Category: Song Of The Week

Hall and Oates – Out Of Touch

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week12 Comments

It’s time to continue the 40th anniversary celebration for 1984. And today I’ll have a look at one of the big pop and dance hits of the year. If there’s anything my site is known for, pop and dance are not it, but there is no denying the song-crafting genius of Hall and Oates.

Out Of Touch hails from the duo’s twelfth album Big Bam Boom, which arrived in October of 1994. The album would hit Billboard top 5 and go double platinum and was carried mainly on the success of today’s single. Out Of Touch would be the duo’s sixth and final number 1 single. It was also their 14th consecutive Top 40 single, they would go on to have 29 total Top 40 placements.

With this song Hall and Oates were exploring new wave and dance territory. The group had worked with many different music styles over their long tenure, and by 1984 they were riding a wave of huge pop hits and were working with the sounds of the day. It was a synthesizer where the track was born, and John Oates came up with the chorus on the synth while not really knowing how to use the instrument and while also enjoying herbal supplements. He intended the song to go to Philadelphia soul group The Stylistics but a producer told him to keep it for Hall and Oates, which he did. Oates and Daryl Hall finished the track and yet another number one hit was born. Oates tells this story in pretty funny fashion during a performance for Ditty TV, I have embedded that video below.

Today’s song is not overly loud or obtrusive by any means but it is still a banger. It does the dreamy synth thing pretty well through the chorus while the verses are honestly standard pop rock. It is, just like the duo’s other hits, insanely catchy and this one hooks in right off the bat. Hall and Oates were able to maintain their precision songwriting while using a host of new music tech. It was exactly the kind of ear-pleasing pop that would turn heads in 1984 and the song has been one of a handful from the group to still hook in listeners many years later.

If the standard version of Out Of Touch is a bit pedestrian for you, well, you’re in luck. There is an extended club mix of the song too, which the music video uses a few parts of. If you like your songs harder and probably also your drugs harder, then the Out Of Touch club mix is just up your alley. I’ll toss that one down below, it’s totally worth a listen.

And speaking of the music video – it’s another total ’80’s offering. The beginning is a funny sequence that sees Hall and Oates trapped in a drum, then steamrolled and pinned on a wall. The video then goes into a more conventional performance bit after that, but the giant drum set does get some more screen time.

Not much more to say about this one – Out Of Touch is a quintessential ’80’s hit and another jewel in the Hall and Oates crown. I doubt anyone made it through the early ’80’s without hearing Hall and Oates and if they did they are much poorer for it.

For questions, comments or concerns, use the comment form below or head to my contact page.

Van Halen – Hot For Teacher

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week6 Comments

For my song pick this week I’m headed back to that glorious year of 1984. Today’s song was the fourth and final single from Van Halen’s monumental album 1984. The album was a smash success, making Van Halen one of 1984’s biggest acts and eventually moving over 10 million copies. Our single today did not hit quite as well as other singles from the record, clocking in at a modest 56 on the Billboard Hot 100. But it is still a beloved offering from the band.

Hot For Teacher is a fun, all out rocker that gets going from the word go with a drum intro that sounds like a motorcycle. It is a very attention-grabbing thing to hear what Alex got up to there. The band jumps in after a bit and keeps up the bombastic instrumentation for a bit, then things settle down a hair and we get the first instance of David Lee Roth.

Roth comes in with introductory banter. While DLR’s ramblings are a point of contention with some in a fair few Van Halen songs, he was totally on point here as he set the table for the song’s topic of, well, being hot for teacher. There are a few other spoken word bits through the song and here they all fit very well.

When Roth does get to actual singing he is in full force, and it’s pure magic paired with the heavy and playful riff that Eddie Van Halen lays out. Van Halen often toed the line between rock and heavy metal and at times were the line, and this song is a prime example of it. Fun and rocking yet heavy and slamming, it’s all here on display.

The music video for this one pulled out all the bells and whistles. It features the concept of a nerdy kid being overwhelmed in school by a kid version of the Van Halen band as well as a few teachers who were certainly easy to be hot for. The kid, named Waldo, was voiced by Phil Hartman. The video shows what “happened” to the band members when they grew up and old Waldo really turned his image around after growing up. In terms of concept and added entertainment value, Hot For Teacher is the number one video from the early Van Halen era.

