Songoftheday 10/25/15 - Johnny played guitar Jenny played bass, the name of the band was the human race...

"Pop Goes The World" - Men Without Hats
from the album Pop Goes The World (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's Song of the Day comes from the Canadian synth-pop act Men Without Hats, who landed a huge left-field hit in America in 1983 with "The Safety Dance". With three brothers from the Doroschuk family from Montreal led by singer and guitarist Ivan, their follow-up album Folk Of the 80's (Part III) relatively stiffed, with the single "Where Do The Boys Go" only reaching the American dance chart at #39 (it peaked at #30 in their native Canada). It's a hidden find, that track, but sadly the Men were in fear of that "One Hit Wonder" curse (though technically they hit #84 on the Hot 100 with the second single after "Safety Dance", "I Like"). By the time 1987 came around, the group only had Ivan and Stefan left with musician Lenny Pinkas. With producer Zeus B. Held (who did Dead Or Alive's first pre-SAW album), the Men released Pop Goes The World in 1987. With the title track as the first single sounding like a sing-song kids book, it was again an unexpected hit single...

"Pop Goes The World" became Men Without Hats' second and most recent top-40 pop hit in America in February of 1988. The song also climbed to #27 on Billboard's Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the song was the band's biggest success, reaching #1 in Austria for a month, while stopping at the runner-up position in Sweden and their native Canada, and top-20 in Spain and New Zealand.

Their follow-up single, "Moonbeam", reached the top-40 in Canada and popped into the American dance chart at #46. And as their international success didn't last beyond "Pop", they continued for a few more years in Canada, scoring another top-10 single in 1989 with the more electric rock of "Hey Men". They tried to continue in the Jesus Jones-style psychedelic rock, with the minor Canadian hit "Sideways" going to #50 as their final chart appearance.

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and here's the Hats performing live in 2013 in Austria, where they topped the charts with this song...

Up tomorrow: a bi-national band gets an affirmative response.