When I was a young teenager Planet Rock was inescapable. Go to a house party? Played at least twice. Go to Coney Island? Always in rotation on the Music Express. Radio airplay? For years. Today I look up Planet Rock and find that it was influential in both hip hop and electronica, but it never charted. NEVER CHARTED!!! It played forever all the time! It was as ubiquitous as Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off.
I am reminded of when I found out that a roll with butter is totally a New York thing. My question is: Do you know this song? When did you hear it? Where are you from and how old are you?
Yes, Planet Rock was all over the place as I recall. Were charts going through some revision where it was categorized wrong or something? It was pretty early.
It’s not a dinner roll. It’s a large roll with a harder crust and soft center eaten for breakfast with a cup of regular (that is, with milk and sugar) coffee. And that’s for breakfast, not with breakfast.
Not everyone shared your lifestyle, listened to your radio station or gave a damn about hip hop and electronica. I lived in New York for 25 years, from age 24-49, but don’t recall ever hearing Planet Rock, and I prefer a bagel or bialy with a *schmear *to a roll with butter.
I’m from New York, although I haven’t lived there for many years. I’ve never heard of the song. But it would not have been popular in my social circles even if I had been in New York.
Thank you for the link. Fun article. I just finished dinner but right now I still want a roll with butter.
I made myself a Polish smokehouse ham and organic egg sandwich with good English melted cheddar for breakfast today, and I have to say I didn’t relish it as much as the same thing from a bodega grill with crap bacon and Kraft slices. Bodegas are magic.
It was the center of the universe when I was a kid down in Atlanta, GA. But of course, my universe at the time was urban and black.
Every time I think of Planet Rock, I think of the roller skating rink. Pretty much every hip hop song of the early to mid 80s reminds me of rolling skating. Those were the days…
Butter with a roll. For those who don’t know, she ain’t talking about the dinner roll you eat at Sunday dinner to sop up the meatloaf gravy. That’s damn near universal thing, as far as I know. But it’s totally NYC to walk up to a food truck and order a toasted, hot buttered kaiser roll for breakfast. See this thread.
Growing up update, I never heard at the time of its release, but when I moved to NYC a few years later, it was a constant at the clubs, all the time (so like Palladium, Limelight, Tunnel, World era). It was so omnipresent that it almost didn’t register as a discreet SONG, more like a perpetual background track. I probably didn’t know the title for a long time, it was more like “THAT track.”
Back to the buttered roll, well sure, not every single New Yorker prefers a buttered roll. But you’d have to notice that the five people ahead of you on line every morning are buying a buttered roll, regardless of what you are purchasing. My deli has a tray of about 40 pre-prepared buttered rolls at the counter every day, because they know they will sell 40 buttered rolls every morning (and they could even replace the tray for all I know). I will say, though, that I didn’t really notice how common this was until I started working a 9 - 5, it’s definitely a morning shift thing.
Just yesterday I was in a Stewart’s to look for some Crumbs Along The Mohawk ice cream, and saw on a shelf wrapped up buttered rolls for 99 cents. Never saw such a thing before, but there it was.
A buttered roll is also a New Jersey thing but not as New Jersey as pork roll. Also a hard roll isn’t particularly hard and is what people elsewhere would call a Kaiser roll.
As usual for these types of list, that’s bull. Gyros are a New York thing? And deli cold cut sandwiches? Maybe that they are on every corner, but in Milwaukee, where I grew up, neither of those were scarce. My dad picked me up a buttered hard roll a few times a week when he stopped at the convenience store for coffee while driving me to school. We ate them at Grandma’s house. On special days, they added a slice of crappy American cheese. And nobody was from, or had een to, New York, back then.
As for the song, there are lots of songs huge in some circles but not in others. I know Planet Rock from back in the day, but I also remember a ton of songs that were in big radio rotation that weren’t top hits. I Want Candy and Bizarre Love Triangle, for example, were everywhere I went. I am not buying that it’s a New York song.
Do bodegas still have salad bars? I remember when I was visiting NYC back in the eighties and nineties and I wanted a cheap meal, I would stop in a random bodega and they’d usually have a good salad bar. You got a plastic carton, filled it with the stuff you wanted, and then paid for how much it weighed. I see salad bars like this upstate in supermarkets but NYC was the only place where I saw them regularly in little local stores.
Why do you hate Coney Island? And why are you thanking God for never being on the beach? Seriously, why are you thanking God for never having to frequent places I went. That’s pretty rude.
I recognized the song instantly but never knew it’s name or who the artist was. Living in the Milwaukee burbs as a kid I pulled in an urban radio station and would make mix tapes. Probably on the same tape as Grandmaster Flash/ Melle Mel or Kraftwerk.
