100 Best Singles of 1984: Pop's Greatest Year
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Hot 100 Peak: Number Three
Steve Perry was still a member of Journey when he released Street Talk, his first solo album, and the lead single from that record, written for his then-girlfriend Sherrie Swafford, bore many of his band's signature touches — pealing guitars, urgently pled verses and a sense of arena-rock pomp. (Perry's exuberant vocal performance helped, too.) The clip became an MTV staple because it sated the era's then-overwhelming appetite for more music that sounded like Journey, but its presentation of Perry as everyman, embarrassedly rolling his eyes at an overblown Medieval Times video concept and blowing off work to hang out with the woman he loved (played by Swafford herself), helped it stick in the public's mind decades later. M.J.
89 | Steve Perry, "Oh Sherrie"