Robbed Hit of the Week 11/11/13: Maria Vidal's "Body Rock"....

Maria Vidal - "Body Rock"
from the album Body Rock (Original Soundtrack) (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #48

This week's "robbed hit" is by singer and songwriter Maria Vidal, who got her first break with her then-boyfriend Desmond Child, as a member of his band Rouge. That group had a minor chart hit with "Our Love Is Insane", which went to #51 in 1979 (in fact, Child's "Livin' On A Prayer" for Bon Jovi was written about him and Maria's life at the time).

After leaving Rouge, Maria's next shot at fame came with the theme song to a movie meant to ape the success of breakdancing films like Breakin' and Beat Street. Titled Body Rock, it starred Lorenzo Lamas, who was the hunky highlight of the night-time soap Falcon Crest. However he was no match for this movie, and it notoriously flopped, earning Lamas a Golden Raspberry nom for worst actor, though it did score himself a Hot 100 hit with "Fools Like Me".

Maria's song, "Body Rock", written by John Bettis ("Human Nature", "Crazy For You") and Silvester Levay ("Fly Robin Fly"), was the enjoyable high of such a crappy film...

While "Body Rock" went to #8 on the Dance Club Play child in Billboard, it stalled at #48 on the Hot 100. In England, the record did surprisingly better, falling just short of the top ten at #11.

Maria would go on to marry another songwriter, Rick Nowels ("Heaven Is A Place On Earth", Lana del Rey's "Summertime Sadness"), and end up singing background vocals on some of his work, like Stevie Nicks' "I Can't Wait" and co-wrote Belinda Carlisle's top-40 hit "Summer Rain".

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...and here's Maria on a TV appearance in 1984...

...and the top-ten dance remix of the song...