Robbed hit of the week 12/1/14 - The Art Of Noise's "Peter Gunn"....

The Art Of Noise featuring Duane Eddy - "Peter Gunn"
from the album In Visible Silence (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: 50

This week's "robbed hit" was a remake of a bonafide hit from decades earlier, chopped and screwed for the emerging electronic era.

The Art Of Noise was a collective of art-rock musicians that came together in London under producer Trevor Horn, who had left Yes to form Buggles to then go on to be the producer of Yes again, with engineer Gary Langan and keyboardists/arrangers Anne Dudley and JJ Jeczalik. Releasing their first EP in 1983, the band scored a #1 dance and top-10 R&B hit in the U.S. with "Beat Box", which also came one notch from reaching the pop Hot 100. The following year, with their debut full-length album Who's Afraid of the Art Of Noise?, a single derived from remixing that first hit, "Close (To The Edit)", would break them in England, climbing to #8 on the UK chart, and #23 on the R&B chart in America.

After the release of the album, Dudley, Jeczalik, and Langan would split from Horn and Paul Morley (who was a music mag journalist before joining and naming the group) before releasing their next album In Visible Silence in 1986. The first single from the project, "Legs", was a moderate dance hit (#27) in America and a minor pop one in the UK (#69). The second release, though, made up for that. Recruiting early rock and roll guitar pioneer Duane Eddy, AON covered the theme to the television show Peter Gunn, which was written by score legend Henry Mancini in 1959. Although his version of the theme didn't hit the singles chart, the Music From Peter Gunn album went to #1 on the American albums chart, staying there for ten weeks, after receiving the first Album of the Year Grammy in 1959.

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To capitalize on the success of the soundtrack, bandleader and trumpet player Ray Anthony and his orchestra released a single of the song, going to #8 on the pop chart the same year...

Duane Eddy was the first to take the song to the rock clubs with his cover that climbed to #27 in 1960...

Fast forward to 1976, when Brazilian composer and musician (Eumir) Deodato put out a disco treatment that went top-20 on the dance chart and nicked the pop and R&B lists as well in Billboard...

Prog-rock trio Emerson Lake and Palmer released a cover of "Peter Gunn" from their 1979 live album...

...and in 1980 the Blues Brothers made the dance top-40 with the song...

So now we come to 1986. The Art Of Noise, now a trio, get Duane to reprise his performance from 1960 for a new release of "Peter Gunn", and in result got their first pop hit in America...

While the Art Of Noise's "Peter Gunn" went to #2 on the Dance Club Play chart, it stopped at the halfway mark on the American pop chart in July of 1986. In consolation, the act nabbed a Grammy award for best rock instrumental performance, and similar to Mancini, In Visible Silence was one of the top 100 albums of the year in sales in America in 1986.  Internationally the single did much better reaching the top-10 in Ireland, Austria, and their native UK. It also set the stage for their next single, featuring a character named Max Headroom.

 As a bonus, here's a cover from jazz vocal great Sarah Vaughan with lyrics written for the song...