Top 10 Alert!
Song#: 2230 Date: 02/23/1985
Debut: 65
Peak: 9
Weeks: 19
Genre: Rock
Pop Bits: Henley's second solo album, Building the Perfect Beast, got off to a solid start when its first single, "The Boys of Summer," became his third Top 10 hit (#5). A fourth Top 10 came his way when this second single made it to #9. The song also became his second in a row to reach #1 at Rock while getting to #10 dance and #34 R&B. Oddly, even with two significant hits coming from the LP, it got shut out of the Top 10 at #13. Yet despite the peak, the album stuck around for a long while and would eventually sell over three million copies.
ReduxReview: This is one of those songs that sounds so fun and happy, but the lyrics are actually quite political and dark. For the most part, this is pretty much all synthesizers here and they are cranked to 11. It's all rather brash, but also very memorable. It only takes about five seconds of the opening to recognize this song thanks to that synth bass line. It all sounded good on radio, but I often found the song annoying. It's quite repetitive, especially the use of the word "dance," which is said about 20+ times. Okay, we get it. She just wants to dance while the world is going to hell. Geez. Nothing like smacking you over the head with a point.
ReduxRating: 6/10
Trivia: For several tracks on the album, Henley enlisted some of his famous musician friends to lend a hand. For this track, backing vocals were provided by Patty Smyth from Scandal and Martha Davis from The Motels. Also making appearances on the album were Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, The Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle, J.D. Souther, Randy Newman, and members of both Toto and Tom Petty's Heartbreakers band.
_________________________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment