Songoftheday 9/30/13 - You run away it's your heart that you betray, feeding on your hungry eyes I bet you're not so civilized...

Scandal featuring Patty Smyth - "The Warrior"
from the album The Warrior (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's Song of the Day is by the New York-based pop/rock band Scandal, whose debut EP was a huge local success, and even had a couple of minor national hits, including the "robbed hit" "Goodbye To You" from 1983. It did manage to set up expectation for their second album, and with lead singer Patty Smyth getting equal billing, their first single (and title track) "The Warrior" got them the hit they deserved. Written by Holly Knight with Nick Gilder (the guy who sang "Hot Child In The City"), and produced by new wave champ Mike Chapman (Blondie, The Knack), "The Warrior" was an anthemic yet accessible rocker MTV couldn't avoid, even though the video was Showgirls-esque godawful...

"The Warrior" became Scandal's first and only top-40 pop hit in September of 1984, while topping the rock radio charts a couple months prior. Internationally, although the record topped the singles charts in Canada and went top-10 in Australia, it sputtered out at #86 in Britain.

The two followups to "The Warrior" both would come one notch away from making the top-40 (both will be coming up as "robbed hits", and by the end of the tour for this album, the band would be split, with Patty going solo, and returning to the top-10 in eight years with "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough". In 2004 they all went on VH1's Bands Reunited.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...and here's Patty and the band on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve in 1984/5...

Up tomorrow: A former centerfold-lover is in the dark.