The video came with a bit of controversy – some felt it was objectifying and sexualized, and some broadcasts used black boxes to censor when band members would grab their crotches. There are uncorroborated reports on various sites that the video did, in part, influence Tipper Gore to start the PMRC. It should be noted that neither the song nor Van Halen made the infamous Filthy Fifteen list.

As I said in the open, this was the final single from 1984. That would also mean it was the final single from the first David Lee Roth era of the band. The song was featured in the band’s set through the 9 months of touring before Roth left the band, and it appeared again once Roth returned in 2007. It ended up getting 285 live airings, not a bad total considering the song didn’t see stage from 1984 to 2004. If setlist.fm is to be taken as an accurate source, Van Halen did the song with Sammy Hagar one time in 2004. I have no idea how correct that is, though.

At the end of it all, Hot For Teacher is one monster of a Van Halen song and a great addition to the list of hallowed songs from the year 1984. The song’s subject matter rings true with a great many students over the decades – though I must admit I personally never really had a “hot for teacher” issue. But hey, I do have this amazing song to jam out to.

Oasis – Supersonic

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week4 Comments

This will be a song of the week as well as a look at a single, as forces have conspired to make this possible. So it will actually be two songs this week since the single has a B-side.

There is a feature track of course, and that song today is the debut single from Oasis. This was the start of what would become a white-hot run through music in the mid-’90’s, no one was bigger than Oasis through 1995 and 1996. But today revisits their beginnings in 1994 so we’re not quite to their shit hot moment in the sun.

Supersonic was released on April 11, 1994 as the lead track from the debut album Definitely Maybe. The single charted modestly well for a debut band – it hit 31 in the main UK chart and popped up on several US alternative charts despite not making the Billboard Hot 100. The single would eventually be certified platinum in the UK. The album it hailed from moved over 8 million copies.

This version of the single I’m covering is the 30th anniversary re-issue of the 7-inch version. While there are several other versions of the single out there, these two songs tie in nicely together due to the story of their creation.

The band set out to record their first single in early 1994, that song was supposed to be Bring It On Down, which became a non-single track from the debut album. Noel Gallagher wasn’t happy with the song and began messing with I Will Believe, which became a B-side for other versions of the single. Then totally off the cuff, Noel wrote Take Me Away, this single’s B-side.

On the last day of studio time, the band messed around with an instrumental. Also in the room were brothers Chris and Tony Griffiths of the band The Real People. Tony suggested that the bit Oasis were playing could be a hit song, so the band worked up what became Supersonic.

As a note on writing credits – Noel is the sole credit, though he did later confess that Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan helped him write the chords. Tony Griffiths also played some songwriting role but was not given a credit, Noel’s decision to leave the Griffiths brothers out of credits on the debut album was an issue that caused infighting in Oasis. I know, I know, no one could imagine the members of Oasis fighting among themselves.

Supersonic

The feature song opens with a bit of drumming then kicks in to a riff that plods along but has a bit of bite to it. The song’s run maintains this riff’s shape, with only minor alterations through the chorus. It is a pretty chill, laid-back affair with a bit of guitar work to provide a jolt of energy.

The lyrics open with a simple yet wise line – “I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else.” It is also the only part of the words that make any kind of sense at all. All of the rest of the lyrics are nonsense rhyming exercises. It’s a song that is all vibes and no meaningful underpinning – trying to find a deeper meaning to Supersonic will land you on the bottom of the Mariana Trench with nothing to show for your dive. This is a song style Oasis would excel at in their early career.

There is a shout-out to The Beatles in the song, something Oasis would do a lot of through their run. This one is simple, it’s an open mention of Yellow Submarine as one of many vehicles discussed through the track.

Supersonic is a great song to put on to just chill and not have to give a damn about anything for a few minutes. I ranked this one lucky number 13 awhile back when I lined out my 20 favorite Oasis tracks.

Take Me Away

The B-side is an acoustic track with Noel also handling vocals, something he would do every so often through the Oasis run. It’s a very nice and simple tune about just sitting and chilling for a bit longer as everything around you falls apart. There are a few homages to Beatles lyrics in this one, I’ll leave you all to find them. This is one of many B-sides considered underrated by the Oasis fandom, which I guess would make it not underrated if everyone who cares about Oasis rates it highly.

That does it for this look at the first and also newest Oasis single. It would be the start of one hell of a run through music as these lads literally took over the world for a bit of time.

