Tuesday 30 March 2010

The Mavericks 'Dance The Night Away'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

And so 1998 resumes, albeit with a record that has a distinctly retro flavour.

I have two key memories of this track. The first time I ever heard it was at the end of an episode of Top Of The Pops 2 where it was touted as a big US hit soon to cross over to the UK (in fact it doesn't seem to have made the Hot 100, so there presumably wasn't a commercial single release over there) and I took an instant dislike to it, not helped by the fact that the prediction was pretty accurate and that this became yet another of the evidently-much-larger-than-I-remembered number of singles to peak higher than they entered in 1998, which felt like cheating in those days. As a record that appealed far beyond typical single-buyers it managed a longer than average chart run, lasting no fewer than 16 weeks in the Top 40.

The other memory I have is from several years later, when I went to a works do in an out-of-town concrete golf clubhouse with a disturbingly low ceiling. When the DJ played this, two ladies who were obviously regulars made their way to the dancefloor and looked like they were having the time of their lives. From that point onwards I've found myself warming to it somewhat. Maybe part of this is just because I've got older, and doubtless another part of it is just that I only hear it much more rarely now. But I do find it genuinely easier to appreciate this in the lighter-hearted sprit in which it was intended even if it's not something I'd have chosen to listen to.

Incidentally, it's a long time since I'd watched that video in full, and I hadn't previously appreciated how bad the miming was. I don't know whether that was intentional; maybe if they filmed it in a real supermarket they had to wait until 3 in the morning to do it.

Available on: The Mavericks Collection

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