Songoftheday 7/17/13 - Rockin' with the top down, barreliin' down highway nine....

Matthew Wilder - "The Kid's American"
from the album I Don't Speak The Language (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4

Today's Song of the Day is by singer/songwriter Matthew Wilder, who had a left-field top-5 hit back in the beginning of 1984 with "Break My Stride". He followed it up with the Reagan-era pimping of "The Kid's American"....

"The Kid's American" did land Matthew a second top-40 hit, but unlike BMS did pretty much nothing anywhere else (it scraped the British chart at #93). It would be Wilder's last top-40 hit, though he would place one more single on the pop charts - 1985's "Bouncin' Off The Walls" from his sophomore album which made it to #52.

Where he would have his biggest success is not as singer, but as a songwriter and producer. He produced No Doubt's breakthrough Tragic Kingdom album.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...and to all of you professing how "cool" the 80's were (like me hee hee), here's Matthew on a TV appearance of What Not To Wear, seemingly...

Up tomorrow: A former Cougar gets disruptive.