Song #187: "Queen Of Hearts"--Juice Newton (1981)

Today, it's the debut of a usually forgotten country/pop hybrid artist of the early 1980's. For a time, after two albums of futility trying to hit big on the charts, Juice was a constant chart presence in 1981 thanks to her breakthrough album, "Juice".

On the heels of her first #1 song, "Angel Of The Morning", came today's song, which hit it big back in the Summer of 1981, which, looking back now 35 plus years later, was underrated musically. The more I scan my Top 500, and the other 250 or so songs that didn't quite make the cut, the more I realized that the Summer of '81 holds its own quite well when compared to summers around it.

Ironically, "Queen of Hearts" was Newton's biggest-selling single, though it peaked at #2. Why didn't it go #1? There was also a mediocre movie that summer featuring Brooke Shields called "Endless Love" which spawned a song of the same name that, thanks to the power of the duo of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, lived at #1 for nine weeks from August to October.

Juice will be back later on as (spoiler alert) Spring 2017 fights for supremacy with the hopefully fading Winter. What song will that be?