Welcome back, friends! The Dial is BACK and ALL–NEW for 2018! Well, it’s as "all new" as a blog about older songs gets! But… you knew what I meant!
Anywho… we kick off 2018 with a new wave classic from an English keyboardist and producer whom is best known for blinding us with science! From 1984, its London’s Thomas Dolby and his nervous little ditty about being "Hyperactive"!
"At the tender age of three, I was hooked to a machine, just to keep my mouth from spouting junk."
Pulled from Dolby’s LP "The Flat Earth", Hyperactive peaked at UK #17, but charted much lower here in the states, at US #62. Thomas has discussed that he wrote the song for Michael Jackson for what was to become The Jacksons' Victory LP, but The King of Pop never got back to him after he sent him the demo. So, not to let a good groove go to waste, Dolby wisely recorded the tune himself.
A quirky, horn laden, new wave dance stomper, "Hyperactive" concerns itself with a guy that suffers from… well… hyperactivity. He mentions being diagnosed as a youngster, but the problem has grown worse into adulthood.
The majority of the song makes it seem like his medical condition does nothing more than turn him into a dancing fool, however, the final verse takes a sinister turn, as Tom states that he is "the shape in your back room", "the breather on the phone", and he warns that you’d be safer at the back when he’s having an attack! (Somebody get this man some Adderall, STAT!)
Now, this may just serve as a creative synonym for his manic dancing, but then again, maybe it really points to a dangerous psychosis! Perhaps it was this dark quality to the song that made MJ not respond to Dolby.
"Must have took me for a fool, when they chucked me out of school, ‘cause the teacher knew I had the funk!"
Lately, as I reflect on the music of my younger years, I’ve found that certain songs continue to hold vivid memories of my childhood, and quite a few of these date from 1984 in particular.
For instance, even now, over 33 years since its release, Shannon’s "Let the Music Play" always reminds me of clothes shopping with my Mom and Grandma at Burlington Coat Factory, of all things. Shannon’s hit was playing over the in-store speakers that day and that specific moment, which likely would have been mundane and unmemorable for anybody else, for whatever reason, left a vivid impression on me.
Then there’s Chicago’s "You're the Inspiration". I always flashback to watching my two classmates Sheila and Brad slow dance to this song at a middle school dance and wishing I had the self-confidence to approach a girl (like Sheila) and dance with her. Which I didn’t. Sucks to be me.
Finally, and most dramatically, there’s Nena’s "99 Luftballons" via its English translation "99 Red Balloons". The entire ending of the song gets me. When Nena sings about walking through "this dust that was a city", coupled with that final ascending tone representing one red balloon being released into the sky… awwww man… it gave me serious chills as a kid once I understood it was about nuclear war, and it still makes me feel that same way today, no matter how many times I hear it. Absolutely brilliant.
"Semaphore out on the floor… messages from outer space… deep heat for the feet, and the rhythm of your heartbeat."
I place Dolby’s Hyperactive in this class of ’84 as well, mainly because of its bizarre music video. In particular, the ventriloquist dummy losing its head while continuing to "speak" creeped me out as a kid.
As I didn’t have MTV back then (cable TV wasn’t offered in my part of rural Maryland at the time, and satellite dishes were more than my folks could reasonably afford), I caught Dolby’s video on either Friday Night Videos, or a one-hour long music video show (that I’ve forgotten the name of, darn it) that aired in the evening on local UHF channel 50.
Whenever I’ve heard the song since, I’m always instantly transported back to my parents’ rec room in ’84, watching the arresting visual of that dummy’s neck elongate for the first time… wild stuff, to be sure.
Now, I have to apologize for how the music video will appear in the window below. Apparently a clean, unmolested version of the video does not exist on YouTube due to copyright concerns, so people uploading the video have to get clever. I had a choice between displaying a version of the video playing in reverse order, or this version with the split screen. I chose the split screen because you can look at the right half of the window and see the correct video as I viewed it all those years ago.
I’ve also posted an alternate way to watch the video (in its original form) by visiting Dailymotion.com at the link below. This should display the video in a different window. You may need to disable a pop up blocker at least temporarily to watch the video this way. It’s your call.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xclltw
So kick your February into high gear with this shot of nervous pop energy courtesy of Mr. Dolby! And after you watch it, make sure you calm the heck down… we don’t need you or anybody else getting hurt!
