Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Occasional Forgotten Video: Men Without Hats, "The Safety Dance"

The eighties were the golden age of rock videos. And then there were the dumb ones. And then there were the ones that were so dumb you loved them. Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance" was firmly in this category.

The synth-laden sound of Men Without Hats came from Montreal, Canada. The core of the band was Ivan Doroschuk and his brother Stefan. The band continued on after "The Safety Dance," with varying line-ups, but never repeated the monster success of "The Safety Dance."

"Everybody look at your hands"

11 comments:

SkylersDad said...

I love this! I just posted a group that does an 80's medley on Synthesizer.

dmarks said...

I love this video. Are they dancing through plague times or what?

Churlita said...

I can't even tell you how many times I saw this video my first semester in college and how many parties I went to where all the girls with 4 different colors of eye shadow and layered permed hair, did that arm thing when the song came on. Oh, how I both loved and hated you, 1983.

BeckEye said...

I could never forget this video. It's burned on my brain from MTV playing it so much.

Erik Donald France said...

Oh yes, yesterday in the mind's eye. Morris dancing, or Moorish dancing. Saw it in Spain and England ;->

Erik Donald France said...

p.s. I sometimes reference this to my many balding contemps who DO wear hats, usually baseball caps -- evil!

Mnmom said...

I loved this song and video.

Johnny Yen said...

SD-
I loved the vid for "Rockit!" It's on my short list for the next "Occasional Forgotten Video."

It was really funny seeing a fairly obscure "jazz fusion" guy have a monster hit.

Dmarks-
I thought I was the only one who wondered that!

Churlita-
Whenever it came on at a party or bar when I was in college, everybody always sang along with the "everybody look at your hands" part, and held up their hands.

Beckeye-
I swear to god, they rotated it about every three songs-- at least until they started dolng that with "Every Breath You Take."

Erik-
Is it wrong for us to be smug that we're entering middle age with all of our hair? Probably. Heh- too bad...

Mnmom-
My stepdaughter loves this song, and of course bellows along to it when she plays it on her itunes.

Tenacious S said...

I'm back and snarky as ever! Your forgotten videos are probably the only thing I will remember when I am 95.

lulu said...

This song reminds me of one of my college friends getting an abortion. It's the song that was playing in the waiting room of the clinic. Weird how that sort of thing stays with you.

Distributorcap said...

this was one of the dumb ones