Raised on Radio #29- Billy Squier
Mar. 15th, 2013 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedsitter23When I think of the radio of my youth, there doesn't seem to be a more perfect artist than Billy Squier. He wasn't necessarily my favorite artist (similarly named and similarly successful formula-using Billy Idol was better in my book).
Squier had guitar heroics to make him popular with the more metal crowd, but his pop hooks were right in line with what Top 40 music was about in 1983.
1982's Emotions In Motion put Squier in place to be one of the hottest stars of the Me Decade. It had everything - an Andy Warhol cover, a Freddie Mercury appearance, and a perfect rock radio hit in "Everybody Wants You". Squier was on MTV, commissioned for soundtracks (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and playing arenas with the likes of Queen and Def Leppard.
So, what happened? When's the last time Billy Squier came up in conversatiion? Why is Billy Idol an 80s icon and Squier isn't? For all we hear of Squier nowadays is his early career hit (#17 in 1981) "The Stroke", and that's probably because of its chorus is popular with college freshmen.
Well, it was the "Rock Me Tonite".
In the video for his 1984 hit, Squier wore a ripped up pink shirt and played air guitar while bouncing around on his bed.
To be fair, I did the same thing in those days. Of course, I was 10.
Squier's video is way embarrassing, more Richard Simmons than Pete Townsend. that said, i never bought Squier's claim that the video killed his career.
The song reached #15 and went to #1 on the Rock charts. I think what killed Squier was that he was out of catchy tunes. I didn't buy 86's Enough is Enough, but I did buy 88's Hear and Now, and quite simply, there's nothing there that resembled a pop single. Besides, by 88, Squier's sound was outdated with the birth of glam and in comparison to the newer hard rock bands of the day like Guns N Roses and Skid Row.
That I suspect is what happened. Anyway, this is a perfect CHR hit and a perfectly ridiculous video.
Squier had guitar heroics to make him popular with the more metal crowd, but his pop hooks were right in line with what Top 40 music was about in 1983.
1982's Emotions In Motion put Squier in place to be one of the hottest stars of the Me Decade. It had everything - an Andy Warhol cover, a Freddie Mercury appearance, and a perfect rock radio hit in "Everybody Wants You". Squier was on MTV, commissioned for soundtracks (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and playing arenas with the likes of Queen and Def Leppard.
So, what happened? When's the last time Billy Squier came up in conversatiion? Why is Billy Idol an 80s icon and Squier isn't? For all we hear of Squier nowadays is his early career hit (#17 in 1981) "The Stroke", and that's probably because of its chorus is popular with college freshmen.
Well, it was the "Rock Me Tonite".
In the video for his 1984 hit, Squier wore a ripped up pink shirt and played air guitar while bouncing around on his bed.
To be fair, I did the same thing in those days. Of course, I was 10.
Squier's video is way embarrassing, more Richard Simmons than Pete Townsend. that said, i never bought Squier's claim that the video killed his career.
The song reached #15 and went to #1 on the Rock charts. I think what killed Squier was that he was out of catchy tunes. I didn't buy 86's Enough is Enough, but I did buy 88's Hear and Now, and quite simply, there's nothing there that resembled a pop single. Besides, by 88, Squier's sound was outdated with the birth of glam and in comparison to the newer hard rock bands of the day like Guns N Roses and Skid Row.
That I suspect is what happened. Anyway, this is a perfect CHR hit and a perfectly ridiculous video.
