Eddy Grant - "Electric Avenue"
1982
I owe an apology to anybody who professed their love of "Electric Avenue" to me back in the early eighties. I probably said "that's a dumb song" and then went and listened to whatever aged white artist that I had queued up in my then-meager album collection. All these years later, I now realize that this is one monster of a great song. I should have gotten wise to this in the mid-eighties when I got into rap: "Electric Avenue" has spoken/near-shouted lyrics like Run-DMC and the beat absolutely kills. Not only is it protest music (said by boomers - then in their heady ascent to be the sanctimonious scolds who would sniff "back in the sixties..." - to be a forgotten art form in the age of Reagan/Thatcher) it also features the #1 revving-motorcycle sound of 1982. Goddamn it - where is that Eddy Grant/Billy Squier split single?