Riding a rockabilly/Motown revival during the early ’80s that also included the Polecats, Roman Holliday and the Stray Cats, Britain’s JoBoxers (with American lead singer Dig Wayne) barely scraped the Top 40 in the States with “Just Got Lucky,” another one of those hits that got bigger as the years rolled on, being featured in plenty of movies, most notably The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But while “Just Got Lucky” is what the band is best known for here, it was actually their first single in the U.K., “Boxerbeat” (download), that was the bigger hit. And hey, how about that spoken word intro ripped off fresh from Madness’ “One Step Beyond?”

“Boxerbeat,” an infectious if goofy mission statement, hit #3 in the U.K., predating “Just Got Lucky’s” success. It was released here as the second single off the band’s debut, Like Gangbusters, complete with another Bowery Boys-inspired video. Unfortunately, MTV didn’t shine to “Boxerbeat” like they did with the group’s first single.

In the U.K., the success of the first two singles led to a third, the relatively nondescript “Johnny Friendly,” (download) which goes on about three minutes too long. More interesting is the album’s fourth single, the hopefully winking “She’s Got Sex.” (download) I say “hopefully,” because I want to believe the band was being somewhat cheeky with the junior high lyrics about a girl who’s gotta have it. The video leads me to believe the band was in on the joke: (more…)

“DROP THAT GHETTO BLASTER!”

When NYC performance artist Karen Finley screamed those words on her obscure 1986 single “Tales of Taboo,” she probably never dreamed she’d end up on one of the biggest dance floor anthems of the ’80s. But DJ Mark Moore heard it and decided to include it in the number of samples he used to create S’Express’s huge 1988 club hit, “Theme From S’Express.” (download)

In fact, let’s run down those samples, shall we?
• You’ve got Finley’s declaration, as mentioned,
• “I’ve got the hots for you” comes from TZ’s “I Got The Hots For You” (surprise!)
• “Uno, dos, tres, quatro” is from Debbie Harry’s “Feel The Spin,”
• I believe that’s Holly Johnson’s laugh from the end of “Welcome To The Pleasuredome” at the end,
• and Rose Royce’s “Wishing On A Star” gets nicked from liberally.

Who knows what else is hiding in there? While M|A|R|R|S ran into considerable legal difficulty due to all the uncleared samples in 1987’s “Pump Up The Volume,” I never heard of any similar issues with “Theme From S’Express.” Perhaps the frenetic video caused legal departments seizures when it was screened during strategy meetings? (more…)

We’ve talked before about songs we loved in our younger days that just don’t quite hold up to an older ear’s scrutiny. Unfortunately (or not, if you still love it), today we have another example to showcase. While Modern English’s 1982 single “I Melt With You” has become a retroactive classic, even making an appearance in a *gag* Burger King commercial, the band was hard-pressed to follow it up. The group even eventually threw up their hands and re-recorded the song years later in one of the more brazen cash grabs I can remember.

Modern English tried their hand at pure power pop in 1986 with a fine song called “Ink & Paper” that owed more than a little to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run.” Before that, however, the band was still in its goth-tinged era when they recorded their third album, Ricochet Days. Lead-off single “Hands Across the Sea” (download) got a snazzy looking video that MTV glommed onto, thanks to the earlier heavy-rotation success of “I Melt With You.” I remember seeing this video in a commercial promoting the channel more than seeing the actual video itself, though.

As for the song, I loved it at the time, but listening now I can’t help but think it’s a great chorus in search of a decent verse. Maybe because the chorus is so catchy, the weird slowdown of the verses sounds even more prominent.  Or perhaps I’ve just become old and bitter.  In any case, “Hands Across The Sea” didn’t do much for Modern English and the group felt even more pressure to score a hit - the result was 1986’s nearly goth-free Stop/Start, featuring the aforementioned “Ink & Paper.”

So, what songs can you remember loving back in the day that you can’t get through these days?

“Hands Across The Sea” peaked at #93 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in 1984.

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One of the first acts mentioned whenever someone brings up the subject of “’80s One-Hit Wonder,” Dexys Midnight Runners actually had quite a few hits in the UK, including a number one single (”Geno”) that wasn’t “Come On Eileen.” As Homer Simpson once spoke of the group, “You haven’t heard the last of them!”

Except in America, where, of course, we had. Despite “Eileen’s” monster success Stateside, Kevin Rowland’s rotating band of ragamuffins never followed up that hit but it wasn’t for lack of trying. 1985’s follow-up to the Gold-selling Too-Rye-Ay, the band’s third album overall, Don’t Stand Me Down, had a lot going against it. First off, gone were the overalls and hobo clothes, replaced by a new gimmick/look of tailored suits and skirts — call it Business Rock. Secondly, lead singer/songwriter Rowland refused to release a single to help promote the album, all but dooming it to failure.