Judas Priest – Freewheel Burning

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week5 Comments

I’m gonna stick with 1984 for the song this week. I’ve long since talked about this album, which was a given since it’s my favorite Judas Priest record. Today I’ll have a look at the album’s lead single.

Freewheel Burning was released in January 1984 as the first single from Defenders Of The Faith. Oddly, the single was apparently released the same day as the album, at least from the sources I can gather. The single held a few very modest chart positions though the album as a whole was quite successful.

This song is 100% quintessential heavy metal. While Priest have always been a heavy metal band devoid of sub-genres like thrash, this song does easily fit the speed metal category. It is fast and furious, just as the first words of the song indicate. Fast And Furious was also the working title for the song before recording, just imagine the crossovers Priest could have had with the movie franchise.

Two stars of this show are the classic guitar tandem of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. Not only is the song’s main riff a total barnburner, but the extended solo section of this song is absolute fire.

Also of note, as would be expected, is Rob Halford’s vocal performance. He is all over this one, shrieking through the verses while using a bit of his range in the bridge. He also delivers a rapid-fire performance a few minutes in that moves faster than rap, it’s a Halford machine gun. It’s certainly among his signature performances.

The theme with this one is simple – it’s about getting in your car and going fast. Not only fast, but as fast as possible. There’s nothing more to read into this one, just grab your vehicle of choice and put the pedal to the metal, high speed at all costs. Given the sorry state of US drivers these days, it’s like this song is used for driver’s ed.

Freewheel Burning has been a favorite song among Priest fans since 1984. Surprisingly, the song ranks a rather modest 20th in terms of how many times it’s been played live. I would have expected more but that’s why I look these things up. But it is a favorite when it does get set time, and I was happy to hear it when I saw them in 2018.

One other fun little bit of trivia – on the vinyl single, there is an extra guitar intro that isn’t heard anywhere else. It’s a slow, atmospheric bit that takes up an extra 50 or so seconds. Sadly I can’t find a good video of it so if you want to check that out you’ll have to hunt down the single or watch some video of a dude playing it on his turntable.

That’s about all there is to it, it’s pretty quick and easy to run down this speedy beast of a song. It was yet another triumph for Judas Priest as they helped cement the foundation of heavy metal in the 1980’s and are still leading the charge 40 years later.

Iron Maiden – Aces High

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week6 Comments

Today I’m off back to that wonderful year of 1984 and into my ongoing celebration of the 40th anniversary.

I do run into one problem when I do this year-long 1984-versary – I’ve already covered a lot of this ground already. And in today’s case I’ve covered it twice – I have long since talked about Powerslave, one of my favorite Iron Maiden albums. And I’ve talked about the song before, when I ran it down as a part of the series where I visited the Maiden singles in my collection. But the occasion to celberate 1984 and also Iron Maiden gives me the opportunity to talk about this song yet again.

Aces High was released on the Powerslave album and was also released as the second single from that record. The song charted decently in the band’s native UK, going number 20 there as well as 29 in Ireland. But the sheer immortality of the song goes far beyond chart positions.

Aces High has a clear subject matter on hand – it depicts a British RAF pilot flying his Spitfire during the Battle of Britain in 1940. The British held out over a long campaign of German bombing that caused devastating damage to England’s cities and military infrastructure. But the inability of Nazi Germany to affect a British surrender would be a major turning point in World War II, and the resolve of the British people during a horrifying time is the stuff of legend.

One main way Britain held off Germany’s assault was through the use of the Spitfire, which was not in vast production at the onset of the battle but did showcase that it could keep up with the Luftwaffe’s well-rendered aircraft. And while the song today doesn’t identify the RAF pilot who flew these sorties, the single’s cover clearly depicts one Eddie as the pilot in question.

The lyrics paint a daring and detailed picture of the bombings and the dogfights that would ensue to defend Great Britain. The first line mentions the air raid siren, which was a constant feature of life in England during this campaign and also, likely coincidental, is the nickname of singer Bruce Dickinson. The rest of the lyrics are filled with the plane fight to shoot down bombers and then engage German fighters. The chorus soars, just as a plane does up in the open sky.

