Hey friends, if you haven’t noticed (and shame on you if you haven’t…), it’s
SUMMER! The season for sunshine, blue skies, gnarly waves, and collaborations
between rap trios and surf rock pioneers… wait… what??? Yep, the Dial happily
brings you one of the most campy and undeniably fun forgotten hits of the
1980s… Crank up your boom-box as The Fat Boys and The Beach Boys take on the
surf classic “Wipe Out”!
“For
three years straight, we toured the nation… when got through, we needed a
vacation…”
Featured on The Fat Boys 1987 LP “Crushin’” (and later on The Beach Boys’
1989 LP “Still Cruisin’”), “Wipe Out”
peaked at US #12 pop, and US #10 R&B, and also scored quite high across the
pond at UK #2.
Produced by Brian Wilson and the Beach
Boys, and featuring new rap lyrics for the verses and pop harmonies for the
chorus, the unusual collaboration also features Dweezil Zappa shredding the guitar.
Wipe Out proved to be the biggest pop
crossover hit for The Fat Boys, as their only other US top 40 showing would soon
follow with 1988’s “The Twist (Yo, Twist)”,
(US #16), which featured Chubby Checker on a cover of his original “The Twist” from 1962. Of course, this repeated
the formula of pairing the rap trio with an oldies act on a cover of a classic
tune.
The original Wipe Out, a US #2 smash in
1963, was an instrumental by The Surfaris. The iconic surf rock classic also charted
highly on a 1966 re-release at US #16. It was even reissued a second time in
1970, but it only bubbled under at US #110 on that release.
“We
wanted to party and get a little rest… so we packed our things and headed out
west…”
The new lyrics tell of The Fat Boys’
vacation to the beach, whereupon they cross paths with The Beach Boys, and the
two groups end up rocking out in an impromptu jam on the classic surf song. This
makes me wonder what happened after “Wipe Out” ended… did the two groups
continue to hang out at this beach party and do versions of each other’s tunes?
Could The Fat Boys have tackled “Help Me
Rhonda”? Maybe The Beach Boys worked up a version of “Jail House Rap”? The mind reels!
The video clip for “Wipe Out” is one of
the greatest intentionally campy videos I’ve ever seen. Clearly everybody
involved was having a blast. We see the two groups mixing it up in a boxing
ring, The Beach Boys acting as rappers, wearing LL COOL J style Kangol hats and
scratching on a turn table, The Fat Boys dreaming that they are great surfers,
volleyballers, and weight lifters, and Beach Boy Bruce Johnston mugging for a doorman.
Yeah, I can see this being deriding as
cheesy, but I like light-hearted fun, “party rap” like this. In the 90s, things
took a dark turn with the whole East Coast vs West Coast rap feud, the deaths
of 2Pac and Biggie, profanity in nearly every rap song, etc… so I like to revisit
a time when hip hop was fun and light hearted.
“There
was sand and sun and lots of sun… but when we got there the fun really begun!”
It’s interesting to note that the order
of the two acts’ names is listed differently depending upon what copy of the
song you owned. On the Still Cruisin’ LP, the song is credited to “The Beach Boys with The Fat Boys”. On
Crushin’, it is credited solely as a Fat Boys release, but in the small print
credits, we see: “Extra special thanks to
The Beach Boys for appearing on Wipeout”.
On the single, the artists are listed
as The Fat Boys with The Beach Boys.
Surely this was some sort of legal arrangement between the two record labels
(Polydor for the Fat Boys, and Capitol for the Beach Boys) as to where and which
act would get top billing.
“So
we cut on the box, and started to shout…
It was the Beach Boys rocking huh-huh, the Wipe Out!”
Sadly, we lost Darren “The Human Beat
Box” Robinson on 12/10/95, as he succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 28. A
tragic loss for the world of music and fans of ‘80s pop culture alike.
But the two remaining Fat Boys have
soldered on. Mark Morales “Prince Markie Dee” has continued as a songwriter,
producer and radio deejay, and though Darren Wimbley “Kool Rock-Ski” has kept a
lower profile, he has periodically reunited with Morales as The Fat Boys.
The Beach Boys of course, are still popular
draws on the oldies tour circuit, and they followed Wipe Out with their only #1
hit single of the 1980s, the platinum selling “Cocktail” movie soundtrack
extraction “Kokomo”.
“We was partying hard making lots of noise,
when around the corner come the real Beach Boys…
So we all jumped up and started to shout…
“Let’s all sing the song called the Wipeout.”
So what exactly would the modern day
equivalent to this collaboration be? It would have to be a current hip hop act
working with a critically acclaimed rock group from two decades prior, covering
an instrumental from an earlier era of pop music. How about Wiz Khalifa and The Smashing
Pumpkins doing a vocal cover of Van McCoy’s “The Hustle”? Ehhh… maybe not.
All jokes aside... Wipe Out is a great slice of goofy, exuberant summertime pop, one that sounded great in ’88, and one that probably could have only come out of that era. Despite the unlikely pairing of two very different groups, together, ALL the boys... Fat, and Beach, created an upbeat hit that succeeds in making for a fun listen.
Give it a spin, and try to stop the
smile from creeping on your face!
“Wipin’
out, wipe out… Wipin’ out, wipe out… wah wah wah…
Hey watch out… wah wah wah…. Wipin’ out, wipe out”
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