Face with the withering failure of the album, Rowland finally relented and a single was issued for “This Is What She’s Like.” But in keeping with the series of poor decisions, the “single” was actually a 12-minute track, all but obliterating any chance of radio play. Oh, Kevin. The group’s label stepped in and issued a single edit (”This Is What She’s Like [Single Edit]“), (download) mercifully reducing the song to it’s catchy core. The superior edit is not too dissimilar to Too-Rye-Ay’s sound, but despite a video to match the new image, it was too late, and Don’t Stand Me Down sank without a trace. (more…)

A friend of mine the other day brought up Pat Benatar as a potential Lost in the ’80s “When New Wave Happens to Old Artists” post, since she flirted with synths and drum machines on later singles such as “We Belong” and “Sex As A Weapon.” But I had to remind him that Benatar had New Wave influences right from the start of her career, with no small thanks to producer Mike Chapman (him again?).

While Benatar’s debut, In the Heat of the Night, cemented her image as a tough female rocker, thanks to the hits “Heartbreaker” and her remake of John Cougar’s “I Need a Lover,” songs like “We Live for Love” showed that synths were equal to guitars in her world. Not only were Pat and future husband Neil Geraldo unafraid of New Wave, they practically embraced it with futuristic tomes like my favorite, “My Clone Sleeps Alone,” (download) one of many ’80s tunes that touched on that trendy subject:

No VD, no cancer
On TV’s the answer
No father, no mother, she’s just like the other
And you know and I know, my clone sleeps alone

Here’s Pat & Neil performing the song live in 2000:

Benatar’s New Wave leanings continued on her second album, Crimes of Passion, where she covered, of all things, Kate Bush’s debut single, “Wuthering Heights.” (download) Pat’s version is beefier, with a more assured, less histrionic vocal — would it be heresy to admit I actually prefer it to Bush’s original? (more…)

I’ll be up front about this one: I really never got Nitzer Ebb.

Back in my DJing days, I’d get tons of requests for “Join in the Chant,” “Murderous,” or “Warsaw Ghetto,” and I’d roll my eyes internally and slap it on just to keep the EBM fans sedated. I don’t know what it was — perhaps the sparse production that usually reduced the songs to drum machines and shouting wasn’t appealing to me — but I would never throw any Ebb on unless prodded.

That changed when Belief came out. While most point to “Join in the Chant” as the group’s high point, I’ve always been a sucker for Belief’s big single, “Control I’m Here” (download), with its layered synths and brake-squealing sound effects. And unlike “Chant,” “Control I’m Here” doesn’t go on for three minutes too many.

The packed dance floor proved that I wasn’t the only fan of this song, and the Razormaid! remix (download) only extends the pleasure. MTV grabbed onto the video and gave it quite a few spins on 120 Minutes, along with the album’s second single, “Hearts and Minds” (download).

I suppose I found it strange that an act that would have been resigned to an indie label like Wax Trax Records a few short years earlier was now on a major label and all over MTV. Things got even weirder when Depeche Mode took Ebb on the road for their next big tour a year later. As the years have gone by, I’ve warmed up a bit to Nitzer Ebb, although I defy anyone to sit through an entire album. Yikes.

“Control I’m Here” peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play Chart in 1989.

“Hearts and Minds” peaked at #16 on the same chart that same year.

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I’d been a big fan of Midge Ure-era Ultravox since the first time I saw “Vienna” on MTV early one Sunday morning in 1982, so when I spotted the new video for the first single from their latest album, Lament, a few years later, it was a bit of a shock. What the heck was one of my favorite synthpop bands doing with — gasp! — guitars around their shoulders!?!

Of course at the time I was unfamiliar with the earlier, John Foxx-led glammier version of Ultravox, so seeing the band I adored making like U2 in the snow, surrounded by non-synthesized instruments, was enough to give me heart palpitations. It’s not that “One Small Day” (download) was a bad song, or even a very atypical Ultravox tune — it was the new, arena-ready presentation that put me off at first. Where was the New Romanticism of “Reap The Wild Wind” and “Sleepwalk?” Ultravox, I was sure, had sold out.

Ah, impetuous youth. Not only were there still synths on “One Small Day” (take a listen to that bottom bass), but the rest of Lament was still safely in my synthpop sweet spot, as the next single, “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” proved. Yes, Lament was obviously a stab at breaking Ultravox as the next big rock thing, a la Simple Minds’ Sparkle in the Rain that same year, but there was still plenty of New Wave to go around, as my favorite track on the album, the opener “White China” (download), proved.

The catchiest dance song about smack since Laid Back’s “White Horse” (was 1984 a banner year for heroin or something?), “White China” was never released as a single proper, but dance clubs picked up on it and played it enough that the DJ-only service Razormaid! felt the need to release an extended remix (download).

