For starters, they are all pop stars that have enjoyed the experience of having their songs reach the Number One position on the American music charts. They are also among the 140 artists who responded to writer Randolph Michael's call to be questioned for this book, Flashbacks to Happiness, which is a survey of hit songs of the 1980's and what it took to make them.

Readers who are interested in popular music, and the '80's decade in particular, will find the interviews included within these pages to be fascinating testaments of how the music industry has changed to such a drastic extent in the last 20 years. It also details how artists have managed to keep their careers alive despite today's increasingly unstable marketplace and often-fickle music buying public.