Songoftheday 2/27/17 - You can keep your fancy bars clubby friends and fast cars, and when the going gets hard you can eat your credit cards...
from the album Manners & Physique (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #17 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 8
The song of the day for this Monday is brought to you by new-wave troubadour Adam Ant, who had disbanded his post-punk band the Ants (save for collaborator Marco Pirroni) and broke through in America with his jumpy dance track "Goody Two Shoes" in 1982. However, he found it hard to follow that success in the States, though the title track from his next album, "Strip", almost hit the top-40 a year later. Slipping in another record in 1984, he went to #13 in his native UK with "Apollo 9", a return to his post-punk form, but in the U.S. his only appearance was on the dance chart at #29 with "Vive Le Rock". He took time off from music in the latter half of the decade, re-emerging in 1990 with his third "Adam Ant" album, Manners & Physique. Again working with Pirroni, they teamed up with producer Andre Cymone (Jody Watley) to write the first single, "Room At The Top". A slower, sonically updated pop ditty in the fashion of "Goody Two Shoes", it found a niche on mainstream radio during a period of flux between the dance-pop of the late 80s and the grunge & rap of the early 90s...
"Room At The Top" became Adam's second American Top-40 pop hit in May of 1990. The song also climbed into the top-20 on Billboard's Modern Rock radio chart at #17. The 12" remixes (including one from house music pro Justin Strauss) helped this become his biggest club hit, landing him at #3 on the dance chart. Back in Britain, the single peaked at #13.
His second American single from Manners, "Rough Stuff", was a respectable dance hit at #14, while in the UK, the more mainstream "Can't Set Rules About Love" almost hit the top-40 at #47.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the 12" house mix that went top-3 on the dance chart...
...and finally Adam performing the song on TV to promote the single...
Up tomorrow: Children of pop stars become pop stars.
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