess is that “Separate Lives” had inoculated listeners somewhat and allowed this type of music to proliferate.  (After you’ve survived a case of smallpox, the mumps doesn’t seem so bad.)  “There’ll Be Sad Songs” is no worse than, say, “On My Own” or “Sara”, but its reputation suffers from Billy Ocean’s saturation of pop radio with so many records that were hard to distinguish from one another.  I won’t say that his lite rock songs were too much of a good thing, but they were probably too much of an adequate thing.