Not only do the words do a great job of communicating the story of the Spitfire, but the music is a muscular beast that also compliments the plane fight theme. The song is all action, kicking off hard from the word go and not letting up for a millisecond throughout. The guitar work from Dave Murray and Adrian Smith is exactly the kind of twin guitar attack you’d want to depict a dogfight, and Steve Harris’ bassline here is one of the best of his career. Accompanied by the bashing of skins from Nicko McBrain, this is a metal song that couldn’t get any more complete.

As presented on Powerslave and on the single, you simply get Aces High the song. But Maiden quickly appended a verbal introduction to the video as well as when playing the song live and it has become just as much a part of the song as the instruments and vocals. The verbiage in question is from Winston Churchill and is a part of his famous June 1940 speech, informally referred to as “On the beaches.” Churchill had been vehemently opposed to Hitler for the Nazi tyrant’s entire career, and Churchill’s dogged adversity would pay off when he became Prime Minister and helped lead Great Britain through the war. His speech was a celebrated rallying cry when delivered in Parliament. Do note that Churchill’s recording of the speech is actually from 1949, the original speech was not recorded.

Aces High instantly became a highlight piece of Iron Maiden’s catalog. It would open the World Slavery tour, as famously represented on Live After Death. While the song ranks at a relatively modest number 19 in terms of how many times Maiden have played it live, it is no doubt one of the band’s most-known and loved tracks. The list of signature Maiden songs can get a bit long but Aces High belongs there no question.

1984 was a banner year for heavy metal, and it was also the year Iron Maiden unleashed one of their best albums and truly took over the world. Aces High is one of the standout metal songs from that year, from Iron Maiden and honestly from heavy metal in general.

Metallica – Creeping Death

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week6 Comments

For today I’m gonna continue extolling the virtues of the music of 1984. In this case I have long since covered the album in question and I’ve also talked about the song a bit when I covered the cassette singles I have. But today I’m gonna go more in-depth on one of my favorite Metallica songs, which just so happens to be from that hallowed year of 1984.

Creeping Death was the only actual single released to market from the album Ride The Lightning. Two other songs, For Whom The Bell Tolls and Fade To Black, were released as promo copies to radio. While today we talk about Ride The Lightning in terms of an album that has sold roughly seven million copies in the US alone, bear in mind a lot of those sales came during the band’s world-conquering run for their 1991 Black album. The album didn’t go gold until 1987, while today’s single only has a gold certification from Australia for 35,000 copies sold. What happened in 1984, while vital to the band’s reputation and success, was a far cry from what happened when they became literally the biggest band of the 1990’s.

So let’s peel back all the layers of Metallica’s legacy and get to the core of Creeping Death – this song is an epic thrash masterpiece that centers around the plagues of Egypt as told by the Holy Bible. The verses that tell this story are in the Book of Exodus, which will become especially ironic in a moment. I don’t have the specific verses on hand but I consider it a spectacular passage from the Bible and I don’t even subscribe to the religion. It’s a goldmine for heavy metal references, only surpassed by the concluding Book of Revelations.

The short version of the biblical story is this – the Hebrew people were kept as slaves in Egypt for several hundred years. Their god finally grew tired of it and appointed Moses as his prophet to lead them out of their hardship. The Egyptian pharaoh did not release the Hebrews, so their god delivered ten plagues as reprisal. After this, the Hebrews were freed and began their forty year exodus to the promised land of Israel.

Metallica’s song picks up at the tenth and final plague, which was awfully heinous. A destroyer was sent to kill the first born son of every Egyptian family. Hebrew families were instructed to paint lamb’s blood on their doors so that the Destroyer would “pass over” their dwellings, this is the origin of the Jewish Passover holiday.

The song is unique in that it tells the story from the perspective of the Destroyer. Usually this story is recounted in the terms of Moses and his people led out of Egypt, or the Pharaoh and his dumb decisions during and after the plagues that led to he and his forces being drowned in the Red Sea. But we are dwelling in thrash metal here and we get to the heart of the matter – sometimes things are brutal.

Metallica does a masterful job of telling this story. The verses are interspersed with specific passages outlining the plight of the Hebrews and the coming storm the Egyptians faced, while the chorus outlines the role of the Destroyer and the devastation he is about to bring to Egypt. It’s honestly pretty clear and concise, nothing is really left to interpretation here even though the whole premise of the story is widely open to interpretation.