"Hyperactive when I was small, hyperactive now I’m tall, hyperactive as the day is long."
Anywho… we kick off 2018 with a new wave classic from an English keyboardist and producer whom is best known for blinding us with science! From 1984, its London’s Thomas Dolby and his nervous little ditty about being "Hyperactive"!
"At the tender age of three, I was hooked to a machine, just to keep my mouth from spouting junk."
Pulled from Dolby’s LP "The Flat Earth", Hyperactive peaked at UK #17, but charted much lower here in the states, at US #62. Thomas has discussed that he wrote the song for Michael Jackson for what was to become The Jacksons' Victory LP, but The King of Pop never got back to him after he sent him the demo. So, not to let a good groove go to waste, Dolby wisely recorded the tune himself.
A quirky, horn laden, new wave dance stomper, "Hyperactive" concerns itself with a guy that suffers from… well… hyperactivity. He mentions being diagnosed as a youngster, but the problem has grown worse into adulthood.
The majority of the song makes it seem like his medical condition does nothing more than turn him into a dancing fool, however, the final verse takes a sinister turn, as Tom states that he is "the shape in your back room", "the breather on the phone", and he warns that you’d be safer at the back when he’s having an attack! (Somebody get this man some Adderall, STAT!)
Now, this may just serve as a creative synonym for his manic dancing, but then again, maybe it really points to a dangerous psychosis! Perhaps it was this dark quality to the song that made MJ not respond to Dolby.
"Must have took me for a fool, when they chucked me out of school, ‘cause the teacher knew I had the funk!"
Lately, as I reflect on the music of my younger years, I’ve found that certain songs continue to hold vivid memories of my childhood, and quite a few of these date from 1984 in particular.
For instance, even now, over 33 years since its release, Shannon’s "Let the Music Play" always reminds me of clothes shopping with my Mom and Grandma at Burlington Coat Factory, of all things. Shannon’s hit was playing over the in-store speakers that day and that specific moment, which likely would have been mundane and unmemorable for anybody else, for whatever reason, left a vivid impression on me.
Then there’s Chicago’s "You're the Inspiration". I always flashback to watching my two classmates Sheila and Brad slow dance to this song at a middle school dance and wishing I had the self-confidence to approach a girl (like Sheila) and dance with her. Which I didn’t. Sucks to be me.
Finally, and most dramatically, there’s Nena’s "99 Luftballons" via its English translation "99 Red Balloons". The entire ending of the song gets me. When Nena sings about walking through "this dust that was a city", coupled with that final ascending tone representing one red balloon being released into the sky… awwww man… it gave me serious chills as a kid once I understood it was about nuclear war, and it still makes me feel that same way today, no matter how many times I hear it. Absolutely brilliant.
"Semaphore out on the floor… messages from outer space… deep heat for the feet, and the rhythm of your heartbeat."
I place Dolby’s Hyperactive in this class of ’84 as well, mainly because of its bizarre music video. In particular, the ventriloquist dummy losing its head while continuing to "speak" creeped me out as a kid.
As I didn’t have MTV back then (cable TV wasn’t offered in my part of rural Maryland at the time, and satellite dishes were more than my folks could reasonably afford), I caught Dolby’s video on either Friday Night Videos, or a one-hour long music video show (that I’ve forgotten the name of, darn it) that aired in the evening on local UHF channel 50.
Whenever I’ve heard the song since, I’m always instantly transported back to my parents’ rec room in ’84, watching the arresting visual of that dummy’s neck elongate for the first time… wild stuff, to be sure.
Now, I have to apologize for how the music video will appear in the window below. Apparently a clean, unmolested version of the video does not exist on YouTube due to copyright concerns, so people uploading the video have to get clever. I had a choice between displaying a version of the video playing in reverse order, or this version with the split screen. I chose the split screen because you can look at the right half of the window and see the correct video as I viewed it all those years ago.
I’ve also posted an alternate way to watch the video (in its original form) by visiting Dailymotion.com at the link below. This should display the video in a different window. You may need to disable a pop up blocker at least temporarily to watch the video this way. It’s your call.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xclltw
So kick your February into high gear with this shot of nervous pop energy courtesy of Mr. Dolby! And after you watch it, make sure you calm the heck down… we don’t need you or anybody else getting hurt!
"Hyperactive when I was small, hyperactive now I’m tall, hyperactive as the day is long."
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