Robbed hit of the week 9/22/14 - Dan Seals' "Bop"...

Dan Seals - "Bop"
from the album Won't Be Blue Anymore (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42

This week's "robbed hit" comes from a singer/songwriter that started out as one half of a big soft-rock duo from the 70's. Dan Seals got his first big break with schoolmate John Ford Coley using the name "England Dan", and the pair placed six singles into the top-40 during the decade, including four that reached the top-10, and one, "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight", which peaked at #2 in 1976. At the beginning of the 1980's, Dan and John split, with Seals pursuing a new path in country music. At first keeping the "England" in his moniker, his first solo single "Late At Night" was a minor pop hit in 1980. After a second album that didn't go anywhere, Seals switched labels to Capitol Records, which signaled a turning point in his solo direction, as country radio was embracing more softer-sounding artists (as well as more traditional artists competing for airtime). His first album on the label placed four singles into the country top-40, with "God Must Be A Cowboy" scoring him a top-10 hit in 1984. His next did even better, with three top-tenners and "My Baby's Got Good Timing" almost reaching the #1 spot.

With his third Capitol album, "Won't Be Blue Anymore", that slight was quickly corrected, with three #1 hits from the record. The first, "Meet Me In Montana", was an adult-contemporary duet with a fellow pop refugee, Marie Osmond, and sounds like and England Dan/John Ford Coley outtake. The follow-up was a more up-tempo but still mall-friendly ditty named "Bop". Co-written by yet another pop singer gone country, Paul Davis ("I Go Crazy", "'65 Love Affair"), "Bop" was more of a lite-pop song that was really big on mainstream top-40 radio at the beginning of the decade. In fact, I'm sure if this came out in say the beginning of 1982, it would've been at least a top-20 hit...

"Bop" became Dan's biggest solo hit, not only topping the country chart, but going all the way to #10 on the adult-contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart in Billboard magazine. That airplay and resulting sales pushed the record on to the Hot 100 pop list, but it stalled right under the pop top-40 at #42. (It did manage to go to #1 in Canada)

The song would be the second of a string of #1 hits - in fact Dan had nine consecutive chart-toppers, and even had a couple more after one hit #5, with his last fittingly at the beginning of the 90's with a cover of 60s soul singer Sam Cooke's "Good Times". That last one would also mark his final single to even reach the top-40 on the country chart, though he managed a few more minor hits up until "All Fired Up" in 1994 (which is one of my faves of his).

Dan continued to tour and record more modestly after that, until in 2008 he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which he finally succumbed to at the age of 61 in 2009. But Dan's musical legacy remains intact, and "Bop" is a good memory of the days when country cleaned up for a little bit.

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Here's Dan with the song's co-writer Paul Davis performing "Bop" live (and much more "homey") in 1991..

...and finally, here's Dan from his acoustic album In A Quiet Room from 1995...