#1 Alert!
One-Hit Wonder Alert!
Song#: 1316 Date: 01/22/1983
Debut: 79
Peak: 1 (1 week)
Weeks: 23
Genre: Pop, New Wave
Pop Bits: This English pop band headed up by Kevin Rowland broke through on the UK chart with their 1980 #1 single "Geno." But it wasn't until this single from the band's second LP, "Too-Rye-Ay," that US audiences caught on to Rowland and his rag-tag bunch. The Celtic folk/pop/soul tune hit the top spot in the US and the UK. The unique single was a new sound for pop radio, as was the band's country-disheveled look. It all made for a very distinct moment in 80's music that, unfortunately, the band could never live up to. Besides a very minor second single, they never charted again in the US and it got them tagged as a one-hit wonder. The story was different in the UK where they had another Top 10 and three other Top 20 hits before calling it a day in 1986.
ReduxReview: I can't tell you how much I loved this song back then. I was totally obsessed with it. The album is still one of my all-time favorite summer jams. The song was odd, the band was strange, their blue-eyed soul/folk/pop sound was really left of center. I dug it all. Whether you love it or hate it, the song is an 80's classic. I'm not so over the moon with this song as I once was, but I still dig it and the nostalgia factor is through the roof with this one.
ReduxRating: 9/10
Trivia: Double Shot! 1) There is no one named Dexy in the band. The name is derived from drug dextroamphetamine. Known by its brand name Dexedrine, it was something commonly taken by those in UK's Northern Soul club scene to keep awake and dancing all night. Dexys refers to the drug while Midnight Runners is in reference to the energy it gives someone to keep going all night. 2) This was the spoiler song. It prevented Michael Jackson from having back-to-back #1 singles. "Come On Eileen" replaced "Billie Jean" at the top of the chart. Then the following week, "Beat It" went to #1. If Jackson had gotten back-to-back #1's, it would have been the first time an artist had done that since The Beatles did it in 1964. R&B group Boyz II Men would be the ones to break the drought in 1994.
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