Songoftheday 7/22/18 - You are the one supreme being, just dressed to kill and fulfill any dream...
from the album Hotwired (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #35 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4
Today's song of the day comes from the Scottish dance-rock band the Soup Dragons, who got together in the suburbs of Edinburgh in the mid-1980s. Led by lead singer, guitarist, and main songwriter Sean Dickson, released their first indie EP, The Sun Is In The Sky, in 1986. The following year, their single "Head Gone Astray" landed the band their first British chart hit at #82. They finally put out a proper album, This Is My Art, in 1988, which spun off four minor hits in the UK, the best showing being the first, "Can't Take No More" (UK #65). Losing their original drummer Ross Sinclair, and taking on Paul Quinn for the percussion, the band's sound shifted from a post-punk feel to a dance club rave-rock, and their fortunes increased. In 1990, they put out a cover of the Rolling Stones' "I'm Free", which not only scored the group their biggest hit in their homeland (UK #5), but got them their first exposure overseas, spending two weeks at #2 on Billboard's Modern Rock radio chart, and #20 on their Dance Club Play list, and got the Dragons their first pop hit in the States at #79. A follow-up single, a remixed re-release of third single "Mother Universe", climbed to #34 on the Dance Club Play chart.
Two years later, the band returned with their third studio album Hotwired. The first single, "Divine Thing", was written and co-produced by Dickson, and the guitar-hook-laden track was infectious enough to grant them their biggest American success...
"Divine Thing" became the Soup Dragon's first and only top-40 pop hit in October of 1993. The song spent three weeks at #3 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart, while the remixes on the CD single/12" vinyl helped it up to #17 on their Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the single reached #53 in the UK (their final hit there). A second single from the Hotwired album, "Pleasure", reached #14 on the Modern Rock chart and #40 on the Dance Club Play tally. After a fourth album, Hydrophonic, stiffed in both the States and in the UK, the band called it quits. Dickson went on to create the alternative rock group High Fidelity, who went to #70 in 1998 with "Luv Dup". In the 2000, he was a go-to DJ and recorded dance music under the moniker of Hifi Sean. In 2014, he joined Ralpi Rosario for "Sex Machine", which climbed to #12 on the Dance chart. Most recently Sean (who came out of the closet as a gay man) topped that Dance Club Play chart with the gospel-house throwdown "Testify" featuring Crystal Waters in October of 2017.
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Here's the Dragons appearing on the Dave Letterman show in 1992, with Darlene Love singing backup...
and lastly, on Arsenio Hall...
Up tomorrow: German/American act define the beat.
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