Mr. William Joel makes his second appearance in this songs 40 years old countdown, and it’s a song whose popularity cannot be denied.  Just as I was looking at the songs for this countdown, I heard this track come up on store speakers – twice!  He was already a superstar, but this song and it’s corresponding video that introduced us to his future wife made him a megastar.  Coming in at #13, it’s Uptown Girl by Billy Joel.

If she wasn’t a strong female icon before, she was after this song came out. Definitely one of the best songs of her career, the video was one of the first to introduce the “dance fight”.  This song is still played a lot today and has just a great chorus and groove to it. I’m glad it made it to at least #14 in this countdown, enjoy Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar.

This awesome songwriter failed to make it in last year’s countdown a couple of times, which was a shame because he delivered some of the biggest hits of his career during this time. Now, this artist managed to get not one but two tunes into this list. The first is a personal favorite of my wife’s and it’s just a great upbeat song all around. Our #15 song turning 40 years old this year is Tell Her About It by Billy Joel.

There are not too many songs you would call “ballads” in this 1983 countdown, but this next entry is undoubtedly a power ballad.  They had another great track released in this year but it couldn’t break through the competition the way this ballad did.  It still packs a mean punch today and time seems to stop when this song comes on.  At #16, it’s Faithfully by Journey.

Sometimes a song released 40 years ago sounds just as good and could be misperceived as a new song released today. This next 1983 track is a perfect example of this. After having 2 songs appear in the last countdown, it says a lot about how much lightning he was striking, as this powerful song still manages to make it in this countdown. The #17 song turning 40 years old this year is Pink Houses by John Mellencamp.

While the title track for his landmark album made a huge impact on music and pop culture (as well as last year’s countdown), this next song showed how prolific a songwriter this artist really was. It’s a great precursor to what would be coming soon in the following year.  It has remained one of my favorite songs from him, and hearing it live when I was 6 years old was life-changing. Our next song coming in at #18 is Little Red Corvette by Prince.