Lament failed to break Ultravox in America, and after Ure scored a huge international hit with his solo single “If I Was,” the band released one more decidedly limp effort, U-Vox, before Ure split for good.

“One Small Day” and “White China” did not chart.

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Y’know, if Josie Cotton’s best-known single had become more than just a regional hit on the west coast, my high school life would have been a living hell.

But thankfully, “Johnny, Are You Queer” didn’t cross over to mainstream radio in 1981, even though it was featured, along with Josie herself, two years later in the cult classic movie “Valley Girl.” While my hipper friends knew about the song and would sometimes sing it to me (Answer: Yes.), the student population at large was thankfully unaware of Cotton and her catchy New Wave ways.

Her label, Elektra Records, wanted to correct this, so for her second full-length album, From The Hip, they pulled out all the stops. The ragged, punky edge of her debut, Convertible Music, was scrapped and the drum machines and synths came out to play. The lead single, “Jimmy Loves Maryann,” (download) a remake of the only other Top 40 hit by ’70s AM radio gods Looking Glass of “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” fame, was the best of the bunch. A shiny retro tune of young love, it was catchy enough for Top 40 and even sported a big budget video that got a bit of MTV light rotation:

If you recognize the distinctive guitar plucking on that tune, that’s because it’s none other than Josie’s label-mate Lindsey Buckingham playing on the track. Now, why you would feature Lindsey on your song and not give him a solo is a question only Cotton can answer, but…in any case, “Jimmy Loves Maryann” scraped the bottom of the Hot 100, peaking even lower than Josie’s only other chart hit, “He Could Be The One.” You may be surprised to learn that “Johnny, Are You Queer” never even charted. (Phew. Bullet dodged. I and every other John breathed a sigh of relief.)

Elektra dropped Cotton after From The Hip, but she returned to recording in recent years, alternating from a more experimental, ethereal sound a la Kate Bush, and a campier style closer to her girl-group roots, as evidenced on her 2006 release, Movie Disaster Music, a dark take on theme songs from her favorite B-movies.

“Jimmy Loves Maryann” peaked at #82 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in 1984.

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Anyone who’s been hanging around these parts with any frequency for the past few months has probably picked up on my unabashed love for pop candy peddlers Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, responsible for many hits from a number of different artists. I’m sure you know Chapman went on to produce seminal albums by the Knack, Blondie, and more ’80s faves. He also began collaborating with a young songwriter by the name of Holly Knight, churning out smashes like “Love Is a Battlefield” for Pat Benatar and “The Best” for Tina Turner.

But not everything Chapman and Knight touched turned into a gold record. Take for example Real Life’s 1986 single “Babies,” from their U.S. compilation Down Comes the Hammer. A song pretty much forgotten by everyone since it didn’t chart, but I believe we can place the blame for its failure on one man: Michael Des Barres.

Ah, Michael Des Barres. Pop box-office poison. A string of failed bands lie in his wake, including Silverhead, Detective, and Chequered Past. Never heard of ‘em? Surprise. Perhaps you remember him playing a punk rocker on WKRP in Cincinnati? Or joining the cast of The New WKRP in Cincinnati? How about his role as Mudoc on MacGyver? Oh, I know how you’ll remember him — he was the guy foolish enough to try and replace Robert Palmer in the Power Station.

Yup, that guy.

(more…)

Before getting lost in the world of orchestral strings and Tim Burton soundtracks, Danny Elfman was the singularly strange lead singer/songwriter behind guitar/horn section new wave hybrid Oingo Boingo. Big duh. But while the band is known mostly for the “wacky” songs like “Weird Science, “Only A Lad,” and “Little Girls,” the group’s later, more serious work doesn’t seem to get much flashback radio love.

That’s too bad, because later albums like Dead Man’s Party and particularly BOI-NGO are filled with hook-laden, should-have-been hits like “Just Another Day,” “Stay,” “Pain,” and a big personal favorite, “Not My Slave” (download). A tune either celebrating or lamenting a lover’s independence (nice touch on the ambiguity, there), “Not My Slave” takes the classic Boingo ingredients like a skipping beat, catchy synth riffs, and sinister overtones and while not muting them, brings them closer to the mainstream. The remixed single version (download), a superior mix, beefs up the drums even more and adds a slashing guitar riff across the chorus. Sadly, radio shrugged and threw it on the intern promo giveaway pile.

MCA’s faith in the single showed by their commissioning an extended dance mix (download), but here the remixing fails, as it strips the song down to almost nothing but the originally thin beat, keys and vocals. Not the most danceable dance remix and its non-chart showing wasn’t a big surprise.

Hey, how about Oingo Boingo performing the BOI-NGO era singles on the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, with an intro from Jerry himself, no less (”Oyyynnngoooo Boyyyynnngooooo, LAAYYYY DEEEE”)? (more…)