#88 - Everybody Have Fun Tonight

Artist: Wang Chung
Album: Mosaic

Video: From YouTube.

 

Billboard Hot 100 Peak: 2

MTV Top 20 Peak: 2

MTV Top 20 Weeks: 9

 

Everybody Wang Chung Tonight!  Turning the band name into a verb and slamming it into the chorus was a genius move.  Through this association of ideas, Wang Chung became synonymous with having fun.  Just ask Dr. Frasier Crane!

I have to admit that this was not one of my favorites.  In fact, I found it profoundly annoying.  Nevertheless, this song became a legitimate pop culture phenomenon for about 15 minutes.  People still reference the song ironically today.

This was the peak of Wang Chung’s popularity.  After this song peaked at #2, the Mosaic album spawned two more top 40 singles.  Following that, the band was basically done.

As far as the countdown ranking, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” got hosed in a manner similar to other end of year entries.  For comparison purposes, the video had an identical top 20 countdown lifespan to the Kenny Loggins hit “Danger Zone”.  Both peaked at #2 and spent nine weeks on the chart.  However, while Wang Chung languishes here at #88, the Loggins video ranks about 80 spots higher.  I guess that’s what being the anthem for a summer blockbuster and all-time classic film will do.

The video was notable in many ways.  Here are five:

1) It’s the only video I know of that was banned for fear that it would cause epileptic seizures.  Watching the extreme rapid motion is certainly not conducive to good health.
2) The entire video takes place in what seems to be a deep wooden box, shot from basically the same diagonal position.  The video is bookended with the box empty, a stark contrast from the mad vibrations of excited Wang-Chungers.
3) Throughout this madness, the wooden facial expression of lead singer Jack Hues never changes.  If he is not having fun tonight, then how can everybody?
4) The video was directed by Godley & Crème.  That’s right, these guys!
5) It can’t be overstated – epileptic seizures!!!  One should not have to worry about such a thing while watching a music video.


 

Rumors (Unranked)

Artist: Timex Social Club
Album: Vicious Rumors

Video: From YouTube.

 

Billboard Hot 100 Peak: 8

MTV Top 20 Peak: did not chart

MTV Top 20 Weeks: 0

Let's take a little detour from the list and pay tribute to a jam that took the radio by storm in 1986.  I was not aware that this song even had a video.  I believe the Timex Social Club was a bit too, er, ethnic for MTV.

But any comprehensive discussion of music in 1986 must include "Rumors".  Its popularity is rooted in its universal appeal, as every living soul has been impacted by the phenomenon of rumors.  While listening to this tale over the backdrop of the infectious grooves of the Timex Social Club, each of us may harken back to our own specific memories of wild speculations, half-truths, or even outright lies.  The rumors that you imagine may be quite different from those that occur to me.  But the result in both cases is the same.  All these rumors have permanently altered our sense of reality.

The song is kind of a rap-pop hybrid, combining a toe-tapping beat with striking imagery.  We discover the personality traits of the jealous people who start rumors, along with vivid pictures of the tales they tell.  Although the lyrics are humorous, there is a fundamental darkness to the story.  The singer is clearly distressed about his exposure to such falsehoods, and displays a hopelessness that the condition will ever end.  Still, he maintains enough of a positive outlook to propose creative solutions to the problem, including passing legislation that would cause those who spread rumors to be murdered.

It's an impressive effort that led to Timex Social Club's first brush with national notoriety.  The success of "Rumors" led to their selection as the opening act for Run-DMC's "Raising Hell" tour.  A different incarnation of the group would go on to much greater fame as Club Nouveau, scoring a #1 smash hit covering the Bill Withers classic "Lean On Me".

I know for a fact that I never saw the video linked above, until finding it for this post.  I just so happened to find five awesome things about it.

1) The first three seconds.  Check out the woman's hand that picks up the phone to start spreading those nasty rumors.  Impossibly long, snake-like fingers topped off by blood-red fingernails, coated in a mesh half-glove.  It sets the tone for the weird, stylized animation to come.
2) Disembodied mouths yapping with huge red lips, seguing into broken hearts and multi-colored snakes. 
3) A conga line of females dressed in alternating red/blue tops and bottoms, each spreading a rumor to the next.
4) A flashing neon sign announcing the chorus.  Always a helpful feature, it avoids confusion.
5) The imaginary congressman, clearly disapproving of the spreading of rumors, brandishing a firearm to punish the guilty.  He looks like the late Ossie Davis.