The only single in the 1980s that sold over 20 million copies
The legacy of an artist from the 1980s is something quite unique and special to behold when you really think about it.
The people who were there at the time hail it as one of the best decades in history, while everyone else who wasn’t views it with a certain golden allure where the music was timeless, the hair was big, and life never felt so good. Of course, that’s putting a highly naive lens on it, but the ‘80s memory is a bubble that can never be popped.
But at the same time, there’s also a specific kind of vintage that comes with anything associated with the decade, so that it’s viewed almost like a historical artefact, where times have moved on so much that things can never return to the way they were then. To be fair, a lot of the time there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, yet it seems that the ‘80s is ageing at a more rapid pace than most.
While the hits of the era aren’t yet quite at the stage of being played as the karaoke options in retirement homes all over the world, when you look back on some of the biggest songs of the decade, you almost can’t seem to wrap your head around the fact that most of them are only just over 40 years old.
Then, when factoring record sales into the equation, the top-selling song of the decade, being the only one to shift more than 20million copies, serves as even more of a time capsule in terms of ‘80s living and all its specific sonic idiosyncrasies. ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ by Journey is undeniably a classic of its time, but there’s no denying that its success was massively reliant on the decade it came from.
What was the impact of ‘Don’t Stop Believin” in the 1980s?
It was reflective of the tenure of Journey as a whole that the biggest portion of their rock and roll rapture also came from the ‘80s, with ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ absolutely rubber-stamping that fate upon its release back in 1981. But by becoming the band’s signature tune, it cultivated a sales status that many could only dream of: shifting a total of 26.52m copies, and becoming the best-selling song of the decade.
But despite this seemingly golden streak of numbers, the critics were hardly bowled over by ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ the first time that they heard it. They saw it as airheaded, throwaway mainstream pop that was too overzealous in its approach, with every stereotype thrown in to make it similar to every other hit tune of the time.
Yet Journey saw things pretty differently. They believed that they had struck a chord of innovation with the song’s unusual structure; the verses build all the anticipation before the chorus finally hits at the end. However, there were other holes to pick apart, too – mainly that there is no such place as “South Detroit”. “I got a lot of flak for [that],” said Jonathan Cain. “Because there was no South Detroit. And I said, ‘Because it’s a mystical place, it doesn’t exist!’ It’s the city of possibilities in your mind. That’s what South Detroit is. So, leave it alone.”
That emphatic proclamation seems to silence the critics, and with that, ‘Don’t Stop Believin”, was left to regale in its legacy of being one of the greatest hits the ‘80s ever heard. Sure, there may have been some elements of following the formula, but if that’s the key to securing your best hit, what else is a band to do?
