Songoftheday 12/31/12 - Down in the street there is violence and a lot of work to be done...

Eddy Grant - "Electric Avenue"
from the album Killer On The Rampage (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (five weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

The final Song of the Day for 2012 is by Guyanese reggae/pop star Eddy Grant, who moved to England as a child. His first musical success was as part of the Equals, who had a top-40 hit in the US and a #1 single Britain with "Baby Come Back" in 1968. After leaving to go solo in the mid-70s, Eddy released his first album in 1975, but it wasn't until four years later that he scored his first top-40 single in the UK, "Living On The Frontline" from his third album Walking On Sunshine. The title track also gave Eddy his first minor R&B hit in the States. His next album, Can't Get Enough, did even better, resulting in a top-10 British hit, "Do You Feel My Love", that made the charts in Germany, Australia, and Holland, amongst others.

With his 1982 set Killer On The Rampage, Grant dropped some of the reggae rhythms for some electro-dance overtones, while keeping the social relevancy in some of his lyrics. The first single, "Electric Avenue", is a deceptive reference to the riots in London's Brixton section in 1981, where the real Electric Avenue resides (named for the fact that it was the first to be electric-lit). But fans across the world, including America, just grabbed on to the party-like vibe of the song, making it a cruising anthem...

"Electric Avenue" hung on for five weeks at #2 on the pop chart in the US, while also making the top-10 on the dance list and #18 on the R&B chart. It also went top-10 in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.

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In 1997, the Fugees side-project Refugee All-Stars (with member Pras) has a top-40 single in the US interpolating the song as "Avenues"...

Eddy himself re-released the song remixed as the "Ringbang Remix" and went to #5 on the British chart and top-20 on the American dance chart...

also, Swedish singer Velvet had her first top-10 hit in her country and Russia by sampling the record on "Rock Down To (Electric Avenue)" in 2005..

Tomorrow I'll have one-day break, then I'll return on January 2nd with another Song of the Day by the chunky Texan soft-rock god.