Saturday, April 30, 1983

“Beat It” became Michael Jackson’s second #1 from Thriller

Beat It

Michael Jackson

Writer(s): Michael Jackson, Rod Templeton (see lyrics here)

Released: February 3, 1983

First Charted: February 26, 1983

Peak: 1³ US, 1² CB, 1¹ RR, 1¹ RB, 14 AR, 3 UK, 1³ CN, 2 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.)

Sales (in millions): 5.5 US, 0.5 UK, 7.95 world (includes US + UK)

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1074.25 video, 1078.15 streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

Michael Jackson was already a star before 1982’s Thriller, but the one-two punch of “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” from that album sent him into the superstar stratosphere. Only a one-week run by Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen” prevented “Beat It” from bumping “Billie Jean” from the top of the U.S. pop charts. It was the first time since the Beatles knocked themselves from #1 in 1964 that an artist followed one chart-topper so quickly with another. ^FB

More importantly, the song “rocked more than anything else Jackson had ever done,” ^RS500 largely because it “mated the top pop hero of revitalized Top 40…with Edward Van Halen, guitar king of heavy metal” ^DM for “one of the most famous guitar solos of all time.” ^RC He refused pay for his services, unless one counts the two six-packs of beer producer Quincy Jones brought to him in the studio. ^SF Eddie said he thought, “maybe Michael will give me dance lessons someday” ^SF and informed Musician magazine, “I didn’t care, I did it as a favor.” ^FB Rod Templeton, the song’s co-writer, noted that the speakers actually caught on fire while Eddie was recording. Rod thought, “This was be really good, this solo!” ^RC

That favor gave Michael a rarity for a black, R&B/pop artist – airplay on album-rock stations. The song also snagged a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal. Jackson said, “I wanted to write the type of rock song that I would go out and buy…but also something totally different from the rock music I was hearing on Top Forty radio.” ^RS500

The lyrics “reflect courage in the face of defeat and dislike of violence, whilst also referring to the childhood abuse Jackson faced at the hands of his father Joseph.” ^RC The iconic video also addressed violence in its depiction of rival gangs facing off in a choreographed rumble, much like West Side Story. The dancing drew raves from Bob Fosse, Gene Kelly, and Fred Astaire. ^FB The video was considered “a landmark for its movie-scale production values.” ^SS

Resources:

DMDB encyclopedia entry for Michael Jackson
^FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 571.
^RC Rod Couch (2015). The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. Pages 117-8.
^DM Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New American Library: New York, NY. Page 351.
^SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 244-5.

Muddy Waters died: April 30, 1983

Originally posted April 30, 2012.

McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters, was born on 4/4/1915 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. Some sources indicate his birth year as 1913, but the bio on MuddyWaters.com cites 1915. He died on April 30, 1983.

Waters ranks second only to Robert Johnson as the top blues acts of all time. Waters was pivotal in the development of the Chicago blues style. He taught himself to play harmonica in the early 1920s and picked up guitar in the early 1930s.

Among his most significant songs are “I Feel Like Going Home” (1948), “Rollin’ Stone” (1950), “Hoochie Coochie Man” (1954), and “Got My Mojo Working” (1957). All have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The latter three and “Mannish Boy” also made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. “Hoochie Coochie” is also in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress and made NPR’s list of the Most Important American Musical Works of the 20th Century. “Mojo” is also among the RIAA’s selections for the RIAA’s 365 songs of the 20th century.

Hoochie Coochie Man

Best of (1954), Down on Stovall’s Plantation (1966), McKinley Morganfield (aka “Muddy Waters”) (1971), The Chess Box (1972), Can’t Get No Grindin’ (1973), and The Complete Plantation Recordings (1993) are all Blues Hall of Fame inductees. In addition, Time magazine named The Anthology 1947-1972 (1947-72) one of the Top 100 Albums of All Time.

