Robbed Hit of the Week 6/10/13 - Night Ranger's "(You Can Still) Rock In America"...

Night Ranger - "(You Can Still) Rock In America"
from the album Midnight Madness (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #51

This week's "robbed hit" is by the lite-hard rock band Night Ranger, who got their first big break with their 1982 debut album which produced a top-40 pop hit with "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" the following year. At the close of '83 the band released their sophomore effort Midnight Madness, and the first single released was the flag-waving mullet-rock of "Rock In America", written by singer and bassist Jack Blades (later of Damn Yankees fame) and guitarist Brad Gillis. Glenn Hughes, who sung for Black Sabbath in the 80s, sang backup here...

Even though the song was tuned for the height of "Reagan's America", the record stalled in the lower half of the Hot 100, though it stayed on the chart for three months, and managed to reach #15 on the rock radio panel. The interesting thing about the band was they (like Def Leppard) had two strong guitarist, but also two prominent lead singers, and with the next single, "Sister Christian", drummer Kelly Keagy would find his time to shine.

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...and here's the band (really) live on TV in 1983...

...and again in 1989..

and taking it acoustic a couple years ago...