And the music only serves to further the brutal nature of the plagues. This is an absolute thrash magnum opus, being a massive serving of riffs and pummeling despite its length of 6:36. There is a bit of an intro before the meat of the song kicks in and the riffs keep slamming in consistent fashion through both verses and chorus. And of course we get a wild solo from Kirk Hammett before the most famous part of the song kicks in.

After the solo, the song breaks down into a chunky bridge that has become central to the Metallica experience. James Hetfield shouts “Die by my hand, I creep across the land, killing first-born man” as gang vocals shout “Die!” behind him. This part is often extended for several minutes live to encourage crowd participation and is one of the most compelling moments in live music.

As for how the song came about, that story comes in two parts. It was Kirk Hammett who originally came up with the signature bridge riff when he was just 16 years old, which puts this early thrash riff in 1978. He would introduce it to the band he was in prior to Metallica, who was ironically the pioneering thrash act Exodus. Exodus messed around with a demo called Die By My Hand but it went unused, then Kirk brought it to Metallica when he joined in 1983. Kirk outlined this story to Louder.com in a 2014 interview.

Metallica would fill out the song as they were writing for Ride The Lightning. While sources are locked behind unaccesible interviews, the band got the idea for the song from the old Charlton Heston movie The Ten Commandments. It was Cliff Burton who coined the “creeping death” idea from the movie, and then the band was off to the races to flesh out the song.

Creeping Death has reigned as one of Metallica’s dearest signature songs, even in a career filled with many examples of prime material. It ranks as the band’s second most-played song live, just behind Master Of Puppets. The song has been widely covered by acts like Stone Sour, Drowning Pool and Bullet For My Valentine. It has also made the cut on to classic rock radio despite not getting a ton of airplay originally.

It was dark days in Egypt when the Destroyer visited destruction upon the populace of Egypt, but it was absolute heavy metal glory when Metallica recorded a song about it a few thousand years later. For all of the arguing about Metallica these days, there is no arguing their undisputed mastery of the genre they were central to the creation of forty years ago, and Creeping Death is a pinnacle example of that.

The Chats – Smoko

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week8 Comments

For once I’m going to handle something from this century. And today’s song is only going to turn seven this year so I can conveniently ignore the fact that the year 2000 was 24 years ago.

Our song today comes from The Chats, an Australian group who got their start in 2016 but would find themselves with the kind of fame every new band wishes they could have – a viral hit. It isn’t nearly as easy to score an attention-getting Internet hit as some might believe, but when it does happen it can pay in spades.

The Chats describe themselves as “shed rock,” while the music community at large applies the punk rock label to them. The band formed in school when they were 17 years old and they quickly issued two EP’s. “Chat” in Australia is slang to mean something gross, or along those lines. It should not be confused with the general use of “chat,” as in conversation; or the American use of “chat,” as in the Oklahoma noise rock act Chat Pile, which is mining waste.

It’s the band’s second EP Get This In Ya!! that houses today’s song. Smoko is another Australian slang term, this one simply refers to a break at work, it’s the typical 15 minute or so break most workers get and doesn’t actually have to involve smoking. And yeah, like many I had never heard the term until this song.

The song is a quick and easy one. It rolls through with the bass providing the bulk of the rhythm while the guitar accents over the music. Eamon Sandwith on vocals delivers a snotty sort of vocal take that is perfect for the song. This isn’t they type of punk rock where people slam out a few distorted power chords and scream about how the government sucks – this is very ear-pleasing stuff with a good hook and premise to draw the listener in.

The song and video work together to communicate one of life’s important lessons – don’t mess with people when they’re on break. In the first verse, Eamon bothers a guy on his smoko. In the second, he tries to get his benefits payment but finds that the phone rep is on smoko. And then Eamon himself heads to smoko while on lifeguard duty and a swimmer is caught in the waters off the beach. It’s all pretty hilarious stuff and well put together on an indie budget.

Smoko took the route of becoming a viral hit – it sits at over 20 million views on YouTube and nearly 30 million Spotify plays. Buzz increased when Josh Homme brought a few friends to a Chats gig in Los Angeles, those friends were Dave Grohl as well as Alex Turner and Matt Helders of the Arctic Monkeys. The group also drew the attention of Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day and punk legend Iggy Pop.

The Chats found that their quick shot of notoriety had staying power too – the single for Smoko was certified gold in Australia and their subsequent full length albums have charted internationally. They aren’t a case of here today, gone tomorrow – they’ve got the legs to run it out and stick around.