His most celebrated album is At Newport, a live album from 1960. It makes the DMDB’s lists of top 1000 albums of all time, Top 10 Blues Albums of All Time, and the top 50 live albums of all time. It also ranks as one of the 100 Greatest American Albums according to Blender magazine and one of the 100 Essential Albums of the Century according to Vibe magazine.

Awards:

Resources and Related Links:

Friday, April 29, 1983

Men at Work released Cargo

Cargo

Men at Work

Released: April 29, 1983

Peak: 3 US, 8UK, 3 CN, 1² AU

Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.1 UK, 3.72 world (includes US and UK)

Genre: pop rock/new wave

Tracks:

Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts.

Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive (10/82, 28 US, 12 AR, 31 UK, 26 CN, 6 AU)
Overkill (4/9/83, 3 US, 3 AR, 6 AC, 21 UK, 6 CN, 5 AU)
Settle Down My Boy
Upstairs in My House
No Sign of Yesterday
It’s a Mistake (6/83, 6 US, 27 AR, 10 AC, 33 UK, 26 CN, 34 AU)
High Wire (1983, 23 AR, 89 AU)
Blue for You
I Like To
No Restrictions

Total Running Time: 42:21

The Players:

Colin Hay (vocals, guitar)
Greg Ham (flute, keyboards, saxophone, vocals)
Ron Strykert (guitar, vocals)
John Rees (bass, backing vocals)
Jerry Speiser (drums, backing vocals)

Rating:

3.823 out of 5.00 (average of 6 ratings)

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album:

The Australian new wave band Men at Work debuted in 1981 with Business As Usual. It took a year for it to catch on in the United States, but when it did it exploded. “Who Can It Be Now?” hit #1 in 1982 and “Down Under” ascended to the throne in early 1983. The two songs fueled Business As Usual to the top of Billboard album chart for 15 weeks.

Meanwhile, Men at Work already had Cargo waiting in the wings. They’d finished the album in mid-’82, but held off releasing it because of the success of Business As Usual. When Cargo dropped in 1983, the former album was still riding high on the charts.

The first single, Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive, was released in Australia in October 1982, although it would be nearly a year later before it saw a U.S. release. The song was accompanied by a video which played to Men at Work’s reputation as an act known for entertaining, humorous videos. Greg Ham played a mad scientist who creates a potion that transforms him into a ladies’ man.

In the U.S. the song was preceded by two Men at Work top-10 hits. Overkill was released in April 1983 and showed some more dimension to the band. The song had a more serious tone than the light-hearted pop fare of “Who Can It Be Now?” and “Down Under,” though it dealt with paranoia again, as had “Who Can It Be Now?”

It’s a Mistake also tapped into a more serious vibe with lyrics focused on the mindset of military men and the prospects of nuclear war. The video played up the band’s charisma with a story in which each member move from roles in the working world to unexpected roles in the military, suggesting they’d been drafted. The storyline seemed to be somewhat modeled after Dr. Strangelove, a black comedy film from 1964.

Rolling Stone’s Christopher Connelly wrote that the album “may lack a track with the body-slamming intensity of ‘Who Can It Be Now?’ and ‘Down Under,’ but song for song, it is a stronger overall effort than Business As Usual.” ^WK All Music Guide’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine said “Overkill” and “It’s a Mistake” had “more depth than anything on the debut” ^WK but that the rest of the album was “weighed down by filler.” ^WK John Mendelssohn of Record had little positive to say about the album, other than “Colin Hay may be the most effortlessly soulful pop singer since Sting.” ^WK

Notes: A 2003 reissue added bonus tracks “Shintaro” and “Till the Money Runs Out,” and live versions of “Upstairs in My House,” “Fallin’ Down,” and “The Longest Night.”

Resources and Related Links:

DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Men at Work
^WK Wikipedia

First posted 9/20/2020; last updated 8/2/2021.

Saturday, April 16, 1983

Journey “Faithfully” charted