Scandal Featuring Patty Smyth -- "Hands Tied"

(Debuted October 20, 1984, Peaked #41, 12 Weeks on the Chart)

I watched Patty Smyth sing this on Solid Gold and wondered why the song never showed up on Casey Kasem's American Top 40 program. Now that I see it only reached #41, that mystery is explained.

Scandal enjoyed the biggest hit of their career during the summer of '84 when "The Warrior" went into the Top 10.  Despite its success, it would be the only Top 40 hit the group would ever have. What's interesting is that after "Warrior," most music fans don't remember their second-highest charting song "Hands Tied" (or 1985's "Beat of a Heart," which also stopped at #41), they think of the group's first hit "Goodbye to You." That 1982 hit only reached #65 and was the lowest-charting of the five Hot 100 singles the band would have.

The story of Scandal after that '82 hit describes what was happening by the time "Hands Tied" was being sent to radio stations. While "Goodbye to You" wasn't a wide-reaching hit, it definitely gained some exposure to the band. However, there were internal dissensions and the members began filing out. By the time the album The Warrior appeared, only two of the members from that 1982 hit were still left. To make matters worse, the album was credited to Scandal, but the singles were showing "Scandal featuring Patty Smyth" and the videos were focusing more on her than they were on the other members of the band.

In the YouTube video below (also the video that ran on MTV at the time), Patty Smyth definitely gets more camera time than her bandmates do. The group's internal strife would continue, and they broke up without following up The Warrior.