This song was undeniably in heavy rotation but was it really that catchy? What made it catchy? Even up through the 90’s this song was still not uncommon to hear on a morning show or part of a Sunday block. Both the content and presentation really borders on absurdia.
Is it the vaguely Talking Heads style vocals? The not quite B52’s guitar tone? Was it this bizarre music video being in heavy rotation on the then burgeoning MTV?
All of a sudden, it was stuck in my head out of nowhere today and I haven’t heard it in years. Help me figure this out because I’m not sure I get it anymore and I figured if I get it stuck in yours too then at least I won’t be alone in this quagmire
It reached the top 100 in the US, is it so easy to write off? I’m trying to understand how people’s minds work. The analysis is most people have bad taste get over it?
Haha, oh boy. For my part, I like this song enough that if it came on the radio, Mexican or not, I would leave it 99% of the time, sing along to it, maybe even blast it, and headbang to the chorus.
I can’t explain why I like it too well. It is catchy to me. I like the singalong quality of the chorus. It’s a bit zany and fun, like good cheese, and I’m down with good cheese. I like their mix of New Wave and rockabilly - I feel that mix can go bad really easily but WOV did a pretty decent job, imo.
Maybe the sing-along quality is a big part of it because the rockabilly/new wave is just weird to me - unless it’s depeche mode personal jesus and then everyone can just eff off if they don’t like it,
You kind of get a sense of the popularity when Celtic frost only waited 5 years to cover it. That’s from 1987
There are a handful of 80s music that mixed the two genres together in some way or another. I think that in the 80s, many musicians were doing some sort of unspoken 50s revival, in the same way that 90s tapped in to the 60s/70s, the 00s tapped into the 70s/80s, and the decade of Covid is tapping into the 90s.
I had a premonition about hip hop making a comeback and then it was fucking macklemore and back to taylor swift again, couldn’t we have at least gotten another wu tang or something?
I had just arrived in California as a graduate student, my first time living outside Canada (that I could remember). I was getting used to West Coast hardcore and American college radio. This was catchy and accessible. I think I “rented” their first album from Rasputin’s Records (they would buy back vinyl for 80% store credit) and taped it. I liked Stan Ridgway’s work on the Rumble Fish soundtrack with Steward Copeland. So many bands that never went anywhere. I played Angst’s “Neil Armstrong” for my partner a couple of years ago and she is crazy for it. The Internet now tells me they put out four albums on SST. Who knew? Well, I certainly didn’t.
So you felt it was accessible because the alternative was a lot of in your face west coastism and a feeling of displacement as a result of relocation?
That’s probably a good point, a lot of people were starting to feel displaced as the reagan era began. People wanted something they could tune in and tune out maybe.
Stewart copeland did the soundtrack to spyro the dragon, fun fact. What a great video game.
No, it was accessible, period. But I was adjusting to my new sources of information. I did a sort of abrupt shift from a UK focus to a West Coast focus. Lost track of the Smiths and the Cure about then, picked up on Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen, X. It was a time (I may not need to tell you) when sometimes one could only discover something by walking into a record store and asking them what they had on their turntable at the time.
I’m still at a loss for the popularity of the song. Sing along quality - off the beaten path - But for example, the Ramones had both of those and didn’t catch fire until much later and then it wasn’t in the same context of nationwide phenomenon, it was mostly the generation after the ramones trying to grab onto something that the prior generation had countercultured (as is often the case).
Mexican radio was very much part of popular culture. I guess maybe my taste is not as bad as the average american. I guess.
Trying to figure out why this hits and not that is hopeless. There were songs I used to amuse/repel people with until they suddenly became hits and then I looked prescient (“Rock Lobster”, “Da Da Da”). There were others which just made me look like a fool except to one or two people in the room who saw what I did.
This one is weird without being too far out, more laconic than usual. Proponents probably got points without much risk of alienating anyone.
Like presidents of the united states of america… who I think were more catchy in composition than rockabilly / new wave, but you could probably say “I like them” and then laugh it off if it’s not well received, and people wouldn’t think you were too far off the beaten path. hmm. So I see the door. There is a door.
…wait a second…“mexican radio” is for wall of voodoo, what “love cats” is for the cure…
…one single total weirdo outstandin’ untytpical song in both of their backcatalogs…
…and in this case, it worked for two reasons…
the word radio is part of it’s doodledidooo classic singalong hook, and even topping the catchphrase of this hook with dOOOOOOO…full on empasizing that last vowel of radioooo ooo oo oo oo…
so, ssure it got airplay back then, when commercial terrestrial radio was still a thing…even without any pay for play involved…this one promoted itself…all on it’s own…
since this tune has a quick jump in intro AND the perfect ending hook repetition arrangement for FADE OUTS…
