{"id":10338,"date":"2020-08-16T14:00:18","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=10338"},"modified":"2020-08-16T14:00:18","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T20:00:18","slug":"a-song-from-a-band-you-wish-were-still-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/16\/a-song-from-a-band-you-wish-were-still-together\/","title":{"rendered":"A Song from a Band You Wish Were Still Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

30-Day Song Challenge, Day 24: A Song from a Band You Wish Were Still Together<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was another tough one because most of the bands I like are<\/em> still together, at least in some form or other. But after wracking my brains and scrolling back and forth through my iTunes library, I finally came up with a candidate: The Go-Go’s! So obvious, right?<\/p>\n

Except it turns out that they’re not quite as broken up as I thought they were. It seems they still perform together sporadically, have just in the past two weeks released a new song<\/a> (it’s not bad!), and are even loosely planning for a tour in 2021, if the COVIDs allow. But considering that their heyday was the early ’80s and their output as a group essentially finished by since the early ’90s, I’m going to stick with them for the purposes of this entry.<\/p>\n

The Go-Go’s hold a pretty exalted place in the annals of rock and roll history. They were the first and so far remain the only<\/em> all-female band that wrote their own songs, played their own instruments, and<\/em> topped the Billboard<\/em> album charts.They had five top-40 hits between 1981 and 1984, the biggest of which — “We Got the Beat” — is practically a Gen-X anthem. (That’s probably in part because it played over the opening scene of the seminal ’80s film Fast Times at Ridgemont High<\/em>.) It was also one of the first 45-rpm singles I ever bought. Still have it, too!<\/p>\n

As much as I like that song, though, I find myself drawn today toward “Vacation,” the title track of their second album, released in the far-off summer of 1982. It became their second highest-charting single, right behind the aforementioned “We Got the Beat.” I’ve always liked the infectious cheerfulness of this one (in spite of the lonely-heart lyrics), and unlike a lot of other stuff from this era, it never sounds dated to me. It’s just good listening. And the truth is, after five months of working from home and COVID-related paranoia, I’m craving a good vacation myself. Or at least a carefree summer like we had back in ’82.<\/p>\n

I don’t know that The Go-Go’s are remembered as an MTV band per se, but they came along about the same time as that phenomenon and I’ve always enjoyed their videos. I think this one is especially cute. The band itself evidently thought videos were a waste of time, and according to guitarist Jane Wiedlin in the oral history I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution<\/em>, they were all very drunk while pretending to waterski. Weirdly, the thought of that makes me smile…<\/p>\n

One final thought: When I wax nostalgic for the ’80s, this<\/em> is the era I’m remembering, not the later years of the decade when the shoulder pads and hair styles seemed to be in an arms-race to see which would collapse under their own weight first. The looks (and ladies) of the early to mid ’80s, though… I miss those.<\/p>\n