Tuesday Top Ten: Rocking '80s Movie Songs

For the first Tuesday Top Ten of this year's Rocktober is going to be a fun one.  I'm going with a list that celebrates the combination of two of the biggest and most beloved exports from the '80s:  movies and music.  There were so many amazing soundtracks from movies released in the '80s that trying to come up with a list of the top ten -- or even my favorite ten -- would be a Sisyphean task that not even Chris Knight, Mitch Taylor, Jordan Cochran, and Lazlo Hollyfield from Real Genius could help me construct a list in a timely manner.  So with that in mind, and in the spirit of Rocktober, I'm imposing the following limitations:

• I'm limiting it to songs that rock, rather than straight pop songs, ballads, or songs from other genres.  This will eliminate many otherwise worthy songs, like Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun, The Beach Boys' "Kokomo" from Cocktail, Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" from Do The Right Thing, and hundreds of others.
• The song must be one of the main songs featured in the movie.  This doesn't necessarily mean that the song must be the "theme" song to the movie, but only that it is prominently featured during the actual film.
• The song must have been released in the '80s.  This seems obvious, but just to be clear, this list will only include songs that were released in the '80s, and not songs that might have been prominently featured in '80s movies but were originally released prior to January 1, 1980.  For instance, the Big Chill soundtrack, the Stand By Me soundtrack, and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack feature a lot of great song from the '50s and '60s, but that's not what I'm going for with this list.
• The movie must have been released in the '80s.  This seems like another obvious one, but I'm not going to choose songs from the '80s that might have been prominently featured in movies released after December 31, 1989.
• Only one song per artist is allowed.  I call this The Kenny Loggins Rule.

Even with those restrictions, it was tough to narrow it to ten.  With that, here are my top ten '80s rocking songs from '80s movies (in alphabetical order by artist, listing the release year of the song (if different than the release year of the movie), the movie its from, and the release year of the movie):

1.  "Call Me" by Blondie from American Gigolo (1980)

The 1980 film American Gigolo starring Richard Gere as, well, an American gigolo, featured what became Blondie's second #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the #1 song on the Billboard Year End chart for 1980:  "Call Me."  The song proved that Blondie wasn't just a CBGB holdover or a maker of poppy new wave tracks, but that they could also rock.  Debbie Harry belts this out like she really wants a male prostitute to call her.

2.  "On the Dark Side" by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band from Eddie & The Cruisers (1983)

Eddie and the Cruisers was a 1983 film about a fictitious band from New Jersey and its lead singer Eddie, who is presumed dead after a car crash.  John Cafferty was tasked with scoring the film, and he and his band -- the Beaver Brown Band -- played the music.  "On the Dark Side" is a great rock song, properly in the vein of (and often mistaken for) Bruce Springsteen.

3.  "You're the Best" by Joe Esposito from Karate Kid (1984)

I just finished watching Cobra Kai on Netflix, and I highly recommend it.  But even if I wasn't being crushed in a wave of Karate Kid nostalgia, I would have chosen Joe Esposito's "You're the Best" for this list.  The song is featured during the All-Valley Karate Championships montage as Daniel makes his way from nobody to contender.

4.  "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis & The News from Back to the Future (1985)

Back to the Future is one of the best and most beloved films of the '80s, and being set in both the '50s and '80s, the soundtrack and film featured songs from both decades.  However, it's Huey Lewis & The News's big hit "The Power of Love" -- written and recorded for the film -- that I most associate with Back to the Future (apologies to "Johnny B. Goode" and "Earth Angel").  It's played near the beginning of the movie, and Lewis himself has a cameo in the movie as one of the rock-and-roll-hating judges of the battle of the bands that Marty McFly's band fails to win because, as Lewis's character says, they're "just too darn loud."

5.  "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins from Top Gun (1986)

It was tough to pick among the various famous Kenny Loggins '80s movie songs, but I went with "Danger Zone" because it rocks the hardest.

6.  "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" by John Parr from St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

John Parr's theme song for the Brat Pack film St. Elmo's Fire was a chart topper, and it's one of the feel-good songs of the '80s.  It always puts me in a good mood, and I always picture it being the backdrop for a movie montage scene of a group of friends working hard together to get something done.

7.  "One Vision" by Queen (1985) from Iron Eagle (1986)

Queen showed that they hadn't lost any of their swagger with "One Vision," which was released as a single in 1985 and then featured both on the band's 1986 A Kind of Magic album and in the second best fighter plane-based movie of 1986, Iron Eagle.

8.  "Shakedown" by Bob Seger from Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

Beverly Hills Cop II wasn't necessarily as great as the first one, but just like the first movie -- which featured Glenn Frey's big hit "The Heat Is On" (which is in the honorable mention category below) -- the sequel produced a big hit, Bob Seger's "Shakedown."  Co-written by Seger, '80s movie score wunderkind Harold Faltermayer, and Keith Forsey, it was Seger's first (and only) #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and it's just a great, uptempo rock song.

9.  "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor from Rocky III (1982)

Like I could have a list of the best rocking '80s movie songs without "Eye of the Tiger."  Rocky III was the first of the Rocky franchise films in the '80s, and while it perhaps isn't as well loved as the following film 1985's Rocky IV, it did feature Survivor's iconic "Eye of the Tiger."

10.  "Everybody Wants Some!!" by Van Halen (1980) from Better Off Dead (1985)

Today we lost Eddie Van Halen (more on that in tomorrow's Rocktober song selection), and I had almost forgotten about this song when I was making this list, which I'm a little embarrassed about because it's one of my favorite Van Halen songs and Better Off Dead is one of my favorite '80s movies.  The song was released five years before the film, but it is featured prominently in the movie, as Lane Myer daydreams about becoming a Frankenstein-esque mad scientist and creating an anthropomorphic cheeseburger and his blushing cheeseburger bride.

Honorable Mention:  "Hazy Shade of Winter" by The Bangles from Less Than Zero (1987);

"The Heat Is On" by Glenn Frey from Beverly Hills Cop (1984); "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" by Sammy Hagar from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982); "Only The Young" by Journey from Vision Quest (1985); "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins from Footloose (1984); "I'm Alright" by Kenny Loggins from Caddyshack (1980); "Maniac" by Michael Sembello from Flashdance (1983); "No Easy Way Out" by Robert Tepper from Rocky IV (1985)