No kidding. I knew that was the fastest selling single in UK history about 35 years before I knew what it sounded like.
I don’t recognize the band name, but this song definitely got play here, as I remember it, I think, from the oldies stations I used to listen to growing up. Or was there a cover that was popular? At any rate, it’s clearly a song I’ve heard many times, knowing the melody and song structure.
Eddy Grant was in the Equals. They did the original version of “Police on my back.” They have been rediscovered in the US in more freeform and college radio formats. The original singer (not Eddy) was in the US to play for the first time recently.
I never heard it, or heard of it, until I was a student in Britain in the mid-80s.
A few years back, there was a “based on a true story” ghost hunters movie set in the 1970s that featured prominent and repeated playing of “Cum on Feel the Noize”. I heard a number of people who saw it complaining that the Quiet Riot song was anachronistic.
well, I know most of McCartney’s songs, too. I heard it on Dallas radio when it came out. Heard it enough that I bought the single. And I see you’re in Austin, too. Heard it on either KUTX or Sun the other day. It didn’t set the radio waves afire here, but NEVER got any play? I disagree.
These are #1 hits from Britain- in each case, the singer or group is VERY well known in America, but the song is not well known at all.
- “I’m Alive” by the Hollies
- “Somebody Help Me” by the Spencer Davis Group (Everybody knows “I’m a Man” and “Gimme Some Loving”)
- “With a Girl Like You” by the Troggs (known almost solely for “Wild Thing”)
- “Albatross” by Fleetwood Mac (they didn’t become big in American until the mid-Seventies)
- “Baby Jump” by Mungo Jerry (in America, they’re one-hit wonders known only for "In the Summertime)
- “Telegram Sam” and “Metal Guru” by T Rex