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Raised On Radio #11 - Wang Chung
May. 17th, 2012 05:35 pmWang Chung are hardly obscure, but they deserve to be here.
Everyone knows "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" and they generally get thrown in as a one-hit wonder.
I am sorta ambivalent about that song. I just felt it is/was overplayed.
I realize I am outing myself here, but this series is all about fessing up to liking the music of my youth.
"Have Fun" went to #2 in 1986, and is about the only song you hear nowadays, but I distinctly remember four hit singles from this band.
"Dance Hall Days" (#16 in 1984) predated "Have Fun" and I always preferred it to the smash hit. It still gets a fair amount of play on nostalgia channels.
The band actually had eight songs that went Top 40, but I only vaguely remember "To Live and Die in LA" (#21 in 1985) and I don't remember "Hypnotize Me" at all (despite a #13 showing in 1987)
As far as the other songs, I liked "Let's Go" as much as the two smash singles, but it wasn't as a big of a success, and I would say I probably haven't heard that song in 20 years.
It's not U2 or Dylan, but for lightweight new wave pop bands, but it is/was enjoyable enough (and history has not been kind to Wang Chung's legacy pegging them as a bit of a novelty because of their self-referential biggest hit, while contemporaries like Berlin, the Eurythmics and Missing Persons get lauded).
Wang Chung had one last go at the chart, trying to appeal to the alt-rock crowd with "Praying to a New God". I really liked this song at the time, but it stiffed on the charts (#31- the full-length album doing no better than #123). I liked it so much I did buy the album The Warmer Side of Cool when I found it quickly after its release in 1989. The album wasn't that good, though.
Everyone knows "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" and they generally get thrown in as a one-hit wonder.
I am sorta ambivalent about that song. I just felt it is/was overplayed.
I realize I am outing myself here, but this series is all about fessing up to liking the music of my youth.
"Have Fun" went to #2 in 1986, and is about the only song you hear nowadays, but I distinctly remember four hit singles from this band.
"Dance Hall Days" (#16 in 1984) predated "Have Fun" and I always preferred it to the smash hit. It still gets a fair amount of play on nostalgia channels.
The band actually had eight songs that went Top 40, but I only vaguely remember "To Live and Die in LA" (#21 in 1985) and I don't remember "Hypnotize Me" at all (despite a #13 showing in 1987)
As far as the other songs, I liked "Let's Go" as much as the two smash singles, but it wasn't as a big of a success, and I would say I probably haven't heard that song in 20 years.
It's not U2 or Dylan, but for lightweight new wave pop bands, but it is/was enjoyable enough (and history has not been kind to Wang Chung's legacy pegging them as a bit of a novelty because of their self-referential biggest hit, while contemporaries like Berlin, the Eurythmics and Missing Persons get lauded).
Wang Chung had one last go at the chart, trying to appeal to the alt-rock crowd with "Praying to a New God". I really liked this song at the time, but it stiffed on the charts (#31- the full-length album doing no better than #123). I liked it so much I did buy the album The Warmer Side of Cool when I found it quickly after its release in 1989. The album wasn't that good, though.