Smoko was a nice surprise hit and The Chats were able to take advantage of the viral success to kickstart their career. They continue to tour the world and build on the buzz from nearly seven years back. As for me, well, I’m done with this post and I’m on smoko, so leave me alone.

Ray Parker Jr. – Ghostbusters

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week7 Comments

As a note – I am changing my post order this week. I’m doing a song today, I’ll have a different post on Wednesday, and I’ll do the album of the week on Friday to mark the exact 30th anniversary of that album. The change is simply to accommodate that and things will go back to normal next week.

There was so much music released in 1984 that it’s tough to nail down a song that really defines the year. But one possible candidate is this monster of a theme song for a movie soundtrack, a song so catchy attached to a movie so popular that the song was literally everywhere.

Ray Parker Jr. had formed the R&B group Raydio through the late ’70’s and into 1981. They landed several top ten hits on the singles chart, then Parker went solo and had continued success. But no matter his other accomplishments, his calling card is the Ghostbusters theme song.

This song has quite a story, involving other artists, lawsuits and the whole rigmarole. The movie heads approached Lindsey Buckingham about doing the song – he turned it down, not wanting to be typecast as a soundtrack artist. Glenn Hughes and Pat Thrall submitted a song for consideration, but were rejected. Huey Lewis and the News were offered the song but also declined, and that part will be important here in a bit.

In the end Parker was offered the song with very little time to compose it. He came up with the idea of the song being a faux commercial jingle and was off to the races, it was an easy way to create a good song while also incorporating the odd name of the movie.

The song fit the movie like a glove, and both song and movie would see blockbuster success. Ghostbusters would bring in over $200 million dollars, making it the second-best grossing movie of 1984. The movie went on to become a billion dollar franchise with licensing, toys, cartoons and sequels and that money train is still rolling 40 years later.

As for the song, it wound up on a lot of charts and its position was at or near the top of many of them. The song was number one on the charts of seven countries and top ten in at least eleven others. It would remain the number one hit in the US for three weeks and it stayed on the Hot 100 chart for four months. It sold in excess of one million copies in the US, the UK and France. In short -this song was a massive hit.

And the song is about as effective as it could possibly be. Parker worked in a load of supernatural problems one could have and offered up the catchy jingle “who you gonna call?” The refrain of Ghostbusters! Rang through to make a sing-along that everyone could get into, including kids who would want anything Ghostbusters-related. I would know as I was one of those kids – the movie came out just before I turned seven and that’s all we cared about during the summer and well beyond.

The song was aided in popularity by its music video. The clip features shots of the movie and also features an assortment of guest shots from notable actors including John Candy and George Wendt, all of whom agreed to film for free as a favor to movie and video director Ivan Reitman. The video clip was super popular across MTV and became the model for how to market a blockbuster movie in the 1980’s.

All of this success came with the usual trappings, one of those being lawsuits. And one lawsuit was especially compelling – Huey Lewis filed a plagiarism suit, alleging that Parker had used the melody from the song I Want A New Drug, mostly involving the bass line. The lawsuit was settled out of court, with the terms being under lock and key. That would come back to haunt Lewis in the 2000’s, as he discussed the case on VH1. Parker filed suit over that and won, getting back at least a bit of the money he’d lost in the original suit.

And we’d learn that Lewis had one hell of a case – when the film was being put together, I Want A New Drug was used as a placeholder song in many scenes, as the film heads were still hoping to have Lewis do the theme. Parker was given footage to watch that had Lewis’ song in it.

Lawsuits aside, the song was a massive haul for Parker and anyone involved with the movie. Parker had no chance of recapturing that kind of success, but has gone on with a recording and performing career, as well as songwriting and studio ownership. And for us in 1984, the Ghostbusters theme was one hell of a time as we were going nuts in the summer. This was a mark on the culture like no other.

Wang Chung – Dance Hall Days

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week10 Comments

Gonna take the song machine back to 1984 this week and visit the first hit of an act who’d go on to score big in the US a few years later.

Dating this one to 1984 does come with a few caveats, though – the song was originally released in 1982 when the group were known as Huang Chung. That single failed to chart. The band renamed themselves to the much more familiar Wang Chung and redid Dance Hall Days, releasing it on their album Points On The Curve. That record did get released in some territories in 1983, the US and other areas would see it in early 1984. For the purposes of my mega 1984 40th anniversary celebration, it’s a 1984 song.

