Songoftheday 11/7/14 - I try to understand because I'm people too and playing games is part of human nature...

El DeBarge - "Who's Johnny (Short Circuit Theme)"
from the album El DeBarge (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day was the breakout solo debut for R&B singer El DeBarge, who with his siblings had just had the biggest album of their career with Rhythm Of The Night in 1985, scoring two top-10 pop hits with "Who's Holding Donna Now" and the title track. However, it wasn't too long after that when El (as well as sister Bunny) left DeBarge, and released his first solo album in 1986. The first single from the record was the theme to the sci-fi comedy Short Circuit starring Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy. "Johnny" is revealed (spoiler) to be the name the robot in the movie names himself. The song, "Who's Johnny", was written by Peter and Ina Wolf, who had been writing for the likes of the resurrected Starship, so the sound is far from soul but frantic synthpop...

"Who's Johnny" became El's first and only solo top-10 pop hit in July of 1986. The single also crossed over to both the Adult Contemporary (#18) and Dance Club Play (#10) charts in Billboard, and nabbed him a #1 hit on the R&B chart (then called the "Hot Black Singles"). Internationally, the record topped the pop chart in Canada, and went top-ten in the Netherlands, but stalled way down at #60 in England.

El's follow-up single, "Love Always", would miss the pop top-40 (it'll be an upcoming "missed hit"), as well as the third release from the album, "Someone", though the former would make the top-ten on both the R&B and the adult contemporary chart. In 1989, he would be back in the pop top-40 as a featured vocalist on teh Quincy Jones collab "The Secret Garden", which topped the R&B chart, but El's own album (and every one after that) failed to chart a pop single (the song "Real Love" did go to #8 R&B and #14 dance). In 1991, he had his so-far last appearance in the Hot 100 as a guest on rapper Tone Loc's "All Through The Night" (#80), and provided the vocals on the #2 R&B hit remake of Marvin Gaye's "After The Dance" with lite-jazz band Fourplay. He continued to have moderate success on R&B radio for a couple more years, until drug addiction sidelined him for almost 15 years. After a rock-bottom stint in jail, DeBarge returned in 2009 with his Second Chance album, and landed in the top-20 on the R&B chart with the Faith Evans duet "Lay With You".

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Parody king Weird Al Yankovic spoofed "Who's Johnny" with a Tonight Show twist in 1986...

Up tomorrow: Texan blues-rockers are sufficiently rugged.