Songoftheday 1/23/15 - Hmmm how do I get to sleep, I know I'll count those bars on the window one, two, three, sleep...

"Paranoimia" - The Art Of Noise with Max Headroom
from the album In Visible Silence (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #34 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4

Today's Song of the Day belongs to the British experimental art-rock outfit the Art Of Noise, who nearly made the top-40 in the summer of 1986 with their Grammy-winning adaptation of the theme to Peter Gunn featuring 60's guitar legend Duane Eddy. Their follow-up single was another track from their In Visible Silence album reworked to include a cult-classic TV character, Max Headroom. Comedian/actor Matt Frewer did an impersonation of a computer-generated hologram with just makeup and quick editing. With a show on pioneer cable station Cinemax, "Max" was sewn into the original instrumental from the British version of the album written by members Anne Dudley, J J Jeczalik, and Gary Langan, with a slew of random non sequitors...

"Paranoimia" became the Art of Noise's first top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in October of 1986, while climbing to #14 on Billboard magazine's Hot Dance Club Play chart. In their native Britain, the track peaked at #12, while internationally making the top-10 in the Netherlands and New Zealand, the top-20 in Ireland and Belgium, and the top-40 in Germany.

Max Headroom would soon fizzle out before the requisite movie cash-in even came. Frewer now can be seen as Dr. Leekie on the hit BBC show Orphan Black.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


..and if you can't get enough of Max, here's the Ben Liebrand remix of the song..

Up tomorrow: English new wave band goes to Minneapolis to ask for forgiveness.