Songoftheday 2/4/14 - Day in day out all week long things go better with rock, the only time I turn it down Is when I'm sleepin' it off...

Autograph - "Turn Up The Radio"
from the album Sign In Please (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5

Today's Song of the Day is from the heavy metal band from the decidedly non-metal town of Pasedena, California. Autograph came together under lead singer and guitarist Steve Plunkett, who had left a stint in the band Silver Condor, and had ace lead guitarist Steve Lynch in their lineup. Assembling a band, they used their connections to score producer Andy Johns who let them use his recording studio for free, and then went on tour opening for friend David Lee Roth's band, Van Halen. Their first single, "Turn up The Radio", is a straightforward slab of metal-pop cheese that was clean enough for airplay and loud enough for the teens to tune in...

"Turn Up The Radio" became Autograph's first and only pop top-40 hit in March of 1985, while scaling up to #17 on Billboard's rock radio chart. The band would have one more minor rock hit from their follow-up album, "Blondes In Black Cars" (#38), but ended up splitting up at the end of the decade (they are still touring with a new lead singer on the "oldies metal" circuit).

But as "cheesy" 80's music goes, this song is too damn infectious for its own good.

Up Tomorrow: labelmates make an evening-time tribute to "The Master".