Songoftheday 12/30/14 - Backstroke lover always hidin' 'neath the cover 'till I talked to my daddy he say ...

"Walk This Way" - Run-D.M.C.
from the album Raising Hell (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's Song of the Day comes from the pioneering rap trio Run-D.M.C. Joseph "Run" Simmons, the younger brother of promoter Russell Simmons, teamed up with Darryl "DMC" McDaniels and DJ Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell in the early 80s in Hollis, Queens, New York. They released their first single, "It's Like That", in 1983, and the record went to #15 on the R&B chart. Three more singles made the chart as well from their self-titled debut, and the album cut "Rock Box" made the dance club chart and revolutionized rap in a way both R&B and pop radio wasn't ready for. Mixing rock guitar licks with hip hop rhymes was lightyears away from the disco-cribbing beats that had appeared before. Their second album, King Of Rock, even further instated that mix with to of the three top-20 R&B hits having "rock" in their title. Still, in the rap-a-phobic pop radio world, none of their singles made even a dent on the pop Hot 100 in the US.

In 1986, the trio's third album, Raising Hell was released. The first single, "My Adidas", finally landed them their first top-10 R&B hit, but yet again pop radio had nothing to do with the sneaker-loving track. But their ace in the hole this time was their next single, a rap interpolation of a rock classic from the mid-70s. "Walk This Way" originally went to #10 in 1977 for Boston rockers Aerosmith.

With producer Rick Rubin convincing the trio to record "Walk This Way", Aerosmith members Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were brought on board to play on the record and appear in the video (filmed in Union City, New Jersey), which gave it enough clout for MTV and pop radio to treat the record as a pop phenomenon...

Not only did "Walk This Way" become Run-D.M.C.'s first pop hit, reaching the top-5 in September of 1986, by association it gave the (uncredited) Aerosmith their first big "hit" since the original "Walk This Way" in 1977, setting them up for their official "comeback" a couple of years later. The Run-DMC version also reached the top-10 on the R&B (#8) and the Dance Club Play (#6) charts in Billboard magazine. Internationally, the song went to #1 in New Zealand, top-10 in Britain, Australia, Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

But besides its chart fortunes, "Walk This Way" opened the door for rap music, I mean real rap music (not Blondie or the Pet Shop Boys) to be heard on mainstream pop radio. And for rap to be accepted in the rock world. Nothing would be the same since.

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In 2007, the British female vocal groups of Girls Aloud and the Sugababes collaborated on "Walk This Way" for the Comic Relief charity, and went to #1 on the British chart...

Finally, here's RUN-D.M.C. with Aerosmith in concert in 2002...

Up tomorrow: half of a big-time hitmaking duo goes to sleep.