Born in the USA
1984 · From Born in the USA
Take four, April 1982, a Yamaha synth from Roy Bittan, and the most misheard chorus in American rock.
★ 8.7
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1984
Showing 118 works across all media from 1984
Born in the USA
1984
Reagan's campaign tried to borrow the title song, which is sung by a veteran who cannot get a job. Seven singles went top ten.
★ 8.6
Purple Rain
1984
When Doves Cry has no bass on it at all, which Prince did deliberately. Several tracks were taped live at a Minneapolis club.
★ 8.5
Once Upon a Time in America
Directed by Sergio Leone
1984
American distributors cut ninety minutes out of it and destroyed the reviews: restored to full length, Leone's fifty-year gangster elegy drifts between decades like an opium dream.
★ 7.9
The Terminator
Directed by James Cameron
1984
Cameron made it for six million dollars and launched two careers and a franchise: a machine that cannot be bargained with, cannot be reasoned with, and absolutely will not stop.
★ 7.9
Amadeus
Directed by Milos Forman
1984
It sent a whole generation out to buy Mozart records: Salieri narrates his own jealousy from an asylum, and the music keeps making his case better than he can.
★ 7.8
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
1984 · 320 pages
Kundera puts a Prague surgeon who cannot stop having affairs, the woman who loves him, and the Soviet tanks of 1968 together, then asks whether a life lived once can weigh anything.
★ 7.7
Like a Virgin
1984 · From Like a Virgin
A Steinberg and Kelly demo Rodgers disliked at first, six weeks at number one, and a seventeen-foot wedding cake.
★ 7.7
What's Love Got To Do With It
1984 · From Private Dancer
Cliff Richard turned it down, Bucks Fizz shelved it, and Turner at forty-four took it to number one.
★ 7.7
Careless Whisper
George Michael and Wham!
1984
Written at seventeen on a bus, scrapped at Muscle Shoals, saved by Steve Gregory's saxophone in one breath.
★ 7.5
This is Spinal Tap
Directed by Rob Reiner
1984
Real musicians find it painful to watch because everything in it has happened to them: Reiner and his cast improvised almost the entire film from a bare outline.
★ 7.4
Pride (In the Name of Love)
1984 · From The Unforgettable Fire
The Edge's chords came out of a soundcheck in Japan; Bono fixed the third verse's timeline on record only in 2023.
★ 7.3
The Karate Kid · 1984
The Boys of SummerDon Henley
The Boys of Summer
1984
Campbell built the track on a LinnDrum, Petty passed, and Henley wrote middle age onto somebody else's demo.
★ 7.3
Time After Time
1984
Lauper lifted the title from a TV Guide film listing, and Rob Hyman's harmony makes the chorus ache.
★ 7.2
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
1984
Marr's melody came from a New York hotel room, the title from Sandie Shaw, and misery never sounded so cheerful.
★ 7.2
Ghostbusters
Directed by Ivan Reitman
1984
It should not work at all and it works completely: three academics start a small business catching ghosts in New York, and Murray ad-libs freely on top of the script.
★ 7.1
Double Nickels on the Dime
1984
Forty-five songs, most under two minutes, and the title is a joke about obeying the speed limit. D. Boon was dead within eighteen months.
★ 7.0
Let it Be
1984
They called it Let It Be mostly to annoy people. The songs run from a joke about answering machines to Westerberg howling that he is unsatisfied.
★ 6.9