Dance Hall Days got a fair bit of traction on music charts across the globe, no matter the actual release date. The song hit number 16 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and also number 1 on the Dance chart. It was a number 21 hit in Wang Chung’s native UK. Oddly, that was the best chart placement ever for Wang Chung in their home territory, the band saw the bulk of their success career-wise in the US. The song was also a top 10 hit across many European countries, as well as Canada and Australia.

Today’s song fits straight into the new wave movement of the early 1980’s. The song is a nice, atmospheric mix of electronics and organic instruments and it sets a really chill vibe. It’s easy to hear how new wave became an important facet of music in the ’80’s. This is a beat that most anyone could get behind.

The song’s overall theme is a celebration of old-time dance halls that singer/guitarist Jack Hues remembers his dad playing in years gone by. Hues himself played in the band at times. This information comes from a podcast called Just My Show, which I have difficulty accessing but have transcribed the transcription of this site.

While the chorus is an innocent celebration of those dance halls, the verses do offer something a bit different. On the surface it’s just a collection of words that rhyme with body parts to move the song forward – “take your baby by the hell and do the next thing that you feel.” It’s not rocket science and I always took it as just words they put together to get the song done without any real deep meaning behind it.

But, just as I was doing some internet sleuthing for this post, I stumbled into a subset of people who think Dance Hall Days has sinister intentions behind the lyrics. There are people who interpret the passages more literally and believe there is some bent toward coercion or abuse in the various mingling of actions and body parts. I had a bit of a pause when I first saw it.

This 2013 article from Paste outlines the possible hidden creepiness of Dance Hall Days. Now this specific piece has a clear tongue-in-cheek air to it and is pretty amusing, but a lot of the other stuff I saw on reddit and in forums seemed to ascribe more ill intent to the lyrics. All I’ll say is I disagree that there is anything to these lyrics.

Dance Hall Days got two different music videos. The first, posted above and apparently age-restricted, was directed by the late Derek Jarman, and features his father’s home movies interspersed with the band goofing around. A second video was shot that did more to relate to a literal dance hall – that video is tougher to come across. I posted an unofficial upload down below, but we all know the video may not remain up long.

There are two other interesting pieces of trivia around the song. One is that Wang Chung almost didn’t release the song themselves, they instead offered it up for consideration to another artist. As multi-instrumentalist Nick Feldman recounts in this talk with Soundfacts, the song actually wound up in the hands of Quincy Jones, who was producing Michael Jackson and Thriller at the time. Jones and Jackson reportedly liked the song and considered recording it, but ultimately decided not to. That would have been quite a twist of fate for Wang Chung – the song got them on the map, but having a song on Thriller would have been its own world of success. I admit I can’t quite “hear” this song on that album, but I’m sure Jones and Jackson would have done a different arrangement for it.

The other factoid on offer is one I’ve shared about several songs – this was one of many tracks to feature in my favorite video game of all time, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The song is a perfect fit for the vibe and setting of that game, these two fit together like a glove. It was a match made in heaven and the song goes great with committing digital felonies.

For Wang Chung, Dance Hall Days would be the first score of their career, setting them up for further success in 1986. For me it’s a fantastic reminder of my youth and the “golden era” of 1980’s music.

High On Fire – Burning Down

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week10 Comments

Last week brought a highly anticipated new track as High On Fire offered up the first single from their upcoming album. Burning Down is the lead single from Cometh The Storm, an album that will see the light of day on April 19. The record is a highly anticipated one in my household, High On Fire have been one of the most consistently awesome bands of the 2000’s.

Burning Down keeps the streak going – this is all riffs and tone in that space between doom, stoner and flat-out heavy metal that High On Fire have occupied their whole career. This one holds a mid-tempo pace, though the band have always been able to operate effectively on any point of the speed spectrum.

The video is also sufficiently gnarly – it starts with people suffering from what looks to be an old school plague, then some monsters show up and burn everything. It’s a very creepy and well-rendered video, kudos to whoever put that together.

I don’t have much else to say about this one – the song rocks, the video is great and the new album stands to be another barnburner in a discography full of them. High On Fire are back after an uncharacteristic six-year absence, marked by health issues and the pandemic mucking everything up. But they are back and all is right with speaker systems everywhere.